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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 25, 2008Bobby PetrinoBIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA COACH PETRINO: I'm excited to be back in college football. Certainly excited to be at the University of Arkansas. Since I've been in this state, the state has certainly embraced me and my family. I was able to get out on the recruiting trail, travel around to all our Razorback functions. I can't tell you how impressed I am with the pride and the passion of the entire state for Razorback football. I'm really, really looking forward to experiencing that as we go through this football season. I'm looking forward to the challenges of coaching in the SEC Conference. I know the players and the coaches are the best in the country. The fact that if you get to the championship game, you're competing for the SEC Championship, then you have a chance to compete for the National Championship. And that is certainly what all of our goals are. As far as our football team goes, the strength of our team starting out would be our offensive line and our defensive line. That's where we have the most experience back. That's where we have the size and athletic ability and the skill of those young men to play their position. They did a nice job in spring ball. They did a real nice job throughout the summer on working in the weight room and in conditioning. I like our tight ends. We have two tight ends that can really run and catch the ball and also do a very good job of blocking. So we're going to have to play to the strength of those two guys also. Casey Dick came out of spring ball as our starting quarterback. He did a nice job of learning and working hard on understanding the offense. I thought he did a real nice job of getting to know the other side of the ball, understanding what defenses are trying to do, the difference in coverages, the difference in zone blitzes and man blitzes, and really performed well in our last two scrimmages and spring game. He's a guy that has experience, has won games, has won games at the end of the game playing the position. I have a lot of confidence in him and he has a lot of confidence in himself coming out of spring ball, which is a great thing. We're gonna be very inexperienced, as you know, at the runningback spot. We had two guys that were No. 1 draft picks, so we definitely will have new faces in there. Michael Smith is a guy who has had a very good spring. He's a smaller runningback that is very quick and has a great burst. Can do a lot of things with him. You know, he can catch the ball out of the backfield. He can run routes as a receiver. So we're going to have to try to figure out ways to utilize his strengths and get him the ball in the open field. One of the things I liked a lot about him in the spring is his toughness. He showed that he can run between the tackles and that he's not afraid to run between the tackles, and that's a real good thing. We'll be inexperienced at the receiver spot coming out of spring ball. London Crawford and Carlton Salters were our leading receivers. London is a guy that is big and very physical, is fast and is working real hard at getting better at running his routes and being consistent and catching the football. Carlton is a young man that really understands the game, has great hands, can catch the ball in traffic. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does. In both of those positions we'll have to have help from freshmen. We'll have to be lining up a few true freshmen there and letting them play, and they'll have to get better as the year goes on. Our linebacker core, as you're well aware, is thin. We don't have a lot of depth there. We're gonna have to be able to grow the freshmen and get better each week. We do have some great leadership there. Elston Forteu, who is with us today, is the leader of the defense, is a young man that understands the game, can play on both outside linebacker positions, rush the passer. So we'll be counting on him to really make the call, settle everything down, and make sure we're executing on the front seven very well. In the secondary we're very inexperienced. As you know, we graduated four guys that started last year. So we are going to be inexperienced, but I like our talent. I think we have four or five corners that can definitely contribute and play and four safeties that competed very hard in the spring. Then we'll have one coming off of injury that I'm looking forward to. So to that I'll just open it up for questions. Q. You were part of a rivalry with the University of Kentucky while you were at Louisville. Talk about the opportunity to renew that rivalry with Coach Brooks, going up against Kentucky. COACH PETRINO: Well, I'm looking forward to it. You know, we've always had a tremendous amount of respect for Kentucky and Coach Brooks and his program. It's a little different now for us because we used to work on that game the entire winter and summer. So that will be a little bit different as far as the approach goes. But I am looking forward to going back to Lexington and playing there. It's always fun playing in front of a hostile crowd, in a hostile environment. And I'm sure it will be that way again this year. I'm sure it will end up being a good rivalry for us. Q. Just wondering, did you feel somewhat hoodwinked by the Falcons after you expressed an interest to them in returning to college football? COACH PETRINO: I didn't get the word that you used there. Q. "Hoodwinked." COACH PETRINO: I'm not sure about that. The whole situation, the timing was bad. There's no question about that. If it could have played out any other way, I would have loved to see