Holgorsen-Main-62515.jpg
Coach Holgorsen Summer Update
June 25, 2015 05:13 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va.– West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen met with the media on Wednesday in the new team room at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Talking about the new team room
This room has been good for us. We’ve had lots of meetings in here. The recruiting aspect of this has been great. The hall out here… when we have our junior days, they come in, they roam around they sit down, they watch some highlight tapes. We can fit a lot of people in here so it’s worked out really well. I think it’s going to work out well for the media sessions.
Opening statement
I just wanted to spend a few minutes with you here – I’m going to be fairly quick – five, 10 minutes or so. Then coaches and players will come in, and you’ll get about 30 minutes with them. We have a team meeting in here at three, which we will get going about 10-15 minutes prior to that. I’ll be pretty quick here.
Since the spring game, (we’ve had) five weeks of spring recruiting. The reception out there on the road has been good. The assistant coaches have done a fantastic job of getting out there and being visible and being on different campuses across the country. It’s been really good. The Big 12 brand has been great. The West Virginia University brand has been good. The reception has been positive.
The last four weeks we’ve been on campus; the whole month of June we’ve been here holding numerous camps, hosting many, many unofficial visitors. It’s amazing how many of these kids travel during June and just go from school to school to school. It’s amazing how my kids do that. (We’ve) had a lot of unofficial visits and our camp numbers have been up as well. Every one of our camps that we’ve has been very positive. We’re supposed to have a huge O-line/D-line camp today and a 7-on-7 camp, which the weather is not cooperating. We’ll see how that goes. Next week we get into a dead week. The NCAA has put in place about a three week period, where everything is dead. So after this week, our coaches will go on the road and go on vacation, spend time with their families. There’s nothing we can do here from a recruiting point of view, so I want to get them away from recruiting and let them spend time with families. Probably most importantly, (I want to) get our coaches away from our current team, because we’ve got to spend a whole lot of time with them August through January. Get away from our guys and just kind of get regrouped and refreshed for August. We’ll reconvene, obviously, in late July and have another couple of camps and then get going with our team.
Right now, they’ve been back at it for about six weeks. We’ve got about 15 new guys at this point in time who are with us. They’ve been here for about three weeks. It’s been great. We’ve done a lot of football stuff. Nothing with a ball. I know you guys want to ask questions about some of the new guys and how they look, but I don’t know. I know what they look like in the meeting rooms, I know what they look like in the weight room. We’ve been out with them on the field doing some agility stuff, running sprints; but nothing that has involved actual, real football so I’m not going to have any answers for you. It’s been good. I really do feel like we’re by far and away, as advanced and as ahead from any of the previous teams that I’ve had here. Our team’s in a good place. We’ve got so many seniors and juniors and upperclassmen. I’ve talked to everybody about this, but the leadership that I see out there when things get hard during spring, when things get hard doing agilities, running the hill – all that stuff – when things get hard, we’ve got a whole bunch of guys that step up and get things right and bring the younger kids along. As opposed to our younger guys, our newer guys, being starters and having to rely on them we’ve got 21 seniors and 21 juniors right now that are leading the charge. Our bodies look great, the attitude is great. I can’t say enough about what (director of strength & conditioning) Mike Joseph has done. He and his staff, Kevin McCadam, Darl Bauer, Chad Snodgrass and Andre Wadley, I think they’re best in the business. It goes far beyond just strength and numbers. Bench press numbers, squat numbers… these guys are motivators, they’re counselors, they’re friends, they show they care. They spend a lot of times with these guys and they have really done a great job with this group and we do look good. We’re confident and our bodies look good. They’re bodies look better than I’ve seen in quite some time. With that said, they’ve focused hard on what the attitude and the mental toughness aspect of things are as well and I think those guys have done a great job. Once we’re done with them this week, they’re in Mike’s hands. He’s the head coach for the next four weeks. After the next four weeks, we’ll let our players go for a while. They need to go home and see friends and family and all that stuff prior to August 1. That’s kind of where we’re at.
On whether they’re scouting opponents on staying self-absorbed
One hundred percent self-absorbed. We finished up pretty much our spring cut-ups today with our offensive staff and Gibby (defensive coordinator Tony Gibson) did with his defensive staff. Even though we can only meet with the players a couple of hours a week, offensive staff and defensive staff meet for eight hours a day. (We) go through all of the spring cut-ups and make corrections. Then we can meet with the players, and we can tell them what the corrections are so they can go out and work on things on their own. If you don’t do it that way – I don’t know how we’ve done it in the past to be honest with you. We tell players to go out and do some 7-on-7 and throw and catch and all that stuff. That’s better than doing nothing, obviously, but they’re going to go out there, and they’re going to work on things without us making corrections. We’ve been able to self-scout ourselves for the last four weeks and make some specific changes on all three sides of the ball and meet with our players and say “Here’s how we’re going to do it. Go do it.” That’s been helpful. I know Gibby has been prepping a little for Georgia Southern just because that’s such a different offense. He’s got to start thinking about what our plans going to be. He’s got to start teaching some different things specifically and all that. Typically, we don’t get into an actual game prep until about two weeks before the first game. That’s what we will do offensively.
On starting at a higher level with a more experience team
Absolutely we are. It makes sense to all these guys a lot more. We’re going into the second year defensively. We’re going into the fifth year offensively so we’ve got a lot of guys that have heard the same stuff here for two to five years. That does put us ahead. We’re not starting over. A couple years ago we were starting over across the board. It’s probably why I said we’re far and away more advanced than where we have been at this point.
On whether or not all expected newcomers have arrived
Don’t know yet. It’s too early. This is the end of the first summer I – tomorrow. Next Monday starts summer II. We’re anticipating having a few more guys come in on Monday. We won’t bring them in unless they’re cleared. We’ve got to have a couple more come in – I assume – on Monday and then three weeks after that we’ve got another opportunity to bring some guys in. It’s still early; too early to tell. It could be all the way until mid-August, until school starts. If guys get cleared then, then we’ll bring them in. When guys enroll, we’re going to release that. Until then we’re not going to have a comment on it. I will say this – I wanted to make this announcement six weeks ago this was released, and I probably should have put something out, but Malik Greaves is going to be a medical hardship. He’s physically unable to perform. He’s had a couple of hip surgeries. It’s been reported that he’s left the team but the truth of the matter is he’s physically unable to play and he will remain on scholarship here. Tyler Tezeno transferred to Sam Houston State, back closer to home. (He’s) dropping down a level to try to get a little bit more playing time. Jaylon Myers is academically ineligible. That’s our one and only academic hit at this point. I don’t anticipate any more.
On the importance of having head basketball coach Bob Huggins speak with the team
I spend a lot of time with coach. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. It’s been really good for me, because he’s from here, he went to school here. He’s obviously been back for eight years and understands what it means to coach here. Circulating across the state of West Virginia with him has been a lot of fun. It’s been five years deep now, so I know all of his jokes, and I know everything he’s about to say. It’s been a lot of fun. With that said, nobody knows more about the state and what it means to the people – what we do as coaches and what our players do – representing West Virginia University. With him coming in here, it is just, they get tired of me saying how important it is. Bringing him in, he’s a great guy and obviously he carries a lot of weight with what he says. His message was just that. As far as what it means to everybody and what we do and how important it is.
Gold-Blue Spring Festival Fan Recap
Sunday, April 19
John Neider | April 18
Saturday, April 18
Coach Zac Alley | April 18
Saturday, April 18
Coach Rich Rodriguez | April 18
Saturday, April 18
