Quoting Carroll - Wednesday Practice

SCPlayBook's Kevin Carden caught up with Trojan Head Coach Pete Carroll after practice on Wednesday.

Kudos for the Service Team:

"We had a good heated day today. Guys were battling, really good practice both of the last two days. I'm really fired up about our service teams. I can tell that the depth of football on our football team is showing up in the quality of play that we are getting on the guys battling against the first team offense and first team defense.

We got Mitch (Mustain) throwing to (Brandon) Carswell and throwing to Rhett Ellison down here on the service team. Allen Bradford took some snaps and Herschel (Dennis) took some snaps for us down here running the football. You're getting a good look and hopefully that should really benefit us."

On Brian Cushing:

"He's not quite 100% yet, I don't know how it's going to be; we're going to go all the way up to game time. If he's full speed he'll start and play. If he's not we'll play him anyway, you know he will be able to play some. He certainly can play, I don't know that he's 100% yet. He's trying to make it through the day each day."

On Everson Griffen:

"He's done okay; you know he's played a lot for a freshman. He's been in a lot of key situations, and he's playing real hard. He's got a style to him that we are trying to develop, he's got great speed and he doesn't always use it effectively. He gets over anxious and kind of overly eager to get to the ball, and sometimes he runs into guys and bangs around and stuff. So we're going to help him.

I think he'll improve as much as anybody on the football team by the middle of the season to the end. I think the more we play him the more comfortable he will get and his awareness will expand, and he will be able to do more stuff. Right now he's kind of running into guys, but he's doing well, and he's playing real hard. So those are good signs."

On Sedrick Ellis:

"When Mike Patterson left I thought Mike would be one of the most difficult guys to replace because he was so unique and such an effective player for us, but Sedrick (Ellis) has done that…He's so confident and he's so aware. It's been really cool to see him mature into a leader on this football team. He's got a voice and he always works really hard and he says and does all the right stuff. He's a very, very important football player on our team."