Opening comments:
Well I haven’t seen you for a while so I know there’ll be a lot of good questions. But with that said, four days in, not a lot left to tell you from this team. I really like this team. Our kids have had a really good summer. Really proud of what they’ve done. We’ve had very efficient practices so far. But we still haven’t had a full padded practice so to be able to give you in-depth anything probably would be really unfair today. But with that said, I’ll give you what I’ve got.
On changes in program from first ISU media day to third:
What a cliché answer, everybody probably knows what I am going to say. It’s gotta be the culture. To where we are today comparable to where we were three years ago, just in terms of player driven leadership. The intent that we go day to day with is drastically different than where we were year one. That is so truly a credit to our kids and their investment in each other; their investment in getting better. Like I said, we had a great summer, we’ve got a great strength coach, we’ve got great assistant coaches. But one thing that’s really fun right now is you look at this roster: we’ve got great leadership on our football team. Each position group, their best players are our best leaders and that’s really powerful right now. It’s something that I think certainly is guiding our football program in a very positive way.
On Kyle Kempt’s development coming into this season:
I’ll be honest with you, I think maybe the light really came on for me is practice one this fall camp. It was really fun to watch Kyle this summer. You saw a confident young man. And I think any time, our sport is such a, repetition is the mother of all learning, right? And then you get the repetition in the environment of football and playing the game where it really matters, we’re keeping score. And Kyle got that last year. I think one thing that allowed him to do was say, how do I evaluate what I did well and what I didn’t do well and then how do I drive myself forward? What was really fun for me even just watching these early practices is, it’s almost like, wow who is this kid, in terms of he’s got really confident, he understands the system, he’s another year in, he’s made those mistakes so he’s not making those same mistakes anymore. He just looks like a really polished football player and, again, where’s that come from? Number one, his investment into his body this off-season. Number two, certainly getting those quality reps last year, of playing in that environment. Especially, any position, but really at that quarterback position. That’s a huge advantage and he certainly got that and he’s taken advantage of it.
On being able to run the ball in the fourth quarter:
Obviously that’s been a shortcoming here for two years. The bowl game was the only time that we had the ability to end a game where we were able offensively to put an end to it. I think one of the things when you look at our past, that’s something that has been critical to our success. Helping that defense out and understanding clock management and game management. And one of the things offensively that you can help your team out is certainly keeping the ball inbounds, understanding the ability to keep the clock running, and have a knowledge of the game. And that offensive line’s got to take pride in that. Something that I think we’ve all said and you’ve heard me say since January, our team will make great movement if our offensive line can take a step forward. That’s a huge challenge for this year’s football team. It’s a huge challenge for the young men that play that position and I think everybody knows that. So I think that group made really good headway this summer but again, until the lights come on and you put the ball down and play, we’re not going to really find out where that group really is. But I think trending in a positive direction.
On projected starting center Julian Good-Jones:
Athleticism’s the first thing when you talk about Julian Good-Jones. He’s certainly got very high-end athleticism, which has certainly allowed him to have position flexibility amongst the offensive line. Julian’s played center, Julian can play either guard spot, he can play either tackle spot. One nice thing for us is we’re trying to kind of figure who are the five best lineman and putting everybody in position to be successful, he gives us that ability to do it. He’s not just a guy that can play one spot. So I think that athletic ability that he possesses has allowed him to play. I think his next step now is do you truly own your craft and take your game to a level that we all think he’s got the ability to go. He’s certainly a very athletic and talented young man.
On position battle at Z receiver between Matt Eaton & Landen Akers:
Let me talk Matt Eaton before I talk Landen Akers just because A, Matt’s a senior and B, if you said Coach, four days, the guy that’s stuck out the most to you, that had a phenomenal off season, it’s Matt Eaton. I’m really proud of Matt. You know Matt has never had the ability to have a healthy spring and really a healthy fall camp. Matt was kind of coming back from some injuries his first spring here so in the summer he was never full go. He got to camp, still kind of battling through it, and I think you saw the emergence of Matt midway through the season – that Texas Tech game and on through there. Really became a productive asset to us in that receiver group. One of the things that’s been really fun is to watch Matt’s growth.
Landen kind of had the same movement this spring as some of our really good young guys have. Landen last year earned the right to get some of those kickoff return reps and get some game experience, which I think was really big. Football is really important to Landen Akers and he has something that we can’t coach and that’s high-end speed. One of the things that’s been really fun to watch with him is kind of gain that confidence in playing the receiver position and now, not just be a fast guy, but actually be a fast guy that is a really good wide receiver. So I think those two are different. They’re different assets. They’re guys that can give us two different things but both guys that I think you’ll see are very valuable to what we need to do in the receiving game.
