4/12/2002 - Football
Spring Football Report #11
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Navy head football coach Paul Johnson
Q. Light practice today?
A. Yeah, we have a scrimmage tomorrow (9 a.m.) at the stadium and I wanted to make sure we are physically ready to go over there and put forth a pretty good effort. We have been going pretty hard, so it was a good time to kind of ease up right before the scrimmage.
Q. What's your general impression of the talent you have and how hard they are working?
A. I think that they are working hard.
Q. They have too right?
A. I don't care where you are you have to work hard or you aren't going to be very good. I think the attitude is good and we've made some progress this spring. I think we are learning how to practice. All you can do is try and get better every day and I think the guys have a good attitude and we are working on that. I have seen progress, we have gotten better.
Q. Have there been any pleasant surprises?
A. I don't know if I would single out any individuals, because I don't like to do that anyway, but it's clear to me that the players on the football team want to be good. They want to have success just like everybody does. It's our job to try and do the best we can to get them in a position to have some success and teach them what it takes to get there.
Q. How have they caught on to your offense?
A. I think it's been okay. Certainly you are never where you would like to be, but some guys catch on better than others. I think the thing that people want to do here is that they want to take these guys and make them something different than a regular college football team and there not. There just like any other college football team except the difference is they wear a uniform to class and have military obligations. We have good guys, but we've had good guys on every team I've coached. Just because a guy is smart in math and science doesn't mean he's smart in football. From that aspect, I don't know if they are a whole lot different then any team I've coached.
Q. Has Craig (Candeto) emerged as the starting quarterback?
A. I think Craig has had a good spring and right now Craig is the number one quarterback. He's clearly been the best quarterback in spring practice.
Q. The baseball thing hasn't been a problem?
A. No, I think he's handled the baseball thing very well. It hasn't been a problem. The one thing he's done is he's come to practice with a good attitude and he's a tough kid. I guarantee you he's tough, because he's been knocked around.
Q. Is the offense he ran in high school similar to your scheme?
A. You would have to ask him how closely the offense he ran in high school compares to ours, but I think he's got the tools to run this offense. He can throw the ball well and if he makes good decisions, he has the ability. He's just got to make the right decisions, I don't think he's lacking physically.
Q. The tendency is to think of this as a running offense, but it's not really, right?
A. It can be either; you just have to do what gives you the best chance to win. We need to run the ball, I don't think there's any question we want to run the ball. I think it helps the football team when you can run the ball, but if we have to throw the ball I think we have capable guys that can throw the ball.
Q. What do you think of the 12 game schedule.
A. I'm used to playing 15 games a year anyway so it doesn't matter
Q. Is they're anything specific you want to accomplish in the last two scrimmages?
A. The biggest thing right now is working on setting the depth chart coming into fall camp. Once you get into fall camp certainly it can change, nobody will have their position locked down, but if you go into fall camp as the starter, somebody has to beat you out. We would like to get the depth down. There are still parts of the offense and defense we haven't gotten in. I mean its wrinkles, we've tried to throw everything in, but just wrinkles off of plays and some other stuff that will take awhile to get in and guys getting confident with the system. If you're going to be good, you can't think about it. You need to know where you're going and what your doing and you don't have to think about it. We are still in the think about it stage.
Q. Have they absorbed your offense pretty well, obviously you have smart kids.
A. It's been okay, I think the attitude is good. It's like I said before, some pick up things better than others. Being smart in math and science doesn't mean your smart in football. We have some guys here who are really football smart, and some that aren't. Just like every place I've coached. I've seen guys with 800 on the SAT or 700 that were football smart. They picked up football fast.
Q. How do you make those that aren't football smart, football smart.
A. By repetition. It will take them a little longer, but I think the one thing we will try and do is that once we get our system in we will run our system and we will try and get better at it every day and I am a firm believer in that. We will take 20 or 30 minutes every day on the option, we will run it in practice every day, and if you do that, sooner or later by osmosis, you ought to get a little better at it.
