PARKER & O'KEEFE PRESSER NOTES (FINISHED)

Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Third guy on that list, utilize in different ways?

I dont have an answer yet because we have not thought that...if they were all out there it would help, because you could experiment with a guy in a different situation and put him one on one with a backer, whatever. We havent been able to do that so our thought process has not made it that far.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

TE behind Allen and Brad?

Jonathon Ginn having a good spring. He has improved a lot. All of the other guys are in a learning mode right now. The easiest thing they are doing is drill period, focusing on fundamentals and stepping with right foot etc. But in team simulations it takes a lot of discipline to not revert back. All the other guys are working...Getz is coming along. We are trying to work him as much as we can. Zach Derby has been a nice surprise this spring. Still working some other guys.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

OL

Boffelli a lot of work at center...he has to make calls and seeing the defense, the QB's have to be on the same page with him, a different world. A lot of guys getting reps they need and develop the third or fourth guy so that we can do what we want to do
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Derby moving well? AJ?

Rick is doing a great job..I will get to AJ last, is that OK? Rick is doing what a two year starter should do; leading. He is helping the other guys. He can make decisions to get us out of bad decisions even against our defense. Not that Norm would do that to us. But we need to make checks now and then. James and John are battling hard. They work at it all of the time. You can go in on an off day and you see one or two in the bubble on footwork, another day it will be watching tape and putting an evaluation on my desk at 8am when they have been in here before going to class. They are working hard on things. They are all throwing the ball very well at this point. I think its tougher for a starter to make a huge leap, but Rick is always looking for an edge.

James has improved as well in his understanding of what is going on. The guy that has come the farthest has been John. He might not look exceptional in drills or 7 on 7, or quite how we would like but he has been doing great in all team and scrimmage situations. Those guys have been with the second group most of the time and that is tough for a quarterback to work with, because it can get disrupted in there. We have been taking all 1's v 1's and 2's v 2;s to get everyone to grow up and get them where they need to go.

As for AJ, we have thrown more at AJ than we have any other freshman that has been here with the exception of Drew Tate...even 12 practices in, Drew was not exposed to as much as AJ has been. He has done a nice job of learning things, seems to have a feel for things, reads defenses pretty well and now its a matter of settling in there and seeing what he can do. He has had some work with 2's but we have not put him in blitz pick up...we are saving that for the fall.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Rick fewer mistakes this year?

What do you think? He is working hard to correct those. If we are going to throw it away, lets do it. We need to take care of the ball in practice if we are to do that in a game. We have talked extensively and studied. We studied all of his interceptions. Quarterbacks grade things and handed me a sheet of paper as to why they occur. Most of comes down to decision making. We need to be better at that. We dont want a QB to be too tight, but we need to be smart about what we are doing. When you have a punter like we have, there is no sense in taking an extra chance with our defense. We can afford to be smart. But quarterback play that psoition because they like to make plays. We had quite a few bigger plays last yea rin the pass game than the year before, which would make sense not having Greene. But we had more interceptions than we ever had and we need to dramatically reduce that. That can help us improve faster than anything else.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Rick as third year starter, doesnt seem complacent, what is he like right now? Push younger guys?

Yeah. He is a magnet. An info magnet for the younger guys, and he is patient. Every now and then, Boffelli has been in there with him and Rick is patient with guys like that that dont know what they are doing. He is great with those guys. He is all about helping everybody get better. He has a lot of good input at this stage because he has been here a while. He is having fun and others feed off that. he has ideas that are valuable to me. It's all about the players...if a coach thinks he has all the answers, that is fooling yourself. There are 22 on the field when the ball is snapped and they are the ones that make it happen and preparation matters as much as how much we have prepared them. Mentally and the attitude on the field is way more valuabel
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Satisfying as a coach, QB's start out quiet as freshmen and keep mouth shut, sounds like he is giving you ideas.

Usually QB's are not church mice. You dont get here unless you have been on state title teams or things like that...you have always had ideas. Work hard play hard and keep your mouth shut? I want to hear what they have to say when they are young because it helps me coach them...to understand where they are. If someone is trying to teach a class, if you cant get across to them, you dont know how they think. Not every guy can do the same stuff...we have three different styles at RB, QB's are all a bit different and you can wste a lot of time trying to force improvements in weaknesses just to try to do things that wont work, as opposed to focusing on what they can do well.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Is there a WR break out?

