8/13/2002 - Football
Navy Football Practice Report Day 7, Practice 2
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Senior Offensive Tackle Derek Jaskowiak (Chesterfield, Mo.)
Q. Generally, how does it feel to be back on the field and playing ball?
A. It feels pretty good. Coming back is always going to be a little rough because you aren't in the shape that you should be after missing a whole week of two-a-days. It feels great to be back. It feels great to hit somebody finally instead of watching all of the other guys get to hit.
Q. Tell us the nature of your injury.
A. I had my appendix taken out, I want to say the 15th of July.
Q. Basically there was a period of waiting until you were allowed to have contact. So you're fine?
A. Yes, I'm fine.
Q. How do you feel physically after being out for a week and not being able to hit? Are you a step behind? Did you feel like the first couple of days you weren't quite there hitting wise?
A. Really not. The big advantage to actually being here the whole week was I got to see what everyone else was doing. Really, to see what everyone was doing wrong. When I came out here, I had to have all these corrections already made thanks to my friends Nick Wilson and James Bond. They really helped me out watching what they did.
Q. At the stadium Saturday, it seemed like Coach Johnson was annoyed at times with some missed assignments blocking wise. I get the feeling for his system to work, that just can't happen because that is so key that everyone block their assigned person. Can you talk a little bit about the system, the spread offense, and what the line's responsibility is there?
A. I would say that compared to last year's offense, this offense is more simple. There are steady rules throughout most of the plays in that no matter what they line up in, you can know where to block. Last year, we had a bunch of exceptions in our rules. That was okay for that offense, but it made things a little tougher for us as an o-line. This year, we've got our good, simple rules that we can follow through pretty much any scenario and helps us out a lot.
Q. Basically, it should be fairly easy for you to know what your assignment is on each play?
A. Come SMU, we should get all of our assignments.
Q. In terms of how the line is blocking, how would you rate it just from your standpoint? Do you feel like you guys are coming along, that you've been doing well in practice?
A. This is our seventh day of practice and we're progressing real nicely. We don't know everything and we're still missing assignments here and there, but every day we're making progress. Like I said, by the time we hit SMU, we should be ready to go.
Q. Do you feel good about the physicality of the line? You lost a center and one or two other starters off of last year's line.
A. We lost Brian Schulz, but we have Shane Todd to fill in. Shane Todd is an outstanding physical specimen. Last year when we had a whole different offensive scheme, he was up to 305 pounds, and in the off-season he got up to about 310. The coaches told him this was going to be a speed offense and now he's down to about 295 or so. He's a lot quicker. We lost John Jeffries, too, but myself and Walsh split time at tackle, so we just shifted him over and moved me up to left. So, we're both pretty experienced tackles. I think we're pretty talented in the o-line overall.
Q. So you're a pretty experience line?
A. Oh yeah. We've got Matt Nye, who started I think eight games last year, and Grant Moody started all of them.
