Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman's complete (and long) press conference looking ahead to 2023 season before actual practices begin on Friday trying to stay out of Northwest Arkansas' heat spell.
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00:00 excited to get the year started. The guys will be here to eat between 3 and 4.30.
00:07 And then obviously there's some teams going now. I mean we're ranted 31 days to
00:15 go 25 practices. We just felt like camp's long enough as it is. You know with less
00:22 full pads than what we've ever had before. We decided to go ahead and just
00:28 bring them in the 29 days before to get our 25 in. They'll have the first
00:33 Wednesday off and then Saturdays after that. We'll scrimmage in two weeks and
00:40 then we'll start prep about 10 days out for Western Carolina. But we're excited
00:46 about getting it going. It's gonna be hot. We understand that. We have adjusted our
00:50 times. We're going to go in the a.m. with it being over 100 degrees over the next
00:56 three days. We're going to have practice in the a.m. so we we know we're in
01:00 condition. We've been conditioning in the heat all summer. We're trying to have
01:05 some really good practices so we have plenty of time to get them acclimated to
01:08 the heat heat. But right now we've decided to change our first few practice
01:14 to the a.m.
01:17 Coach, schedule looks the same as last year except for the time changes and
01:21 stuff. Is there anything based on maybe your past experiences or how fall
01:25 camp went last year, anything that you plan to change in your approach to how
01:30 you're doing things? Well we changed different periods. You know certainly the
01:33 emphasis that we had from last year whether it be third down, whether it be
01:38 short yardage, whether it be getting off the field on defense, our goal line
01:42 package, our third play four versus two play three. Those things are in our
01:52 practice schedule. We also have done a little bit of different with our ball
01:59 security period. We're doing more bubble stuff. We're doing more half line pass.
02:05 We're doing some things in that part of it along with fastball starts.
02:10 Trying to get our team a little more physical and trying to start that early
02:14 in practice. With the addition of Coach Souders, we're not going to get him today so I figured I'd ask you.
02:19 You might be better to ask, compared to how things were run last
02:24 eight-week summer cycle, how are things different? What were some of
02:29 the approaches that he made and what was changed? Well we lifted five days which
02:38 we didn't last year. In a lift day there's always a condition part of it.
02:44 Now there's emphasis on conditioning, team run and things of that nature twice
02:51 a week but they run each and every day. We went five weeks this year of
02:59 lifting where last summer we went four. I think that the culture, the attitude of
03:06 the team is outstanding as good as it can be in this climate of Porto and NIL.
03:13 We're obviously bigger which has a lot to do with the nutritionist as well.
03:20 We're bigger, our body fat count is down. A lot of good things, positive
03:26 things and I just feel like our team, we pressed them pretty hard.
03:30 It's hot and we pressed them hard and there was no bickering, anything of that
03:34 nature. We don't want to repeat last year. If we're
03:39 going to repeat any week we need to go back to two years ago. Obviously we
03:45 needed to change a few things, that's what we did. Following up on that, so when
03:49 we talked to Ben we'll ask him this too, but like individuals who really impressed
03:52 for instance we saw Landon Jackson, he put on weight. I wonder if there's some
03:56 other guys that kind of rose to the top. Yeah, I mean there was a lot of them.
04:01 Hudson Clark ended up gaining about 12 pounds this summer which he
04:06 needed to. We asked him to go in there and fill the hole on a running
04:09 back and he doesn't have enough behind to fill it and he's there, he just
04:14 can't get him on the ground at times. He's one that sticks out.
04:19 Obviously the D-line has done a really good job. Devin Manuel was thin,
04:26 couldn't handle, hard to handle a bull what he was in the spring and now
04:31 he's, I imagine he'll report about 308, I think it was 306 when he left.
04:38 Just a lot of positives, Lemar squatted 700 pounds, things of
04:42 that nature. Just a really good overall program for all of them. I'd
04:49 like for you to ask Ben, he would be able to rattle them off faster than me.
