|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYJuly 24, 2012Todd GrahamBrandon MageeCameron MarshallUNIVERSAL CITY, CALIFORNIA COACH GRAHAM: We're excited to be here today to represent the Sun Devil Nation, it's an exciting time for me and my staff, excited to be here with these two fine young men at my left. It's been an honor for me to be in a place that Frank Kush built and for all the great players we have had in the past it's been a great time of coming together, an opportunity to be out in the community and feet our former players. I've been on campus with our students, we've got the‑‑ what a great situation we have there with one of the most incredible student sections in the country. We are very excited about this season. One of the things that's been a fast and furious Decemberand I want to first start off and talk about these players sitting here to my left. Even though we have known each other for a short period of time, I think it's been a time of extreme change and strain and I've been so impressed with the character and the work ethic of Cam and Brandon and they represent a team that has come together, worked extremely hard, and we're very fortunate in the recruiting process and I think we have helped ours. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the guys that we have brought in, as well as spring ball, which was something that was fairly interesting for these guys. We developed a great work ethic and I believe in training and our guys have trained extremely hard this summer and put themselves in the position to be successful so we're looking forward to this season, our program, we're proud to be here and to be‑‑ have the goal and expectations of restoring this program and winning championships. We have won Pac‑10 championships, we have won Rose Bowls, and that's what our program is going to be about. I've got a great belief in our team and my staff and have been fortunate to surround myself with great people and we're excited. We're excited for the fans and for a great season. We have a great challenge ahead of us. I have tremendous expect for the conference we're in, after looking at the film and watching film it's under rated because it's a tremendous conference and very dynamic, unique, a lot of innovation and I think it's only going to get better. We're very, very excited to be here representing ASU today. Q. Brandon, we have been collecting questions, from Facebook and Twitter. How will your play this season be affected by the fact that you were drafted by the Red Sox, will you be more conservative? BRANDON MAGEE: No, I won't hold anything back, and especially with this style we plan on attacking and I'm not going to hold anything back and my teammates won't either. Q. Brandon, how did your appearance go on "Sports Talk" radio a few weeks ago and did it rea‑ample your desire to enter the media? BRANDON MAGEE: I had a great time and hopefully I can do it again soon but after my sporting career I would like to be in media or doing TV, something like that, because it's exciting for me and it's fun to do. I enjoyed it. Q. For both players, Cameron, I'm not sure how much of the spring you got because of your ankle, I guess you had a problem coming back from surgery. But for Brandon and Cameron, how were the spring practices different under this coaching staff than they were under the former one. CAMERON MARSHALL: I got a chance to practice for one week, so I got a chance to experience it a little bit. It's fast, it's a lot faster than anything we have experienced before at Arizona State, at least for me personally. It was a lot more organized. Every period was‑‑ we had guys doing something, we didn't have any downtime. Everything was explosive. It was a lot of competition in practice throughout the whole practice, and a lot of situational stuff. We worked every possible situation this spring and I think we're going to continue to do that in the fall as well, couple of seconds left, you've got to put together a drive, and any type of situation we have worked in practice which is something I enjoyed and I think we're going to be prepared coming in when the game comes. BRANDON MAGEE: I was out from spring ball, but you scrape on and off the field, high tempo, high energy. It was exciting for me to see. It seems like it's going to get us ready as players, the NFL is faster than college football and the coaches out there, they get off you just as much as we do. Coach will tell you he gets on every coach if they're not doing their job right along with the players. To have coaches involved like that is exciting and I look forward to the summer. Q. Cam, you missed a lot of spring with the injury. Can you update us on how you're feeling and if you expect to enter camp at 100%. CAMERON MARSHALL: I feel great, running around, doing all the drills and the workouts, so when I enter camp I will be 100%. It's the best I've felt in a year and a half, best my ankle has felt in a while so I'm looking forward to the camp and this upcoming season. Q. Coach, what has been the toughest for you to implement your system from the earlier system with Erickson in 2012? COACH GRAHAM: I think being patient and getting experience, as you get experience you learn. The key is getting good at something and not trying to do too much. When I was in Tulsa we were going on our fourth year and it's a lot different than your first year so I think the thing is to be patient and not try to do too much. I can tell you I have a lot of confidence in the players that we have and the staff. We have gotten a lot of things taught and instilled in them, and they have embraced our way of doing things and these guys are trained and I think they will tell you they are in the best shape of their life. Our