Official Site of the Southeastern Conference

COACH TOMMY TUBERVILLE

COACH TUBERVILLE: Good morning. Ready to get started. It's that time of year. We're excited. I was really excited till I got up this morning, you guys picked us to win the West. Y'all are never right. That puts me in a bind. I don't know what I'm going to tell my team.

Actually we'll use this. It's probably good for us. You know me. You've heard me several times. I'm not big on predictions. But we need something to get us going.

Last year we had a good football team. The one thing that we didn't do is we didn't come out of the blocks. We lost two of the first three games, and both of 'em were at home. We lost four games total, and three of those games were on the last play of the game. We need to have a sense of urgency, a lot more than we did last year. And so I think this will be a point that we can use with our team, our coaches, and we can use it as a rallying point that a lot of people are counting on us and picked us in certain situations.

So I'm looking for consistency. That's gonna be the theme of what we need this year. And I think that our players will understand it a lot better by being picked number one in the West.

We have a chance to have a good football team. We've been working for this team for a while. Unusual that we don't have a starting quarterback, so to speak, in terms of knowing who it's gonna be. If it was today, it would be Cody burns. We have Chris Todd that went through spring practice about 80%. He really wasn't a hundred percent in terms of injuries. He's ready to go now. I think we're going to have a lot of competition going into two a days.

After about 10, 12 days, we will pick a starter. We will have somebody as our starting quarterback. I'm a true believer that your quarterback is the leader of your football team in terms of your locker room, your sideline, not just for your offense, but for your defense and your kicking game. We will have a true starter.

That doesn't mean we won't play several more quarterbacks because in this offense that we've gone to, which is totally different, you have to have more than one quarterback. But I want one quarterback as our starter, the guy that knows he's gonna get the reps with the number one team and the guy that all of us can look up to as the guy that, hey, if we need a touchdown in the end, he's the guy we're gonna count on getting it done.

Two new coordinators, not different for me. I've gone through several over the years. Defensively, Paul Rhodes, a guy I tried to hire back seven or eight years ago from Pittsburgh, a great teacher. A lot of enthusiasm. Knows his defense. We won't make a lot of changes. I'm gonna let him use his imagination in terms of what he thinks will help this football team with the talent that we have.

But we still live on speed, putting as many people out there that can run as possible. I look at the defense from inside out, starting with the defensive line. You have to be good on the defensive line in this conference to have an opportunity to get to Atlanta. If you're weak or short in that area, you have no chance.

We lost some good ones. We lost Quentin Groves, we lost Josh Thompson, who was our leading tackler at nose guard position, and we lost Pat Sims who went in the draft early. I like who's coming back, Sen'Derrick Marks, Antonio Coleman. We have some good young players to go along with them.

After watching spring practice, it could be one of our better defensive lines, if we stay healthy as everybody will sit up here and tell you.

But I like that. I like our linebackers. Tray Blackmon, I think, is finally settling down into a position. He was picked by a lot of people across the country as the top linebacker coming out of high school football. He's had some problems, but I like his mentality and where he's working from.

But defense is gonna be solid.

Offensively, new, different, totally different for me, for Auburn, even for the SEC. Everybody says, Well, some teams run this. Not like we run it. It's no huddle, fast paced, fast tempo, involve your quarterback in running the football, spread the field, use a lot of wide receivers. You know, really it's a change for us.

Last year we averaged 56 plays a game in the regular season. In the Bowl game we ran 93. If we can continue that, I think we can have some success. We will still run the football. You got to be able to run it to win. You got to be able to control it. We do have two good runningbacks in Ben Tate and Brad Lester. But your quarterback now is also considered a runningback. That's the reason, as we said earlier, we'll probably use several, but only have one starter.

It will be fun to watch. Is it a gamble? Really not. You know, there's only so many running plays you can run. But it is a change.

The one thing I do like is our players in college football, all of us, we know they come to practice every day. It's hard. It's physical. They get tired. And sometimes they get bored because of the things that you do.

This offense puts a smile on their face. They have fun running it. It's always something different, and I think it gives you the opportunity to use more than one player. You can spread it around, use the talent you have on your team. Plus, it's helped us recruiting.

I've never had 20 commitments in my life, even when I was at the University of Miami. This year we have 20 commitments, and a lot of it's due to the offense we've gone to and the ability to recruit a lot more skilled players.

But we're looking to the season. I think it's gonna be a challenge for us. The schedule's tough, as all of them are in this conference. We have one AD game in West Virginia. I call that an AD game, so we're gonna play West Virginia. They have a good football team.

It's going to be good for our conference, good for us. I've been to Morgantown, tough place to play, very good football team. And Alabama, product at quarterback in Pat White, so it will be a great challenge for us and we're looking forward to the trip.

Questions.

Q. Could you just kind of walk through your decision process on going to the spread and how difficult it was, what the tipping points might have been that you decided this was the right path.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, you know, the head coach is a guy that's got to make decisions on what you think's best for your team. Over the years we've had a good football team. You know, just playing defense, solid kicking game, saying we're gonna line up and run the football at you. It's hard in this league to consistently pound and pound the ball. People were ganging up on us. Eight, nine, 10 people in the box.

You know, if we wanted to consistently say, okay, we're gonna stay with winning eight, nine games, sometimes maybe win 10, I think we could have stayed with the two back offense. I also looked at recruiting. I've looked at the change in football. I've looked at quarterbacks. You know, what is available. I think that this offense gives you an opportunity for a lot of variables to improve on. And recruiting being one, I think a plan. You know, Tony Franklin, I've watched over the years, even for college coaches, hiring coordinators, sometimes you hire a guy that, you know, has been in several schemes, he knows several things, you know, he's possibly better at one than the other. Tony Franklin is a one direction guy. He understands this offense. He's worked with it. He's tweaked it. He knows how to practice it. He knows how to recruit for it. He knows how to game plan for it.

It's gonna be different going into the SEC 'cause we're gonna play teams that can really play defense. That's going to be a challenge for us. I think it's also going fob a challenge for the defenses to get ready for us in a short period of time.

I was looking for a way to help this football team score a few more points on the average, help the defense. You know, we're gonna be strong on defense. The one thing, of course, again, getting back to we are gonna run it. We're still going to be physical. But can we hold up doing this week in and week out? That's gonna be the thing that we've got to just set back and see if it's gonna work. It's not been tried in this league. Nobody else has ever run it like we're gonna run it. It's gonna be a different scenario each week for us to see, you know, if we can keep it to the same level and be successful running it.

Q. Tony Franklin had success running that offense against Georgia, Florida last year. That play a role 92 targeting him? How different this is offense from what Urban Meyer does at Florida?

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, you know, Tony, at Troy, they played Georgia. They played some teams in our league. It's a little bit different when you're a conference team playing a conference team. The different mentality. When we play Georgia, we're gonna get a different mentality of them getting ready knowing it's a conference game.

But, again, you really can't worry about who you're playing, whether it's USC or Georgia or Texas or West Virginia. You have to worry about yourselves when it comes to offense or defense. You got to prepare your team and be able to use the players that you have. And that's one thing I like about this offense. You know, one week one guy's gonna be the star or get the ball more than other players. The next week we can use another guy. It's not going to be week in, week out of, hey, it's just got to be the tailback. I like the diversity of this offense. I've watched it over the years.

Dennis Erickson brought a little bit of this to us in 1989 at Miami in terms of spread offense. First time I'd seen it. One back in the backfield, a lot of shotgun, throwing the ball down the field. But you know, we won two National Championships running. A little bit different because the tempo was not the same, but we did run from a tailback position.

I think that's the difference in us and Florida. Florida's not really a tailback team. They're more of a quarterback/tailback team.

Tebow is a guy that one game, as a matter of fact, the game before we played them last year, he ran it 28 times against Ole Miss, if I'm not mistaken. Could have been a few less. That's a lot of times.

And, you know, we want the ball in the tailback's hands. But we're gonna spread the field. We're gonna run the ball from the tailback position. Our quarterback will be called on, you know, half a dozen times a game, maybe a few more.

But we want to put pressure on the outside. We want to make get 9, 10 out of the box and give our linemen and runningbacks maybe a few more running lanes and then be able to get the ball down the field a little bit better and have a few more big plays on offense.

Last year I can count on one hand how many big plays we had probably over 15, 20 yards. And, you know, it's tough when you're trying to win in this league consistently, you know, playing defense, just trying to play smash mouth. We're still gonna do that, but hopefully this offense is going to help us be able to score from a long distance a little bit more often.

Q. You had a 13 0 season. There's been five national titles won by coaches in the league. Talk about coaching in this league, what it's like, the competition level.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, players win games. But in this league, obviously you see coaches coming in that have great pedigrees. They've been pro coaches. They know how to coach.

The thing that I've noticed is coaches trying to get in this league from other conferences that want to coach in the SEC. I think that's a credit to this conference and the interest that the fans have. Week in and week out, you go to a game, the stands are packed. Everybody's into it. The competition is fierce. I think that's the reason the coaching is getting better and better.

Again, 14 years in this league, it continues to improve. There's been a lot of guys go in and out. But, again, you see a lot of coaches that want to come from other conferences or from the pro level to coach in this league because of the interest, of what you do, what our fans do. Everybody likes to be part of something that people enjoy doing.

And, of course, college football's huge. But it's even more than that down here in this part of the world.

Q. I was wondering if you could revisit your reasoning in hiring Bobby Petrino several years ago and your thoughts on him joining the league in your division.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, I have a list of coaches that I look at and watch over the years. And Bobby was on my list very highly as a guy that I felt like could run an offense. It's not easy to hire coordinators. It's a lot easier for me to hire a defensive guy because I'm a defensive oriented coach.

You take an offensive coach and it's harder for them to hire a defensive guy. They don't know as much about it.

So for me to hire an offensive guy, I've got to lean on my other assistants, but I have a list of guys that I watch. You know, I look at how they coach.

I normally do not hire a guy that one of my coaches has not worked with or been around in recruiting, which is number one, whether you're a coordinator or a position coach. The number one thing to work on our staff is you have to be a relentless recruiter because, again, you can X and O all you want. If you don't have the players, it doesn't make a lot of difference.

I looked at Bobby, and Bobby's been around. He's a coach's son, been around football all of his life, good football coach, knows what he's doing. He's going to have some growing pains obviously at a new position there, in a different league. It will be one of those situations where he'll have to grow slowly.

Q. How has Lee Ziemba progressed? What are some of the things you wanted him to really work on in the summer? What have you heard about his size and different things like that?

COACH TUBERVILLE: I've had a few natural offensive linemen in my career. I've got, I don't know, a dozen or so playing in the NFL right now that Hugh Nall has coached.

Marcus McNeill, the first ever two time Pro Bowler, freshman and sophomore season, NFL, great football player for the San Diego Chargers. This guy can play.

Lee Ziemba is as natural an athlete; big, strong, smart, fast, probably could play defense. Started every game for us as a true freshman. He'll start every game as long as he's at Auburn because of his tenacity. You know, he has the mentality of a defensive player playing offense.

We've moved him from right offensive tackle to left offensive tackle. He's enjoyed that move. He's a guy you can count on every day of giving all he's got in practice. He loves to practice. And that's very unusual for an offensive lineman because those guys never touch the ball. You know, they get rushed on, beat on by the defense.

But he's the perfect offensive lineman when you go out in terms of looking at a recruit and then knowing, you know, the potential that he has. He's gonna be a great one.

He's gotten better since he's gotten with us. He's overcome, you know, some things, again, our coaching him of moving him back and forth. But now he's in a position of, I think, having a chance to be as good as what we've ever had at Auburn.

