Interview with RA

[mat1992 2,234]

RA on Practice facilities 
The kids that are here are not going to care until it gets used. Right now, it's just a hole in the ground. It's going to help with one team if not three teams out of the stadium to practice. It makes practice organization a lot better. If you have 19 sports and just one (outdoor) practice facility, that's insane. We're catching up to what we didn't do for the last 25 years. We stopped practicing on the (old) outdoor facility after the sinkhole debacle. It's always been a disaster. It drains poorly. Grass doesn't grow. It doesn't stay if it does grow. This is a long time coming. 

Goals coming into both classes?
Offensive line and it's still a goal. We had a kid that doesn't want to play football anymore (Carnesale?). We have a kid that wants to graduate early and head to grad school somewhere else to a two-year program, which we don't have. Offensive line numbers. I think we've done a great job, not a good job. Matt (Applebaum) and Scott (Van Zile) have done a great job of identifying scholarship kids that are much bigger and better. I looked at the preferred walk-on weekend and I went back to the first year we started here and our preferred walk-on weekend look better than the scholarship guys back then. They are bigger, stronger, better grades. The clay that we are starting with our much bigger and faster.

Immediate needs to fill? Some spots in the secondary. I got rid of more guys in the last three years than I probably did in the first four put together, esp. the secondary. We're still cleaning up bad choices in recruiting on my part. The offensive line thing was huge. As for wide receivers, Daniel Thompson, we had him a year ago. Street, that was pleasant. Getting Marcus (Bowman) and Jesus (Gibbs) was huge. Getting McDonough (the punter) was huge. A plug-in play punter and kicker guy was big. Lot of needs. We're still not done. The world that we live in now. Signing day is anti-climatic. One, there is two of them. The first one is before Christmas. Now you get to this point, half of those guys who are in are not even here in school. As for players to be named later, if there are less than five new guys (transfers) from now through August 1, I'll be massively surprised. Legally I can't say their name yet. They won't be here in the spring. We scheduled spring ball in anticipation for this. We'll have months to watch film and lift weights.

On center situation
Cole (Cheripko) can do that. Cassels. Truitt. We'll move Perkins back from fullback in the spring. Mullins will move from defense to offense. D'mitri Francis could return for fifth year for depth purposes.

On recruits-OL
Jean Germain (6-5, 340). He's a big human being who is very smart. If you just look at the linemen alone. The guys that we are bringing in are just as big if not bigger than our current juniors in the program. Andrew Gryzmkowski has done a great job of getting bigger and stronger. Cole Cheripko went from 250 to 290. These guys are doing a walking in the door at 290-315 and they can move. Ricky Santiago. Both those guys came to camp. You get a whole bunch of film of a whole bunch of linemen. Until you see them live in front of you, film doesn't lie, but who they go against does. It's hard to judge. If Santiago is going against Jesus Gibbs and Bryce Carter, he's kicking their butt. If you are over 6-5 and you're long, 6-foot tall pass rushers are terrible. Austin Weiser very impressive and very smart. Can play all over the place. His arms are longer. He's scary smart.

On other players
Ricky DeBerry playing the bandit spot. In right position. (why not a strong pass rusher?). That's not his position. 

On OL
Feeling good about Cole, he started a couple of games at right guard. Nico (Rusolillo) was going to be here for two more years. All we needed was a right tackle. Now we have to find the guy who will start or come off the bench. Clearly, there will be more people coming in here and finding the right tackle. Carnesale is going to grad school and possibly at Sacred Heart. 

On RBs
Jaelen Thompson (left). He looked at three running backs ahead of him and four (Platt). He just knew the line was too long. Might not add another. Only if it's a bigger back and we find the right guy. We have four tailbacks with playing experience and Shawn Bryan being the fifth. That's plenty. The problem is, I can get a transfer guy and he'd be perfect for that but he'll only have two years. I don't want to bring another big guy in to sit behind three starters and then AP (Platt) will say he's a starter too. When Yeedee goes...We had a line on a freshman to a school that pays "cost of attendance". He was a big back and that would have been good. I'll probably let it transpire for another year and pick up another one. Or one back that is a little older and that has three years to go. Yeedee (coming off shoulder surgery) is probably better that he doesn't practice in the spring so he doesn't hurt other guys.

