eleem
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Member # 884
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posted 01-14-2015 04:03 PM
“Excited about this place obviously. I grew up in the south in Baton Rouge, want to beat those guys over there next time we play them in a few years, no doubt. Had an opportunity to play them at West Virginia the first year and almost beat them. Excited about being in this league. When this deal came up weeks ago when Coach Stoops contacted me — and I got contacted by a guy that I knew in a roundabout way was really close to Coach Stoops — he asked me if I would be interested in this job and extremely interested. It took about two or three days for me and Coach Stoops to sit down and it went fast. I was excited for it to go fast. So it’s been great; the process has been great. Sitting down with Mr. Barnhart when we got here, letting him give me the overview of the facility upgrades and everything they’re doing here increased my excitement even more. Awesome place; I’ve known about it obviously for my lifetime growing up in SEC country. Excited to get to know you guys and get to know our players a little more. I haven’t been around those guys a lot. Just really excited to be here, want to open it up for you guys if you’ve got questions or anything. Not going to sit here and talk for 20-30 minutes. If you guys have got questions, y’all go ahead.”
On how many of Hal Mumme’s stories about his beginnings on his staff were true: “All of it. It really was. When I took the job there, being in coaching as long as I have now, there was some red flags. My dad played there, so anytime you can have somebody affiliated with the university, somewhat close like that, there’s a red flag. But I had Coach Holgorsen on my side, too, because I played for him. He was talking to Hal on the other end and I don’t think Hal matched it up necessarily at the beginning, so he did give me some jobs that were questionable. I love the guy to death. I can never repay him for some of the things he’s done along the way for me. But he did at the beginning, he made it tough, which I think you should. You need to earn your stripes. You’ve gotta earn your place, especially in this profession, you need to go do things like that, it makes you more appreciative when you get to places like this.”
On if he talked to Mumme about the job and what he had to say about it: “I talked to him afterwards. It went so fast to be honest with you from my moment of just talking to Coach Stoops and him flying in and that process went really fast and we wanted to keep it on the down low for those couple of days. After the fact, I talked to him, I was really talking to him more — you wrote that article, right? You wrote the article — I was just more thanking him for the nice things he said about me because obviously there were some bad things he probably could’ve said, too. I talked to him after the fact, not before the fact.”
On Air Raid philosophy: “The game has changed; the blueprint of the offense really hasn’t, if you want to be completely honest. Are there some things we’re doing different now that we didn’t do before? Yes. But the blueprint of the offense and the mentality are still the same: We want to attack. But I do think defenses have changed over the years. They’re a lot more athletic, a lot more physical. The players are getting bigger and stronger. So I think even if you talk to Coach Mumme about it, he’d tell you the game has changed. With that being said, I think the ability to get physical — we made a concerted effort to get physical and be able to run the ball more efficient — not that we’re sitting there adding 100 more run plays into the offense. We still have those run plays, but it’s simply the fact that we’re calling them a little more, just turning and handing it a little more. So we’re allowing those offensive linemen to be more physical, some leverage on leverage stuff, and it’s weird because as probably as efficient as we’ve been throwing the football was when we made a concerted effort to be more physical in the run game. So you can be better throwing it if you run it a little better. So you have to evolve. The offensive football is going to continually to evolve, that’s jus the way it is.”
On if he called plays at West Virginia:
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Posts: 13248 | From: flatwoods,ky. | Registered: Oct 2000
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posted 01-14-2015 04:38 PM
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