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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYJuly 26, 2011Jared KarstetterPaul WulffLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA COACH WULFF: I'm very excited to be here, thank you. Wanted to introduce Jared Karstetter who is here. Big reason why we brought Jarrod down today is one of our first recruit that's we brought in three and a half years ago from right up the road in Spokane, from Pullman. He's been an All-American academically. He's been a great player for us. And he's one of those guys that changes programs. He's had a big influence in our change within our team. I think you're going to see a lot of that this fall. I'm very excited about our upcoming year. I think we have a nice, youthful football team. We have a chance to surprise a lot of people. Q. Talk about coming off with some injuries in your linebacker corps? COACH WULFF: You know, it's been an issue. Obviously, a lot of things have been. But our defense, I believe, has more physical strength than we've had, and more team speed that we've had. So the combination of that, more game experience heading into the season that we've had, there is a good chance we'll start one or two seniors on the whole defense. But we have good players that have played. So I think that combination without its size, strength and confidence is going to make a big difference for us. I think we'll stop the run. I know through spring football there are signs of things we have not shown in our time there on defense, which is very encouraging to see. So I'm pretty confident we'll take a big step on defense. Q. Would you give us one or two names that you expect to make a huge move forward on your team. Guys that we'll be talking about at the end of the season? COACH WULFF: You know, hopefully there are some guys that we feel have every reason to break out and will stay healthy enough to do that. I think on offense we'll start with Rickey Galvin who is a running back who broke his arm in his first play of his career against Oklahoma State last year. I think he has a chance to do some really good things for us, and that's on offense in particular. Kristoff Williams, another wide receiver who we had to red shirt because of injury this last year is another receiver that can add to the mix with Jared and Marquess Wilson. Defensively, I anticipate Sekope Kaufusi, a big linebacker making a big difference for us who played a limited amount of roles there. Then a veteran player that had one great spring, and that was Alex Hoffman-Ellis. I think Alex has a chance to be one of the final linebackers in our conference. Q. How difficult has it gotten worse or better since the pacific northwest -- you could probably put Oregon in there, but also Oregon State and even Washington -- with the improvement of those teams, how has it affected your recruiting? COACH WULFF: You know, I don't know that it's affected it a whole lot. We've gone about our business of trying to recruit the type of person with the right DNA. When I say that, I mean from the neck up. We're looking for kids that have the great passion for the game, love the game, tough, they're a great person, and have that attitude and work ethic. Lot of time from the neck down, he might not be the most flashy guy all the time. But they're productive and great football players and they can help you build a team. That's what we've been trying to do. We go after guys that fit our profile and sometimes may not, but that's who we are and what we're building. Q. I talked to Jeff Tuel this summer, and asked him about the lack of respect among the other teams when you're playing a Pac-12 opponent. It seemed like he was legitimately angry kind of recalling the experiences and stuff like that. Did you sense there was an improvement in the respect from your opponents last year? How does that play in the locker room in terms of generating a little fire? JARED KARSTETTER: Yeah, I think we were more competitive especially the end of last year. Any sort of lack of respect that we feel as a team, I think that we just use that as motivation to go out there on game day and compete and prove ourselves. Q. You guys have your offensive line returning; is that correct? COACH WULFF: All but one. Q. Okay, how do you look to improve that offensive line protection, protecting Jeff Tuel? COACH WULFF: I guess when you look at all the numbers, you have a couple of things that come into play. First of all, we had two junior college players playing their first fall at the Division 1 level for us, and that offensive line last year starting. We also had a true freshman offensive lineman playing in there. We had a running game that wasn't very effective, and we had a receiving corps that was still young and not running together. So the combination of that and Jeff, who we got in predictable passing situations, and an offensive line that had not worked together very often. So those were all ingredients that didn't allow us to do well and gave up those numbers. But I think a lot of things are solved. Our running game, we're a lot more physical on the offensive line. We're athletic. We have experience. Our running backs are better. Our quarterbacks and then the continuity with some of our young receivers and Jeff are better. So all of those ingredients are going to equate to higher productivity. I know through spring football we were executing and doing things that we've never done at a much higher clip. So I think through the summer work and fall camp you're going to see a pretty explosive offense in the fall. Q. What was the next step for Jeff Tuel? COACH WULFF: Yeah, that's a good question. He needs to be able to take a team on his back and carry it. When games are tight, he needs to be able to make the plays that win the games. Those are the steps that he's going to take, and he will take. But I think that's at the next step is to truly be in tight situations, carry this football team into the fourth quarter, and then make the plays to win it. I do think that is the step that's going to happen with this football team a. I think that we're going to go as he goes in a lot of ways. But what I also like is we do have more of a supporting cast around him and on defense that we've never had. So it's not going to be only on Jeff Tuel, which is great. There needs to be some games where he isn't necessarily the big factor, hopefully, and we can still win the ballgame. I'd like to see our team take that step, and I'd like to see Jeff take the step that I mentioned. Q. Paul, you changed four assistant coaches over the last two years. How does that change how you get your work done, and what kind of improvement has it brought to the practice field? COACH WULFF: Well, we've added a lot of veteran coaches to our staff, and that's helped us, particularly on special teams, number one, with Dave Ungerer doing that this last year then Steve Morton the on the offensive line. A former coach there has coached all over the country. He's one of the best offensive line coaches in the country. He's really settled our offense down. Then defensively adding Chris Tormey who is very Regional. He coached at Idaho as head coach, and Nevada, Reno, was at Washington for 18 years, born and raised in Spokane, Washington. Just a great experience, and great mentor for some of our young linebackers that we think are extremely talented. Then we added Todd Howard who was at UCLA the previous five years as a defensive line coach who has NFL experience, and as a coach there as well has a Super Bowl ring with the Rams. They just bring a lot of experience and credibility right now. It's been a good impact for our players at those particular positions. I really think that it's made a big difference, already, in spring football and as the season moves along it will again have a big impact for us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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