it play out a different way. But with the Falcons, and with Arkansas, it was really the only way that it could play out. And I'm extremely happy to be the head football coach at the University of Arkansas. Q. If I could just follow up. Was that as trying of a coaching situation as you've had to take on while you were in Atlanta? COACH PETRINO: Yeah, it was. It was certainly a trying situation. And everybody there worked as hard as they could to do the best job they could. Q. Has it been difficult to implement your offense in a program that was run-oriented for a long time? COACH PETRINO: No, it hasn't been difficult. It's been a learning experience. You know, starting with our offensive line. They're a group that is very used to coming off the ball and run-blocking, does an excellent job of that. So the newness, I guess you would say, to the techniques of pass protection and the different types of pass protection is something that they've worked extremely hard at. I think after the second week of spring ball, I was very impressed with the group. You know, Jonathan Luigs is a guy that adds a tremendous amount of leadership to that group. And he's a young man that is very energized by learning the new techniques, the new fundamentals, the new schemes that he knows will carry on to his days playing at the next level. Q. Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier and now yourself went to the NFL and came back. What was it that brought you back to college football? You didn't like the NFL or you really liked college football? What about the college game brought you back? COACH PETRINO: Well, obviously there was a number of things that played into it. But I love college football. I was asked earlier about, you know, what is it that you like about college football. And really the answer is, I like everything. I like the different seasons. I like the fact that you have your season and you go to the Bowl game. I like the fact that you have a little period in there where it's all recruiting and you're on the road, you're in houses, you're going to try to convince young men to come to your school. I like the fact that there's a season where it's basically booster season where you're out on the road with the boosters, with the fans, trying to raise money. Then there's a period of spring ball where you get back into it. And then the period we're just coming off of is a period where you have the summer camps, where at times you're working with young kids, then the high school athletes. So it's a good fit for me. And certainly I like the fact that there's a great feeling about bringing in a young man that's 17, 18 years old onto your campus, watching him grow and develop in all aspects: academically, socially, as an athlete. Hopefully you've done a lot to him help handle life and contribute to society when he's done playing. Q. The media have picked Arkansas to finish sixth in the West. Just wondering if you had any take on that. COACH PETRINO: I've always felt like the pre-season rankings are based on how you finish the previous year and then what you have coming back, you know, what returning starters, what returning stars you have coming back. Obviously, when you lose that many guys into the NFL, you know, there was eight young men from the University of Arkansas at the Combine. Lost our entire secondary and the great runningbacks. So it wasn't unexpected. It certainly will help to motivate us. You know, but it's not going to help us win or help us lose any games. Each week, the greatest thing about this conference, you have to line up and play. And everybody's capable of beating anybody. Q. You mentioned Casey. Tell us about some of your other quarterbacks. Do you see playing more than one this season? COACH PETRINO: At this particular time I would anticipate Casey being the starter and not really having a rotation. But that's always subject to change once we get into practice and see where everybody's at. His younger brother Nathan came out of spring ball as second. He's bigger than Casey. He's a guy that likes to run around and has a real knack for understanding where the rush is coming from. He might be like a young man I coached at Louisville, that you don't really know how good he is until it's live, because you don't tackle the quarterback in practice. He might make more plays when it's live because of his ability to run, move around, throw the ball down the field after that. Alex Mortensen did a real nice job competing with those guys in spring, came out of spring number three. Alex is a young man that really knows football, understands exactly what we want to do executing our offense. Wants to be a football coach. So he's in the office all the time working on that. We have two freshmen, true freshmen, coming in that we need to look at right away and get a good idea of: Tyler Wilson and Jim Youngblood. Both of them a little bit different. Tyler was more of your spread offense, shotgun, get the ball out of his hand quick, very accurate passer. And Jim was a guy that ran around and made a lot of plays, really sees himself as a tough, hard-nosed running quarterback that can throw the ball down the field. Q. Was there anything else that didn't come out or wasn't publicized that much from your time in Atlanta that would better tell your side of the story? COACH PETRINO: Well, no, I don't think we need to get into that. Like I said, it was a difficult situation. It's something that I've put behind me, that the Falcons have. I wish, you know, them, their entire organization, their fans, the best of luck. But it's really time for us to focus in on this season, University of Arkansas football, you know, the players that we have. Q. When you made