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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Houston Nutt Pre-Spring Press Conference
3/18/2008 | Football
Opening Comments
We are very excited. We have seen some offseason work. It’s been good gym class, and now we are looking forward to some football. We’re going to start Thursday. We’re going to open it up like I told you before. We’re probably going to start our first practice right in here in the IPF, because of the weather. Just looking at the forecast and what’s going to happen tomorrow, we’ll probably be in here. You’re welcome to come. We’re excited about this group. I have been proud of our seniors. Our seniors have done a great job. I want to start with Jason Cook. I think he has stepped up along with Michael Oher and Peria Jerry. The Jerry brothers are special. I’m just going by the gym class right now, that is running, drills, 5:30 a.m. workouts, things like that. It’s been very good. Jamarca Stanford has really stepped up out there. Our wide receivers have showed a lot of quickness. I am excited about them along with Jevan Snead and the offensive line.
I’ll take each position, and let me start with the change first. We moved Maurice Miller inside to guard. We moved John Jerry to the right tackle spot. We think that gives us on paper two big bodies on the edges. Michael Oher and John Jerry are long arm guys that can move and are athletic, so I am anxious to see how physical they are. Maurice has done a good job of losing some weight. We encouraged him and put him on a special diet. Don Decker and the group have done a good job. He was really overweight when we got here. He has made a comeback. He has done a really good job. Daverin Geralds is at center with Brandon Green, who I’m really glad that we signed this semester. As we go through, you will see the ones that we signed this semester have really helped us. Brandon Green is a hustler. He’s just really worked hard. He’s at center. Rishaw Johnson is another guy that we will work a little bit. So we will have those three guys working at center. At left guard, Reid Neely has been outstanding. I love his maturity and the leadership he has shown. Michael Oher is on the left side. He’s been good. Bradley Sowell backs him up at left tackle. I like the way he moves. He’s got a great attitude and works hard. It gets thin after that. We have to work on some depth with Washington, Green and Lewis. I just don’t know that much right now. I’m just telling you what we’ve done so far.
At fullback, Jason Cook has been outstanding. He’s a leader. He’s a winner. You can just tell the way he goes about things in the classroom and the weight room. We’re just excited about him. He and Andy Hartmann are close friends. Andy’s another guy that has great character. I’m anxious to see if these guys will go hit somebody. At tailback, we have Cordera Eason, Jeremy McGee, Reggie Hicks, and we will work all those guys and give everybody an opportunity. At quarterback, we have Jevan Snead and Billy Tapp. Both of those guys will get most of the reps. At tight end, David Traxler has been very good. He’s already gotten much stronger, and I’m anxious to see him. He vertical jumped over 30 inches. He’s been so good so far. We will see if anything changes when you put the pads on, but I’m excited to see him. The receivers have probably been the brightest spot with Mike Wallace, Dexter McCluster, Marshay Green, Shay Hodge and Markeith Summers. We have some guys who can run out there, so I’m really excited to see those guys and see if they can catch a football, will they play without the ball, will they go get the ball, and things like that. Of course seeing them last year, I saw them do some of those things.
Defensively, on the defensive line, I’ll start with Peria jerry. What a worker. He has a tremendous attitude. Coach Tracy Rocker really loves his intensity and the way he’s been working this winter. I’ve been excited about him. Ted Laurent is a guy along with Marcus Tillman that are pistols. They do what we ask them to do, and they do a good job. I’m excited about them. With LaMark Armour, Chris Strong, Kentrell Lockett, Emmanuel Stephens, LaDerrick Vaughn, Greg Hardy, you have some end bodies. You have some good edge bodies. We need somebody in there with Peria and Ted. Justin Sanders is another guy that we’re really excited about that had some very good workouts. Coach Decker is excited about him. Coach Rocker is excited about him. But again, we have a long way to go, so let’s see what happens when we put the pads on.