Q. Staying with the offensive line. You got all your guys back there. In this offense, what are you asking them to do different? Pretty easy to see what the rest of them are doing different.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, this offense calls for a lot more athletic offensive linemen because, you know, most of the time you're gonna go from a two point stance. You're gonna pull. You're going to be playing outside. The pass protections are different. We've got more of a straight back passing protection lane other than shuffling outside.

It's a little bit different. It's not as complicated mentally for an offensive lineman. I like that. I think sometimes you can have 10 or 15 protections going into a game, and depending on the front that they have. And everybody's got to be right. Everybody's got to make the right decision.

This is a little bit simpler in terms of giving our guys a chance to be more physical. We only have, as we have in the past, even though maybe we were a two back team, we go into a ballgame with six or seven running plays. That's it.

I like that in this offense because you really don't add anything in the running game. You work on the same things every day. You might run it out of a different formation. That helps your offensive linemen be a lot more physical in terms of being able to come off the ball and creating running lanes.

The one thing about this offense is you have to have more athletic offensive linemen because of the techniques that you teach.

Q. Last year you talked a little bit in detail about the experience of coaching against your former team within the same conference, even the same division. Now there's another guy in the league that's gonna be doing that, Houston Nutt. If he were to call and get a little advice from you, pitfalls when that week rolls around, how to handle it, what kinds of things would you tell him?

COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, you have to have a game plan mentally as a coach, you know, when you've got to follow up a team that you've just coached. There's no doubt about that. You've got to be able to have your thoughts in mind, not just for yourself, but for your coaching staff.

You've got to be able to focus. If you take any focus away from your football team of what's going into that game and think it's about you, then you've got problems.

I think the best way to handle it is openly. Don't limit things that you're going to do. Don't change anything. Don't let the players see any change in yourself. Just go be yourself.

Things happen. This is a business for us. There will be a lot of talk going on that week. I've been through it several times. You just take it and understand that, you know, that's the way it is, and you work through it and then you go about it the next week.

But it's always different. And, you know, it brings back a lot of memories. Again, you can't let all that stuff get in the way of what your business is, of preparing, you know, 70, 80 guys to put on a bus or a plane and go play in a very tough environment, which is gonna be even tougher because of the situation.

Q. Even years later, do you have any lingering feelings about the whole Petrino Louisville deal involving you and Auburn? At the time did you ever blame him? What are your thoughts on that?

COACH TUBERVILLE: No. This is a business. I understand that. We all get caught up in certain scenarios. That's just part of it.

Bobby and I have talked many times since then. Since he's been head coach there, we've talked several times at meetings. It will be a lot of good talk between fans and media. But when it comes to the football teams that really matter in terms of winning or losing, there won't be any effect. Just the scenario which I just talked about.

You don't shy away from it. You talk about it. You get it out of the way, but you let your players know it's not going to be any distraction whatsoever in terms of your concentration going into that six or seven days of preparation.

Q. You talked about how Burns and Todd are just about even after spring practice. If you could talk about each of those quarterbacks, their similarities, differences, how they might fit this new offense.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, Kodi is built more for a runner. He's not a natural thrower, never has been. He's a great athlete. Was a great basketball player.

One thing I like about Kodi, he's durable. This offense is built for a guy like him. You know, he can probably run the ball 12, 14, 15 times a game and take the beating and get back to the line of scrimmage and be able to handle that.

Chris, a little bit different. Chris is more of a thrower, can run the ball. Understands how to run this offense. You know, he was actually teaching Kodi a lot of the little things in spring practice, Kodi being with us for over a year, Chris being with us for a month. It's a different scenario. But they're good buddies. They're friends. They work well together. Both will have to be successful for us to have some success.

But it's good to have different guys. If you had two of the same thing that the strengths were the same, we'd probably be in a little bit of a bind. But having two guys with different mentalities, with different physical attributes, I think it's gonna be beneficial to this offense.

Q. Just talk about Tyronne Green, kind of his development up front as offensive lineman.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Most of the offensive linemen we've had over the years that have really turned out to be great football players, NFL, started on the defensive side of the ball.

Tyronne was a defensive lineman, as Tim Duckworth was. Several other guys, Ben Grubbs who is now in Baltimore. Tyronne started as a defensive player, stayed there for a redshirt year. After a redshirt year, through a spring, he saw the writing on the wall in terms of guys in front of him. Might be a step slow to play defense, but good enough athletic ability maybe to be a contributor on the offensive line and go farther from there.

Tyronne has got a chance to be an all conference player. Hard nosed, physical guy. Maybe the most athletic player on the offensive line. He's smart. He's fifth year senior. Will play on the next level.

Again, he just goes back to, you know, the mentality. He's got a defensive mentality playing offense, which is what we like. I think that's the best type. If you can get that changeover in terms of being able to play the technique and fundamentals, but Tyronne plays left guard for us. He's played right guard. We tried to make a center out of him at times, probably couldn't play center. He will be the leader. He and Jason Bosley will be the two leaders on our offensive line because they're the only two seniors.

Q. You talked a minute ago your assistant coaches have to be tenacious recruiters. When you're in state rivals had 10 players arrested in 18 months, does that give you an advantage on the recruiting trail? Do your coaches emphasize that's not happening here? Do you put that to use?

COACH TUBERVILLE: You know, you don't have to use it obviously. You guys are going to write about it, whether it's us or somebody else. So there's not gonna be anything left unturned in terms of information.

We don't thrive on other people's misfortunes. You gotta sell your own program. As I tell our fans and our football team, you know, if you start worrying about other people, then you're not gonna do your job.

So I've got good recruiters. You've got to sell your program. You've gotta have a basis of which your philosophy can be sold to the parents and to the recruits.

You know, we don't just talk about athletic ability. We go out and recruit character and attitude and work ethic, and if you've got those three, then athletic ability is a bonus. That's kind of been our philosophy.

We might not get those five or four star athletes, but I'll take a three star every time, if he's going to be with us four years, five years, get a degree and work hard. He's usually gonna end up being a heck of a football player.

In state, we're gonna recruit hard in state. We'll get our share. But I think the challenge for any of us, other than if you're Georgia or probably Florida or LSU, those schools have so many in state players, that they don't take many out of state.

But for states that are smaller, less populated, we got great football in this state, but when it comes down to it, you know, the share that go around is gonna be kind of tight. And you got to go out of state. You got to be able to sell it to out of state players. Our coaches have done a good job in a lot of states, been able to get good players to come in and put together a pretty good team year in and year out.

Q. I want to ask you about the offense again. You've heard a lot of people talk about different offensive philosophies being gimmicks, something that's short term. Do you see what you're doing putting you ahead of the curve, that this is sort of we know the spread's out there, or is this a relatively cyclical thing?

COACH TUBERVILLE: I think the jury's out. I think people are gonna watch us in terms of not just how we do this year, but how we do in recruiting. Can you recruit for this?

I think if you go back and look at it, it's hard to find a Matt Stafford at quarterback, a true drop back guy, because high schools are getting away from that. They're putting good athletes at quarterback where they can run the ball, make pretty good passers. They might not be great passers, but they're going to be better runners.

I think that's what we all have to look at in terms of our football teams over the years, can we go out and find those guys?

Of course, we had Brandon Cox, who was a good football player. We got Neil Caudle, who is a drop back guy, who will play in this scheme for us, but he's not a spread guy in terms of running the football.

Gino Torretta was like that, won the Heisman Trophy at Miami for us in the spread offense.

There's different quarterbacks you can use, but there's gonna be more opportunities for us to recruit a quarterback for this offense because we're able to see these guys running this same offense.

This is the offense of the future in high school football. Now, whether it makes it to this level, we'll have to wait and see. I think, again, the jury's out. Florida is running a little bit it of it. West Virginia is running it. Now Michigan is going to be running it. I think if you have some success from some of those schools, I think you're probably going to see more and more colleges that are gonna go to it, simply because of the ability to recruit, you know, some of those players that fit more in that scheme.

Q. I want to get your opinion on Raven Gray and the role he'll play this season.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Raven Gray was probably one of the best high school football players to come not just out of this state but out of the South in a long, long time. Defensive end. Enterprise. Did not make his grades, went to a junior college. Really playing well there, middle of the season last year. We knew he was coming back to Auburn, signing with us, coming back in January, and tears his knee up in a game.

So he's been on rehab. He's exactly what you're looking for in a defensive end. He's huge. He can run. He's got defensive mentality. But he's not been through a spring practice. Jury's out on what he can do for us in two a days. The doctors have cleared him. He's been running with our team all summer. He's ready to go. He hasn't hit anybody in eight months.

Hasn't been on this level in terms of speed, endurance, you know, getting hit, everybody can play. So I like the front end. I like what he's made of and his ability and his upside. But now, you know, we got to see what's gonna happen. But I think he'll help us. How much he's gonna play just depends on, you know, his knee, what he can do all the way through two a days going into the season.

Q. Talk about your special teams, particularly the kickers. Is Wes healthy? And your punters, do you see more consistency in those guys?

COACH TUBERVILLE: You know, we started out the season last year with both kickers graduating and two freshmen. I was scared to death. Going into the end of the season, both of them were leading the conference in either field goals, Wesley Byrum, and then punting in Ryan Shoemaker. Did not end up on top, but had real good years, considering they were freshmen.

I think that both have an opportunity, you know, to be good this year. The good thing about our football team is we've got some walk on guys that have worked very hard that are going to challenge both of these young men.

Wesley has had some problems, leg problems, injury problems, as all kickers do because of the techniques that they use. But he's got a young man behind him that's gonna be interesting to watch and see how it goes.

Ryan Shoemaker, coming out of spring practice, he and Clinton Durst were neck and neck in terms of punting average, hang time, distance, all those things. So we're gonna have some competition in two a days. Again, that's big for college football.

Sometimes the kicking game doesn't get quite as much lip service in terms of information. But at Auburn, you know, we spend a third of the time, sometimes more than that, practicing the kicking game because it's been huge for us in the past.

Q. With the number of coaches in the league who have coached at two schools now in the league, up to four, all you guys are playing your old school every year, how does that maybe add to the intrigue or interest level? What does that say about the league that everybody seems to want to hire an SEC guy, raid another school?

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, again, that's the way it goes. You know, I think there's great competition in coaching. There's a lot of people who want to come in this league to coach from other conferences. There's some coaches, including myself, that have moved around in this conference.

But it's just a little bit more intrigue when it comes down to it. The players are the ones that play the games. I think coaches, we get a lot of ink in this league because sometimes you guys are looking for something to talk about. But it makes it interesting.

You know, we compete against each other very hard one time a year, and then when it comes to December and January, we recruit against each other very hard in recruiting. Then after that, you know, you just kind of worry about your own team.

Q. Do you think being picked in the West with no proven quarterbacks and the new coordinators has more to do with the potential people see in this offense or is it just because you guys are better than LSU in terms of quarterback question marks?

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, I think it's because LSU doesn't have a proven quarterback either. I think if they had a quarterback coming back, I don't think there's any doubt, with the type of players they're coming back with, with coming off of a national championship year, it would have been hard not to pick them.

But, again, it's all predictions. I mean, there's no way you can even come close to saying, you know, even pick the top six teams in our league. There's going to be a lot of competition of all the teams just in the western side.

It will be fun to watch. It's gonna be something to talk about. Again, the pressure will be on us. I'm going to use it, try to use it to our advantage with our football team. Hopefully it will get us cranked up and playing a lot better a lot earlier than we did last year.

Q. You mentioned that you had never before had 20 commitments at this time of the year. Would you be in favor of an early signing period if you could get some of those guys signed early? If so, how early would you like to see it?

