August 21, 2015

Two-Minute Drill: Open House

Friday was an open house of sorts as media was allowed to attend the entire practice. With beautiful blue skies hovering over Lawrence, it was an opportunity for the local beat writers to get to check out more than the standard 20 minutes to start practice.

Typically the media gets to watch the team warm up, a 10-minute special teams period, fast start and one individual period. On Friday they got to see that and then some as the team was on the field for nearly two hours. With head coach David Beaty hosting a press conference following practice—it gave those in attendance is deeper well to dip into for questions.

Beaty hit Mrkonic Auditorium inside the Anderson Family Football Complex for a 20-minute press conference. He opened by discussing how Fall Camp has gone overall, before singling out several players who had consistently performed at a high level.

“Really proud of our football team for a couple of reasons,” said Beaty. “We are approaching the end of camp – we will break camp Sunday. I am really proud of them for handling the process of camp the way they did. We threw a lot of different things at them. Probably more stuff than they had been through before. We were very direct and specific with what we wanted to accomplish and as we looked at the data coming out of it, we have been able to accomplish our goals to be sure we were doing a good job at staying hydrated, keeping our guys safe in that regard. Obviously nutrition was a big deal for us in order to maintain optimal weight throughout camp. Our strength coaches and our coaches did a great job watching that.”

Here are a few excerpts from the question/answer portion of the press conference:

Beaty on the kicking game:
“That (Matthew) Wyman kid, I have been really impressed with his leg. He has some strength in that leg and he can kick now. I think we tried a 58-yard field goal yesterday, and he missed it by just a hair. It would have been good from 68 yards. He has a great leg and has really done well for us in the kickoff area. He has matured a lot. Nick Bartolotta. He goes by Yoda, he likes when you call him that. He has done a really good job. He is a real consistent guy. He has really done a good job for us inside the 40-yardline, which is what you want. It is going to be an interesting battle and we are not done with that. Punting wise, we brought the right guy in. (Ruben) Guzman has done a nice job, he is a left, which is – you don’t get a lot of lefty punters. The ball spins the other way. It may not seem like a big deal, but I know for me, I see a lot of right-footed punters and when I see a left-footed punter, it’s spinning a different way. There is a lot of different coaching techniques that come away with that particularly with guys that can turn it over like Guzman can.”

Beaty on the wide receiver spot:
“Tre’ (Parmalee) has been really consistent. He is a quiet guy. He just goes out and does his job. If the ball is close, he is making plays. I like Joshua Stanford a lot. He is a good player. He is a smart veteran who has a degree already. He has been through a lot. I told him about his talk with the freshmen the other day. I was really impressed with that. Steven Sims, Jr., is a talented guy. I like Kent Taylor. He is a tight end for us, but he can play wide receiver. He has done some good things for us too. There are a lot of guys out there.”

Beaty on the depth at the defensive back position:
“(Co-defensive coordinator/cornerbacks coach) Kenny Perry has done a great job with those guys. They are some tough dudes. Those guys are in shape. They run a lot. Just looking at the data, they are twice as much as our wide receivers are, and that is hard to do. He has those guys in shape. He has some depth there. In the spring, we only had about three guys that could play. Brandon Stewart was one of them. Tyrone Miller is a guy that came in and has done a good job. Marnez Ogletree is a junior college guy that we didn’t get until midway through he summer. He has done a really nice job. He is a talented guy, he can run and help us with the return game. I know coach Perry is a lot happier now than he was in the spring. He has Colin Spencer back. It is hard to go through spring football with three cornerbacks. We moved Eric Rivers over to the cornerback position. He grabbed him the other day and moved him to corner and he made like eight tackles in the scrimmage. I think – Kenny will never tell you he is happy – but I think he is a lot more excited about the depth that he has now than in the spring.”

Beaty on the quarterback position:
“I can’t see playing two quarterbacks. What we do offensively, it lends itself to having one guy. We are going to make a decision and we are going to go with that guy. By the same token, those guys are only as good as their next. The good news is all these guys are professionals and work hard so they won’t lose their job because they are not prepared. They will lose their job because of production. At the end of the day, we have to give that guy some rope and toss him the keys and let him play. We don’t want robots at that position. We have seen how that has gone in the past. We know the way that story ends some times. We want guys to use their athletic ability and be able to create some things for us. The only way to do that is to give a guy some confidence that he has earned the job and give him some opportunity to be right. Go out there and make those plays, make those calls, make those checks and get us in the right play. That way they are confident when they make those decisions because it is what they see, not what we see. We are getting pretty close.”

Reports Fall Camp ArchiveCamp Central
8/5 – Football is Back!
8/6 – Substitutions?
8/7 – The Little Things
8/8 – Media Day
8/8 – Thru the Lens
8/10 – Back to Work
8/11 – Physical
8/12 – Adjustments
8/13 – Monotony?
8/14 – The Grind
8/15 – The Standard
8/17 – Re-energized
8/18 – Rain, Rain
8/19 – Third and Long
8/20 – Next Man
8/21 – Open House
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