On WRs
(Greyshirt WR) Daniel Thompson and (transfer Darian) Street are in class right now. Every single one of those kids are an upgrade. Daniel Thompson is about 6-3, 210ish and has room to grow. He'll put up on 15 pounds in a month. Hellacious blocker. Logan Justice (r-freshman) good straight speed. Very tough. Doesn't change direction well. Kind of tight in the hips and he knows it. He had a good fall. JA'Len Elliott had a great fall. Was on nobody's radar last year. Transfer from D2. Walk-on here. Has a chance to play here. On Leatherbury. More mental understanding and confidence. Much more confident in himself, his game and his game.

On Charles Murphy. He's potentially an extremely good football player. Has to put weight on. Great athlete who also played basketball. Street played in the ACC Championship game. He's a ballplayear. When he wanted out of there. Shane Simpson begged me. He said he will be good. He can play. (A three year guy) and is in school now. Having a spring to get your scheme under your built helps. This group is one of the best that ever played here. I coached one of those groups. Jabari (Allen). Everybody knows who he is and got no All-confernece honors. Have to constantly get beter. The leading receiver from two years ago (Greenwood) finished with three catches and didn't finish the year. Complacency is not an option. (Justin Harper) has us blocking downfield better than ever. I have guys 25 yards downfield blocking guys and putting them on their butt.

On replacing Sam Gallahan
The one thing Sam provided was a physical consistency. There wasn't a DB out there that outmuscled him. All these guys can catch and run. But some of those guys are a year younger or less experienced. You have to practice blocking or adapting to tweaks and changes to the offense. 

On tight ends
Hirschmann, Epps, Myles Wright. Jason Epps moves from quarterback and to tight end and destroyed the defense. He was massively impressive. He's smart and physical. If we teach him how to block, he'll be good. Oh yeah, we have Chris Clark. Healthy enough. Physical, can run, has great hands. Great route runner. Has speed. Needs to run better with the ball. His last year. Myles is starting to step up. He can be as good as anybody we have but has to do it all the time, not 70%.

On LT Andrew Garnett
He has the greatest potential of the whole group. Size, agility, brains and want to. If you watch the film, early on in the season, if I'm being honest. He was not very good when the season started. He got better. Unlike most guys. He was a Cish player at the beginning and low A at the end. That's just off of two years of high school football. Everything is faster and harder. His improvement was impressive. The only reason he wasn't an all-conference player because he didn't have a foundation. You watch him against hefty competition late in the season and he's owning guys. He's only going to get better.

On assistants on offense
Scott (Van Zile) will coach quarterbacks. Tyree (Foreman) will coach running backs, what he's better suited for. We'll end up hiring a tight end coach. (he'll be running the offense). We're going to run the stuff that our kids are good at. Everything involves. Whatever we ran in 2011, was different than 2013. Philosophical changes. We had so much success with what we were doing that we stopped completely adapting to what we have. We did a much better job last year.

Concern on offense
Tight red and goal line. Our stats on third down and scoring was great. Lack of turnovers. Where we lacked was inside the 5. Huge problem. The closer we got, the worse we got. That was a point of emphasis.

On Jared leaving
It's flattering. When one of your rivals wants to hire one of your own. It's a little sad that I couldn't stop it from happening. I'm not saying brother to brother, my place of business could not stop one of my better empoyees from being hired away. Imagine a Delaware fan having to put up with another Ambrose? He got his first GA job with (Keeler). When I left to go to UConn, I was very close with my brother. It hurt to be away from him for as much as I was. It kind of stuck with me. To be able to work with your brother for 10 years and have the kind of success that we've had together, that's pretty cool and it's rare. When I was at UConn, I saw him like three times a year.