the decision to go to the Falcons, was it one of those things based on the fact you felt like, What would it be like just to coach football, not deal with recruiting, going to speak at booster clubs, players' academics? Was it something you wanted to try for purely a football job? And what did you learn about yourself last year? COACH PETRINO: Well, it didn't have anything to do with not wanting to recruit, because that's something I've always enjoyed, or anything to do with the boosters, because that's something I've always enjoyed, too. I think at that particular time you looked at, you know, one of the great challenges. They had a quarterback at that time that I thought could be real special. So that played a lot into it, too. But, you know, it was a difficult season. You always look back and really try to reflect on what I could have done better here, what we could have done better here. Certainly we'll try to do a better job in our communication with our players, you know, really understanding what it takes week in and week out to be consistent. Q. With the uncertainty at linebacker you had coming out of the spring and uncertainty with Wendel Davis, guys that are coming back, are you anticipating a scheme change up front and using more of your secondary, like a 4-2-5, or going 4-3? COACH PETRINO: No, we're not really anticipating that. The good thing for us as coaches is in spring ball, we didn't see Wendel. He was injured. He had injured his knee. We came out of spring with Jerry Franklin, Elston Forte and Ryan Powers as our starters. All three of those guys are back. I think all three of 'em grew up and played well. They're fast. They can run around. They're very athletic. There's a lot of newness in not only, you know, the positions that they're playing, but the scheme. We're not playing a lot of just man-coverage, man-free coverage like they had played in previously, so their responsibilities have changed. But, you know, because of the league and because of the spread offense, there's gonna be a number of times when you're playing nickel and your nickel package and dime package really fits into some of the spread teams that we'll face, too. Q. Steve Kragthorpe said at Louisville that he felt like he inherited a lot of disciplinary issues, and there's certainly been an insinuation that discipline is being handled more strictly now. I'm wondering if you're aware of some of those comments and how they strike you. COACH PETRINO: I saw some of those comments. We didn't have discipline problem when I was there. Knock on wood. You always knock on wood on that, but we had players that were real focused, did a great job, went 41-9, and I think they returned 21 starters off of that Orange Bowl team. So, you know, I felt good about the way we left the program and the shape that we left the University of Louisville in. Q. I was wanting to get your opinion on the BCS system. Do you think there should be any sort of plus-one? I saw you were opposed to an early signing period. I wanted to get your reasoning behind that. COACH PETRINO: I'll answer the second one first. I was opposed to the early signing period. I think where we're located geographically, the number of high school recruits in our state, that it's not beneficial for us to have early signing periods. Guys don't have to go as far away as we do to recruit. So I think it's beneficial for us for young men to go through the entire process and take their visits. We need to get them on campus. We feel like if we can get a young man on our campus, with our facilities, get in the city, see the town, see the people, get on the campus and see our faculty and everything that we have to offer, we have as good a chance of getting them as anybody. So that was my reasoning there. Tell me the first question again. Q. BCS system. COACH PETRINO: Oh, the BCS system, the plus-one. Obviously there's a lot of talk about the plus-one. It was intriguing. But one thing that you do do and I've always felt like you do, is the rules have been set, there is no plus-one, and there's no reason complaining about it. Q. With the negative publicity you've gotten leaving the NFL, how much does that come in discussions and conversations with recruits? Has loyalty been an issue when you're trying to go out recruiting? COACH PETRINO: We felt great about our recruiting class. I feel like we went out and got the best players in the state of Arkansas to stay at home and come to the University of Arkansas. We got some real special talent there. We're going to count on 'em right away to play. We were also able to go out and hit some of the needs that we needed at other positions outside of the state and finished very strong, you know, in the recruiting process. It always came up in the home. There's no question about that. But I think when you sat down and visited with parents and probably told parents more than I've told any of you guys that, you know, the recruiting went well and it became a non-issue. Q. Where does coming to Media Days and getting these questions and meeting all us great reporters rank in the list of things that you have to do? COACH PETRINO: Oh, right at the top. It's my most favorite thing (laughter). No, this is part of the job. I understand that. I respect your job and what you all have to do, you know, asking the tough questions. I have no problem with that, none at all. But the best thing about media days is that it means that the season's just about to start and we get to start practicing August 4th and really find out a lot about our team. Q. How patient a person are you and how much do you think that patience might be tested this season? You're trying to rebuild, there's no question. COACH PETRINO: Well, I