Clawson Talks to Jack Carle, Spills Guts

OK...maybe he didn't really spill his guts.  But the season is approaching...MAC media days are next week and Fall practice starts shortly after that.  You can listen to the interview here, but here is a summary.

• This is a pivotal transitional year for the program.  The team has a lot of young players who are the future of the program, and the coaches need to get them ready to play.
• While we are young, we do have our systems in place.  But, we became a young team very quickly.
• Freshmen will play for this team---both true freshmen and redshirt freshmen.
• As evidence of the transitional nature, many of the 1s and 2s are not set yet.
• In some senses, the team is better.  Coach expects us to be quicker and more athletic.  
• As an example, Nick Torresso moved from the d-line to the o-line, and he has a chance to start there.
• The only injury right now is Chris Scheidt, (WR) who could miss the season.
• Calvin Wiley was approved for a year 6 at WR.
• He didn't know how many redshirts there would be in the current class, but he did not think there would be 20.
• He cited Chris Jones and Jordan Roussos as players who could have break-out years (both on the D-line.)
• In particular, he noted the freshmen will have to play at LB, S, and on the O-Line.  On the o-line alone he expects 2-3 freshmen on the two-deep.
• As for QB, he said that Schilz left Spring ever so slightly ahead of everyone else.  He will take the first snap with the first team when practice starts.
• As for a timetable, Coach noted that there is no way for 5 players to get reps with the #1 offense.  So, it needs to become a two-man race early in camp.
• He is not a fan of playing 2 QBs and seems very much to want one guy to emerge as the top guy.  (As a note, Falcon fans can gird themselves for a year of uber-QB controversy.  If there is any struggling at all, people will be screaming for the fan's favorite on any football team...the backup QB.  In particular, because of the Browns ties, watch for Kellen Pagel to be the source of considerable QB controversy.)
• Finally, he discussed our early schedule, which is very challenging.  His hope is that those games leave us prepared for the conference season in a way that allows us to compete.

So that's the state of the team.  I will be doing a lot more previews as we move forward, but there is every reason to expect a rebuilding year this season.  However, I am optimistic about the direction of our program, and I believe that we are moving in the right direction under the leadership of a Coach who has proven he knows how to build winning programs.

As fans, we may have to be patient this year.  Who knows, perhaps it will exceed expectations.  But we have a hole in our program from other recruiting classes that had a lot of attrition, and this year may be the price we need to pay.