COACH TUBERVILLE: I think it would be great for college football and the coaches and budgets, everybody involved, if we did it somewhere around the 1st of December.

It's not gonna happen. There's too many people against it. I've talked to too many of my buddies across the country in other conferences that just don't think that it would right for their school or their league.

You know, that's a reason it's hard to get anything changed, right or wrong, in college football.

But, you know, there's no really reason to change anything unless it's the best for, you know, everybody. So, you know, it's good to talk about it. I've been in a lot of meetings about it. I would like personally to see it. But, you know, it's a moot point. It's not going to happen. There's way too many people that think it wouldn't be an advantage for them. Everybody's got their own opinion. You know, we got a good system, so we'll just stick with it.

Q. You hear a lot of coaches talk about getting to the next level. In your mind, what are two or three elements that gets a program to the next level and kind of keeps it there?

COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah. Well, we've been pretty consistent. We've won 50 games in the last five years. Again, we've been one or two plays away from getting to Atlanta. That's what we all want to do, then have a chance to win there.

I think we've got to score more points on offense. I mean, there's no doubt about it. We've got to average scoring, get into the 20s somewhere, mid 20s, in every game. If we can do that, you know, we can help our defense much more.

I think that if you go back and look at us defensively, to have a championship football team, you can't give up big plays in a game. The games that we lost last year, we gave up too many 15 20 yard runs. Georgia game, we gave up a 60, 70 yard run. LSU game, last play of the game, 35 yard pass.

I mean, in the past, we have not given up big plays on defense. And that's the reason I like Paul Rhodes is because he's a fundamental guy. We've gone back to technique, fundamental, gone back to basics. We're still going to be a pressure defense with a lot of speed on the field, but we've got to get away from that playing good, playing good, playing good and giving up the big play.

You can't do that and get to Atlanta. Now, you can win games, but for us, you know, we're to the point now where we got to break that barrier and get to Atlanta a little bit more often than what we've got in the last few years.

Q. Your new spread offense sounds pretty exciting for fans. Have you caught any flack from anybody since Auburn is traditionally one of the best schools in the country for runningbacks?

COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah. You know, we've got five or six runningbacks in the NFL. But, you know, it's not going to hurt us because we're still going to run the ball. But we've got to prove that.

When we go into games next year, if we throw it 60, 70 times a game, people can see that. All you got to do is look and it's black and white. But we are going to run the football more than we're going to throw it.

The thing about Tony Franklin and I, we sat down before I hired him. And he understands that. You've gotta be on the same wavelength. I'm not going to bring somebody in that's just gonna be a stat guy. I'm not a stat guy. I don't care how many yards we give up on defense or how many yards we pass for, how many we rush for. I look at the scoreboard at the end of the game.

I look for coaches on the same scenario. There's a lot of people that don't do that. I mean, they like to throw for 500 yards or whatever. You know, win, that's bottom line. And Tony Franklin is a win guy. He wants to do whatever.

There might be some games that we go into and find out, hey, you know, something's working in the passing game, and we might throw it 50 times. But our game plan is to go into the season, use our runningbacks, use our offensive line, you know, move the ball down the field. When people start creeping up, you know, get the ball deeper down the field and make big plays. I think this offense can do that.

Q. The NFL has a mandatory injury report that may or may not work, but it's about gambling. You probably saw where the ACC has sort of half heartedly adopted a similar thing that they're not really adhering to. The coaches aren't required to do it, but some of them wanted to. How would you feel or would it work to have kind of a mandatory injury report policy for coaches?

COACH TUBERVILLE: I hadn't seen that. I really hadn't thought bit. The first thing that would come to mind is, you know, there's an obligation we have to our players, number one, about injuries.

I can understand in terms of who is gonna play, who's not gonna play.

It usually comes out in the wash. We have open practices early. We close 'em after the first 20, 30 minutes. I can see all the guys out there counting, looking at numbers, looking at who's running around. So it's pretty hard for us it would be hard for us to hide somebody in terms of an injury. And there's really no reason to do that. You know, somebody might not be full speed that you might not bring up or whatever.

I'd have to think about the injury thing. I know our team doctor and our trainers probably wouldn't be too fired up about it because there is a privacy law out there that you'd probably have to overcome. Most of you know me pretty good. We're gonna pretty much tell it like it is.

But, again, when it comes to the betterment of the players, now, that's a different story. And, you know, we'll do everything in the world to protect them in terms of what should be or what shouldn't be said.

THE MODERATOR: Coach Tuberville, thank you.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Thank you.

Auburn Center Jason Bosley

On the transition and new pace of the offense:
"I can see a big difference. It is fast pace now, which is a complete 180 degree turn around. We use to run them down and now it is wear them out. It is nice to focus on the tempo pick-up."

On last year's freshman offensive linemen:
"I'm really excited to see them play. Last year we had three true freshmen that did a great job. They are a big deal. We are very close and have formed a great bond. These young guys re-energize everyone, they're hungry."

On the shotgun:
"I'm more comfortable with it now. It has been a big adjustment and there have been some bumps in the road, but I've figured it out."

On his favorite block:
"Well, the Cockroach is where you cut somebody, Pancakes are great because you just whoop them, and the Rodeo is where you lock down on pass protection. I like the Cockroach the best because they don't see it coming, it's fun."

On Auburn's weakness:
"Everyone is coming back, we do have a new quarterback, but I don't see any drop-off there at all. I don't feel a drop-off and can't point out a weakness."

On the West:
"They are pretty loaded. Mississippi State is coming back great. There coach does an incredible job. They keep getting better, always play hard, and have a lot of talent. Alabama is good; their coach does a great job. We have the Iron Bowl, which is always a close game."

Auburn DE Sen'Derrick Marks

On the new coordinator:
"It is a lot different than last year and there is a lot of intensity. There is more coaching on the field. He will stop practice and come out to field and coach. There is more relaxing time too, but when it is time to play, we do it."

On playing basketball in Mobile, Ala.:
"I never knew I was going to play football in high school, I just wanted to play basketball. Coach talked me into reality and made me play football. Coach Tuberville (Tommy) walked into my H.S. gym right after the 13-0 season, he was a celebrity. He offered me a scholarship, and here I am."

On the new offense:
"They are crazy. I can't wait to watch it during the game. There is so much more momentum that the team and fans will bring."

On Bo Harris:
"He called me yesterday and told me he was transferring. There will be a void, he is a big loss, but we will overcome it."

KENTUCKY WILDCATS

COACH RICH BROOKS

COACH BROOKS: Good morning. Pleasure to be back here again. I think that we had a very interesting year last year. We were on the verge of doing some great things. Didn't quite finish the season the way that I would have liked to.

But I think we became a viable team in the SEC East. I believe we'll be a viable team again this year.

Defensively we should be the best defensive team that I've had at Kentucky. Our defensive front is outstanding, our secondary, our linebackers. We have depth, competition and experience.

Offensively we lose a lot of very, very productive players that are not only on the SEC charts, but obviously on the Kentucky charts of offensive production.

But I feel very good about all of the positions returning on offense, the people that have an opportunity to replace them. I think that we're gonna be a very good offensive football team. We have talent at runningback. I think it will be, again, the best offensive line. The same statement I made last year, I'll say it again this year. This will be the best offensive line we've had since I've been at Kentucky. We have four talented runningbacks. Quarterback is yet to be resolved between Hartline and Pulley.

The receiving position, other than Dicky Lyons, who has had two great years back to back, is still up in the air. I would say the receiving position is the biggest question going into the season as far as who's gonna be second, who's gonna be third, who's gonna be fourth. It's possible freshmen could play a role in that pecking order, if you will.

I'll just open it up to any questions.

Q. There's five coaches in the league that have won national titles. Some have won Bowl games. Talk about what it's like coaching in this league, the level of competition.

COACH BROOKS: Well, I think it goes without saying that the coaching talent in this league is unbelievably high. It's a great league from X and O standpoint, coaching expertise. Nobody in the country can even come close to saying they have five coaches in their league that have won national championships.

It is a league of great talent. Defensive speed is outstanding in this league. And just day to day, week to week great league.

We were one of the teams that everybody used to think they could put an automatic W up next to as they went into the season. It's not that way any more. The depth, the quality of teams in this league from top to bottom is as strong as any league I've ever been in.

I think it pretty much has proven true over the last two years for sure that any team can beat any team in this league.

Q. That doesn't include the NFL, does it?

COACH BROOKS: It does include the NFL. You know, other than the NFL, there's no better football league in the world, in the country, because we're pretty much the only ones that play it now that they've disbanded NFL Europe. But it's just an unbelievable league. It's a meat grinder every week.

Q. You talked about the runningbacks, the four you have. Can you comment on Tony Dixon, his health. He's obviously battled some injuries.

COACH BROOKS: Tony is our most experienced back. He's struggled with injuries. He's never had a healthy season. He's a play maker. I think that he goes in to fall camp as the number one guy. We have Alfonso Smith, who also has had injury problems. A young freshman by the name of Derrick Locke who played and had a major role on our team last year. And Moncell Allen, who is the most physical back at the tailback spot at about 225, 230.

So I think the competition is going to be great. What we need to find out is whether Tony can be a bell cow, whether he can be the guy that can carry the heavy load, or whether it will be runningback by committee, if you will.

Right now I would lean, if I had to guess, I would guess that it might be a little bit more by committee because the top three producers have had some injury problems. They're not the biggest guys in the world. And this is a very physical, tough league. So for a smaller back, if you will, to survive without injury in this league is very difficult.

Q. I wanted to get your thoughts on three of your defensive freshmen: Antwane Glenn, Antonio Thomas, and Cartier Rice.

COACH BROOKS: Well, I think Antwane Glenn and Antonio Thomas are redshirt freshman. Cartier Rice comes in as a true freshman. Antwane had shoulder surgery at the completion of spring practice, is not fully back to complete strength yet. He will participate in two a days as we start fall camp, but it will probably be limited. We need to be a little careful and make sure that he gets his full strength back.

I think that both he and Antonio have a chance to be contributors this year. Cartier Rice comes in in a position where we have some players at corner, but I think he is a guy that we'll look very hard at the first couple of weeks to determine whether he has a role in the nickel or dime package, and, you know, decide whether he'll play this year or redshirt.

I think all three of those guys have an opportunity to help us move forward.

Q. You had talked about the strength of the SEC just a few minutes ago. I was wondering, the balance of power in conferences, do you think it's a cyclical thing where one league's on top for a few years, and now the SEC is having its moment here, or is there something about the quality of football in this area of the country that could allow the league to stay on top for quite a while?

COACH BROOKS: Well, I think it is a little cyclical, if you will. Sometimes, you know, I know the PAC 10 has had years when they've had five or six teams win Bowl games at the end of the season. The Big 10 has been strong and done the same thing. The Big East, the ACC.

But year in and year out, if you put it on a graph, I think you would see that the SEC historically year in and year out is, if not the strongest, one of the strongest conferences, period. I mean, it isn't even close. You look at starting rosters in the NFL. You look at NFL rosters totally. The SEC has more players than any other league in the NFL.

It's just a great league. I mean, it will change a little bit year to year. One team has a run of being very, very good, and they might fall off. And by "falling off," that means they're not playing for the SEC Championship or National Championship, they're just winning Bowl games or playing in Bowl games.

It's great in my mind that now we're part of that conversation. We intend to stay there.

Q. You talked about being part of the conversation. You're competitive. What is the difference now between Kentucky and, say, Georgia, Florida, which are the two top teams?

COACH BROOKS: Well, I want to tell you the difference isn't what it used to be. When I got to Kentucky, the first year we had one player that could run under 4.5. Last year we had 17. We have the first and second fastest player that I've ever hand timed in Derrick Locke and Alfonso Smith. We have more speed. We have more talent. We have players that are capable of playing at Florida and Georgia and Tennessee.