04:54 At media days we asked you about, well you said that you felt like your depth
05:01 was better. Yeah. Where do you feel like maybe you increased your depth after
05:05 spring, places that you needed to have more depth? Well, you know linebacker was
05:14 certainly something because we haven't really had anybody play a lot of reps
05:17 there. So after spring ball I felt like we could have, with Jaheim
05:25 coming in, I feel like we could have two rotations there, a couple
05:29 rotations where we could have some guys. Obviously we've talked about the D-line.
05:34 Wide receiver, it wasn't just the guys that we brought in. I thought it
05:39 was Bocke and Satagna and Jaden Wilson and those guys coming on that
05:45 you think, because they're fast. They did a nice job. Competition I
05:51 think really helped the entire team. But that would be it. Running back was
05:57 running back tight end would probably be one of the biggest things that happened
06:01 from spring ball to now. Not only with the guys that were brought in, but the
06:05 guys development over the summertime. I guess there were several transfers and
06:13 then some freshmen that weren't here for spring ball. What have you heard
06:17 about those guys over the summer? How anxious are you to see them on the field for
06:21 the first time? We've been able to work with them a little bit. The
06:23 rules have changed a little bit, Bob. But there's
06:28 definitely, we're going to two-spot our first two days at least and
06:32 we'll have two spots in more than just our first two days. But there's a reason
06:36 for that. We're going to divide it up what we might think is our one depth
06:41 chart and new guys. Basically we've got to get Jaheim Thomas
06:46 and Keeby Rose and whomever these guys are.
06:50 Francis Sherman, those guys. We've got to see those guys develop. So we'll
06:58 probably go twos and threes on one field and ones and news on the other so we can
07:02 get an early eye and often eye on the guys that weren't here at spring ball.
07:09 Cincinnati, top 20 ranked team or top 25 and coming off a playoff appearance this
07:16 year you open up against an FCS team. No disrespect to Western Carolina but do
07:20 you approach camp differently when you're playing an FCS opening with an
07:24 FCS team versus a team coming off the playoffs? I don't think so. I hope
07:28 not. We're trying to approach camp on us and us getting better.
07:34 Again we still have a lot of new faces and that's not only on the kids but the
07:40 coaching staff. Most our guys obviously went through spring ball with
07:45 our new staff but we still have quite a few that we've got to figure out if
07:48 they're going to help us or not this year too. But I don't think, you
07:54 know, our deal is that in all honesty we didn't play well against the
07:59 teams that we were favored to beat and so we lost that chip at times and so we
08:06 have to coach that way, we have to feel that way and all those things so we just
08:11 got to get back to old Arkansas football and we started that obviously in
08:17 January but I really like where we're at. I like the hunger of the team and things
08:22 of that nature. We'll have to wait and see but I don't think it'll affect as
08:25 much because we got a lot of work to do on ourselves.
08:28 I have a few questions from Nate for you. I think he had a doctor for him. One he wanted to know like year four,
08:34 are you entering August, are you more competent than you were the first three
08:39 years in the team as of right now? I really like this team, you know,
08:43 obviously for me, you know, I'm still learning. I'm not for sure if you ever
08:50 quit learning. Probably if you quit learning then you probably quit getting
08:54 better, you know, and Lord knows we owe it to the state of Arkansas to build a really
08:59 good football team but probably not a lot of difference in year four than before.
09:08 Okay, and he wanted to know how do you manage the game week, the more physical game week
09:14 practices as the season goes along when you, when injuries will start to mount.
09:19 You've talked about more physical game week practice. How do you manage that?
09:22 Well, you have to either go Spiders on Monday, I mean, let's face the facts, you
09:30 can go four, you can go shells on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it's the same thing. I
09:36 mean, you're not tackling to the ground so having those little knee things in
09:39 there is not going to make a whole lot of difference if you're not tackling to
09:43 the ground, which we don't. Now we do a lot of good on good every single day but
09:47 Thursday, but I think the biggest thing is, you know, we'll have air conditioning
09:53 indoors so that, you know, we can take a little bit of that heat off of them
09:57 because that's always a concern when you have so many games back-to-back. But what
10:02 we'll do if we feel like we've got a beat-up team, we'll go Spiders on Monday
10:06 and then shells, shells, and then Spiders on Thursday and that way we can kind of
10:11 save them. Probably starting out the year, we'll probably go shells full-full and
10:18 we'll probably go Spiders on Thursday even at the beginning of the season.
