April 8, 2008
Head Coach Rocky Long
ALL-ACCESS: Watch coach Long’s entire press conference
ALL-ACCESS: Listen to coach Long’s entire press conference
(on the offseason training program):
“This team has done the best job of any team as far as offseason workouts go. We have made tremendous progress in the weight room and their attitude seems to be as good or better than it has ever been. We’ve set some records already and we expect some record to be set tonight (at the Night of Champions exhibition).”
(on the depth of the team entering the spring):
“We’re awfully young. We’ve got some people that we have to develop into starters in spring practice. Four of our five (starting) offensive linemen are gone, our two big time receivers are gone. Our kicker and our punter are gone. We have three seniors in the defensive line and four seniors at linebacker gone, so it’s going to be a fairly young team. So far I’ve been really impressed with the way they have performed in the weight room and with their attitude. I think we have enough talent to be pretty good it just depends on how fast they’ll mature into players since a lot of them didn’t play last year.”
(on the competition for a starting job on the offensive line):
“I look forward to spring practice and maybe fall camp because it’s going to be big time competition. We recruited four junior college kids to come and compete with the younger guys in our program. Three of the transfer guys are here and went through the offseason workouts, so I think they have a pretty good handle on what their assignments are. It’s the first time in a long time that we are going to put two offensive lines together and during spring practice let them get equal reps so they can actually compete for the starting job.”
(on quarterback Donovan Porterie’s leadership role):
“I think Donovan becomes the leader because he’s the quarterback. I think our offense is going to be so young that maybe that role needs to be stepped up. Last year he had a lot of seniors out there with him. So even though he was the quarterback and probably exerted some leadership, I would guess that his leadership wasn’t as necessary as it is this year.”
Senior RB Rodney Ferguson
(on what he expects to get out of spring practice):
“I expect, out of myself basically, to get better, faster, stronger and be able to read things faster. I expect to create a bond with my team. From last season, we have to bring it back. As a team, we need to be closer. Last year we were close, but for us to go the whole way and win all our games we need to be closer.”
Senior CB Glover Quin
(on what he looks to improve on during spring practice):
“Playing corner, I want to improve my coverage. I want to improve my press coverage and my up technique. (I want to) maintain my tackling, maybe take that to another level, but making my coverage better and more consistent is pretty much everything.”
Senior CB DeAndre Wright
(on his goals for spring practice):
“Making our receivers better. We are going to make it real hard for the receivers this upcoming spring. That’s what we want to do. We want to put them in certain game situations so they are going to feel frustrations and they are going to feel happiness. I just want them to do the best they can against me and [Glover Quin], because we are going to come with it this spring ball.”
Junior QB Donovan Porterie
(on his spring practice goals):
“Basically, just polish off things that we didn’t do so well last spring. Last spring we were coming into a new offense and it took us a lot of time to get the concepts down. This year we have the concepts down and now it’s more of an execution factor for the offense. Last year, we had a real positive season…but offensively there are still some points that we want to get down pat. I think the spring will give us some time to go in and just work on those things and get a little better from where we were last year.”