I think that we've closed the gap on the talent level, which is the biggest significant difference in Kentucky football now versus four or five years ago.

Q. You mentioned your defense. Could you elaborate on how it will be better and how integral that is to the fact that you all have closed the gap?

COACH BROOKS: Well, I think that, first of all, defense in this league is what has ended up winning the championships. You look at LSU last year. They were an outstanding defensive team. Florida the year before was an outstanding defensive football team. Yeah, were they good on offense? Yeah, they were really good, but they were great on defense.

We haven't been great on defense. We've gotten better. Two years ago we had a great year of take aways, but we gave up too many yards, too many points, too many third down conversions. Last year we gave up fewer yards, our take aways weren't quite as impressive. Our third down defense still wasn't quite as good.

But we now have what I would call quality, all SEC type defensive players. In the secondary, Trevard Lindley, Marcus McClinton. At linebacker, Micah Johnson, Braxton Kelley. In the defensive line, Jeremy Jarmon, Myron Pryor, Corey Peters; you know, Jenkins. We've got guys that belong in this league on defense. And we haven't had that at every position in the last five years.

I believe we have people lining up on 11 positions on defense that can start at a lot of schools in our league, and I'm talking about a lot of the big name schools. So I think that this now has a chance to be clearly the best defensive team that I've had.

We need that to happen this year if we want to be viable because the best teams in this league have great defenses. And we haven't been a great defense. We've been improving, getting better. But I believe that this year you're gonna see a significant step on the defensive side at the University of Kentucky.

Q. Just wanted your thoughts on your quarterback position. I'm sure it's tough to replace a guy like Andre' Woodson.

COACH BROOKS: The battle is between Mark Hartline and Curtis Pulley. They finished in a virtual tie. I thought both of them performed pretty well in the spring game. Neither of them at this point has shown the efficiency in the passing game that Andre' did. They both have strong arms. They both can throw the ball well. But I think the vertical game needs to improve by both of them, and we need to work more on that.

They're both better runners than Andre'. I think the sack total will go down because they're more athletic guys that can pull the ball down on a broken play and make something positive happen.

Curtis is faster. He runs under 4.5. He's a 4.47 guy. But Hartline is a good and willing runner and a good athlete. You know, it's gonna be an interesting competition. I feel good about both of them. And it's conceivable that both of them could see action, more so than, say, what has happened at Kentucky over the last two years, where Andre's taken virtually every snap.

Q. Could you talk about Joker's future at Kentucky, the decision to go ahead and put that in line?

COACH BROOKS: Yeah, I think I'm very, very pleased obviously this past January to have conversations with our athletic director and president, and have them agree to move forward with for a better term coach in waiting because I'm one of the elder statesmen, if you will, in the SEC. I'm a relative youngster compared to a couple of my good friends in coaching, Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden, but I am still a relatively elder statesman.

I did not want the recruiting efforts of Kentucky to be hurt by the "impending retirement," or old age rumors where there may be a change in philosophy, a change in coaching at Kentucky now that we've gotten over the recruiting process that, Why would you want to go to Kentucky because you're never gonna be in a Bowl game. We'll, well, we've been in Bowl games, and we've beaten Clemson and we've beaten Florida State the last two years.

So that part has been negated, and I didn't want recruits to think that the old man up here, you know, may not be there for the next four or five years, that there would be continuity, we did have a plan, and Joker Phillips is as qualified as anybody in the country to become a Division I head coach.

Q. I was wondering if you could reflect on your previous matchups with Bobby Petrino when he was at Louisville and what you think he adds to the conference coming in.

COACH BROOKS: Well, he's obviously got a 4 0 record on me, whooped me up the head pretty good. Had some very good teams at Louisville. He's inheriting a very good program, moving into Arkansas. Houston Nutt had done a great job there over the years.

I'm sure it's gonna be an interesting game based on the fact that we came from behind in the fourth quarter against Arkansas last year. They come into Commonwealth Stadium this year. I'm just hopeful that we can be a factor like we were and beat some of the better teams in the SEC.

Q. I was trying to get your opinion on a couple of issues: the concept of an early signing period, would you like one, and when would you like to have it? Also, the plus one, the commissioner has wanted to keep the status quo with the Bowl system. Would you like a plus one?

COACH BROOKS: I've been in favor of plus one, to answer that first. I think you can have the BCS have a vote after the BCS on who the top two teams are and have them matched up in a championship game either one or two weeks after the completion of the BCS.

And let me say this: I'm pretty outspoken on some things. For college presidents to get up and say class attendance is a problem for football players is ridiculous. Football players miss less class time than any NCAA sport, period, bottom line.

You look at all of the other sports. They're gone. They compete during the middle of the week. They travel. We leave on Fridays, usually after classes are over. If they miss anything, they're only gonna miss a Friday afternoon class. It's just a ridiculous argument to say class time is a problem.

What was the first part of the question? I got carried away on that one.

Q. Early signing period.

COACH BROOKS: I've been in favor of an early signing period. Finally some of the other coaches in our league saw that way, too. And then it went to the presidents and athletic directors at our conference meeting, and it was voted down at that time.

I have a hard time, again, understanding other sports can have early signing, and it's not a major problem. I think it's a cost saving measure. It's a clearing up matter, if you will. If somebody commits to you, sometimes those commitments are solid. Sometimes they're of convenience.

If there's an early signing period, you declare whether it's convenience or whether they're committed to you. You don't have to spend as much money monitoring the recruiting process.

The proposal I thought put forward by the SEC coaches that the signing would be the 1st of December, which means most of the high school seasons would be completed, except for some of the teams in the playoffs, state playoffs. The fact that they didn't have to have they couldn't have an official visit to sign early means one team wouldn't get an advantage of having somebody in during the season on an official visit.

Now, we all know, I mean, our summers are hectic right now because juniors, seniors to be, come to our campus all summer long with their parents, on their own. They check the colleges they're interested in. They visit the academic centers. They visit the facilities. They look at everything about the university, and they do it on their own pretty much. And we're fortunate that we're in a part of the country that has a great population base within a 10 hour drive of Lexington, Kentucky. And most of the SEC teams have the same thing.

So I'm obviously in favor of an early signing period.

Q. Do you have a timetable for how much longer you'd like to coach? What is your take on tweaking the play clock rule again and any other rules that jump out, any changes?

COACH BROOKS: Well, I've just had a four year contract extended a year last year. The reason I wanted to do it is to dispel rumors. I don't have a timetable. I'm not sure. I'm gonna be 67 in August. Health is always a concern and an issue. I'm completely healthy. I'm fine. But if I'm not a year from now, I want to have something in place. And it's in place. I'm very encouraged by that.

The clock rule, it's pretty interesting because why don't we make a change and stay with it a couple of years and see how it works out rather than having knee jerk reactions and changing it every year?

I've dealt with the 40 second rule in the NFL. That's not a problem. And now to gain a little more time back and shorten the game, I guess, which some people are totally unconcerned with, and other people are very concerned with the length of college games, now on out of bounds plays we'll wind the clock, except for the last two minutes.

You know, I mean, I don't mind. But I'd just like to leave them alone for a while so you don't have to go in and not only teach blocking and tackling and securing the ball and stripping the ball and all the football fundamentals, but every year now we've got to address new clock rules with the players. It's just kind of foolish, in my mind, that you tinker with it in a three year cycle like we have with the clock rule.

Q. With the kind of lucrative salaries that SEC coaches make, I was wondering if that changes your perception of coaching, whether that's others' perceptions or the pressure that comes with that?

COACH BROOKS: The salaries don't change my perception of coaching at all. It's a little shocking to me that I make what I make. It's even more shocking when I see what other people are making.

But it's just it's a sign of the times, I guess. Is it a little out of balance? Yeah, I think it is. Do we earn most of the money we make? I'd say, yeah, we do, because we're under pretty tight scrutiny. We're responsible for a lot of things that happen with 120 plus players probably: academics, off the field, winning and losing, filling the seats, driving the engine that provides the money for a lot of other athletes in other sports.

Is it a little crazy? Yeah, I'd say it's probably a little crazy.

Q. You've been in the NFL where teams seemed to be locked in often in sort of height, weight and speed at different positions, those parameters. How much do you bring that to the college game? How much do you follow that sort of same blueprint when you're recruiting?

COACH BROOKS: Well, I believe you know, I sit up here and talk about we finally have some SEC looking guys in our defensive front, and the speed. So I think it's very important. But I also think it's important whether a guy's a football player or not.

Obviously I don't set strict standards on height, weight and speed in my recruiting. Otherwise I wouldn't have Derrick Locke, small, diminutive size runningback that a lot of the big 8 schools were recruiting as a corner, but they didn't think he was big enough to be a runningback. Well, he came in as a freshman and did some outstanding things against Arkansas and LSU last year, ran for over 500 yards, proved to be a pretty talented runningback at the highest level in football.

We will make exceptions to height, weight and speed. But we also put into the equation that there's gonna be growth and maturity. Some of the players, like Jeremy Jarmon, for example, when he came out, he wasn't a 285 pound guy. He was more like 220. But he could run, and we thought he had good bone structure, would grow into his frame. And he has. He's become a big time player.

So I think you have to project a little bit. I suppose the higher up the food chain you are, you can rely a little more on the height, weight and speed thing. But if you lose some of those height, weight and speed five star guys, the best thing you can do is get a football player who may end up being better than a five star guy who doesn't fulfill his potential.

Q. When you see these rankings and polls out of head coaches in this league, you see your name 11th or 12th. Given what you've accomplished in the last two years, do you see that as a slight to you or more a testament to how strong this conference is in the head coaching fraternity?

COACH BROOKS: I can't say that I've never seen that, because I've seen some of those things. But I don't take anything personally. I think we have accomplished some things at Kentucky that I think are fairly significant in Kentucky football history. But in the grand scheme of things, in the SEC, it probably hasn't been that dramatic.

I would say that whoever's coaching at Florida or LSU or Alabama or Georgia or Tennessee is almost always gonna be ranked ahead of whoever's coaching at Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Whether that's justifiable or not, you know, who cares? I mean, that's just the way it is.

Q. Given the fact that you and Bobby Petrino were formal rivals for a number of years, what's your relationship like with him? What was your reaction when you first learned he was coming back? Is there any awkwardness if you ever see him around the state or at meetings or anything like that?

COACH BROOKS: No. We saw each other at the SEC Media Days. We talked, shook hands, said hello, just like we normally would. You know, one of our rivals is supposed to be Tennessee, as well. But we haven't beaten them in so long that Phillip and I have become pretty good friends. He loves the death out of me (smiling). We've lost a couple of tough ones back to back against him. So he likes me a lot.

You know, I think a lot of those things are overrated as far as rivals, coaches getting into each other and all that stuff. I mean, he's done an outstanding job at the University of Louisville. He took them to the best season in their school's history. Thumped us on the way. We were able to rebound from that and go to a Bowl game two years ago and beat them at Clemson.

We're a different team now than we were back when he was coaching at Louisville. You know, he's coaching in a different environment. Coached one of my old teams that I ended up was an assistant with who went to the Super Bowl with the Atlanta Falcons. You know, that departure wasn't smooth, but he's back at a place that he's, I'm sure, very comfortable. He's an outstanding football coach and he's coaching at a great school.

It's just another SEC game against another good SEC coach and a good SEC football team. Every week's that way.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

COACH BROOKS: Thank you.