program is all about training and I think we position ourselves where it's exciting and they have embraced the "no huddle" and offensively there are similarities but there are some very, very dramatic differences, too. Our offense last year, we threw for a lot of yards and put up numbers but we're different, and I think we're really‑‑ the guy sitting to my left here is going to benefit, because we're a downhill power, inside zone team and cross‑examine is as good as I have seen and we work hard at working things and we make sure we don't run a scheme that doesn't fit our players. So the challenge is making sure we have been patient and adapt schematically to the skills and talents of what our guys can do. I'm impressed. I can tell that you we do have talent and the key is to embrace the discipline, and to be able to execute our system. Probably patience and trying to be adaptive but there are similarities, too, it's not like it's going from night and day offensively. The biggest challenge for us is defensively going from a 4‑3 cover four team to a pressure oriented hybrid‑type defense, we will be in 4‑man fronts and 3‑man fronts and for us we need to take care of the football and if we do that, especially in the season early, have success early, I believe in these guys and I have confidence in this football team. Q. Coach has talked about discipline. How much is that needed within the team after what happened during the second half season? And what have you guys heard about cross‑examine it? BRANDON MAGEE: I think last year the little things were the big problem. We were always really close in a lot of ways and I think with Coach Graham and him implementing discipline and everything we do and accountable, we will eliminate those mistakes, and we have been one of the worst teams in the nation in terms of getting penalties, and that's unacceptable and Coach stressed how unacceptable that is and he won't tolerate penalties. That will help us out a ton. To reach the potential that we actually have as a football team. And your question about Cam. I've heard a lot of things about Cam. It depends on who you ask. I have heard different things from players versus fans or coaches that have been up there. They said you will love it and hate it at the same time. I guess I'm looking forward to making my own‑‑ developing my own opinion about "Camp T." I think our record has been good going up to "Camp T" and I think it's starting off fresh, and our record has been good when we're doing that, me, I'm excited to go, good time to bond with your teammates and get away from the real world for a little bit. Q. When do you expect to whittle this quarterback race down to two guys that you talked about in the rotation? COACH GRAHAM: Quickly. We're further along, and we have a good idea of what direction we're going. There is still competition left and it's not that we haven't got three guys that haven't separated themselves, we have three quality guys and it's great to inherit that situation. The longer it goes without naming a star, I don't like that. As soon as we can do that we need to do that because it settles everything down, you need a leader and a quarterback, not to say that we wouldn't use two guys but I do believe in that leadership, that position is very, very important. The key for us is to make sure that in this first season, especially early in the season, it's going to be critical that the person taking that snap, not necessarily, has to be the most dynamic player. They have to be a player that managing the offense that doesn't put the ball in jeopardy and doesn't turn the football over, because I firmly believe if we don't turn the football over we will score. We have quality players. Just the transition from the scheme they ran last year to this one has been one that has gone smoother than I even anticipated. There are similarities. But I think we have been fortunate to inherit guys that fit what we want to try to do. We will look forward to coming out of "Camp T" we need a leader. I would describe camp as Russ stick, but one of the things I believe in is I love the history and the heritage of college football and it's one of the great traditions unique to Arizona State University, and talking to our players and fans, far and away that is the tradition there and you look at the age of the iPad, iPod, i‑‑ all that stuff, we're not going to have any of that, and we're going up there and our cell phones don't work, what a great blessing for me! It's a unique situation. I like the quality of us going up and "roughing it" because today we stay in the nicest hotels, it's absolutely amazing the luxuries we have. We're excited about restoring that tradition and that's something I hope will always be part of ASU's tradition and inherent in the future. Q. Todd, what's the status on (Indiscernible)? COACH GRAHAM: He's had a long road to home and I'm impressed with‑‑ he's done everything we asked him to do in his plan of improvement and that's something I'm proud of. I'm not one of those guys that every time we lose a player I consider that a failure on our part. When I walked in the very first day with these guys I told them that I recruited every one of them. When I took the job they become my players and I was committed to them. I think we have lost five or six players and that's something that‑‑ it's five or six too many but obviously it was their choice. In this situation we gave him a very difficult plan of improvement to go through, and he's done everything. He was a 3.0 student this spring. Very impressed by that and I'm excited and he's got a few more checks to make here this last part of the month but I expect him to report with our team on the 2nd. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|