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UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME MEDIA CONFERENCEApril 24, 2010Dayne CristDAYNE CRIST: I thought it was great. I mean, I had a great time being out there just competing with my teammates and just being able to go out there and feel good, feel confident in the knee was great for me. Q. To take every snap throughout that first half how did the knee hold up? DAYNE CRIST: It feels great. We'll obviously go in and continue to get treatment and do the things we need to do, but it felt great to be out there with my teammates. Q. From the perspective of having to make the quick reads you need to make in this offense, how did you think it went today? DAYNE CRIST: I thought it went pretty good. Definitely some things need to be corrected, forced a couple that I'd like to have back. But that's football, and that's us progressing as a team. I think we'll do that, but I think over all we took a real good step in the right direction. Q. How much farther ahead do you feel than a month ago? DAYNE CRIST: A world ahead right now. It was a little overwhelming at first, but now everything has started to slow down a little bit, and everyone has been able to kind of settle in and just go out and play. Q. In the first and second quarters, how did you hold up physically in terms of the demanding pace that you guys are running? How was the offense in general, sluggish in the second quarter? DAYNE CRIST: You know, I'm not too sure. Obviously we'd like to operate at the fastest pace possible, but just going from practice and how fast we've been going in practice, I mean, it almost felt slow because you're waiting for referees and everything to spot the ball and just kind of those aspects of the game slow it down a little bit. I'm sure fatigue set in with some guys, but we'll work through that, and I think that we're pretty happy with the pace that we went out on offense. Q. It's been so long since you played that much football. Did it feel good? DAYNE CRIST: It felt great. Yeah, I was just very happy to be out there. Again, going out there and competing with my teammates is the greatest feeling in the world, so just being able to do that was pretty remarkable and something that we really enjoyed doing. Q. You said you were going to get yourself where you wanted to be after spring maybe going into the summer. Are you there? DAYNE CRIST: I don't think it's anything tangible. I just wanted to have a pretty good grasp of the offense. Obviously we're going to go back and watch film and study film all summer, but it's a process and I've understood that since Coach Kelly came with his staff and understood that we need to take some time to learn everything. I understood it was a process, and I think that we're just making steps in the right direction, and that's the most important thing right now. Q. How do you hold up to the scrutiny Coach Kelly i9s under this spring? DAYNE CRIST: I mean, you have to embrace it. It's one of those situations where that's your coach and that's your leader, and you have to respect him and take to heart everything that he's saying, and he's got his way of coaching and as a player it's my job to respond to what he's asking me to do and what he's challenging me to do. I love Coach Kelly and everything that he's about, and I think that just his competitive nature is definitely going to drive a lot of guys. Q. What are your thoughts on how Nate played today? DAYNE CRIST: Nate played great. You know, he came in and executed real well. Obviously we'd both like to have some throws back out there, but it was nice seeing him out there, and it seemed like he was having a lot of fun, and that's what it's all about. Q. From a quarterback's perspective, what has T.J. Jones done to put himself in a position to be maybe a starter? DAYNE CRIST: T.J. has shown such a maturity out of a guy that is coming in here, and you forget that he's a mid-year guy out of high school. But he's definitely working incredibly hard off the field. As a quarterback you know you can trust him because from an assignment standpoint he's doing what he needs to do, and you just feel comfortable with him out there. Q. Is there anything in particular about him? Is it his speed? DAYNE CRIST: I think he's a pretty complete receiver. He's got the speed, he's got the hands. He's got very -- he's very fluid. I think he has all the tools, it's just about cultivating those tools and putting them together on the field and playing assignment smart football. Q. What were your expectations heading into the spring, and did you meet them by the end of it? DAYNE CRIST: I think that the biggest thing for us is we just had to learn it. We had to get everything in and just get quality reps out of what we were being asked to do. I think that it wasn't so much anything tangible that we wanted to meet, it was more so about having an overall good feel of the offense and just feel comfortable repping it. Obviously we'll continue to work through the summer and get a lot of reps out of that, which will be real good, but we're just real happy to make the steps we've been making. Q. Were you surprised with how clean everything worked today? DAYNE CRIST: I think we're pretty happy with where we're at. As a quarterback, personally, and I'm always looking for thing to correct and I'm kind of cynical by nature, but overall I think that we're all pretty happy with where we're at and the steps that we made. Q. Of course your former teammate and friend Jimmy Clausen was drafted yesterday by Carolina. What did Jimmy teach you that you believe was going to transfer into being a successful quarterback here? DAYNE CRIST: There's so many things that I've learned from Jimmy and picked up from Jimmy. He was just such a great mentor to me. He was always looking out for me and kind of giving me insight on everything. Just being around him and seeing how he operated often a daily basis and just his preparation and what he did to try and be the best, it was great to have someone like that around. Q. A lot of short passes today. Was that by design? DAYNE