10:22 Just the schedule, the way it's laid out, you've got some difficult road games there,
10:29 especially early in the season, SEC. How important is it to take care of those
10:33 seven home games this year, to win those? I mean, you know, I know it's
10:38 always important to win home games, but is it more important this year with the way the
10:41 schedule's laid out? Yeah, it's a big deal for us. You know, they ran bleachers the
10:46 other day with the emphasis on our seven opponents. That was a really good job of
10:52 Ben and his staff. But no, I think winning at home, obviously there's a lot of
10:59 things you don't have to do when you play at home, and it's travel and sleep
11:04 in a different thing. Even though we're sleeping in a different area, even though home
11:08 you go on a Friday night and don't stay in your house, but you're familiar with
11:12 your surroundings and things of that nature. So it's a big deal for us. We're
11:21 just gonna try to win one at a time. I know that's coach speak, but that's
11:24 really what we're doing. If we can, you know, we can win and get better each
11:28 week, I really like our schedule. I really do. You know, it's different than playing
11:34 in two or three top 25 teams and all that. We have high respect for who we're
11:39 playing, but it's different. It gives us a chance if we play well to build up
11:44 into something nice, but we've got to take it one at a time and we know that.
11:49 Coach, we've already had a couple questions about the gains and, you know,
11:53 weight that the program's made this offseason. Did that take on any added
11:57 emphasis, just going with a, you know, with the new offense this year? Not so
12:01 high tempo and spread, but maybe getting back to some more physical offense? Yeah,
12:05 I think, you know, obviously we led the nation in rushing and power five a
12:10 couple years back and things, so we've always tried to be physical and things
12:14 of that nature. I think there's more emphasis on details, certainly. We'll be,
12:20 formationally, we'll be quite a bit different. You know, we were a lot at 11,
12:24 you know, that's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, because we were playing fast. We
12:28 wanted to stay in that. A little bit of very slight amount of 20 personnel last
12:32 year. I think you'll see the tight ends used a lot more this year than what
12:37 before, but when you're a check offense, and we will do that at times, you're
12:45 checking because you're saying this is the best look and we're better than you.
12:49 I mean, guys that are in check offense, it's like we were at Georgia my entire
12:54 time there. Sometimes we were, sometimes we weren't, but we believed that we were,
12:59 and there's a lot of emphasis put on, you know, the mind strong and hopefully
13:06 that makes us a more physical, but going into the offseason with the weight room,
13:10 that was, we, you know, obviously we knew Dan was different than what KB was, but
13:18 we need to be more physical, and in all honesty, the most disappointing thing of
13:24 last year was not between the 20s, it was inside both 20s on offense and
13:30 situation football, and as good as we were, we weren't very good on either one
13:35 of, either one, those cases. Is this cold or hot? It's just for looks. Paul likes
13:47 smoked diet coke, don't y'all? Mmm, that was good. How long has that been sitting there? It's great.
13:57 That'll be the last of that. Real quick, Coach, Coach Adams shared that, you know, you let
14:04 him go see Jordan play, and you know, on the eve of fall camp, just what was that
14:07 conversation like, and have you been paying attention at all to Jordan today?
14:11 I did, I looked at him, I know he hadn't got a hit in his first two at-bats,
14:16 but you know, life, you know, we make, and not just football, we make a lot of
14:26 things a little bit, maybe more stressful, more important than maybe what they are.
14:31 All I did was I adjusted what I was going to do with the coaches today as a
14:36 full staff, so I went and I met with the coordinators, which they're here, and I
14:42 was going to do that tomorrow, but I just adjusted my schedule so Deke and Alexis
14:47 could go see him play, and he'll be back tonight and be here tomorrow, and it's, I
14:53 mean, we're not gonna make a mountain out of a molehill. A man called Nass, could he go
14:58 see his son in his major league debut, and absolutely. What intrigues you about your
15:06 offensive line entering camp, and I guess just what do you want to learn about the group?
