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The University of Utah Athletics
Quotes from Kyle Whittingham's NLI Press Conference
2/4/2015 12:00 AM | Football
Feb. 4, 2015
Opening Statement:
We'll talk about the coaching changes first. We named Aaron Roderick and Jim Harding co-offensive coordinators. The short version is, Aaron will be up in the box calling plays and be primarily in charge of the throw game, and Jim will be on the sidelines running the throw game and pass protections. I think it's a very workable situation. Both guys are very good coaches and I think we have a good situation there. We promoted Coach Erickson to assistant head coach. We still have the tight end coach spot open. We'll look to fill that within the next week to two weeks max. Defensively, brought in Coach John Pease to coordinate the defense as well as coach the defensive line. We brought in Justin Ena from Weber State, where he was the coordinator, and prior to that the coordinator at Southern Utah for a few years, to coach the linebackers. So we're all set on defense. Like I said, we just need the tight end coach position filled to round out the staff.
Recruiting-wise, we feel like we had another solid class. I sound like a broken record every year, but we really feel like we took care of the immediate needs. When I say immediate, the positions that were the most depleted. Offensive line was at the top of the list, closely followed by wide receiver and defensive back. Those were the three primary areas of concern for us. We were able to get good players at a number of other positions as well. We feel good about the guys we got, and time will tell how they pan out and who excels and who makes that transition to Division I football, just like every year.
On players decommitting:
You're never going to get everybody you want. That's the bottom line. You're going to lose some guys. Hopefully you get some guys that maybe you think you didn't have a great shot at. You've got to be able to be resilient, and not get your feelings hurt about guys who go elsewhere. That's just part of the game, and it's not going to change. That's the way it is now.
On recruiting coming off a nine-win season:
I think we felt a positive impact from that, particularly in California - 15 of the 25 from this year were from California. I think a lot of that is the result of how well we did, not only with our win-loss record, but how well we did in the state of California, beating USC, UCLA, Stanford and Fresno, I think that was a byproduct of that.
On the offensive line:
There are five of them, when you count one who is returning off a mission, and we can't talk about those guys, because [missionaries] don't sign anymore. The other guys are mostly offensive tackle types, those are usually the guys who you are mostly in need of, guys who are longer levered, who can play on the edge, the 6'5"-plus guys. Darrin Paulo from Grant High School is certainly a guy who we're excited about. Johnny Capra is another tackle-type body, Kevin Dixon another tackle-type body from Buena Park, Calif., and the other guy would be Nick Carmen, who is more of an inside guy, from Arizona, and like I said, the other guy we can't talk about. We think we really helped ourselves on the offensive line. Our numbers were down after this year. We didn't graduate a lot of guys this year, but we were down a little bit last year in that position, so we made up for it in this class, and we feel like we're back where we need to be from a numbers standpoint.
On recruiting in Utah:
There were some big-time players in the state. Our No. 1 objective every year is to try to keep as much talent in the state as we can in state coming to our place, and we were able to come away with some really good players in this year's class, and we also have some guys who just returned off missions from in state in this year's class. I don't think there is a state in the country that doesn't have [schools] from out of state come in and pick off some of your best players. I think that's pretty much universal throughout.
I've probably said this for 10 years straight, but the talent level in this state keeps getting better every single year. This might be the best year in history as far as the real blue-chip players coming out of the state of Utah in the history of high school football here.
On ranking systems:
The ranking systems are relative and they don't always mean a whole lot. Someone told me the other day that 40 of the 44 starters in the Superbowl were three star or less coming out of high school. Even though I think those scouting services work hard at it and put a lot of time and effort into it, I still think that recruiting the raw material and projecting and developing that talent when you get them on campus is really going to make or break you. Particularly a school like ours, where we are limited in the four or five star guys that we land.
On missionaries:
If he hasn't enrolled at the University prior to going on a mission, then essentially they are a free agent. Even if you were to sign them to an NLI, it expires during the time they are on a mission. So it's actually wasting an NLI because you don't get the athlete, and that's one less that you can sign in that particular class. Sometimes they come back and have a change of heart. We've lost very few returned missionaries in our program over the years. You can probably count them on one hand since I've been the head coach. Now if they come and enroll and are on scholarship and have signed an NLI prior to the mission, now they're yours when they get back, and if they want to transfer they fall under transfer rules. With a great number of them going after graduation because of the change in age, that has really made that guy that goes without ever enrolling much more prevalent. That's by far the most common way to do it now.
On the hiring process for the defensive coordinator position:
It's tough to recruit and try to fill staff out at the same time, but that's the nature of college football. Once in awhile you can make a hire right when you have the change and not go through a search. During the time trying to recruit and interviewing and talking to prospective coaches - and there was some coaches on our staff, particularly Morgan Scalley, he's an excellent football coach and was definitely a candidate for that spot. But when I had a chance to finally catch up with Coach Pease and talk to him, and gauge his interest, which turned out to be very, very strong, I felt that was the best thing for us at this time.
On hiring the offensive coordinator position:
[Co-coordinators] doesn't work everywhere, but having a single coordinator doesn't work all the time either. No. 1 was making sure we didn't change schemes. Our players really like the scheme we're running right now, and bringing in someone from the outside and disrupting the scheme, the terminology, all that stuff, really wasn't in the equation for me. Plus we have really good coaches right here on staff that the players really, really like and really play for, and Jim and Aaron are two of those guys. There are more on the staff obviously. But to be able to continue on, hopefully not missing a beat in the direction we are going and the personnel that we have in the program - we've been recruiting to the spread for a few years now, so that was not going to happen, bringing in a guy from the outside who was going to make wholesale changes.
I think between the two of them, they recruited almost half the class.
On Cory Butler:
A lot of speed. Very talented. Can play either corner or wide receiver. May be playing a little bit of both. But he's got the top end speed that you look for at corner, with us playing as much man coverage as we do, you've got to be able to run with everybody that you face. That's our starting point for Cory, is on defense. He's also a kick returner as well, so he could factor in there. Really just the sheer speed and athleticism he possesses is what attracted us to him.
On other signees in this class:
You can do that with guys who walk on and earn scholarships or guys who show up in the fall and you put on scholarship and count them forward. There is always in most classes a handful of guys who do that. I think this year was eight of those guys. All 25 are now taken. Tim Patrick is in this class, Jameson Field, Wallace Gonzalez and Jason Fanaika.
Additional coaching staff updates:
Morgan Scalley is still recruiting coordinator and he has also been named the special teams coordinator. Right now he is carrying both titles. We may give the recruiting coordinator title somewhere else. It depends on who we end up hiring as the tight end coach, and that could get shifted based on that hire. Or it could stay with Morgan. Morgan is a very capable guy who can multitask. He's got a lot on his plate, but he's handled it well.
Players Mentioned
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