|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYJuly 24, 2012Keenan AllenJosh HillJeff TedfordUNIVERSAL CITY, CALIFORNIA COACH TEDFORD: Great to see you all. Great time of year, always, to get here and kick the football season off by this event. It's an exciting time for Cal football. It's great to move home, back to Memsorial Stadium after playing at AT&T last season. I know the players are fired up, our fans are fired up, had a great spring football. We feel good about the progress of the team, the chemistry of the team, and the preparation and the way that they have been working toward the season. As we always come into August3rd is our first day to report and it's an exciting time to see the players as they have been working very, very hard and excited about going into the season. We feel good obviously about‑‑ we have a 3,000‑yard passer coming back, a thousand yard receiver and a thousand yard rusher on offense, so to have that experience and production is nice to be coming back. Defensively having Josh Hill at safety who has played a lot of games for us and both corners coming back and to have experience at the "D" line with Tipote and Kendrick Payne and Deandre Coleman. Obviously losing Michael Kendricks, the Pac‑12 defensive Player of the Year. But we're excited about the talent that we have to fill in there and our kicking game, losing our kicker and punter last year, to be able to replace that has we move into the season, Vincenzo D'Amato will take over the kicking role and Cole Leininger will take over the punting role. It's great to be back at home, great for our fans, the stadium is coming along great. I just saw on the Internet they put down two rows of our field today, and we should be able to get on the field on August15th, to start practicing and open up Septemberfirst against Nevada. Q. Jeff, in talking to your players, do you get a sense they are truly excited about returning home? What's the sense you get from the players? COACH TEDFORD: There is no doubt about it. Last year AT&T did a great job of hosting us and I think our players did a very nice job of trying to block out any of the distractions that we had. After spring football I had an opportunity to sit down with each and every one of our players and talk about the different things in their life and many of them talked about the excitement of getting back home and get being back in a practice facility that we can practice at in our field day in and day out, to be able to come back in the north tunnel and play in that environment that's so special at Memorial Stadium. Q. Coach, taking into account the entirety of last season from beginning to end, where would you rank Zach Maynard as quarterback in the conference? COACH TEDFORD: I have a lot of confidence in Zach, if you look at as the season ended we won 3 of our last 4 games with the only loss coming to Stanford by 3 points, and he played solid in that game. I think the early struggles were about game management and I think that comes with experience and knowledge about what we're doing and I think he learned that over the time in the beginning of the season. I felt like we ended up very strong. I think his knowledge of the oftentimes and the experience in the offense and in our conference is going to create more growth and development for him and we expect big things out of him this year. Q. To Coach and Keenan, last year you guys had Marvin Jones who was a great wide‑out threat that scared defenses and you guys had two defenses who threatened the defense down the field. This year with the lack of certainty with the second wide‑out. How do you feel you will be able to adapt with teams focusing on Keenan and trying to stop him. COACH TEDFORD: You want to answer that, big fella? KEENAN ALLEN: Bringing in freshman and seeing what they can do and the guys we had, Jackson, Bryce McGovern, (Indiscernible). He's coming in off a red shirt year, and we do have guys that can come in and play a big role. Q. Keenan, you have an opportunity to play with your brother and Maurice Harris, your cousin, can you talk about what that means to you for what will probably be your final season? KEENAN ALLEN: Definitely means a lot, going on the field with those guys as well as off field, just to count on them, whenever I'm having a bad day, they're having a bad day we can talk to each other, go out there and be a family. Q. Coach, you've been around this conference for quite some time and the Pac‑12 is always known for having high‑octane offenses. But with the new coaches coming in, how do you expect the offenses to ramp up? COACH TEDFORD: I think with the new coaches coming in, you have a history or book on certain teams so inning the novelty of the new coaches coming in, the excitement is going to be great, ramping up for those, we don't play Arizona this year, but certainly the other three we do. We're excited about that and I know there is a lot made about the offenses in our conference, but I would say there is a lot of real good defenses played in our conference as well. We have led the conference the last two years in total defense and I think even though the offense gets a lot of credit, the defenses are strong and you have to bring your "A" game each and every week to be successful. I think the league bringing new coaches in will energy guys and bring excitement to the table for the conference and for the fans. Q. Jeff, what happened with Dominic Galas and what's the timetable for his return? COACH TEDFORD: Dominic pulled his peck muscle off his bone, his shoulder, and he's having surgery this afternoon, I believe, and depending on how that looks when they get in there will depend on the rehab time, but initially they talked about maybe three months for rehab which would put him somewhere I believe in the Octoberrange. Q. Coach, we have fan questions from Twitter and Facebook. What is your main goal for this year? COACH TEDFORD: The main goal is to reach our potential and win a conference championship and play at a national level. We have been bowl eligible nine out of ten years, the bar is high, the expectations, obviously the fans have high expectations so does the team. The internal expectation is vital and I know that's where our team wants to be. Last year we didn't play very well in the Holiday Bowl against Texas, so I think the team is motivated to reach the standard of where we believe we should be and that's right there in the conference hunt. Q. Keenan, coming off your ankle surgery in March, are you able to cut at full speed or will you went 100% going into camp? KEENAN ALLEN: I'm planning on being at 100% and it gets a little fatigued, if I had to play a full game I don't know if I would be able to go all four quarters but definitely rehabbing and trying to take it day‑by‑day and get back to 100%. Q. Coach, I expect you notice when you came in you were flying by two beautiful boquet of roses and it's the longest drought, Cal only had 48 stars on the flag the last time they got to the Rose Bowl. What do you think it's going to take? COACH TEDFORD: There is no doubt I think if you asked our fans whether they want to be in A National championship or the Rose Bowl, it's the Rose Bowl, and it's the measuring stick on where you want to be. Every year we set out to do that, and we've been close a couple of times but haven't knocked that door down. Excited about the opportunity this year as the season starts anew to strive to get there again. I know it's been a long, long time and it wouldn't‑‑ it would feel great if this was the group that was able to do it obviously. Q. Josh, worked under Clancy Pendergast, how do you like him for a coordinator and what are your expectations for the season? JOSH HILL: Me and Clancy have a great understanding and how we think and whatnot, and moving to safety is going to be a great factor for helping us to win. The expectations for me is to be the best I can be. I just want to help the team, make sure that we reach our potential, you know, as everyone knows we have been number 1 in Pac, we just want to make the trend of being number 1 in the nation. Q. Coach Tedford, last month you went out to New England and spent some time with the coaching staff there. What did you come away with? COACH TEDFORD: Well. It's always important. I like to study other things about different programs. Obviously the patriots play at a high level and they have for a long time so to spend coach time with Coach Belichick was great and to be able to visit with him about a lot of different things as far as leadership, how to run a team and so forth. But one of the main reasons was to look at their tight end package. They do such a great job with their tight ends and how they involve them in the offense, and I think that's critical for our success this year. Richard Rodgers is a talent we have at tight end this year, and Keenan was asked earlier how do you take the pressure off him and it's going to be by utilizing formation and putting guys in different positions. Keenan has a great feel for the game and you could put him in a lot of different places, he has a great understand and come he can execute from all those positions but it's going to be important that not only the young freshmen tight ends and the running backs, they have to figure into that equation in order for us to be successful and take pressure off Keenan. But with the Patriots, besides visiting with Coach Belichick, it had a great deal to do with their tight end play and it was great to see Shane Vereen back there. 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
|