15:09 I like Bo a lot. I like Brady, I like Bron, I like them all, but I knew a
15:19 little bit more about Bron, you know, he's played, I don't know, 700 snaps or
15:22 something over in Florida. Obviously Bo, I think moving Bo to center is going to
15:28 help us as a football team, and I know it's going to help him as a draftable
15:33 offensive lineman. What we've got to do, in all honesty, we've got to make sure
15:39 that our tackles are right, and I believe in both tackles that we have. I believe
15:46 in further deep, I believe in Chambly, I believe in Harriot, I believe in
15:50 Crawford. We've got to find out who's going to help us win at tackle. We believe
15:56 that Kudas is ultra talented, and Devin Manuel, and so we've got to find that, and
16:03 to be honest with you, the next question is who's going to play, who's the
16:07 next center. So if it all works out the best, Brady Latham won't move to left
16:14 tackle if something happened to the starter. He'll stay at left guard and
16:18 we'll plug one in. We won't make two moves for one loss. If something
16:24 happens, Stree or Amore Wiggins or somebody will be going there at center,
16:29 so we don't have to move Kudas from right tackle to center. If we could get a
16:37 true two deep, which we haven't been able to do since I've been here, and it's
16:42 hard to do. You usually talk about eight guys and they're rotating and all that
16:46 kind of stuff, but man, one move turns out to be two, and you really don't want
16:53 to do that if you can.
16:57 Scottie, you teamed me up there, but when you look at Brady and you look at Bo, what's the
17:02 conversation with them and their experience to how they need to set the
17:05 tone in that offensive line room?
17:07 Well, I think they're both of them are more of, do by example. They're not loud,
17:15 which, not vocal. In other words, like Bo, you would think because he's
17:23 so strong, but he's not. He's by example, you know, like I say, he
17:28 squats 700 pounds, he's strong and works his tail off. So those guys will be, they
17:35 don't say a lot unless something's wrong, and then they'll fix it really fast.
17:40 This is their last go-round. I think they're looking to, you know, they've been
17:46 in a comfort zone a little bit because the guys on their left, guys on their
17:49 right, they knew Ricky being here between the two of them and all that kind of
17:53 stuff. It's their time now, and I think they're going to embrace it, and I think
17:57 they'll have fun with it.
17:59 We know how much Danny Onos likes to use those tight ends, and so do you feel
18:03 comfortable with the guys that you have in that room to fill those holes and
18:07 execute that tight end position?
18:09 That was somebody's question. I think it might have been yours. That's the one,
18:13 that's a position, or it might have been, I don't know whose question it was, but
18:17 that's the thing, the tight ends. Are we going to be serviceable? Are we going
18:23 to be pretty good? Are we going to highlight them? And I don't know what the
18:29 answer is yet, but boy, they can run, they can catch, and they are bigger and more
18:35 physical than we've had at that position. So, you know, obviously the potential's
18:42 there to use them, and we'd like to because they can run. I believe that
18:49 we've got two or three of them. It'll be match-up problems for defenses if we can
18:55 get them on the field.
18:56 The running back position, we're going to have Jimmy Smith in here pretty soon,
19:03 I think maybe Friday, pretty quick. So I thought I'd ask about those. How
19:07 extraordinary is it to have three guys who've been with you, this will be their
19:11 third year at the position, then Dubinion will be his second, to have that kind of
19:16 depth at that position? And then what have you seen of Isaiah from summertime
19:21 since he's gotten here?
19:22 Yeah, you know, a good coach keeps his players out of my office. I mean, that's
19:27 what happens. Now, they come in to visit, but it's not, hey, you know, Jimmy does a
19:34 great job. They respect him. Obviously, we haven't gone in the portal there, so that
19:40 means that, hey, two things to me. One, we're recruiting really well there, and
19:44 two, there's not conflicts in there, which there could be because, you know, you've
19:51 got some good players in there. You know, Domo now, I believe, is going in year four
19:57 with us, and, you know, Rocket and AJ is three, and I know what you meant by three
20:03 because Domo didn't play last year, but, you know, with R-Dub, and R-Dub was, I
20:07 think he was offensive MVP of the bowl game and all kinds of stuff. So I just
20:12 think we're very talented in there, and all of them had really, R-Dub had his best
20:18 summer by far. He's in shape. You know, there's power of being in shape.
