|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYJuly 26, 2013Sonny DykesNick ForbesBryce TreggsCULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: We will continue with Cal Coach Dykes, Bryce Treggs, linebacker Nick Forbes, Kyle McRae and Herb Benenson here to assist. Coach? COACH DYKES: I'm excited to be here and a part of the Pac‑12. You know, I think Larry has done a great job with the conference and bringing it to the forefront in college football. When I coached at Arizona a number of years ago I thought this league has huge potential and it just needed to get its brand out, and I think Larry has done an incredible job of doing that. I think people are recognizing the level of football being played in this conference and just excited to be a part of it. Obviously there is a lot of great coaches and players and fantastic tradition. An opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl, something that's pretty special, and I'm just excited to be a part of it, excited to be part of Cal. It's a special institution. I get to be around young people like these two guys every day as a result of the kind of player that Cal attracts and we are blessed to be here. This is a different scene than we had at WAC Media Day, LA is a cool place to be and excited to be part of this league. It's a great league and we're looking forward to building something special at Cal. Q. Coach, at last week's SEC Media Day Nick Saban of Alabama said he's concerned with player safety when playing high‑tempo offenses like the one you ran at Louisiana Tech, 88 plays per game. Your thoughts on this idea? COACH DYKES: I was wondering how long it was going to take to get to that question. It didn't take long! I think what happens is everybody has a certain style of football that they're comfortable with. If you're a defensive football coach you want to dictate the style of play that occurs in football. If you're an offensive coach you want to dictate the style of football. So there are contrasting views on how the game should be organized and run. I think that tying it to player safety, I don't know that that's a fair assessment because I don't think that makes a whole lot of sense. I would like to see somebody do a study that says how much safer players are as a result of spread afternoons because player injuries occur when players play and can find spaces most of the time because you have offensive linemen falling on people and an opportunity for guys to get hurt. When you spread the field out more there is more space and less of an inclination for somebody to fall on somebody else and I think you could make the argument that traditional old‑style, smash‑mouth football is much more of a health detriment to student‑athletes than playing spread or up‑tempo football and I think we all need to make sure we get our facts straight before we start making any assumptions. Q. What are your expectations for Bryce this season? And same question for Bryce? COACH DYKES: Well, I think that we're obviously undergoing a change in what we're doing offensively and for us, a lot of our success is going to be determined by the level of play that we get from our quarterback. That's got to be a position that we get settled quickly in fall camp. We've got three candidates that we feel are certainly capable of getting the job done and doing it at a high level. A lot of Bryce's production frankly will be tied to whoever wins that quarterback job and what he is comfortable doing and how effective he is leading our football team, because as we all know, the game goes through the quarterback. He's the distributor of the football. If Bryce is smart, he will take those quarterback candidates out to dinner and wine them a little bit and make sure he says nice things about them and they'll throw him the ball more and that's the way that stuff works. He had a great freshman year last year, he is a kid who is a hard worker, he's got a lot of talent. The reason he's up here today is what he bought into the program when we had to transition very quickly. He's a hard worker, a great leader for our team, very mature for his age and I think he has a chance to be a special player in our offense. He's not much different than a lot of other guys. We have a great receiver corp, guys that can do a lot of things, have a lot of different body types and skill sets, so I'm excited to see how all those pieces come together because I think it can be a pretty special group; and I think it's certainly one of the strengths of our team. At line backer, I think, is our other strength. We have tremendous depth at that spot just like at running back. We have 10, 12 guys that we think can be solid contributors. Nick has taken a great leadership role and these two guys are what college football is all about. They're great student‑athletes they do things the right way on the field and more importantly off the field and I think they're great representatives of college football and what Cal football is all about. Q. The Pac‑12 media poll predictions have you guys tenth overall and fifth in the north, what's your reaction? COACH DYKES: I can't say I blame the media for doing that we are a young team and if you're on the outside of our program and you're looking at Cal football it doesn't look very good. From the inside we think it looks very good. We're around our players all the time. We know the talent that exists in our program. We know the dedication and the buy‑in that these guys have had. Anytime you take over a coaching job at a new university, the biggest thing you worry about is what's going to be the buy‑in. How long is it going to take? Sometimes it takes a long time for those guys to buy into your program. To their credit, the buy‑in occurred on day one. They were hungry, they came to Cal to play championship football. They were disappointed with the outcome of last year's season. This is a focused group, this is a group that has worked incredibly hard in the off‑season. I think we will surprise some people, but there are some issues in our football team just like there is in everybody else's. We have some depth issues and spots we need to address, but at the same time we feel like we have a lot of potential and we just need to play well. We need to improve ever week. We need to play well. If we do that, we will build confidence and I think this team can do something special. Q. Coach, we have a fan question from Facebook. He asks, what are traditions you've brought to Cal that you pick up from your previous coaching jobs? COACH DYKES: Well, one of the biggest things is‑‑ that I've learned other places I've been is to try to embrace the past history of each institution. I think there needs to be an emphasis on us, the big game. It's got to be something that we emphasize, that's going to be a big measuring stick for us is how well can we compete against Stanford. They're a natural rival, a rival that's close buy, a program that's obviously on the rise. David has done a great job with that program and they're doing the things the right way. That's a measuring stick for us, there will be great emphasis on winning that game and elevate to go Stanford's level very quickly. The other thing we try to do is have fun. We try to have fun with our football players. These guys go through a grind. It's a grind academically at Cal and we try to implement things that are fun. I stole something, center Mike Leach. We did a "super games" in the spring it was something our players got behind and it felt like it brought us team unit. The thing I have been impressed with these guys is their work ethic and the way they have come together as a team and rededicated themselves and obviously that's critical to building a good program. THE MODERATOR: Nick, you guys have a new coaching staff coming in, your old defensive coordinator is at USC, anything differently with the way the practices are run so far? NICK FORBES: I think one of the benefits of the new staff is everybody is on the same page and the coaching staff is working extremely hard together with one another, teaching the techniques that they want and they're expecting us to perform out on the field and it's really helpful for us as a younger group to kinda understand the same things, the same communications from the secondary staff to the line backers to the front, so it's been beneficial working with the new staff. Q. Bryce, can you talk about the three quarterbacks and if any of those guys showed you anything during the summer since the end of spring ball that suggests they may have taken the lead? BRYCE TREGGS: All the quarterbacks have done a tremendous job throughout the second semester in spring football and throughout the summer through our voluntary workouts, so going into camp I'm comfortable with whoever the coaches decide the guy is that stands out the most and I'm ready to go to war with any of those guys. COACH DYKES: Notice he said "team‑led, voluntary workouts" it was a heck of a job by him, great "catch phrase!" (Laughter.) Q. Nick, what's your opinion about the new rule that could bring an automatic ejection for leading with the head and tackling? Also, do you think there is a double standard when it comes to running backs lowering their heads and shoulders into contact? NICK FORBES: As a defender, the automatic ejection is scary. You don't want to put yourself or your team in that situation. But fortunately, we were fortunate to have great coaching staffs that teach the proper technique and one of the things with that being player safety is if the best tackles are made with good form. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. 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
|