On the win at Oklahoma validating process and culture:
I think number one, I saw our football team grow year one. I’ve always said this, the TCU game we played at, I don’t know if that was game three or four, I don’t know when that was, maybe game three our first year here. And the first half, if anybody was down there, it was like a hundred degrees, miserable. We didn’t play super great in the first half but in the second half of that game I saw our team actually fight. And I thought that piece was a turning point in terms of, you know what, we can start to push this in a positive way. I think we came home, we won a game, and then all of a sudden you saw at least our kids starting to say, you know what, maybe we can have some success here. We believe this thing can turn in a positive way. We learned some valuable lessons that first year of why did we not have success in those games that were started to become very close games but we would always lose them at the end. I’ve said this always that we really earned the right to lose those games cause those times that we should have been working on winning football games, we were worrying about tying your shoes the right way, wearing the right clothes to practice, going to class, starting behind the line, finishing through the line. Those things were missing and that’s just honest, that’s not a knock on anything. That was missing. So one of the things that I think we saw a year ago was that we made a really positive movement in a very positive direction.
I thought what the Oklahoma game did is at some point, you have to have a moment, an aha moment. Like, yes, this can get done. And I think that gave us at least the ability to say, all this work, the time, the effort, what we’re talking about, what we’re doing, it is validated. Now how do we move and continue to push ourselves forward. So I think the next step for us is kind of like I said, number one, the consistency piece of it. Something that we really haven’t had a great deal of in this program. And then number two, is the player-led leadership. The 3-9 teams, the coaches are leading 90 percent of the time, the players are leading 10 percent of the time. 6-6 teams it’s 50-50. 8-5 it’s 70-30. But when you become an elite level football program, 90 percent of the time it’s the players leading and 10 percent of the time the coaches are leading. All these coaches across the country think we have all the answers and the kids want to hear us, but really they don’t. They want to hear each other, lead them and talk to them and buy into it. I think that’s that culture shift that you’re always trying to get it to. Certainly I hope we’re trending in a positive direction that way.
Well I haven’t seen you for a while so I know there’ll be a lot of good questions. But with that said, four days in, not a lot left to tell you from this team. I really like this team. Our kids have had a really good summer. Really proud of what they’ve done. We’ve had very efficient practices so far. But we still haven’t had a full padded practice so to be able to give you in-depth anything probably would be really unfair today. But with that said, I’ll give you what I’ve got.
On changes in program from first ISU media day to third:
What a cliché answer, everybody probably knows what I am going to say. It’s gotta be the culture. To where we are today comparable to where we were three years ago, just in terms of player driven leadership. The intent that we go day to day with is drastically different than where we were year one. That is so truly a credit to our kids and their investment in each other; their investment in getting better. Like I said, we had a great summer, we’ve got a great strength coach, we’ve got great assistant coaches. But one thing that’s really fun right now is you look at this roster: we’ve got great leadership on our football team. Each position group, their best players are our best leaders and that’s really powerful right now. It’s something that I think certainly is guiding our football program in a very positive way.
On Kyle Kempt’s development coming into this season:
I’ll be honest with you, I think maybe the light really came on for me is practice one this fall camp. It was really fun to watch Kyle this summer. You saw a confident young man. And I think any time, our sport is such a, repetition is the mother of all learning, right? And then you get the repetition in the environment of football and playing the game where it really matters, we’re keeping score. And Kyle got that last year. I think one thing that allowed him to do was say, how do I evaluate what I did well and what I didn’t do well and then how do I drive myself forward? What was really fun for me even just watching these early practices is, it’s almost like, wow who is this kid, in terms of he’s got really confident, he understands the system, he’s another year in, he’s made those mistakes so he’s not making those same mistakes anymore. He just looks like a really polished football player and, again, where’s that come from? Number one, his investment into his body this off-season. Number two, certainly getting those quality reps last year, of playing in that environment. Especially, any position, but really at that quarterback position. That’s a huge advantage and he certainly got that and he’s taken advantage of it.