20:22 It's powerful. It builds a lot of confidence, you know, being in shape,
20:30 and he's in good shape. And then Isaiah, he's big, can run. I like him. I
20:41 don't know how fast he's, you know, he's picking up things, smart, but he's a big,
20:46 good-looking kid now that can run. And so we'll see if we can't get him in there,
20:52 but, you know, right now we've got a whole lot of guys with, need a lot of touches,
20:56 you know, especially with Domo coming back. Domo's bigger, a little bigger than
21:01 what he has been before, so we'll see how, what kind of shape he's in. In your own
21:06 mind, what are the biggest questions you want to answer during this camp? I
21:11 think you've touched on a couple already. Yeah, those things I talked about
21:14 in the tight end room, those things I talked about O-line wise. Who's our
21:18 backup quarterback? Will Criswell press KJ? You know, obviously he has the
21:25 opportunity to do that. Everybody has the opportunity to press somebody.
21:31 Defensively, is the D-line what I think it can be, and then where are we going at
21:39 linebacker? I think we have the people on defense at corner, but we've got to
21:48 figure out who our top five guys are and where they're going to help us win the
21:53 fastest, you know. I think, I know this is going to sound silly, but I think we're a
22:00 little more deeper at corner than we are at safety, and so when and who
22:06 will, are they better than the safeties we have back there? I don't know. We've
22:10 got to figure that out. Are we going to move a corner to safety? So I have to figure
22:17 that out. Snacks would be the one I would be thinking off the top of my head, that
22:21 you know, possibly could move to a hog or something like that, but we've got to
22:25 make sure that we command coverage at corner first. I was going to ask that question, but
22:31 you covered it pretty much, Coach. I got you at nine seniors on the defensive line,
22:36 and I know there's four categories of seniors, superseniors, and all that stuff now, but
22:40 you're talking about guys that are 22, 23, I think a couple of these guys can be 24.
22:45 Have you ever been a part of something like that? I mean, it's obviously it's a
22:49 different landscape now, but what does that mean to have such older veteran
22:52 players up front? Yeah, it's big, you know, with those guys electing to come back, and
22:58 then I think even after this year, it's going to be big to see who we can keep
23:03 back for their plus one year. But I think, you know, when you recruit to a three
23:10 down line, it's hard to get too deep at eight guys. But somehow Deke's done that,
23:20 and we feel really good about our two deep, and they're, like you say, they're
23:25 older, and certainly feel good about our transfers that came in.
23:31 You can do 120 this year, right? 120, yeah. But that's it. Yeah, what's the reason that they
23:36 moved to that, and you still expecting everybody? What are some benefits that
23:41 maybe you can do with 120 versus 110? Well, 120 allow you to two-spot without having
23:46 to double up guys. The only problem we're at depth chart-wise right now
23:52 is offensive line. Now, we have 20, but if one gets nicked up, then you know you're
23:57 going to have to have, you know, split extra reps with somebody or somebodies.
24:02 The rest of the depth chart looks, I think, pretty good to be able to two-spot.
24:08 That's the biggest thing for me, especially in this day and time where
24:13 you've got so many new, new, you know, guys that came in in June. We've got one
24:18 that came coming in today, tomorrow, you know. So, that's the biggest thing, and I
24:26 think they needed to do that so you could, you know, you can't evaluate a guy
24:31 taking a mental rep. You also can't beat nobody out taking a mental rep, you know.
24:35 So, you have to get out there, and that would be the biggest advantage to me on
24:41 that, but you know, you can only carry 121 school starts as well. So, we carried
24:46 125 this summer. You said at SEC media days that everybody's healthy. I know in
24:51 spring we were looking at a bunch of guys banging on tractor tires and stuff
24:55 on the side. Yeah. Doing ropes. You still expecting everybody except for Quincy?