If there is one spot that you are concerned about when you look at our guys, it is the depth. It is the numbers. It is linebackers. Ashlee Palmer, Chris Bowers, Allen Walker, Jonathan Cornell will be ready to go. Those four guys stand out in my mind just as far as effort and running the drills. Again, I don’t know if they can tackle a marshmallow, but I’m just going by what we have seen in the weight room and gym class. I know I’m glad that these guys are on the team.
In the secondary, there’s another thing that concerns you because of depth. Two corners, I love them, are Dustin Mouzon, Cassius Vaughn. Then it gets thin in a hurry. We have to develop some depth and maybe get some freshmen ready to play. With Jamarca Sanford and Johnny Brown, I’m excited about the safeties. But again, it’s not enough. We’ve got to see who can go in and tackle. But that’s where we are.
Here is what we want to accomplish this spring. Number one, change is always hard. It’s always hard. It’s new terminology. It’s a new coach. It’s a new system. Here’s the greatest thing, there’s not a set time to have a game plan ready this week. What we want to do is get better fundamentally. Number one, we’re going to get better fundamentally. We’re going to have a good stance. We want to know the snap counts. We want to get the quarterback-center exchange. Take all the baby steps and do everything the right way fundamentally, and then take the next step. So basically, we strip everything down and start all over. It’s baby steps. It’s one step at a time. It’s a football position. It’s full speed. It’s effort. It’s attitude. There are some things I want to change. Just watching them these last eight weeks, there are some things that I don’t like. I’ve talked to them a couple of times about it. I want to change their attitude, and attitude is the little things. It’s about winning. It’s about winning in everything you do. It’s about going to the classroom. It’s about how you sit in the first three rows. It’s about being on time. There are some guys that got accustomed to losing, and I’m not just talking on the football team. It carries over to the football field, but it’s everyday. That will be another thing that we approach this spring that we want to change. We want to change what we are about, change what our team is about. But it will take everybody in our room to do it one way. There is only one head coach, and right now you are stuck with me. There is one system. Tyrone Nix will implement his system on defense. Coach Rocker, Kent Austin, Chris Vaughn and all those guys will be working very, very hard to teach. This is a great teaching time. This is what I’m excited about with the guys as we coach and teach. It’s the most fun time of the year to be a football coach. You get to watch all the March Madness you want, and I love basketball. That’s the reason we moved the first practice up a day. I wanted to make sure that all attention and all eyes are on Andy Kennedy’s group, and then we start after him. I can’t wait to go. I think our players are excited. So I will just stop right there and open up for questions.
Q: How anxious are you to actually coach rather than of all the other stuff you had to do to get to this point?
That’s a good question because that’s where you can’t wait. These last few weeks, we’ve just been going to the weight room, going to the 6:00 morning workouts, just being with those players that you are going to go to war with, just finding out what makes them tick. Now we get to go post up on them and take that winter program with the running, the sprinting and the conditioning and take that to another level with the greatest game in the world. So I’m excited about it, and our staff is excited about it. I think our players, if you go down the line and ask everyone of them, they would say that they’re excited about it.
Q: What is the process of installing your offense?
Number one, we have been working together for the last couple of months. The base of our offense is very physical, very fast. The running game has been in place. We haven’t had to change it in the last 10, 12, 15 years, so that won’t change. So we had to teach. The good news is that Derrick Nix has been around and had a lot of that. Ron Dickerson, who I coached, understands and has been around it.
Q: Is Cordera Eason the number one running back right now?
We’ll mix it up. Cordera may get the first snaps. I think right now, Derrick (Vaughn) has him at the top of the list, but they are all going to get all they want this spring. We will know by the end of these 15 practices who will get the first snap at the end of August.
Q: Talk about Gerald Harris.
Gerald Harris is another guy that is doing an excellent job at tight end. I’m glad that he’s another one of those guys that came in here during January. If you look at Brandon Green, Gerald Harris, Emmanuel Stephens, Jared Mitchell, those guys have just been valuable for us. Gerald has put on 20 pounds since he has gotten here. He looks like a tight end now, so I’m anxious to see how he looks when we put the pads on him.
Q: How have the lineman responded to the offseason workouts?