We have been pushing the young guys. Coach Campbell knows the old guys, but we have been pushing Keenan Davis and Jordan Cotton has started to emerge as a playmaker. He has been outhustling people for balls. He has a ways to go in learning a few things here and there as far as assignments, but he loves to go get the ball and he is going full speed. He has to work on his blocking, but most WR have to do that and it takes time because we do expect them to block unlike some other places. They have to go get the safeties and that is not an easy thing.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

True frosh to improve depth?

That is a good question...I dont see it up front. There are very few guys like Bulaga that are physically ready. Maybe at TE...its been done before with Tony...he was a physical specimen coming out of HS...they have to be phsyically ready and learn the system...or you could squeeze their package down...that will help Jordan...he is playing one position and we are working Keenan at two, because we think he is good enough athletically to help us outside andinside and that takes more work. Espeically in blitz game. When you have one position it only matters one way...with two, what you do affects someone else
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

McNutt surprise you last year, can he make another jump

Marvin...he surprised us with was how he finished plays...when he made the move orignially, he was trying to get back in running shape...those five step drops werent doing it for him..now he had to run 40 yards each play in practice...

The way he finished plays caught a lot of us by surprise...not him...he believes in himself...we knew he could catch the ball. Big guy, big target..but him running after the catch, we didnt know about that. He is developing into a guy that can block downfield as well...underestimated the size and how he can break a tackle or drag a guy for six more yards that smaller guys can't do. Marvin doesnt have to worry about making guys miss...he hasn't played the position that long, so there is a lot of room to grow. ..they are working with him becoming more detailed in what he is doing and those things make a difference...he is providing that psoiton and team a lot of leadership...everyone loves being around him...he has that QB charisma into that position.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

3, 27 and 32 doing this spring?

Jewell is doing everything but scrimmage...brandon got dinged up and had been doing everything...they are practicing.

Conditioning?

That is not what we are worried about. We want to bring them along as running backs. Jewell has been in 7 on 7, Brandon everything until he got banged up...we were not going to tackle Brandon anyway.
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Offense change with different RBs?

I dont think so. They have all had success running in our system. The thing that is different right now...when Jewell was a true frosh I did not have the same confidence in him early in the year in protections...you wish you had, but this year, 3 and 32 stayed in..they are not as big and they are tough and smart...Erb did a great job getting them ready last year...they made some big plays that people never noticed during the year taking on linebackers or DB's...it allowed Rick to step up and make a play. Those things are so underrated...they have proven that and it lets us keep them in on 3rd downs when we subbed a bigger FB...like Cervantes, Bush, Mickens...if they got the ball it was a trick play. they were there to block.

Penn State last year, Rick was able to dump down to 32 and he took off. There is nothing better than a 5 yard throw wide open and you go for 20. That is what you get when you have a Rb that can block
 
Re: Assistant Pressers as I type

Jewell physically back?

I would say yes. Guys come off of major injuries ,and they are holding back or they are not sure or confident in what they are doing so they might be tentative...Jewell has never been tentative. We threw a swing pass to him the other day, juked a guy and went down to the next guy and juked him. ..that is not a guy worried about his injiury. He is confident he is back and ready to go. that is good...he is going a mile a minute and that means to me that he is confidnet
 
Sash and Greenwood should be better than Sanders and Considine? That is an amazing statement to me. I would be really happy if that were true this year.
 
OK, now that I am done cleaning the drool off of my desk...
This is THE MOST positive (borderline confident) that I have ever heard these guys talk, this early.
Wow.
 
travismullen said:
OK, now that I am done cleaning the drool off of my desk...
This is THE MOST positive (borderline confident) that I have ever heard these guys talk, this early.
Wow.
Click to expand...

I sort of feel the same...now Saturday, Kirk will downplay everything.

Here are some quotes/themes I guarantee:

Good thing we dont have to play tomorrow (next week, etc)
Still a long way to go

OL will probably look awful and people will overreact to that :) That is a rite of spring and fall...I cannot remember the OL ever looking good in these things...I suspect Paki will be the featured back at the scrimmage...

Probably a lot of younger players getting scrimmage reps
 
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