25:01 Terry Wells would be one that is going to be out for a while. He tore his
25:11 pack, and man, he's had some bad luck, but Terry would be one. So, we just activate
25:20 somebody else, but that would be one, and then I think the rest of them. Now,
25:26 there'll be some on kind of like Domo. We're not just gonna run him out there
25:32 and let him do everything. I mean, he'll be at every position drill, every
25:37 team, every - he just won't take as many reps as what he might early - might later
25:42 early, but other than that, we should go out there, and Dave should be over there
25:49 by himself, you know, not doing anything, at least for a while. These four DBs - Al
25:54 Walcott, Singletary, Keion Stewart, Braithwaite - I know Walcott was here, but
26:02 where will they be position-wise, and what might you expect of those four
26:06 guys? So, you talked about Al. He'll probably be at the boundary safety. You
26:11 talked about Keion Stewart. He'll probably be at the field corner.
26:16 Singletary will probably - I don't know - he'll either be at the boundary or field
26:21 corner, and then who else? He'll be at the hog position. It's kind of a Sam
26:30 Willie linebacker removed. A guy who can tackle and a guy who can cover. Let me
26:40 see here - hog - let me see who all's at the hog on this list. I don't want to tell you
26:45 wrong. Jalen Lewis, Braithwaite, J'Bray Shaw, Dallas Young, and Snelling. Those
26:59 will be the guys at that position to start the first day.
27:04 You talked about linebacker being a position you want to see someone - or just see stuff from.
27:08 Jaheim Thomas from Cincinnati - I guess we haven't really talked about him. We
27:12 didn't see him in the spring. What have you seen from him this summer? Long, can
27:19 run. Obviously, we played against him last year, saw him on tape. Athletic. We like
27:27 him. I think he's a good player for us. Obviously, he played a lot of
27:33 ball for Cincinnati, so we saw that there, and we saw exactly what we thought we
27:38 would on tape. You said something earlier about the players running the bleachers
27:43 with their seven home opponents in mind. Can you elaborate on what that looked
27:47 like? Oh, they just ran - they did a whole bunch of stuff. It was a fourth
27:52 quarter deal. It was over in each corner and stations. Then they went in
27:57 for second quarter, and they ran time sprints. Then they went back in
28:03 different stations. Then the last quarter, they went into the
28:08 stands and ran seven for each team that were playing. Then came back down
28:14 and ran ahead a minute and a half the first one, then two minutes between the
28:19 other two, get back down, start back again. That decision to have your players
28:24 through their conditioning in the heat of the day this summer, can you
28:29 take us through your thought process into that? Well, we had to get tough.
28:32 There's a lot to be said about mental toughness, too. We got to get
28:39 tough now. You can go in the morning, you can go in the afternoon, you can go at night.
28:46 We just elected that we want to put them in the hardest situation we possibly
28:51 could. Talk about Thomas. He asked you about Thomas a little bit. We saw a little bit of a
28:56 4-3 kind of look. Is he a guy that you would envision? It looked like
29:02 you were using bigger linebackers on that outside spot. Is he a guy you'd
29:05 envision kind of maybe working in that role? He is. Yeah, he absolutely is.
29:10 People go real big on us, which not many people do anymore, but if people go
29:15 real big on us, him, Manny Powell, you know, bigger guys could go in there
29:20 and basically play that Sam or Willie in the box for us.
29:24 Rockets listed at 242, I think. Yeah. You like that weight on him? I can't do
29:30 nothing about it. You'd have to cut skin. I mean, you pinch him and
29:39 nothing moves. There's nothing you can do about it. I mean, we talked to the
29:46 nutritionist and we talked to Ben about it and he's 242 and there's no fat
29:55 there. So I don't know what you do with it, but he's in shape. The AC and the
30:02 indoor workout, how long you guys been trying to get that done and seriously
30:06 how big a deal is that and when is it supposed to be operational? Let's see.
30:13 Next, where we at, next Wednesday, they're supposed to, they need about five hours
30:20 and that's our off day. So we, off days you can meet with them. So we'll have
30:24 meetings and we'll be out of there by four or five on that day and then
30:29 they're gonna have a power outage over there and they're gonna set it up and
30:33 I'm told it will be ready to go next Thursday. It's gonna be huge
30:39 because if you look at it, we had the eight game schedule two years ago.
