Mid-Spring Update with Gus Malzahn
UCF has now passed the halfway mark of spring with practice No. 8 on Saturday inside the Bounce House. It was also the first full scrimmage day with live contact.
Opening statement:
"Had a good scrimmage today. It was our first scrimmage. We went 97 plays. Our quarterbacks were live, all but Dillon. Which I think is good to evaluate these guys. It's good for our defense. We let everybody play. We started out the practice with four live field goal, field goal blocks which was very good. During the course of the scrimmage we had three punt returns. We were thud on the ball carrier. Everything else was live. I thought it gave us some great information. During the scrimmage we kicked field goals and kicked extra point. Overall, there's a whole lot to work on. We've got a ways to go. But the good thing is I think the attitude is good. I think our guys want to get better. I think they want to be coached. It gave us great information from a coaches' standpoint of where we're at. It's been a pretty solid first two weeks. There's nothing like a scrimmage. That's when you as a coach are able to evaluate everything. It was good. I did feel like overall our body language was good for the first time. We had officials out there. We put the ball down and played old-school football. We paced some. It was good for the offense and defense to feel that. Questions."
On the biggest thing he learned during the scrimmage:
"You've got to understand, when you're back there like I am watching offense and defense, there's a lot of information. I'm looking at attitude. I'm looking at effort. Everything I saw was correctable. Like I said, nothing really stood out other than we're where we need to be as a team from attitude, effort wise. We're always going to challenge our guys to be at the highest level with that."
On the shape of the players and getting into contact:
"I think they did well. It was the first day we tackled. So obviously we missed some tackles. For the most part, I think the ball carriers, I think there two or three balls on the ground. That's to be expected, but one was a really good hit. It was a good overall base evaluation. There wasn't a whole lot of fancy offensive or defensive plays. It was more of put the ball down and play."
On the quarterback play:
"It was good for them to see how they reacted. There were a couple good runs. When you're back there practicing and wearing a gold (no-contact) jersey and we're blowing the whistle and telling the defense to stay away from the quarterback, but there's nothing like getting out there and really playing. Now we can evaluate them. They did some good stuff. There's some things I wish we have done better, but it was good for them to play regular football."
On what he wants to see in the next week:
"Fine tuning the details. We talked about developing a foundation this spring. We didn't get a lot of chances to walk-through and meet with our guys. We hit the ground running, so we're playing catch-up. We're trying to lay the foundation, that way this summer when they're working out on their own, they can actually improve and they'll know exactly what's expected. It's more about the details. We're not going to get real fancy the rest of spring. We're going to try to get good. And I'll say this, we're trying to figure out what our strengths are. We're going to build around our strengths. We're starting to understand that a little bit better. We probably learned more today than any of the other practices overall. So that's good for us. We'll have a personnel meeting today and tomorrow. That will be good for us as coaches."
On what has surprised him most this spring:
"I don't know if there's anything that really surprised me. It's more our players. I think they're trying to do what we're asking them to do. That's the good thing. You're coming in with a new team. You've got new personalities. Coming in with a different scheme, new coaches. Overall, I think our guys are trying to do what's asked. That's the No. 1 thing when you're building a foundation is are the players coachable and doing what you asked. I think they're trying to do that."
On whether any freshmen have stood out:
"Not at this point. My mind is a little bit scrambled right now. We just saw a 100-play scrimmage. As it gets closer and more on down the line, I could probably be more specific."
On RB R.J. Harvey:
"He's a guy that's impressed me at times. He's learning to play the position. You can tell that. I think it's important to him. It was good for him today for the first time get out there and play real football, playing the running back position and not playing quarterback."
On the special teams:
"It was good. We've done a lot of special teams up to this point. It was more of how they're going to react in the stadium. We've done quite a bit at this point."
On the junior college wide receivers, Jaylon Griffin and Kaedin Robinson:
"They've flashed and done some good things. Here's probably the best thing for those new guys is they're starting new too. Even the old guys that have been here and played, it's a new system, offensively, defensively and special teams. I think it's a real positive for a guy who just got here. In a normal situation, you'd be behind quite a bit and they're not."
On safety Divaad Wilson:
"He's one of those guys that you can feel his presence, I can tell you that. He's a confident guy, flies around. He did some good stuff today."
On whether they'll have another scrimmage:
"Yeah, next week will probably be more situational. We'll get into two minute and do some things like that. Of course, the spring game we'll put the ball down and let our guys play."
On meeting UCF's first head coach, Don Jonas:
"It was pretty special for me. I'm learning the history. That's important to me. Like I said before, the foundation has been laid in a big way by the coaches, former coaches, former players. I got a chance to meet the guys who are going to go through Pro Day. That was real special for me. I knew a lot of them, or knew of them. Coached against some of them. Recruited a few of them. That was real special. For me, it's more getting to know the people helped build this program. Helped get it where it is today. That's important to me."
On the passing of Howard Schnellenberger:
"I didn't (know him), but I've got a lot of respect for him as a coach. I hate to hear that. He was one of those guys when you're growing up you look up to. Very impressed with. Sorry to hear that."
On the offensive line:
"I think they're doing some good things. You can tell they're veteran. I can tell you that. Coach Hand is asking them to do some different footwork, so they're working to get that done. I think we're improving. Our defensive is doing a good job too, especially today. We had some guys really flash and who were really impressive today."
On the defense impressing early:
"The defense, Coach (Travis) Williams, he's going to have them playing hard. They're going to tackle. Today was the first time we tackled. They'll improve each time we do it. They were flying around. They were getting lined up and swarming to the ball. That made an impression on me today."
On the hot day and players hustling:
"It needs to be better. I told them afterwards, for the first time, I've been a lot of places for the first scrimmage and it's usually pretty ugly. I didn't see a whole lot of people that were showing bad body language. Just acting like they were down and out. We didn't see any of that. Guys were trying to push through and trying to finish. That's what stood out to me. That's what I told them. We'll get all the little things. There were drops, missed alignments, missed assignments, but that's coaching. We'll get that taken care of. If they continue to buy in and play extremely hard and push through and have that winner come out of them, we'll have a chance."
On how much they've installed offensively:
"We haven't installed probably not as much as we normally would at this point. But it has to do with where we've got - we didn't have the meetings we normally would. We were a month behind. We didn't have the walk-throughs. We're trying to develop the foundation. It's hard to me. I've got to be patient. But we're very patient on offense and defense. I think today it kind of showed that we were able to at least big picture able to execute some things. Usually first scrimmages there's a lot of ugly stuff, but there wasn't a lot of ugly stuff, big picture. So I think not having as much install helped with that."