Opening statement:
"Good first day. A really good first day as you would expect the energy, after putting seven months of something into it, an opportunity to get on the field. And certainly last two months in the summer. A lot of excitement, a lot of energy, a lot of mistakes because it's day one. Talk to them about not being discouraged about anything. And you know, what defines us is so much better we get from day one to day two. So with that, I'll open up questions."
On whether he had "nerves" on the first day:
"We've worked hard to get ourselves in position where we're organized and we feel like everybody's on the same page. We're a lot further ahead today than we were, you know, at the end of spring ball. I think just as a staff, cohesiveness, being on the same page, that allows our players to be even more insync. Just some things just with practice management, blowing a horn and that type thing. But I really feel like our kids know what we're about and the direction that we're heading. And I think our staff on same page too. So, you know, starting yesterday, when we had our first meeting with the report day, I think everybody's excited and ready to go through and myself."
On the summer conditioning program and the process of becoming closer to the players:
"Yeah, I think our strength staff did a phenomenal job between what they were doing in workouts and the way we're feeding our kids have really allowed our players become the best version of themselves. And that's what we're trying to do every day. As individuals, a lot of them have gained tremendous amount of strength inside the weight room. They're lean, they're in shape their bodies when you see them, they look like they're ready to go out and compete for 60 minutes. The most important thing that we've done in this, and since since day one, and it'll be true every single year, is develop relationships with our players. Get to know them. It's certainly important in year one when I didn't recruit most of these kids. Don't know their backgrounds. Don't know the family, brothers and sisters, the the makeup of you know who they are.
"And so if we're going to talk about being a family and developing those relationships, got spend a lot of time and we've done it since January. But you know, in summer, every player came over to my house. We did it by class, you know, seniors first, juniors second and sophomores third/ By the time we got to the freshman it was a free for all and they were pretty comfortable at my house. We couldn't get him out of there one night. Our staff had them over to eat a couple of times. We went to SeaWorld had an absolute blast of a day, just being able to interact with our team. Everybody saw the tweets from from the team barbecue. Some places talk about being a family and having those types of relationships and experiences. Here at UCF, we're going to live those out every single day inside of our building."
On McKenzie Milton's travels this summer:
"Yeah, he was really busy here. And he put all the work in that we expected him to. He got out of here on you know, midday Friday, when all of our players were done, and he gets off to the Manning Camp or the Elite 11 experience. The Manning Camp I think is great because he gets an opportunity to watch Eli workout, Peyton, get around those guys and just see you know, what makes them tick. But also asking questions. Those guys have had a great career and what's allowed them be successful.
"Going out to the Elite 11, interact with other great players, high school kids, but get chance to just go out and maybe even compete a little bit. And I think those are invaluable experiences just becoming a well rounded person and well rounded athlete. He's been extremely focused. He's been been very purposeful in the way he's worked inside of our meeting room. Just getting a chance to go through the install this morning before we came out on the field. He knows his job, you know, from A to Z. And he can rewind it and tell you everything that's going on with all 11 players on offense. And he's got a really good understanding of defensive football right now. He's put a lot of work in since January. So I'm really proud of what he's done."
On what he takes from today's first practice:
"I think it's always hard for for the front seven. You don't have shoulder pads on and physical contact is limited. You want it to be that way. We played in a lot of spread out formations. We tried to minimize the amount of collisions that we would have on a day like today. And that'll be really typical for the first two days. You get a chance to see them competing, playing some one on one situations. Today, there's a bunch of nervous energy from our players. It's just when you pour a lot of time and energy into something, you want to make those strides, you want to show them immediately on day one. Some of those things don't come into realization day one. You get a chance to go back and correct so many things. Again, at the end of practice, I call them up, 'Don't be discouraged about anything. Be extremely positive.' We've made a bunch of strides. I like where we're at. I thought special teams, our guys played with great technique and competed extremely hard. If we do those two things we'll win that third phase every single Saturday. And that's a big part of us being successful."