On new DC
Eric (Daniels) is a young, intelligent, aggresive guy. He reminds me of some other dudes I knew a long time ago. He learned under some great coaches at SMU and understands both sides of the ball. The good part of the scheme that he brings to the table won't be a huge change for us but there will be some. 

On defense and what has to change
Everything. It's hard to be the worst team in the conference and we are. That's just unacceptable. If we were middle-of-the-road, I wonder where we would have wound up. We had the second-toughest schedule I've ever had to coach against. We did pretty well but we can do a lot better.

On personnel
We miss Monty (Fenner) and Diondre (Wallace). They were the older brothers. Good leaders. Guys are stepping into those roles, slowly but surely on both sides of the ball. Without Zane V. and Matt (Kaufmann). We lost two voices. Now Aaron G. is yelling at guys, that's not how we do that here. That's fun to watch. 

On new Dl-ine
Bowman and Gibbs are here. One of the best, if not the best scout team players last year was Vinne Shaffer (6-0, 310) is here. He's a viable choice. Has great strength. Vinnie has great potential and is a local guy. Bryce Carter and Gibbs can play anywhere. Malik Tyne and Ricky DeBerry. Bryce is probably one of the most underrated players. Waiting on Tibo (Debaille) is healthy but we're going to see if he's available to play in the spring. Bryce Lauer is recovering from surgery and looked good before that. 

On LBs
Marcellus Gaines, Derrick McCoy. Gaines plays bigger than 210. He's really physical. Was on our list early. Loved us early. Locked it up fast. Hacksaw. He's 6-1, 207. Long arms. Big speed. Really smart. Brock Irvin. He's a multipositional athlete. Has a lot of athlete. He's a tweener. He's not big enough to put his hand down and not long enough or fast enough to play LB. In two years, he'll have his spot. His body has to grow into that. Could be 250 or 220. I give our people a lot of credit. He goes to a school where fall-term grads don't get published until February. He's in school now and has three years.

On secondary
At corner, we got a lot better because we got older. Shuman and Gillette are having great offseasons. Jirhe Love looks like an FBS corner now. He sat in here with me, I was pissed I didn't play but I realized I wasn't ready. Now he says I'm ready. McCants, Troy Vincent is back, Robert Javier looks amazing. Wilson has a chance. I love this safety kid. The kid from Dulaney is a great athlete. SJ Brown and Wynn. Both played safety and quarterback. Their vision in the secondary is amazing. They see it bigger because they played quarterback. Stanley Davis. He went to college with Mantrell (Reaves). He was also a HS quarterback at Petersburg, Va. Got overloked. Good kid. I need to see more. I have high expectations for Jamal Gay. If we did anything wrong, we shoud have played Gay more last year. He's challenging for a starting job and once he gets it, should never lose it.

On safeties
Communication issues. Tippett didn't play as much as the previous season. That's based on him. You have a guy who is a one year starter in Reaves, but doesn't have the experience of hearing it as much as we'd like. The communication on the back end hurt the most. The guy who struggled the least was Robert Heyward and it showed. Heyward will be at Mike or Will. LB Ryan Kearney is the smartest guy. He gets made when he gets an B so he makes less mistakes. He still has a long way to go. Chizz U. has the greatest physical skills and has big upside. Dymelle Parker is gone. Nygill Johnson is Keon Paye's backup. We could move him to Bandit in a year to replace DeBerry. He just need to step up. He needs to stay there (220). He's one of those guys whose body takes awhile to grow.

Special teams
Picked up a long snapper that you can't mention. McDonough kid is everything we wanted. Got hangtime. Kickoff time. Can kick field goals. Tippett has great return skill but was undisciplined. Now we have more guy. Shane (Simpson) is good on punt returns but D'Ago Hunter could be special. That's just for punts. I have a whole bunch of guys for kickoffs. We're in good shape.