Kentucky Defensive End Jeremy Jarmon

Thoughts on the coming year:
We got off to a good start last year. It was disappointing because we lost some games late and we were a more confident team and had goals of winning the SEC. Going into this year, our goals are the same. We're going in feeling we can compete in the SEC, and that's what we'll work towards."

On the team's goals:
"It's easy for us to see that people doubt us. People read the magazines and tell us that we're always picked fifth or sixth in the SEC East. I tell people it's easy to put on the University of Kentucky uniform week in and week out because you know that there are people that doubt you."

On the team's progress:
"I've been a UK fan all of my life and I've watched them lose close games in years past, so to be there and win games in overtime, it gives us confidence. When you beat LSU like we did last year, it gives you confidence that you can go anywhere and take on anyone and compete and win."

On the SEC's overall strength:
"This league is filled with good players. It's fun to have teams play in your stadium and to go on the road and know that you're competing against the best in the nation and against guys that will be playing at the next level next year."

On the team's defense:
"We have a lot of guys coming back, eight guys coming back and key reserves. We have a lot of great guys, our front four, we're blessed to have the depth we used to not have."

Kentucky Wide Receiver Dicky Lyons Jr.

Thoughts on the team's offense:
"The freshmen are coming in, the two quarterbacks are stepping up, so things are starting off okay. There's always some of, 'this is how we do things,' for the younger players to learn, but the offense is coming together. Andre Woodson was a great player, and you can't replace him, but that's what the great thing is. We have two quarterbacks that are very different. One's a drop-back passer and the other can run really well."

On growing up in New Orleans but coming to Kentucky:
"I grew up as a Kentucky fan in Louisiana. When I was young, I follow football closely, I didn't even play it until I was in high school so I didn't follow the team too closely. I went up when I was young to see my dad's jersey retired, and they were wining so I thought they were good and didn't really think anything else. Later on, I realized they were in the national scene and needed just one or two more guys to put them over the top so that's why I, and others, came there. We had guys that believed in their hearts that they could compete in this league, and that's what we've tried to do."

On preseason expectations:
"They said the same thing two years ago - that we have a tough schedule and couldn't compete - but we started 6-1 and proved them wrong. You're always going to have naysayers, people trying to put you down. For me, being a 5-11, white guy as a wide receiver, you're never expected to play in the SEC in the first place so it's all bulletin board material for inspiration to prove people wrong."

ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS

COACH BOBBY PETRINO

COACH PETRINO: I'm excited to be back in college football. Certainly excited to be at the University of Arkansas. Since I've been in this state, the state has certainly embraced me and my family. I was able to get out on the recruiting trail, travel around to all our Razorback functions. I can't tell you how impressed I am with the pride and the passion of the entire state for Razorback football. I'm really, really looking forward to experiencing that as we go through this football season.

I'm looking forward to the challenges of coaching in the SEC Conference. I know the players and the coaches are the best in the country. The fact that if you get to the championship game, you're competing for the SEC Championship, then you have a chance to compete for the National Championship. And that is certainly what all of our goals are.

As far as our football team goes, the strength of our team starting out would be our offensive line and our defensive line. That's where we have the most experience back. That's where we have the size and athletic ability and the skill of those young men to play their position. They did a nice job in spring ball. They did a real nice job throughout the summer on working in the weight room and in conditioning.

I like our tight ends. We have two tight ends that can really run and catch the ball and also do a very good job of blocking. So we're going to have to play to the strength of those two guys also.

Casey Dick came out of spring ball as our starting quarterback. He did a nice job of learning and working hard on understanding the offense. I thought he did a real nice job of getting to know the other side of the ball, understanding what defenses are trying to do, the difference in coverages, the difference in zone blitzes and man blitzes, and really performed well in our last two scrimmages and spring game.

He's a guy that has experience, has won games, has won games at the end of the game playing the position. I have a lot of confidence in him and he has a lot of confidence in himself coming out of spring ball, which is a great thing.

We're gonna be very inexperienced, as you know, at the runningback spot. We had two guys that were No. 1 draft picks, so we definitely will have new faces in there. Michael Smith is a guy who has had a very good spring. He's a smaller runningback that is very quick and has a great burst. Can do a lot of things with him. You know, he can catch the ball out of the backfield. He can run routes as a receiver. So we're going to have to try to figure out ways to utilize his strengths and get him the ball in the open field.

One of the things I liked a lot about him in the spring is his toughness. He showed that he can run between the tackles and that he's not afraid to run between the tackles, and that's a real good thing.

We'll be inexperienced at the receiver spot coming out of spring ball. London Crawford and Carlton Salters were our leading receivers. London is a guy that is big and very physical, is fast and is working real hard at getting better at running his routes and being consistent and catching the football.

Carlton is a young man that really understands the game, has great hands, can catch the ball in traffic. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does.

In both of those positions we'll have to have help from freshmen. We'll have to be lining up a few true freshmen there and letting them play, and they'll have to get better as the year goes on.

Our linebacker core, as you're well aware, is thin. We don't have a lot of depth there. We're gonna have to be able to grow the freshmen and get better each week. We do have some great leadership there. Elston Forteu, who is with us today, is the leader of the defense, is a young man that understands the game, can play on both outside linebacker positions, rush the passer. So we'll be counting on him to really make the call, settle everything down, and make sure we're executing on the front seven very well.

In the secondary we're very inexperienced. As you know, we graduated four guys that started last year. So we are going to be inexperienced, but I like our talent. I think we have four or five corners that can definitely contribute and play and four safeties that competed very hard in the spring. Then we'll have one coming off of injury that I'm looking forward to.

So to that I'll just open it up for questions.

Q. You were part of a rivalry with the University of Kentucky while you were at Louisville. Talk about the opportunity to renew that rivalry with Coach Brooks, going up against Kentucky.

COACH PETRINO: Well, I'm looking forward to it. You know, we've always had a tremendous amount of respect for Kentucky and Coach Brooks and his program. It's a little different now for us because we used to work on that game the entire winter and summer. So that will be a little bit different as far as the approach goes.

But I am looking forward to going back to Lexington and playing there. It's always fun playing in front of a hostile crowd, in a hostile environment. And I'm sure it will be that way again this year. I'm sure it will end up being a good rivalry for us.

Q. Just wondering, did you feel somewhat hoodwinked by the Falcons after you expressed an interest to them in returning to college football?

COACH PETRINO: I didn't get the word that you used there.

Q. "Hoodwinked."

COACH PETRINO: I'm not sure about that. The whole situation, the timing was bad. There's no question about that. If it could have played out any other way, I would have loved to see it play out a different way.

But with the Falcons, and with Arkansas, it was really the only way that it could play out. And I'm extremely happy to be the head football coach at the University of Arkansas.

Q. If I could just follow up. Was that as trying of a coaching situation as you've had to take on while you were in Atlanta?

COACH PETRINO: Yeah, it was. It was certainly a trying situation. And everybody there worked as hard as they could to do the best job they could.

Q. Has it been difficult to implement your offense in a program that was run oriented for a long time?

COACH PETRINO: No, it hasn't been difficult. It's been a learning experience. You know, starting with our offensive line. They're a group that is very used to coming off the ball and run blocking, does an excellent job of that.

So the newness, I guess you would say, to the techniques of pass protection and the different types of pass protection is something that they've worked extremely hard at.

I think after the second week of spring ball, I was very impressed with the group. You know, Jonathan Luigs is a guy that adds a tremendous amount of leadership to that group. And he's a young man that is very energized by learning the new techniques, the new fundamentals, the new schemes that he knows will carry on to his days playing at the next level.

Q. Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier and now yourself went to the NFL and came back. What was it that brought you back to college football? You didn't like the NFL or you really liked college football? What about the college game brought you back?

COACH PETRINO: Well, obviously there was a number of things that played into it. But I love college football. I was asked earlier about, you know, what is it that you like about college football. And really the answer is, I like everything. I like the different seasons. I like the fact that you have your season and you go to the Bowl game.

I like the fact that you have a little period in there where it's all recruiting and you're on the road, you're in houses, you're going to try to convince young men to come to your school. I like the fact that there's a season where it's basically booster season where you're out on the road with the boosters, with the fans, trying to raise money.

Then there's a period of spring ball where you get back into it. And then the period we're just coming off of is a period where you have the summer camps, where at times you're working with young kids, then the high school athletes.

So it's a good fit for me. And certainly I like the fact that there's a great feeling about bringing in a young man that's 17, 18 years old onto your campus, watching him grow and develop in all aspects: academically, socially, as an athlete. Hopefully you've done a lot to him help handle life and contribute to society when he's done playing.

Q. The media have picked Arkansas to finish sixth in the West. Just wondering if you had any take on that.

COACH PETRINO: I've always felt like the pre season rankings are based on how you finish the previous year and then what you have coming back, you know, what returning starters, what returning stars you have coming back.

Obviously, when you lose that many guys into the NFL, you know, there was eight young men from the University of Arkansas at the Combine. Lost our entire secondary and the great runningbacks. So it wasn't unexpected. It certainly will help to motivate us. You know, but it's not going to help us win or help us lose any games.

Each week, the greatest thing about this conference, you have to line up and play. And everybody's capable of beating anybody.

Q. You mentioned Casey. Tell us about some of your other quarterbacks. Do you see playing more than one this season?

COACH PETRINO: At this particular time I would anticipate Casey being the starter and not really having a rotation. But that's always subject to change once we get into practice and see where everybody's at.

His younger brother Nathan came out of spring ball as second. He's bigger than Casey. He's a guy that likes to run around and has a real knack for understanding where the rush is coming from. He might be like a young man I coached at Louisville, that you don't really know how good he is until it's live, because you don't tackle the quarterback in practice. He might make more plays when it's live because of his ability to run, move around, throw the ball down the field after that.

Alex Mortensen did a real nice job competing with those guys in spring, came out of spring number three. Alex is a young man that really knows football, understands exactly what we want to do executing our offense. Wants to be a football coach. So he's in the office all the time working on that.

We have two freshmen, true freshmen, coming in that we need to look at right away and get a good idea of: Tyler Wilson and Jim Youngblood. Both of them a little bit different. Tyler was more of your spread offense, shotgun, get the ball out of his hand quick, very accurate passer. And Jim was a guy that ran around and made a lot of plays, really sees himself as a tough, hard nosed running quarterback that can throw the ball down the field.

Q. Was there anything else that didn't come out or wasn't publicized that much from your time in Atlanta that would better tell your side of the story?

COACH PETRINO: Well, no, I don't think we need to get into that. Like I said, it was a difficult situation. It's something that I've put behind me, that the Falcons have. I wish, you know, them, their entire organization, their fans, the best of luck. But it's really time for us to focus in on this season, University of Arkansas football, you know, the players that we have.

Q. When you made the decision to go to the Falcons, was it one of those things based on the fact you felt like, What would it be like just to coach football, not deal with recruiting, going to speak at booster clubs, players' academics? Was it something you wanted to try for purely a football job? And what did you learn about yourself last year?

COACH PETRINO: Well, it didn't have anything to do with not wanting to recruit, because that's something I've always enjoyed, or anything to do with the boosters, because that's something I've always enjoyed, too. I think at that particular time you looked at, you know, one of the great challenges. They had a quarterback at that time that I thought could be real special. So that played a lot into it, too.

But, you know, it was a difficult season. You always look back and really try to reflect on what I could have done better here, what we could have done better here. Certainly we'll try to do a better job in our communication with our players, you know, really understanding what it takes week in and week out to be consistent.

Q. With the uncertainty at linebacker you had coming out of the spring and uncertainty with Wendel Davis, guys that are coming back, are you anticipating a scheme change up front and using more of your secondary, like a 4 2 5, or going 4 3?