would think if you asked my family, they would say I'm really, really patient. But that obviously isn't true. I'm not real patient. I like things done, you know, right away. I think you can go fast. I think you can move and get better in a hurry. But I do understand that it's a process. I think I do understand in the game of football, building and changing a program, that it is a process. That's what we're working really hard at. We have to do a great job of practicing. We got to do a great job of getting better at our positions, at our technique and our fundamentals. We have to be patient with our schemes in making sure that we don't ask our players to do too much and then maybe be able to add to them as the year goes on. But winning games is the end of doing things right. What we need to do is do everything right leading up to that opener. We're going to have to, as a young football team, get better each week. You know, we got to get better from Game 1 to Game 2. We've got to be a lot better off in Game 5 and 6, and hopefully have a lot more contribution from our young freshmen in those games and feel like they're not freshmen any more. So we do have a lot ahead of us. It's a great challenge. I'm looking forward to it. Q. Have you heard from your players or got any sense from them just how special this Ole Miss game's gonna be this year for them? COACH PETRINO: No, we have not even talked about it. I've heard a lot at booster functions, a lot from the fans on their desire for it. But that's a long way for us. We have to play Western Illinois in the opener. We've got to get better as a football team. I do think that our players understand that, you know, it's not us playing Coach Nutt. It is our players playing against their players, University of Arkansas playing Ole Miss, which has always been a great rivalry. Q. With the lucrative contracts that SEC coaches make, I wonder if that changes your perception of coaching maybe even dating back to your early stages of coaching, maybe how humble those beginnings were. COACH PETRINO: Well, definitely different than the early days, you know. I think one of the things I was most fortunate is that my father came to me one spring when I was 14 years old and said, Son, you're not playing baseball this year. I looked at him, I said, I'm not? He said, No, you're going to have to work. I'm going to be able to take care of your sisters, but you're going to have to earn your own way. So you're working tomorrow morning at 10:00 flipping burgers at A & W. So I took my first job, 1976. I remember it because the Olympics were on that year. We used to put the old black-and-white in there and watch the great Olympic boxing team we had. Then each summer, each spring and summer, that's what I did was worked. I had some great jobs. I delivered produce. I ran the dock at a dairy. The last year he made me take out the milk truck, so I was a milkman for a year. I took my first job as a graduate assistant at Weber State. You got your scholarship check. They certainly have changed a lot since those days and went up for the young men. I feel great about it. The fact that my father always told me, Reach for the top of the rainbow. You know, you can be as good as you want to be. You can do anything you want in the United States of America. And I think that's really what you see, is that I've got the opportunity now to coach in the best conference, I believe is the best conference in the country, and I'm very proud of that. Q. Given what you did at Louisville, where that program was when you left, I'm just curious as you come to Arkansas if you could compare Arkansas now to what you left at Louisville. COACH PETRINO: Well, the comparisons would be how we're starting this first season off. When we started off the at Louisville, we had a quarterback that hadn't been in the offense, hadn't executed the offense. He hadn't actually played a whole lot. We had a group of runningbacks that did not play the previous year. The starter in the Kentucky opener hadn't played in two years. So we were very inexperienced in operating that. I think we might have been voted last in the conference that first year, too. So that would be the comparisons, I think, when you start that off. Obviously it's a conference -- SEC compared to Conference USA, each week, week in and week out, it's much more difficult. You don't have a game where you actually might feel like you step on the field and you have better players than the guys across from you. And I think that's what's going to make it so competitive and such a great challenge. Q. Yesterday the news came out Dean Weber, the long time trainer at Arkansas, was moving to another post. I wonder what your relationship was like with him and if you have ideas, if you'll have input on who the new trainer might be. COACH PETRINO: It's been great working with Dean. He knows everything about the university. He was there for 35 years. You know, it's been fun for me just to talk to him and listen to him and watch him work with our athletes. You know, Dean was excited to be able to step out of the training room and more into administration role. He expressed that to me, you know, two weeks into the job when I first got there. So I think it's a great fit for him. Certainly something we needed as a university. We have had some discussions with trainers coming up. Obviously we need to move very fast. I know that our athletic director, Jeff Long, is on top of it. Hopefully we'll have someone there before we get started, that's for sure (smiling). THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. COACH PETRINO: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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