On Europe
Started with Tibo. Europe football is blowing up. Our media doesn't cover it. Gus has been going to Europe for years, tied up with a group in Canada. They have camps in France. There aren't many opportunities. I was in a camp in Hawaii, All the island kids come there for four days and there are 1,000 kids. That's the one chance for these kids to be seen by coaches. Same thing for Europe. We've been planning seeds in Europe. Once we got Tibo, it got real. These kids are making two visits a year to see us. Talking about 35 kids. They don't know that there is a difference between College Park and Towson. They don't care. They are incredibly intelligent and multi-lingual. There are more rocks to look under. It was cheaper to fly Gus to Europe instead of going to California. He goes and stays with people we know. As far as what's going to come of it, I can't say yet. I knew it could bear fruit, we started something, a trend. Kickers and punters used to come from Australia. Too many good football players over in Europe. They don't have bad habits. They love it. They play really hard and they are good for our guys. Tibo is good for a team.

A bit of a risk?
We're not just taking a European guy. We're taking the right one. We're vetting them more. We know what our guys go up against. There a whole bunch of Americans involved in this. They are knowledgeable. These kids are older. ONe of these kids we're talking to is a 21-year old freshman. Played club ball. 

On not being on TV
Doesn't hurt as much being on Comcast SportsNet. NBCSports was nice. Now, nothing is national. If it's on ESPN or a major network, it doesn't matter. It's a different world we live in. Would I like it, it's above my pay grade.

Thoughts on the season?
Two years without quarterback play. Having the ability to have Morgan (Mahalak). He played three games and one quarter. You cannot win games without a good quarter. Stover was just too damn young. Having consistent play at quarterback pays dividends. The offense wasn't that bad from the season before. A lot of it has to do with quarterback play. Nobody is getting there with an average quarterback. Tom is a very good quarterback. All the pieces were in place. Matt Kauffman went from being not an all-conference player to being first team. How does that happen? Our kids were hungry. Getting rid of some guys. Guys being leaders. Tom was definitely one of them. Outsdie of disaster, we should always be in the top 25. Outside of massive injuries. This year, was more impressive because this was the best this conference has been. When Rhody is winning, Maine is winning, we're winning. Everbody is winning. It's way harder than it's ever been. No league has seven teams that can beat you.

On QBs
He and I talked about it. (playing baseball). He was a draftable baseball prospect. I wouldn't dare take that away from. The other guys will get reps. This is his one chance. Something he wanted to see if he could do. Tristan (Harris) is going to be able to to back (from ACL). Jeff Miller needs to get more reps. They will be fighting for a job in a year. Very pleased about Jeff Miller. I found out more about Jeff in six months. Found out that he learned more from YouTube. He never got coaching in HS.

[TSU88 1,073]

Great job. I like that he thinks there will be 5 or so transfers (some presumably on the O-line) coming in before 8/1. I’m not crazy about the fact that it sounds like we’re not adding a big RB, especially when he laments the offense down by the goal line. 

A little skeptical about his statement that the new D-coordinator’s scheme isn’t a huge change from what we’ve already been (unsuccessfully) doing.

Interesting comments about Europe. Did we actually sign any in this class, or is this more a 2020 and beyond goal?

[mat1992 2,234]

6 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Great job. I like that he thinks there will be 5 or so transfers (some presumably on the O-line) coming in before 8/1. I’m not crazy about the fact that it sounds like we’re not adding a big RB, especially when he laments the offense down by the goal line. 

A little skeptical about his statement that the new D-coordinator’s scheme isn’t a huge change from what we’ve already been (unsuccessfully) doing.

Interesting comments about Europe. Did we actually sign any in this class, or is this more a 2020 and beyond goal?

Took me an hour to interview and two hours to transcribe. I don't get the big RB thing either. Could be a smokescreen. I think they could sign somebody in the 2019 class from Europe. I think the point is that they are going for legit FBS-type of kids, that are not kids. Tibo was 20 when we got him and it looks as though he might be back in the spring. A lot of these kids are 20, 21, Different system in Europe. More mature. Physically and mentally. Tibo can play if he's healthy. The D-line would receive a huge boost.

[TigerFan54 102]

Very thorough discussion -- thanks for that.