[Fuller]

You were with Coach Baxter last year and now special teams is kind of your baby. Talk about what you’ve taken from Baxter and what you’ve brought in yourself to make it what you want it to be.

“They’re kind of Coach Partridge’s and I’s baby together, I guess. There were some things with Coach Baxter that were great and that we’ve carried over and other things that kind of we took from other places and things we’ve done in the past. As with anything, it’s always kind of a hodge-podge of different parts of your experience and you kind of piece together whatever you think is best for your specific team and players, so it’s a little bit of everyone.”

How deep is this group and how many guys will play?

“At what position? Tight end?”

Tight end, yeah.

“It’s really deep. I think there’s like 12 people or something. I couldn’t tell you how many are going to play. I think I would like for five or six [or] seven guys to play, but you never know exactly how a game’s going to go. There’s certainly a group of five or six guys that are all capable of contributing, and as you kind of go down the totem pole a little bit some of the younger guys have specific roles in packages that are a little smaller.

“You talk about getting guys in position to do things that they’re good at, so if they’re a younger guy it might be a speicfic four- or five-play set whereas Jake Butt has the whole playbook he excels at. We’ll just kind of see how the game goes, but I would say I’d like if we ended with five or six guys playing.”

Sean McKeon: you had him in the spring and all the way through fall camp. How have you seen him progress as a true freshman in that time?

“A huge amount. I mean, he’s a tremendously hard worker. It’s just the knack for—you tell him to do something or say, ‘Hey, I want you to work on this’ and he just does it and doesn’t overthink it. He just puts in the work. Very blue-collar in his approach. He’s improved a ton in really every way. Specifically as a route-runner [and] his ball skills.”

Jim talked about how happy he is with Kenny Allen. He did a good job for you last year. Where have you seen some improvement in all of those phases?

“He’s another guy—I mean, pretty much everything he’s improved on. We asked a lot of him to really shoulder the burden in all three phases, which not many guys do in the country. I think Hawaii’s guy was one of five guys in the country to do it last year, the Sanchez kid, who’s a very talented kid. Kenny’s excelled. He’s improved in every way. It’s exciting for him as a senior to be playing so well in every category.”

Would you be comfortable with him doing all three?

“We’d be more than comfortable with it because he’s physically more than capable of doing all three and he has the talent. I think ideally you’d like to take a little bit off of his plate, but it’s a long season and as other guys develop into certain roles I think that could happed. We’d be more than comfortable with him doing it if need be.”

There are so many athletic guys in this recruiting class that did all these good things in terms of returns and things in high school. Are you more apt to try and work them in there to not put a burden on Jabrill or Jourdan or Jehu?

“Yeah, there are a few guys that will have an opportunity.”

[Hit THE JUMP for more]

Who’s in that race?

“Of the young guys, Hudson has returned some, David Long has returned some, all three of the receivers have done a little bit, Chris Evans has. So, all those guys are capable of it. Like you said, sometimes you don’t want the All-American guys returning kicks, but you also like it because they’re electrifying and they give you a chance to make a big play.

“Also, as the season goes young guys get more comfortable. Sometimes having a freshman out there catching a punt doesn’t give you the best feeling in the world, so you kind of let them get some experience under their belt and get comfortable before you put them out there doing something that’s pretty difficult to do, catching kicks, you know?”

Kenny Allen: what enables him to be accurate? Is is just repeating his mechanics or what goes into making him a pretty accurate field goal kicker?

“His attention to detail’s outstanding. He’s very, very coachable. And then, yeah, he repeats his mechanics. He has the ability to be very, very consistent, and certain things that he was inconsistent with in the past he’s gone out of his way to improve. Certain areas of the field, for instance, where he wasn’t kicking field goals as well. He’s taken coaching and made tweaks to try to be more consistent and better.”

How’s Quinn doing field goal-wise?

“Good. Really good.”

Is he consistent?

[to be fair, Jay sort of kept talking while the question was asked so I don’t think he was trying to dodge it so much as he didn’t hear it.]

“Very strong leg. Just as strong as advertised. We’ve got a lot of guys who are talented in terms of kicking the ball, so it’s a good situation to be in.”

This freshman class as a whole: pretty impressed with the athleticism in it?b

“Certainly. Just the first day of practice it was pretty evident the amount of speed on the field at different positions, guys running around that are noticeably, noticeably faster. And guys that are big. It’s gonna be interesting seeing how many young guys get a chance to play, I think.”

From an athleticism standpoint, is this team more athletic than last year’s, would you say?

“Uh…I don’t know. I would guess yeah, but I don’t know how you would settle that. I guess like a decathlon or something.”

Yes, please.

“Sure. We’ll say yeah.”

You talked about consistency. When you’re preparing special teams, it must be a weird balance between muscle memory, repetitive stuff, ordinary plays, and then all hell breaks loose on a special teams play. How do you prepare for both sides of that?

“I think part of it, like you kind of mentioned, the chaotic type of plays that can happen, getting guys as well versed in the rules and the situations that can occur is big because a lot of times the team that gets an advantage is the team that knows what to do.”

Yeah, like an obscure rule or—

“Yeah, like the blocked kicks and all that kind of stuff, so just knowing what to do is a big part of it because a lot of times you see a ball get blocked and then both teams are like, ‘Ah, what do we do?’. I think giving our players the knowledge that they need to play fast and take advantage of situations where it might seem chaotic but they know what’s going on, I think that might be an edge for us.”

What are Nick Eubanks’ strengths?

“He’s very fast. He has good ball skills. He’s able to play fast. He really plays at his full speed. And he’s long. He has a relatively big catch radius, so I think that at this juncture those are the tools that he brings to the table that give him a shot to help us down the field.”

Do you have other tight ends you might split like you’ve split Jake, that have that kind of speed?

“Like outside as a receiver?”

Yeah.

“Shoot, those other guys are faster than Jake.”

Like Wheatley?

“Uh, Wheatley is not faster than Jake. But shoot, there’s different things you can do to put all those guys outside. I think at some point or another most all of them will be detached from a formation this year. But that’s just kind of how we do things formation-wise. It’s not necessarily because it’s a speed advantage. A lot of times it’s because you get a 6’5 guy on a 5’11 corner, or you get to read man versus zone based on whether they put a linebacker out there.”

So it’s just a matchup thing.

“Yeah, in some way or another a matchup thing. Exactly.”