On the mentality of not being "the hunted:"
"I've talked about it. As a program or even as an individual, it's probably easier to get somewhere on the top of the mountain top than it is to maintain staying up there. And once you're up there, you know, everyone around this program is talking about, you know, you're going to have a big target on your back oryour chest, and I even talked to our players that way trying to get them to understand, you know, the reality of the energy and the focus that we're going to see every Saturday. It may be a little bit different than what we've seen in the past. I just, I didn't like that. It doesn't fit my personality. We want to be aggressive. We want to attack. I think that's a passive way to talk to your football team as well. And so we try to dictate things that matter to us. You know, one of our goals is to go 1-0. When we focus on each week, today is about 1-0 today. And how we attack today will dictate where we get to. And so we kind of, you know, flipped the mantra. Instead of being the targeted, we want attack and and be aggressive."
On the direction he wants his team to have:
"Some of it you can't see from the outside in. The expectations of how we're going to operate inside of our our building every single day. What it means to be a great teammate, you know, hold each other accountable. What it means to become a great leader. I said this in January, I'll say now, I said to the team last night. Championship football teams, it's because of the accountability and the brotherhood that exists inside of the locker room. That's what separates a special year from from just you know, a good year and so we're trying to get all of our kids to become the things that they're capable of in those two leadership roles. I think things you'll see is maybe some of the the hidden yards, the hidden plays the end up happening during the course of the ballgame. And from where we finished spring ball, the technique that our players are able to play with because they truly understand what we're trying to do. I think, you know, halfway through spring ball and we finished up I thought, second half of spring ball, we were a lot different defensively than we were the first half because of the technique and the understanding of how we're going to play snap to whistle.
"And we've continued to get better through the summer. And I think we'll continue to get better and we need to continue to get better as we go through training camp. This is the fourth quarter of our offseason. First quarter is strength and conditioning. Second quarter is spring ball. Third quarter is your summer. Those three have gotten better. Every quarter we've gone through we've gotten better as a football team. Our kids have had great purpose This is the most important because it sets you up to have an opportunity every week when you go on the field on Saturday."
On the speed of the offense:
"We talk about attacking or competing harder than our opponent snap to whistle. If you are going to play at your fastest tempo, you have to learn to outwork your opponent from the whistle to the snap. That's how you create a guy being out of position. One step in the game of football makes a difference. It might be a second level linebacker being one step away from being able to make that arm tackle. One six inch step from a right tackle allows you to cut off the defensive tackle or a bad step his penetration playing on the line of scrimmage. So there's so many small details that come into something being successful. And it's not just whether you call the run or call the pass, it's how those things are implemented, the technique you play with.
On how many plays he wants to have in a game:
"We really don't. Every game is different. You can play the same opponent 10 straight weeks and every game is going to unfold different. That's the beauty of college football is you get an opportunity for one shot, one kill. And so for us, it's you know, understand that we're only as good as our next when we talk about the next game. When we do play with pace, we want to do it because we're going to create a competitive advantage for us. A guy out of position and that allows our skill guys to make a play."
On the health of the team:
"Critical for us that we stay healthy through training camp. I think you know where you finish training camp, and you got to get a certain amount of physical work in, but you also have to take care of your guys enough that the totality of what you're doing training camp and early in the season dictates where you are health wise in the middle of the season and at the end of the season too. Not just the major injuries that everybody talks about.
"We have a plan. We're trying to take care of them. They're in the ice tubs after every practice. We got things like massage therapists for a bunch of our skilled players. We're gonna try to make sure that we're getting a lot of good work in there getting acclimated to the weather outside, yet we're not depleting them for the long term."
