University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Training Camp Transcript: Day 14
8/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 20, 2010
PITTSBURGH -
Opening Statement:
“We had two or three players that we were working with that we had some eligibility concerns. K.K. Smith did not make it academically by the (NCAA) Clearinghouse. He will go home tonight, visit with his family, and then he’ll decide what to do from there. As far as practice today, we did some live third down, we did some live coming out and some two-point play. I thought the guys competed well today. I thought it was a good practice.
“We backed off a little bit this morning running shells to give them a break from the contact and I thought they responded this afternoon. This was a good day for us. Tomorrow we’ll have practice and then we’ll have some live work, controlled, at the end of the practice. We’ll break camp, let them move out of the dorms and into their apartments.”
On Ricky Gary:
“Usually I tell the players not to read the paper. He must have read the news papers. He came out here today and probably had as good a day as he’s had as a Panther. We need him to make plays, we need him to be a leader, so that was good to see.”
On the competitive environment in practice:
“I think it’s the heat, I think it’s the end of camp. Everybody’s sore, everybody’s tired, everybody’s beat up and we have work to do, unfortunately. The guys were competitive this afternoon."
On having a physically hard practice today:
“It was planned. We planned it last night that we were going to have some live third down, some live coming out (from the goal line) plays, where we put the ball down at the six inch line and have to get a first down. That was our schedule. We’ll follow the same schedule tomorrow with some situational work.”
On Mike Shanahan:
“The difference now all of a sudden for Mike Shanahan is that he’s a starter. Sometimes when you’re coming off the bench, and you’re the third or fourth guy, you don’t feel the pressure of being one of the guys. Now, he’s in that role and he’s responded well. He’s had a good camp and he had a good off-season. I expect Mike to have a great year, I really do.”
On Jon Baldwin:
“He practiced this morning. His hamstring has been tight and it’s been bothering him. We sent him in with Buddy Morris to do rehab and conditioning stuff that he could do other than running.”
On the linebackers:
“We look at our linebacker position right now, and we have four starters. We have Max Gruder, Dan Mason, Tristan Roberts and Greg Williams. We can interchange them. Max knows the “Mike” spot and Greg can play either “Will” or “Sam”. It’s probably a situation that we haven’t had since I’ve been here.
“In naming a starter, it will be situational, game-to-game and how they play. They’ll both play. I want them both looking at themselves as starters, because that’s how we view them.”
On the defensive ends:
“Justin Hargrove moved up the depth chart a little bit. He split time with the twos. Right now we have Nate Nix, Brandon Lindsey and Justin Hargrove. They’re three interchangeable guys that are all playing well. We’re going to need them all. It’s more depth than we had last year. Last year, we had Shayne Hale who was moved there for the first time, then we had Brandon, Greg Romeus and Jabaal Sheard. We have more depth this year, and they’re playing well.”
On tomorrow’s practice:
“Tomorrow we’re going to have a full two-and-a-half hour practice, then at the end we’re going to scrimmage short yardage and goal line. We’re going to crank it up a little bit.”
