ATHENS-----

Opening statement...
“I guess spring ball is around the corner, and I’m excited about it. If you asked me a week ago I’m not sure I could have said that, just trying to get a little bit of a rest or catch your breath. After watching our guys in the off-season and mat drill program, I’m really encouraged by everybody’s attitude and effort. I’m getting a lot of good vibrations on our leadership. I think we are ready to move into the next phase which is spring football.”

On the shortness of the off-season...
“It came around pretty quick. I don’t know if there truly is a true off-season. One good thing about this job is it does break up into different phases. Right now we’re into matt drills. We start spring drills, and we have recruiting and camps, and a little bit of vacation. Then we start up with our two-a-days then the season rolls around, then recruiting and signing day. There are about five or six different phases that I think helps keep our sanity. If we had to go at the pace we do in the season all the time, I’m sure that we would be a lot more burnout than you read about right now. What is exciting about the job is every year there is a new group of guys. It’s a new team. I know maybe 70 percent of the team is back, but it has a whole new personality. It has new leadership component, and it makes it fun, makes it exciting.”

On the team’s question marks entering spring practice...
“The biggest question we have is going to be our kicker. I don’t know how much we are going to find out in the spring. That is something that is probably going to have to wait until the fall. There are a lot of battles going on, a lot of battles for starting positions, a lot of battles for playing time. I’m most concerned number one that we don’t forget our fundaments. It’s the time of the year where you slow down and teach everyone how to block and tackle safely. It’s a time to compete for jobs; time to compete offense versus defense. As far as any particular positions, we don’t have that many guys that we are replacing as starters. I guess defensive end will be interesting to see who we place. You know Marcus Howard out of there. You know we got a safety position out there up for grabs or at least all positions are up for grabs really. But as far as replacing senior starters, who is going to be our center? That is an important decision. Who is going to play right tackle? That’s another position that is out there. The rest of the guys are kind of battling for that playing time; Battling to prove to the coaching staff that they deserve to play. I thought last year we did a great job of substituting, playing a lot of guys, which kept us healthy and kept us fresh down the stretch. A lot of players played real strong down the stretch, and unless we have a lot of injuries I think we will have that same luxury and that is exciting.”


On the vacancy at right tackle...
“Well right now Kiante (Tripp) is doing everything that you ask of him; Busting his tail in the weight room, busting his tail in the matt drill program, and he has been really stellar in both of those areas up to this point. Now he’s just got to stick his nose on somebody and wear people out. You know we want him to lock on, work on his feet and finish his block. Be able to pass protect the way he’s capable of, and do it on a consistent basis. There is going to be some competition out there no doubt, but I really like what Kiante has done up to this point.”

On the prospect of being ranked preseason #1...
“Well what we have decided to do is focus on the moment. We can’t control where we are voted preseason. We can’t control a whole lot of things. We can only control how hard we work in any given matt drill, in any given weight lifting session, and spring practice. I think every player knows with the schedule we have year in and year out, and this season’s schedule seems a little more daunting than most seasons, that its going to take an awful lot of work and preparation just to get to the point where we feel like we’re even in a position to be able to compete at that level. So we’re really trying to break it down to one day, one play, one drill, one moment that we can control. I think that its’ just much more healthy to think that way in terms of handling it in terms of little pieces instead of chewing an entire season up.”