On the depth at wide receiver:
""We've got dynamic playmakers that are really still young players for the most part that have played at a pretty high level. The challenge for them is to to not give into a sophomore slump just because you think you played well a year ago. That you're becoming a sophomore also in the natural evolution is just going to happen. You have to go out attack, compete and go take it and make it happen. We got versatility. Otis has ability to play multiple positions. Marlon palyed some in the backfield. There's a lot of things that we can do as an offensive staff to to be creative and have some fun, put pressure on defenses."
On media taking shots at UCF:
"Maybe some truth in that, but I think the best thing that we did you know coming off that championship season (at Oklahoma) - I was gone and they went on a long run the next year, maybe get tripped up once, is we focused on the following season. We always focus on the next. The great thing about today is we kicked off 2018. Our kids are pushing ahead. At the end of the day, it's great for media, great for fans to have a debate, that's awesome. The challenge for us as a program, coaches and players, is to really focus on today and ignore the outside noise. That's something that we've been talking about."
On the quarterback battle behind Milton:
"We've got a competitive situation. Who's going to take the number two spot? Is that number two guy going to prove that he can play at a championship level and help us be what we need to be? There's a lot of competitiveness at the at that position right now. We're gonna find out where our guys are at, where they've transition and grown from where we ended spring ball to where we jump off training camp. Quadry (Jones) is going to have an opportunity to go out and earn some things as well. He looked really well out there today, threw the ball well."
On the return of TE Michael Colubiale:
"Veteran player at the tight end position. Versatility. I'm used to having a guy that can play in line, that can play off the ball in the backfield and split out and play wide as well. He has all those skill sets. He's worked tremendously hard getting himself back to playing shape. He wasn't really out of shape. But you know, he dropped down I think maybe 210 pounds and has got himself back up to the high 220s and close to where he was last year while he was playing. I hope he continues to do that as we go through training camp."
On replacing key senior leadership:
"We lost leadership and great players on both sides of the ball. Certainly dominant players on on the defensive side of the ball in Shaq and Mike Hughes. Those are two guys that are on the on the All-Conference team in the history of this conference. Those are big shoes to fill. The leadership portion of it, we did lose leadership. That's the good and the hard thing about college football is 20% of your roster turns over every single year. New opportunities for guys to speak up take more ownership of the team. More opportunities for guys to step up and go out and make plays.
"During spring ball, new schemes, new terminology, it's hard for guys to kind of thrust themselves forward and take complete ownership in a leadership role because you're worried as a player just about, 'Hey, I gotta do my job at a high level and then I got start communicating to the other guys a little bit.' When we got back and summer kicked off, that's where we really saw our leadership come forward.
"I'm really excited about Pat Jasinski on the defensive side of the ball, the ownership that he's taken. Titus (Davis) has done a really good job, Joey Connors as well. And then you look at offensively, Wyatt Miller is kind of the key component to that. McKenzie starting to take more of that as well as he matures."
On Kyle Gibson's leadership:
"Kyle is a really positive guy. I think with young players, we've put all of our older players in our own leadership council in a position to be a big brother, a mentor to the new guys that have come into our program. Kyle's done that with with all the guys that are younger players. Just trying to show them what it takes in the film room. The mentality, the attitude you have to have when you walk into the weight room every single day. And then how you have to attack practice."
On the theme or message he wants to drill into the guys:
"We're pretty consistent in our message. Two things we talked about is attacking. You know, for us defensively and on the other side of the line of scrimmage. Outworking our opponent snap to whistle. Same on offense. Offensively, we talked about creating big plays and just the mentality and attitude that we have to have. So that's the first thing we talked about. That was the message of today. Then we talked about taking care of football and going in and hawking the ball on the defensive side of the ball."
On getting settled in Orlando:
"Yeah, we're more than comfortable. Family's been here since December 23. Kids absolutely love their school. The community of Orlando has been fantastic. The community at school that they're going to has been great. They had a fantastic summer here vacationing on both sides of the coast and doing some theme parks here in Orlando as well. I got out with them for a couple days too so that was good."
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