Let’s start with Chris Strong. Chris Strong will start out at end. Sometimes he looks like an end and sometimes he looks like he needs to be inside. So again, without having any pads on, I can’t give you a good answer. There will be a few guys like that we will be watching to see if he should be here or there. We’ve got a few moves in the back of our minds that I don’t want to really get into right now, because I think it is just too early. So we will see how it all plays out. As far as the physical part, without pads on, it’s hard to really grade them or compare them. The only thing I can go by is when you gas them the way we gas them, when you put them through a fourth quarter, when they think that they can’t go another yard. We’ve got too many guys that have what I call a cutoff switch, and this is something that I’ve talked to them about. There are a few of you that once you hit a certain pain threshold, there’s a shutoff switch, and that is what I want to get to. I want to get to the point where you don’t have that. You go through that pain. I know you’re tired, but you can still go a little faster, a little harder and one more step. And that’s where we have a long way to go. A lot of people in the country would have a cutoff switch under the circumstances we have put them under, but we can't have one. We have to get mentally stronger and tougher. That's our job as coaches. We will take them to the point where we don't have a cutoff switch, into overtime.
Q: Talk about Tony Fein.
He has been inconsistent. He will have some great days and then two or three not-too-good days. You have to be consistent to get my attention.
Q: You said you are curious about some of the guys when you put them in pads, like David Traxler and Gerald Harris. Anyone else?
Allen Walker, Jonathan Cornell, Gerald Harris, Emmanuel Stephens and several more.
Q: Talk about Darryl Harris.
He has worked very hard. We have applied for a sixth year for hardship, and I hope he gets it. He could help us. It might be three or four weeks before we hear. He can practice this spring until we do hear a decision.
Q: How long do you think it will take to get rid of that cutoff switch you talked about?
I don't know. We are just taking one day at a time, but our goal is to get better every single day. We love our players and will talk fishing or whatever off the field. But on the field, we will coach them hard, and they have to be able to take hard coaching. We want to take them to another level, but that requires being able to take hard coaching when we are out there. I saw how hard they played against
Q: Have you watched much film from last year?
No, we are going to have a clean slate. I do not want to hear 'he is soft or he missed too many tackles.' I don't want any pre-determinations. Everything is clean and we have to determine those things for ourselves. Everyone has a brand new start, take advantage of it.
Q: Is Jevan Snead's knee OK?
Yes. The trainers have done a great job with him, and he's ready to go. We won't hit him though. We will take care of him and put him in a different color jersey. He will not be hit.
Q: Did it take long for you to see who are the leaders of the team?
After the first meeting, Jason Cook, Michael Oher, Marcus Tillman, Jamarca Sanford, Cassius Vaughn, Dustin Mouzon and a couple of more gravitated to me quickly, and I gravitated to them too. They are so hungry for success. They are starving for it. That excites me as a coach. They told me they will do whatever it takes. Reid Neely, David Traxler, the Jerrys, Jevan Snead, Andy Hartmann and several others are also like that. All those wideouts. Did they do it perfectly? No, but I am not worried about them.
Q: How is your staff molding together?
This is one of the best staffs I have ever seen in terms of chemistry. We are all on the same page, but I don't have a lot of yes men. They tell me the truth and not what they think I want to hear, and I like that. They give me their real ideas. They are experienced, and they are professional. I feel a sense of unity and that is exciting because that's where it starts. You can't fool your players if you don't have that. They know if something is wrong.
Q: Will you do less hitting in spring than normal?
No. We will teach fundamentals more, but we will have the same amount of hitting as I have always had. We will have a lot of full-speed blocking without tackling to the ground. We will thud them up, but not take them to the ground. That saves injuries. We will do everything full speed and live but will not tackle to the ground except maybe five scrimmages during the whole spring.
Q: What is the biggest thing you have had to change since you have been at Ole Miss?
Academics. We have work to do there. We have to finish in the classroom too. We are in a hole academically. For the most part, they have worked hard to get it right and I have to commend our academic staff, but we have to get out from behind that eight ball.