On being able to run the ball in the fourth quarter:
Obviously that’s been a shortcoming here for two years. The bowl game was the only time that we had the ability to end a game where we were able offensively to put an end to it. I think one of the things when you look at our past, that’s something that has been critical to our success. Helping that defense out and understanding clock management and game management. And one of the things offensively that you can help your team out is certainly keeping the ball inbounds, understanding the ability to keep the clock running, and have a knowledge of the game. And that offensive line’s got to take pride in that. Something that I think we’ve all said and you’ve heard me say since January, our team will make great movement if our offensive line can take a step forward. That’s a huge challenge for this year’s football team. It’s a huge challenge for the young men that play that position and I think everybody knows that. So I think that group made really good headway this summer but again, until the lights come on and you put the ball down and play, we’re not going to really find out where that group really is. But I think trending in a positive direction.
On projected starting center Julian Good-Jones:
Athleticism’s the first thing when you talk about Julian Good-Jones. He’s certainly got very high-end athleticism, which has certainly allowed him to have position flexibility amongst the offensive line. Julian’s played center, Julian can play either guard spot, he can play either tackle spot. One nice thing for us is we’re trying to kind of figure who are the five best lineman and putting everybody in position to be successful, he gives us that ability to do it. He’s not just a guy that can play one spot. So I think that athletic ability that he possesses has allowed him to play. I think his next step now is do you truly own your craft and take your game to a level that we all think he’s got the ability to go. He’s certainly a very athletic and talented young man.
On position battle at Z receiver between Matt Eaton & Landen Akers:
Let me talk Matt Eaton before I talk Landen Akers just because A, Matt’s a senior and B, if you said Coach, four days, the guy that’s stuck out the most to you, that had a phenomenal off season, it’s Matt Eaton. I’m really proud of Matt. You know Matt has never had the ability to have a healthy spring and really a healthy fall camp. Matt was kind of coming back from some injuries his first spring here so in the summer he was never full go. He got to camp, still kind of battling through it, and I think you saw the emergence of Matt midway through the season – that Texas Tech game and on through there. Really became a productive asset to us in that receiver group. One of the things that’s been really fun is to watch Matt’s growth.
Landen kind of had the same movement this spring as some of our really good young guys have. Landen last year earned the right to get some of those kickoff return reps and get some game experience, which I think was really big. Football is really important to Landen Akers and he has something that we can’t coach and that’s high-end speed. One of the things that’s been really fun to watch with him is kind of gain that confidence in playing the receiver position and now, not just be a fast guy, but actually be a fast guy that is a really good wide receiver. So I think those two are different. They’re different assets. They’re guys that can give us two different things but both guys that I think you’ll see are very valuable to what we need to do in the receiving game.
On the win at Oklahoma validating process and culture:
I think number one, I saw our football team grow year one. I’ve always said this, the TCU game we played at, I don’t know if that was game three or four, I don’t know when that was, maybe game three our first year here. And the first half, if anybody was down there, it was like a hundred degrees, miserable. We didn’t play super great in the first half but in the second half of that game I saw our team actually fight. And I thought that piece was a turning point in terms of, you know what, we can start to push this in a positive way. I think we came home, we won a game, and then all of a sudden you saw at least our kids starting to say, you know what, maybe we can have some success here. We believe this thing can turn in a positive way. We learned some valuable lessons that first year of why did we not have success in those games that were started to become very close games but we would always lose them at the end. I’ve said this always that we really earned the right to lose those games cause those times that we should have been working on winning football games, we were worrying about tying your shoes the right way, wearing the right clothes to practice, going to class, starting behind the line, finishing through the line. Those things were missing and that’s just honest, that’s not a knock on anything. That was missing. So one of the things that I think we saw a year ago was that we made a really positive movement in a very positive direction.
I thought what the Oklahoma game did is at some point, you have to have a moment, an aha moment. Like, yes, this can get done. And I think that gave us at least the ability to say, all this work, the time, the effort, what we’re talking about, what we’re doing, it is validated. Now how do we move and continue to push ourselves forward. So I think the next step for us is kind of like I said, number one, the consistency piece of it. Something that we really haven’t had a great deal of in this program. And then number two, is the player-led leadership. The 3-9 teams, the coaches are leading 90 percent of the time, the players are leading 10 percent of the time. 6-6 teams it’s 50-50. 8-5 it’s 70-30. But when you become an elite level football program, 90 percent of the time it’s the players leading and 10 percent of the time the coaches are leading. All these coaches across the country think we have all the answers and the kids want to hear us, but really they don’t. They want to hear each other, lead them and talk to them and buy into it. I think that’s that culture shift that you’re always trying to get it to. Certainly I hope we’re trending in a positive direction that way.