30:43 It was hotter than hot in October and you've got to, you're constantly worrying
30:49 about fatigue. Now you're playing game six, you're playing game seven and all
30:55 this stuff and you can't get away from the heat. Indoors with air conditioning,
31:01 you can and you know I was at some places in two days, or in fall camp,
31:08 they'd go out twice and one in, out twice and one in, you know for the fatigue.
31:12 Well we can't come in, at least we haven't in the past and that was a big
31:16 concern for me but we can solve that problem now.
31:23 You talked a little bit about tight ends and we obviously saw Luke Haas and you
31:28 know the other guys but Varkees Gumbs, I'm curious about him, you talked about
31:32 Sherman a little bit but I was curious about Varkees, what kind of, does he
31:35 remind you of anybody and what kind of impact could he have? I don't know that
31:39 he reminds me of anybody but he you know he's very fast, he can run, physical guy.
31:52 He's a, he can do anything, you know he can run, catch, block. Haas is now 240 some,
32:00 he's able to do that too. Washington got bigger, Bax is in there.
32:08 Sharpe, to be honest with you, Francis we got because we need an inline
32:14 blocker, you know we knew how aggressive he was and things of that nature and
32:19 then a guy that you know hadn't been talked about much is Shamar Easter who
32:24 is now at 220 and he'll be a guy, I think he's going to be really really a good
32:31 player, it's just we'll find out how fast he helps the football team but Gumbs is
32:37 a guy that can, you know he looks like he's played college ball before, you know
32:41 when he goes out there and he's running around, he's again there's another guy
32:44 that we didn't have you know in spring so two spot will help us there is what.
32:51 The first practice in the spring was a two tight end set, is that just kind of an
32:55 indication of you know how often and how important that is to Dan's offense? Oh it
33:00 might be, might also be that we just want to set a tone that we didn't lose our
33:08 physical, we didn't lose every game last year I mean you know felt like it at
33:13 times but you can't lose your physicality and at times we did and so
33:22 probably we wanted as many, as much clang as we could get out there in the first
33:27 play and that's probably what we did. Talking to Parris today, he's on a line in high
33:34 school with three power five. Who? Parris. Yeah. You know three power five and got
33:39 Alabama, Illinois and Arkansas, have you come across many high school lines like
33:43 that and just what would you think about that and him playing on a line like that?
33:47 Well I'm so messed up you said who you tell me? Parris Patterson. Patterson. Yeah and
33:53 his high school, he's St. Louis has three. Oh yeah. You know Alabama signing and
33:58 Illinois signing and Arkansas signing. How many lines like that in your
34:02 recruiting, man, have you come across? Just what do you think about him being part of that?
34:06 I don't know that I've ever you know we went Pace Academy and got Jamari Sawyer
34:14 and Andrew Thomas but they were a year apart they were same on the same line
34:19 both of them playing in NFL. Man it's rare but he's St. Louis you know they do a
34:27 great job you know so but but it's very rare that that happens. Got a good coach.
34:35 We haven't asked a single question about KJ because you know it seems like
34:40 it's a luxury the experience that he's got I mean are there specific points in
34:45 spring and summer workouts that you can point to you know just the type of
34:48 impact that he's had and do you have to kind of remind yourself at times you
34:52 know just you know it's it feels good to have a quarterback that you know and you
34:55 can trust this season? No there's no reminder I pretty much got that down
34:59 that part of it but he he is having fun I think he's really confident really
35:14 doing a nice job at leading really nice you know it's easy to lead when it's
35:18 positive it's hard to lead once you're what's coming out of your mouth is
35:22 negative that goes for all of us me included but if you want to fix you
35:28 better lead in either category and he certainly has done a good job with both
35:35 of those and I didn't mean that any other way then you don't have to be
35:42 reminded because the entire team looks at him as the leader you know and and and
35:49 he does really nice job I think think it'll be a big year for him because I
35:52 I think he still thinks he's got a lot to prove, and he does.