COACH PETRINO: No, we're not really anticipating that. The good thing for us as coaches is in spring ball, we didn't see Wendel. He was injured. He had injured his knee.

We came out of spring with Jerry Franklin, Elston Forte and Ryan Powers as our starters. All three of those guys are back. I think all three of 'em grew up and played well. They're fast. They can run around. They're very athletic. There's a lot of newness in not only, you know, the positions that they're playing, but the scheme. We're not playing a lot of just man coverage, man free coverage like they had played in previously, so their responsibilities have changed.

But, you know, because of the league and because of the spread offense, there's gonna be a number of times when you're playing nickel and your nickel package and dime package really fits into some of the spread teams that we'll face, too.

Q. Steve Kragthorpe said at Louisville that he felt like he inherited a lot of disciplinary issues, and there's certainly been an insinuation that discipline is being handled more strictly now. I'm wondering if you're aware of some of those comments and how they strike you.

COACH PETRINO: I saw some of those comments. We didn't have discipline problem when I was there. Knock on wood. You always knock on wood on that, but we had players that were real focused, did a great job, went 41 9, and I think they returned 21 starters off of that Orange Bowl team. So, you know, I felt good about the way we left the program and the shape that we left the University of Louisville in.

Q. I was wanting to get your opinion on the BCS system. Do you think there should be any sort of plus one? I saw you were opposed to an early signing period. I wanted to get your reasoning behind that.

COACH PETRINO: I'll answer the second one first. I was opposed to the early signing period. I think where we're located geographically, the number of high school recruits in our state, that it's not beneficial for us to have early signing periods. Guys don't have to go as far away as we do to recruit.

So I think it's beneficial for us for young men to go through the entire process and take their visits. We need to get them on campus. We feel like if we can get a young man on our campus, with our facilities, get in the city, see the town, see the people, get on the campus and see our faculty and everything that we have to offer, we have as good a chance of getting them as anybody. So that was my reasoning there.

Tell me the first question again.

Q. BCS system.

COACH PETRINO: Oh, the BCS system, the plus one. Obviously there's a lot of talk about the plus one. It was intriguing. But one thing that you do do and I've always felt like you do, is the rules have been set, there is no plus one, and there's no reason complaining about it.

Q. With the negative publicity you've gotten leaving the NFL, how much does that come in discussions and conversations with recruits? Has loyalty been an issue when you're trying to go out recruiting?

COACH PETRINO: We felt great about our recruiting class. I feel like we went out and got the best players in the state of Arkansas to stay at home and come to the University of Arkansas. We got some real special talent there. We're going to count on 'em right away to play. We were also able to go out and hit some of the needs that we needed at other positions outside of the state and finished very strong, you know, in the recruiting process.

It always came up in the home. There's no question about that. But I think when you sat down and visited with parents and probably told parents more than I've told any of you guys that, you know, the recruiting went well and it became a non issue.

Q. Where does coming to Media Days and getting these questions and meeting all us great reporters rank in the list of things that you have to do?

COACH PETRINO: Oh, right at the top. It's my most favorite thing (laughter).

No, this is part of the job. I understand that. I respect your job and what you all have to do, you know, asking the tough questions. I have no problem with that, none at all.

But the best thing about media days is that it means that the season's just about to start and we get to start practicing August 4th and really find out a lot about our team.

Q. How patient a person are you and how much do you think that patience might be tested this season? You're trying to rebuild, there's no question.

COACH PETRINO: Well, I would think if you asked my family, they would say I'm really, really patient. But that obviously isn't true. I'm not real patient. I like things done, you know, right away. I think you can go fast. I think you can move and get better in a hurry.

But I do understand that it's a process. I think I do understand in the game of football, building and changing a program, that it is a process. That's what we're working really hard at. We have to do a great job of practicing. We got to do a great job of getting better at our positions, at our technique and our fundamentals. We have to be patient with our schemes in making sure that we don't ask our players to do too much and then maybe be able to add to them as the year goes on.

But winning games is the end of doing things right. What we need to do is do everything right leading up to that opener. We're going to have to, as a young football team, get better each week. You know, we got to get better from Game 1 to Game 2. We've got to be a lot better off in Game 5 and 6, and hopefully have a lot more contribution from our young freshmen in those games and feel like they're not freshmen any more.

So we do have a lot ahead of us. It's a great challenge. I'm looking forward to it.

Q. Have you heard from your players or got any sense from them just how special this Ole Miss game's gonna be this year for them?

COACH PETRINO: No, we have not even talked about it. I've heard a lot at booster functions, a lot from the fans on their desire for it. But that's a long way for us. We have to play Western Illinois in the opener. We've got to get better as a football team.

I do think that our players understand that, you know, it's not us playing Coach Nutt. It is our players playing against their players, University of Arkansas playing Ole Miss, which has always been a great rivalry.

Q. With the lucrative contracts that SEC coaches make, I wonder if that changes your perception of coaching maybe even dating back to your early stages of coaching, maybe how humble those beginnings were.

COACH PETRINO: Well, definitely different than the early days, you know. I think one of the things I was most fortunate is that my father came to me one spring when I was 14 years old and said, Son, you're not playing baseball this year.

I looked at him, I said, I'm not?

He said, No, you're going to have to work. I'm going to be able to take care of your sisters, but you're going to have to earn your own way. So you're working tomorrow morning at 10:00 flipping burgers at A & W.

So I took my first job, 1976. I remember it because the Olympics were on that year. We used to put the old black and white in there and watch the great Olympic boxing team we had.

Then each summer, each spring and summer, that's what I did was worked. I had some great jobs. I delivered produce. I ran the dock at a dairy. The last year he made me take out the milk truck, so I was a milkman for a year.

I took my first job as a graduate assistant at Weber State. You got your scholarship check. They certainly have changed a lot since those days and went up for the young men.

I feel great about it. The fact that my father always told me, Reach for the top of the rainbow. You know, you can be as good as you want to be. You can do anything you want in the United States of America. And I think that's really what you see, is that I've got the opportunity now to coach in the best conference, I believe is the best conference in the country, and I'm very proud of that.

Q. Given what you did at Louisville, where that program was when you left, I'm just curious as you come to Arkansas if you could compare Arkansas now to what you left at Louisville.

COACH PETRINO: Well, the comparisons would be how we're starting this first season off. When we started off the at Louisville, we had a quarterback that hadn't been in the offense, hadn't executed the offense. He hadn't actually played a whole lot. We had a group of runningbacks that did not play the previous year. The starter in the Kentucky opener hadn't played in two years. So we were very inexperienced in operating that. I think we might have been voted last in the conference that first year, too.

So that would be the comparisons, I think, when you start that off.

Obviously it's a conference SEC compared to Conference USA, each week, week in and week out, it's much more difficult. You don't have a game where you actually might feel like you step on the field and you have better players than the guys across from you. And I think that's what's going to make it so competitive and such a great challenge.

Q. Yesterday the news came out Dean Weber, the long time trainer at Arkansas, was moving to another post. I wonder what your relationship was like with him and if you have ideas, if you'll have input on who the new trainer might be.

COACH PETRINO: It's been great working with Dean. He knows everything about the university. He was there for 35 years. You know, it's been fun for me just to talk to him and listen to him and watch him work with our athletes. You know, Dean was excited to be able to step out of the training room and more into administration role. He expressed that to me, you know, two weeks into the job when I first got there.

So I think it's a great fit for him. Certainly something we needed as a university. We have had some discussions with trainers coming up. Obviously we need to move very fast. I know that our athletic director, Jeff Long, is on top of it. Hopefully we'll have someone there before we get started, that's for sure (smiling).

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

COACH PETRINO: Thank you.

Arkansas Center Jonathan Luigs

On Coach Petrino:
"He's made the transition as easy as possible. We're looking forward to putting together a good season."

On the players lost from last season:
"We lost some playmakers in Darren and Felix, but we had guys in the shadows that were waiting for their chance, and they're ready now to shine.

On team leadership:
"I think Casey Dick, one of our seniors, is going to have a breakout year. He has all the tools needed to do the job. He's going to take control of the team and do great things."

On Coach Petrino:
"The fans have been very accepting of Coach Petrino, and they have high expectations for us this year. We have a strong offensive line, and I believe that's where the game starts. If we pull together, we'll have a great season.

On Coach Nutt:
"We kind of thought he was in the hot seat, and we thought that the LSU game would be the explanation point for him staying. There were things going on behind the scenes we didn't know about and so the next week he was gone but you just have to play football and that's what we're here for.

On the Ole Miss game:
"As a player, you really don't look to the other sideline. We're playing Arkansas not Coach Nutt so we'll treat it as any other game."

On the new offense under Coach Petrino:
"I think we're going to surprise people with our offensive attack. Coach Petrino is known for a high-powered offense and putting points on the board so we're looking to continue that here at Arkansas."

On the team playing five games on the road:
"Playing on the road is fun, it really is. It's fun to get the crowd quiet, it lets you know that you're doing well. It'll give our team a chance to come together."

Arkansas Linebacker Elston Forte

On the atmosphere in Fayetteville:
"Everyone's sitting around wondering what it's going to be like. It's quiet, but I know as soon as those lights come on that everyone will be excited to see what we're going to be like."

On Coach Petrino:
"Coach Petrino is a guy that's straight to the point. He sees things in you and does everything he can to bring it out. He stresses accountability and that's what we're trying to learn."

On the differences between Coach Nutt and Coach Petrino:
"Like all coaches, they demand perfection. Coach Nutt was a good coach, and Coach Petrino is good too."

On the team's leadership:
"Ernest Mitchell, Jamar Love, I could go on and one about our leadership. The unity on the team is strong. We look at each other as brothers and spend a lot of time with each other off the field."

On quarterback Casey Dick:
"To me, Casey Dick has gotten better and better each year. We went against him in the spring, and I was like 'Man!' With him and the backs we have to help him, we're going to have an explosive offense."

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS

COACH STEVE SPURRIER

COACH SPURRIER: I guess I'm up. I've been watching all these other coaches on television the last couple of days, so I appreciate you guys hanging around to the end.

It's always fun to be here. 16 years. I was telling Bobby Petrino, this was his first one, I said, I got you by 15. But this is always sort of the welcome or the opening part of SEC football season. I know I look forward to it. I think all the fans do, players do, that come and so forth.

But, anyway, we're getting pumped up there at South Carolina. We've got better players than we've had there. We've hopefully got better coaches. Last year was a disappointing ending. 6 6 is mediocrity at its best, and that's where we finished. A couple of heartbreaking losses at Tennessee, Clemson game that would have changed things around, but we didn't quite win 'em. Didn't make a play there at the end of the game. Huge difference between 8 4 and 6 6. But at 6 6, maybe it was good for us in a way, because as a head coach, I got to look and say, Hey, how can we get better?

Obviously you try to recruit better players all the time. We all try to do that. But when you look at what we've done statistically, you got to say, Hey, we got to do some things differently, especially on defense.

We finished bottom of the league against the run. I think we finished 11th and 9th against the run. We finished 10th, 9th and 9th in total defense. And we got to try to get in the top half, top half of the SEC, if we can.

Now, I know we haven't had a defensive lineman or a linebacker drafted since I've been there. So I'm not blaming the coaches. I'm just saying, as a head coach, I got to do something differently to try to give us a spark.

We're fortunate to get Ellis Johnson. Ellis is a South Carolina native. As you know, had been at Mississippi State last three, four years. At Alabama back in the late '90s, 2000, so forth. And Ellis is a proven defensive coordinator with a very good track record.

We feel like Ellis and better players, we're going to play better on defense. Hopefully we'll do a good job coaching there.