CRIST: You're really just kind of going out there and making reads by coverage, but with the defense that we kind of knew going in was going to be a little vanilla, that would mean there was going to be more coverage and they can't bring as many guys, so they have more guys to drop underneath. That's just by coverage, and you're taking what the defense is giving you. There were some times -- there were some definite examples out there where I forced a couple of things and got a little impatient and I paid for it. But we're continuing to learn and we'll study film and get after it throughout the rest of the summer. Q. Talking to Manti about him covering Kyle Rudolph -- DAYNE CRIST: I mean, Kyle is a freak athlete. He's a great player, he's a great teammate, and you know, it's definitely one of those guys that we have such a relationship not only on the field but off the field, that I think our chemistry has made it very comfortable for the both of us being out there and just spending the time working away from practice on timing and things like that have all paid off in the off-season, and it's definitely turned out well for both Kyle and I. Q. What's next for you? What's the next step for you in terms of your preparation? DAYNE CRIST: Well, we'll continue the year with some lifting and some throwing and stuff like that. In the summer it's all business. We've got that month stretch where we're home for a little bit. It's going to be a very serious time for me training and watching as much film as possible, throwing to guys, trying to get together with a bunch of guys and doing that whole deal and just getting my mind right to come back in the summer and just pick up where we left off. We can't have any time, any stagnant time. We need to make sure that we're moving forward and continuing to progress. We can't be happy with where we're at today if we want to be successful in the fall. Q. Does Shaq go home, Cierre? Are there guys by you? DAYNE CRIST: Yeah, we'll work those guys, and then we're also working out the details right now and trying to get some guys out for the summer just to continue with timing and repping all that out. Our time in the summer is a little shorter this year, so we'll be back here for the bulk of it but just in that time home trying to get guys out there to throw to. Q. What about this offense didn't we see today? What things did we not see? DAYNE CRIST: I'm not too sure. I think we called a pretty realistic game. I think there was definitely some things that we were still working on that we just hadn't repped out as much. What you saw today was the stuff that we were very comfortable with, things that we had shown consistently that we repped well in practice. But Coach Kelly, I mean, he was calling it as he saw it. I think that that's pretty realistic, and everyone got a pretty good look at what it's going to be like in the fall. Q. Was the running game this good this spring? DAYNE CRIST: It was very good today. I mean, it was one of their best days by far. You know, I think that it was -- any time you can simulate a game-type feel in like the spring game or anything like that, guys are going to turn it up a little bit. Naturally guys executed a little bit better today. Q. Why do you think T.J. has been able to go from high school to potential starter at Notre Dame in a month? DAYNE CRIST: He's mature. He is a very mature kid. I forget sometimes that he's only been here for a semester. He's done a great job of coming in and just competing every day. You know, he's working as hard as he can daily, and he's doing things off the field in his preparation that just show the maturity beyond his years. But I think that he is very assignment smart, which makes it very comfortable for me to have a guy like that out here. Q. What does having Floyd in the slot do to maybe enhance him a little bit? DAYNE CRIST: It makes it tough for teams to roll over Floyd, from a -- if you have him in the slot, it's a little bit harder for teams to really roll their defense and kind of get extra guys on him, and we can move him around a little bit. Schematically I'm sure Coach Kelly has got a thousand things he can do with Floyd, but just speaking generally, that's one of the positives that we get from having Floyd in the slot. Q. Talk about Ragone a little bit. Not that Kyle was all that limited, but Mike kind of took advantage of some opportunities today. DAYNE CRIST: Yeah, Mike has been executing all through spring camp. He's one of those guys that at any moment he can step in and fill a void and compete, and I feel very comfortable throwing the ball to Mike. I know that any time he's out there he's going to compete until he can't anymore. Q. Did you talk to Coach Kelly about -- he felt like today may have been the best spring practice. DAYNE CRIST: I would agree. I think that there's definite balls I wish I had back, sure. But I think that it was great seeing us do it the right way and having a lot of film to go look back on and work with, and just operating at a tempo and pace that we've been practicing for so long, to see it actually run live in a game was kind of cool. Q. Are you 0 and 1 as a starter now? DAYNE CRIST: I guess so. I guess that would now make me 0 and 1 as a starter. I'm a little bitter about that. Q. (Inaudible.) DAYNE CRIST: Making sure that guys stay in it mentally and not relapse in their preparation and what they're doing to get better. I think it's important for everyone to stay mentally focused and do all the little things to make sure that we don't take any steps backward when we get on the field in the summer. Q. You have a break coming up after exams. What happens then? DAYNE CRIST: Continue to train when we go home for the summer, for that month, continue to work hard, keep a very businesslike attitude with everything and try to get guys out to throw to and continue to work on timing and just rep out everything that we've done so far in the spring. Q. When are you going to relax? DAYNE CRIST: I don't really have time for that. End of FastScripts |
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