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."