We got a new special team coordinator, Ray Rychleski, came over from University of Maryland. He runs all the special teams. One of the first times I guess I've had one guy do it all. First time since Ron Zook did it back in '95. We had a very good special team that year at Florida in '95.

Anyway, Ray is a guy that has his own way of doing things. We've changed our practice schedules around at South Carolina. Hopefully we're a little tougher, more disciplined because we certainly need that through the entire team.

Offensively we got a new quarterback, Tommy Beecher. Tommy has been there all three years. He was one of our first guys we signed first year I got there. Hadn't played much yet, but he's ready.

Tommy has the highest GPA on the team. He can run probably better than the other quarterbacks. He can scramble around a bit. And he can make all the throws. Really physically you haven't seen a lot of him yet, but we're hoping and believing he will develop a lot of confidence, and we believe he can be a very good SEC quarterback.

So got some new stuff there, new stuff all around. We're trying to get better. We don't like 6 6. We did qualify for a Bowl. But there was another school, Alabama, at 6 6. They had a little bit more pull than South Carolina did (smiling). But that's okay. That's the way life is, and we understood it. We need to do better than 6 6.

So we're getting pumped up for the season. Open up with NC State, a very good team. They're right there in the ACC, probably similar to a lot of schools. They haven't been quite like Virginia Tech. They've been about like us probably, sort of middle, of the ACC. We've sort of been near the middle, I guess, of the SEC.

But we open up with those guys, then go to Vandy, then Georgia, and on down the line. So NC State Thursday night, August 28th, is the game that we're preparing for.

Okay, any questions.

Q. With the new quarterback situation, how involved will you be with the offensive play calling this year?

COACH SPURRIER: Okay. Yeah, let me talk about that briefly. My son, Steve, Jr., is going into his 11th year coaching with me. He came down as a GA at Florida in '93. I'm sorry, '94, '95, '96 was his three GA years. We were fortunate to win the SEC all those years, and fortunate enough to win the National in '96. He went to Oklahoma with Bobby Stoops. Second year there they won the National. He's got a lot more National Championship rings than a lot of people.

But I think Steve's a good coach. It's hard for me to say it. You guys can check his background, check how his wide receivers play, how he recruits. That's sort of how you judge assistant coaches.

But he's been watching me call plays. But he's been calling 'em also. He's been up top watching, "da, da, da, send this one in." Nowadays it's a little different than the early '90s. Heck, I mean, I think at Florida the first few years, I didn't even have a play sheet over there half the time. You remember those days, coach didn't even have a play sheet. I'd signal in myself half the stuff.

But nowadays, guys are going in motion, shifts and all that, which you have to do. To get it all on paper and so forth, it takes a lot of time during the week. The guy who's the principal play caller, I mean, he's got to be going through his mind all week long right up to game time, or else you can't find them. You can't find where the plays are.

So, anyway, I just felt like he's ready to do the principal play caller. And then I'll still have the sheets ready to insert, Don't forget about this one, let's get this one in here, there, the other and so forth.

So it will be a team effort. Yet one guy's got to do it. He'll get 'em in there to start with. If there's a time for me next, I want this one the next play, da, da, da. If it goes bad, I did it. If it goes pretty good, he did it. That will be the way it will go.

Q. How important is it to develop a number two receiver for Kenny McKinley? Do you feel that's a role Dion Lecorn can play?

COACH SPURRIER: Dion came in and played well last year, the last half of the season. Took us about half a year to figure out he might be our next best wide receiver. We've got some other players there that are very capable, Joe Hills and Matt Clements are two freshmen last year that we held out. They got some speed, got some quicks. We got to teach 'em how to play. That's what we need to do with those guys. They're very capable.

But we also got two tight ends, Jared Cook and Weslye Saunders, which are amongst our best five receivers catching the ball, getting open, so forth. We're a little bit of a tight end team. You know, people used to accuse us of not throwing to tight ends, but we had a bunch of All American wide receivers in those days that we were throwing at down at Florida.

But Jared Cook and Weslye are two big time pass receiving tight ends. Hopefully they'll block a little bit better. Their blocking needs a lot of work. But they can catch.

Q. Talk about your ending the season with a five game losing streak, how tough was that? How long that makes the off season, and does that add to your anxiousness for the start of this season?

COACH SPURRIER: Yeah, the two losses to Tennessee and Clemson were heartbreakers. They were games that were sort of within our grasp and we didn't put it away. Didn't work out. It's history now. So, you know, you got to put it aside. You can't mope and cry about it but for so long, then you got to get going.

But obviously when you lose your last four or five games, it does not help recruiting. It doesn't help at all. If those two games go our way, like I said, 8 4 is a huge difference than 6 6. But it didn't work out.

But, again, we're not that far away from being a pretty good team. As I've told all the other media people here for the last hour or so, when you see South Carolina run out on the field for warmups, you're going to say, Those guys look like an SEC team now. We got some 6'4", 6'6", I think Clifton Geathers is about 6'8" defensive end. Our offensive linemen are 6'3", 6'4", 6'5", so on.

So we've improved our personnel necessarily there. Again, we only had one player drafted last year, Cory Boyd. So most of our guys who did most of the playing are back. A lot of them are back for two, three more years, so forth.

Our big recruiting class was two years ago. Those 27 guys, I believe all of 'em are still with us. About half of 'em were redshirted last year. Half of 'em will be ready to go this year, so forth.

We've got ball players. We absolutely have no excuses about ball players. We need to coach better, and they got to play like good players. If we get that happening, maybe those close losses will turn into victories, 'cause to win the Conference everybody has to win their close games, as we know. It's not like the old days where you could roll up 40 or 50 to 10 on people. I don't see anybody doing that much any more. Everybody's too good.

Q. Last year and during the five game losing streak you had a lot of injuries, particularly on the defensive side. Had to play a lot of young guys. Now you have the injured people coming back. Is this really the first time you've really been able to go two deep defensively with some confidence?

COACH SPURRIER: Well, I hope so. I hope so. Yeah, Captain Munnerlyn broke his foot out at Arkansas. Jasper got hurt at the LSU game. But, you know, we had a few injuries, but everybody has injuries. Before we were hurt, Louisiana Lafayette romped up and down the field against us. It wasn't like we were stellar till the injuries, you know. We were sort of hanging on most of the games.

Hopefully our guys are a little bigger and stronger. Hopefully we can put 'em in position to do something better because I do think our athletes are better than what we've been getting out of them. I'm talking about offense, defense and special teams. I'm talking about all of it.

I'm certainly not being critical of any coaches that used to be there or anything like that 'cause we've not had a lineman drafted in the three years I've been there, offense or defense. So it's not like we're supposed to be tearing up people.

But these next two, three years, we certainly should have some NFL picks. We should have three to five guys drafted, hopefully, in the next three years or so, hopefully, which would be very unusual at South Carolina.

Q. You've had multiple quarterbacks each of the last few years. The fact that no person has been able to step forward and claim the job all season, how much does that set y'all back and how frustrating has that been?

COACH SPURRIER: Yeah, we have had several quarterbacks play the last three years. That's just the way it's been. Again, we're gonna give Tommy Beecher a chance to run with it. Chris Smelley has done well this summer. Chris played fairly well at times last year, not so well at other times.

Tommy Beecher, we need to give him every opportunity to see if he can take us a long way. Again, this kid, he's very smart. He can run. He can make all the throws. He just hasn't played that much yet.

But this summer I think he has accepted the fact that he's the quarterback, and I think he's done a pretty good job getting the guys organized, throw the ball around, and giving him a chance to develop as the leader of the offense.

Q. You guys have struggled a little bit in the offensive line ever since you've been there, it seems. Do you think you might finally have a pretty good line in place this year?

COACH SPURRIER: They should be better. Our center, I guess, was the only senior last year. But I tell people, when you see our guys in the weight room, Man, that guy looks like an all NFL lineman. I say, Yeah, in the weight room he does look like one. But all of a sudden the ball is snapped and he's not quite doing it.

We got full confidence in John Hunt. I mean, he's as frustrated as any of us, just getting the guys to play their assignment. But, you know, most of the guys have played two or three years. They have. We just got to compete harder.

You know, it's pretty simple. If you got a good looking team, they got to play harder and smarter. If we can play with a higher effort level, play our assignments a lot, lot better than what we've been doing, it gives you a chance when one or two plays determine the game. One or two plays determine the game.

I mean, we're actually putting a little tape together I hope it helps of the bad plays that cost us games. Some of those games, I mean, I got about 10 plays you know, you lose in overtime, there's about 10 plays that could have changed the game our way, either a little better effort, a little better smarts, something like that.

Q. How is your patience holding up? The program has gotten better, but so has the whole division. Are you starting to feel urgency?

COACH SPURRIER: Well, like I said, the next three, four years we should do some good. We should do some good.

A little different now. When I went to Florida in 1990, the team was already there, a little bit like Urban. When he got there, the second year they won it all. At Florida in '90, the defense was third in the nation and returned eight starters from '89. That's why I came to this meeting and said we had a chance. A lot of these writers thought Florida didn't have a chance. But we had ball players there.

It wasn't quite like that at South Carolina. Talent wasn't that bad, but it wasn't anything like we had at Florida those first two years, '90, '91.

So again, we haven't had a lineman drafted yet. So when we get some D linemen and O linemen drafted by the NFL, you know, they'll say, whoa, they got some pretty good ball players up there.

Anyway, we've improved our talent level. But, again, the frustrating part for us is the effort level. Our guys are not conscious of playing their assignment as perfectly as they can. I know everybody has that problem.

But at South Carolina, I haven't changed them yet. Let's put it that way. Our coaching staff has not changed our guys to the level of play to really be good. Haven't done it yet. We're still trying. Got some new coaches. Got some different players. Gonna try again this year to see if we can get the effort and the commitment to play your assignment as perfectly as possible.

So that's where we are. That's where we are. Again, the big recruiting class. We're looking forward to seeing what happens the next three, four years.

Q. Is it too late for Stephen Garcia to salvage his career?

COACH SPURRIER: Stephen could be back. The university is handling his situation. He had a bunch of requirements to do this summer. From what I understand, he's done just about all they've asked, or everything. I'm not exactly sure. But the university, the Dean of Students, the provost or whoever, somebody will tell him when to come, if he's fulfilled those requirements.

Q. As a former Heisman winner, what do you think the challenges will be for a guy like Tim Tebow to try to repeat his Heisman?

COACH SPURRIER: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. None of 'em have ever repeated. I saw that the other day. Matt Leinart, those guys that won as juniors, of course, he's the first to win as a sophomore.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Certainly could, I guess, yeah. If he runs for about five touchdowns a game like he did against us, he'll do it (smiling).

But it may be hard. It may be hard just because voters think, well, he's already won one, let's give it to the other guy. But maybe they won't. I don't know. That's up to you guys. I vote, too. But y'all do the voting, too, yeah.

Q. Last year you came here and said you thought your team was ready to contend. Is this year's team ready to contend?

COACH SPURRIER: Well, actually the team this year is probably much better prepared than last year. Obviously we were dead wrong in thinking that our team was capable last year. Of course, we did beat Georgia, the No. 2 team in the country.

Of course, Kentucky beat LSU, the No. 1 team. So that happens sometimes in the SEC.

We beat Georgia. They didn't have a very good night. Our field goal guy was perfect. We scored one touchdown. But that was a game that certainly they could have won. They could look back and see a play or two here or there that they could have won it also.

But we were never that strong during that 6 1 record. We were sort of squeaking by some teams and this, that and the other. Then, you know, the close losses at the end turned it.

But we only had one guy drafted, Cory Boyd whose down there with the Buccaneers, Tampa Bay. But it wasn't like this team's loaded. But I've always been a coach, most of you guys know. At Duke University first thing I had to do was tell those guys they were just at good as NC State or Clemson or whoever, and hope like heck they believed me. Fortunately they did. And they played like it. You know, you try to tell your players, You're good players, you're capable, now play like it. But we didn't quite play like we were very good players.

Didn't work out. I didn't say we were gonna win. I thought if we got in position, maybe it wouldn't scare us to say, Oh, gosh, we could win our division for the first time ever.

But it is interesting, I was noticing the other day on our side, the Eastern Division, there's only been three teams to ever win the division. Did y'all know that? So us, Vandy and Kentucky, we're still looking for the first one.

Whereas, on the other side, I think Ole Miss is the only one. Of course, they had that 7 1 year, lost that heartbreaker to LSU. So their side's a little bit probably more balanced than our side has been.

Obviously we're trying to crack that top three. Like I said, we beat 'em all once. We lost a heartbreaker to all of 'em once. So we're 1 2 against all of 'em. Got to get a little bit better.

Q. I guess you're one of five coaches in the league that's won a national title. There's eight or nine that have won BCS Bowl games. Talk about the coaching in this league.

COACH SPURRIER: Yeah, the coaching is obviously very good. The talent's very good in the SEC. When you look at how many SEC players are invited to the NFL Combine every year, we lead all the conferences. Drafted players, we lead all the conferences.

So as coaches, you know, it's important at our universities, at our schools, our fans, big state universities, everybody wants to win. So it is important, there's no question about it.

I tell you, a lot of times as coaches, though, we don't particularly worry about who the other coach is. We're trying to get the best game plan for our players to go play and go from there. I think it's only natural that we got the biggest stadiums in the South, so the coaches make more in the South than they do the other places, I guess.

I used to be in that group, but I'm not in this group anymore. But that's okay. That's okay.

Q. As someone who left the NFL to come back to college, are you surprised Petrino is back? Also, why did you feel the need a couple of weeks ago to tell people, Hey, I'm committed to South Carolina, I plan on being here?

COACH SPURRIER: I don't know. Did I make a point to say that? I think somebody asked me about, how long are you going to be there, this, that and the other.

Yeah, Bobby, I told Bobby when he took the job, I said, I was going to give you two years. I told some people, I'll give you two years and you'll come back to college.

Obviously some things happened that he didn't foresee, or they didn't. And it just turned into sort of a situation, and he had a chance to go to Arkansas. And I think his life style, I guess, is a lot like mine in that he enjoys a little bit of an off season.

I've always enjoyed it, to try to recharge your batteries getting ready for August, the real season. Whereas, the NFL guys, they pretty much like to grind, oh, 11 months a year.

But they enjoy that. That's good for them. Personally, the lifestyle in college is a lot better suited for me, I know. I think maybe Bobby felt the same way.

Q. Based on your comments, do you feel your team lacks confidence right now?

COACH SPURRIER: Yeah, we lack a little bit of confidence. But we haven't done enough to gain a whole bunch of confidence. We haven't quite done enough yet. I've always been a big believer, you've got to expect some big things to happen before you can go achieve it.

I think we're still in the back of our minds we still want to win an SEC. I don't think we need to talk about it this year. Probably don't talk about it any year really. But if we're lucky enough to get in position, don't be afraid to think we're not as good as the other guy.

So that's sort of maybe where we are. If we get in position, let's believe we can play with any team in our conference.

Q. You touched on Ellis Johnson. How were you able to get him? I know he was at Arkansas. Just go through the process of getting him to South Carolina.

COACH SPURRIER: Well, Ellis is from South Carolina, Winnsboro, South Carolina, and his wife, Caroline, is actually from Columbia. He had a chance to come on back and coach in his home state.

To be honest, I probably should have hired him two or three years ago, if I could have. I didn't know Ellis very well at that time. Just the opportunity came up when VanGorder went back to the Falcons. Shane Beamer is on our staff. He was at Mississippi State two years ago. He's been with us going into his second year.

So Shane had his number. I said, You think he still might be interested? He said, Call him, coach, I think he might be interested.

So I called him up. We did the deal. When VanGorder left, two hours later I had a ball coach. That's how quick.

Q. You talked a lot about the quality of your players. A lot of coaches have height and weight parameters when they're looking for players at certain positions. How much do you stick with that?

COACH SPURRIER: Again, we all try to get the biggest, best athletes we can, that are solid citizens, good students, all that. But sometimes at South Carolina we don't beat Georgia out for too many guys. We don't beat Florida out for too many guys. That's just the way it is right now.

That's why we need to have a big year here in the next two or three years.

Our facilities are being upgraded tremendously. Eric Hyman, our new athletic director, he's been there all three years I've been there, has done an outstanding job of collecting. Our boosters have given more than they ever have in the history of our school.

We have a brand new academic learning center called the "Dodie." Groundbreaking, I believe, is this Monday, about a $13 million building for all the academic needs for all the athletes there at South Carolina.

We're renovating our training room down there, locker room area. We got a brand new weight room, meeting rooms.

So we have made progress. We have made progress. What we need to do now is compete on the field with Florida, Tennessee and Georgia. I mean, it's been those three, then it's been the other three.

You know, we've beaten them, and we've lost a heartbreaker. Hopefully we can beat those schools to get into that next level where we can maybe beat those guys on a bunch of kids. It's hard to beat those schools.

Q. When you send out your coaches looking for certain height and weight parameters, how strict are you now with those when you're looking for players?

COACH SPURRIER: We're not completely real strict. I know we've got two or three linebackers committed right now. I think all of 'em are about six foot or 6'1". We sent a memo, No more six foot linebackers, let's go for 6'2" or 6'3", if we can (laughter).

We all try to get the best we can, but at times, you know, well, he's not quite as tall as we hoped, but we think he's a good player. We got to go with who you can. Sort of like going after girls, I guess. Got to get the best you can, right (smiling)? Some of these guys actually have good looking wives, which is unusual.

Q. When you left the NFL, you said you wanted to come to the SEC because of all the passion in the game. People are saying the SEC this year might be the best league in the history of college football. If that's true, is it harder than you thought it was going to be to win in the SEC?

COACH SPURRIER: Like I told you, buddy, we've beaten Florida, Tennessee and Georgia once. We've lost a heartbreaker. I guess I've said that about four times.

For what we've done at South Carolina, our record is probably not too bad, to finish near the bottom of the league, a lot of offensive and defensive statistics. To be 21 16, I guess, is not as terrible as you might think.

No, I knew it would be difficult. If it was easy, it wouldn't be that much fun to try to do it. If it was easy, all them other coaches would have been winning at South Carolina. So we know it's not easy.

But it is a challenge. It's one of the ultimate challenges. But what's sort of neat now is that our facilities are pretty close to the other schools, and we need to have one or two big years. We need to win the division somewhere along the way.

That's the next step we need to take, or else, if that doesn't happen in about five years, then probably somebody else needs to try to do it because we got a lot of good players. That's what coaching's all about. If one guy doesn't get it done in seven, eight years, something like that, give that next guy a chance.

But South Carolina can win. I really believe that. They can win. And they can beat the other schools. So we just haven't done it consistently yet.

But one good thing about the SEC is even though you lose one or two games, LSU can win the National Championship, win the conference, with two losses. That's possible. So it's not the end of the world if you lose one. We all know that or two.

Q. Now there are four coaches in the league like yourself who used to coach at one school in the conference and now coach at another. Do you think that adds just an element of intrigue and interest in the conference? What's that first year like for that coach going back?

COACH SPURRIER: Oh, it adds a little bit. Really when the game starts, the players and the fans, you know, it's your team against the other team really. It gets down to that.

Yeah, Houston said he hadn't thought about it that much. To tell you the truth, I didn't think about it that much when I was coaching the first year against Florida. You're just trying to coach your team against that team. And I really sort of believe coaching is sort of a profession that after, oh, 10 or 12 years, maybe somebody else needs to do it. You know, move around a little bit.

Most of you know, my dad was a preacher. He never lasted 10, 12 years anywhere. It's time for you to move on. So every three or four years, we were moving. They'd already heard all of his sermons, this, that and the other, and there was another place to go.

Some people think coaching, after 10 or 11 years or so, maybe you ought to go do it somewhere else.

That's sort of the way I felt at Florida. I've done this 12 years. Let's try the NFL four, five years, retire. I think when you're in your 50s, you think when you're in your 60s, you'll be retired. All of a sudden it's there and you feel the same way you did in your 50s. So you don't retire unless you have something else you really want to do. There's nothing else I'd like to do any better at all than what I'm doing now. So that's sort of where we are, I think, yeah.

Q. David Cutcliffe said he spoke to you somewhere around the time he took the Duke job. I was wondering what advice you gave him, whether you still think it's possible to win there.

COACH SPURRIER: Win at Duke? Wake Forest won the conference two years ago. That was one of the greatest achievements in college football, maybe bigger than Appalachian State beating Michigan up there.

For Wake Forest to win that division, win the conference championship game, that was very, very good. Coach Jim Grobe, they redshirt all their players. So they play with a lot of fourth and fifth year guys all the time. They bring them in, redshirt them.

Their recruiting classes are very seldom ranked as good as Duke's, from what I understand. Somebody told me that Duke's recruiting classes were overall ranked higher in the last three or four years than Wake Forest. I don't know.

Dave Cutcliffe is a super coach. He's got a proven track record. He'll get 'em competitive. It's hard to beat a whole bunch of teams. But they should be very competitive soon.

Q. You mentioned Beecher's grades, leadership ability. How much of that went into your decision to name him starter coming out of the spring?

COACH SPURRIER: Oh, not that much. Chris Smelley is the second smartest guy on the team, as you know. Tommy just really hasn't had a chance yet. We just thought instead of we've been, you know, who's the quarterback, we're tired of that, and I'm tired of it. It's time to give one of those guys Chris played a whole bunch last year. So we've watched him play. But we've not seen Tommy much at all.

And Tommy has performed a little bit better in the scrimmages in the spring. So it was time to make him the starter, tell him he's the starter, tell him he's going the distance. And he doesn't have to worry about one interception, he's our guy. We're going to give him a chance. We believe he deserves a chance to run with it. Going to find out, you know, if he can take us a long way.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

COACH SPURRIER: Okay. See y'all during the season.

South Carolina LB Jasper Brinkley

On this season: "Our defense is the strength of the team, and I would not underestimate the offense. They will do great things."

On his knee: "I'm ready to rock and roll in 2008. I can't wait for the first game."

On the demeanor of the coach: "He puts a lot mentally into the game and a lot of emphasis on the defense."

On the expectations: "The team can go as far as we push ourselves. We need to learn to capitalize and when big team games."

On his focus: "Focus isn't really a problem for me. I don't pay attention to the preseason awards. I'm just focused on the team and our first game."

On predictions for SC: "Last year there were some pretty high predictions for us. We are much more laid back and are taking it one game at a time, but he SEC Champion potential is there."

On McKinley: "He brings leadership and enthusiasm to the team. He is a big caliber and always brings his A-game."

On his last year's injury: "It was real tough, but Coach, my mother, and my brother were there for me. This year the sky is the limit."

South Carolina WR Kenny McKinley

On the new QB: "I am behind him 100%. He will be a great quarterback; he has strong arms and good feet. He will be a surprise in the SEC.

On finishing last season: "I think it is motivation for this year. We started off hot last year and people jumped on the bandwagon. We let them down. We are going into every game focused on that game. Finish, that is all there is to it. I can't wait for camp next week."

On Brinkley's injury last year: "Our defense is solid. It feels good to have him back. It hurt me a lot, seeing him go down like that. I'm just glad he is back."