8/6/2003 - Football
Paul Johnson Press Conference For Wednesday, Aug. 6

Q. What are some of the areas of concern you have early in camp?

A. We have to get better at everything. When you win two games I don?t think you can set anywhere, every position needs to get better. We?ve got more experience in some areas than others, but I think you would be hard pressed to say we have a position that?s just outstanding.

Q. Where are you most inexperienced?

A. It?s hard to tell until we actually get playing, we don?t know who?s going to be playing. We could have some inexperienced guys in several spots. Certainly offensive line is a spot where we are going to have some new guys.

Q. Can you talk about the offensive line? There is some question at guard with Magee being injured.

A. Shane Todd is the only one of the guards that has played much.

Q. And he has never played in a game at guard right?

A. No, but that might be a little overrated.

Q. What other positions are like the offensive line where you will be really inexperienced?

A. I don?t know if we have any other position where we will have that many new guys starting. We lost some guys on the defensive line, but we have guys that have played a lot. We have linebackers that have played, but there could be some inexperienced guys in the secondary. I don?t think there is any position that is set in stone. We have two quarterbacks that have played a lot and we have some B Backs (fullbacks) that have experience. Most of our front line guys have played, but if you look at the backups a lot of them haven?t played at all except for JV games.

Q. What about kicker, do you feel like you need to get better at kicker?

A. Yeah, we need to get better at kicker.

Q. Were you satisfied with the kickers performance last year?

A. Not really, no. We have to be better at kicker just like we have to be better at any other position. They weren?t any worse than anybody else. I think Skaggs can be a tremendous player. He had a good year, but not as good as the year before. He didn?t get to punt as much last year either, which I hope he doesn?t get to punt that much this year either. We need to have a big senior year out of him. As far as our kickers, we kicked with Rolfs, we kicked with Blumenfeld, we have some young kids, one of them needs to step to the front and be the kicker. When you have guys that rotate a lot, that usually means you don?t have a starter.

Q. Have Rolfs or Blumenfeld showed you yet that they?ve gotten better?

A. We?ll see, we?re only two days into camp. We?ll have some competition and see. They both have strong legs and they both have kicked well at times, it?s just a question of who?s going to be the most consistent.

Q. Could there be another kicker in the mix?

A. There very well could be. We have four or five young kickers with strong legs. Until you get into it you don?t know how much the summer takes out of them.

Q. So it?s not just Rolfs and Blumenfeld battling?

A. Oh no, there very well could be some other guys involved.

Q. The other day at media day you talked about getting more pressure on the quarterback. That?s kind of been a perennial problem at Navy in past years. Navy has not gotten pressure on the quarterback. Is there any way to address that other than just getting more speed on the field?

A. There?s a lot of ways to get better pressure. The biggest thing is to get guys that can pass rush better. Bigger, faster guys as you said. But if you can cover better, you can rush more guys. If you have guys that can lock up and play coverage that frees up more guys to rush. When teams are having success throwing the ball, it?s not just the defensive backs. It?s everybody involved, it?s the pass rush and the whole deal and vice versa. You could be getting to the quarterback, but if everybody is so wide open that the quarterback can get rid of the ball immediately it never looks like you?re getting there. It?s a team problem and we have to find a way to take the players that we have and give them the best chance to cover the pass. I look back at last year, and certainly the passing game hurt us in some games, but the key to winning football games is still stopping the run. If you look at the games we won, Army had a hard time running the ball. Therefore it?s hard to set up other things. If you can limit teams on the ground that are in conventional offenses then you can live with some completed passes. What we have to stop is letting them throw the ball over our head. That?s the thing that killed us in two or three games. That could have been the difference in two or three games.

Q. As you reviewed the film from last year and took a look at the defense, obviously they weren?t stout in any one area, but was there one particular area that you felt was costly?

A. I wouldn?t say it was any particular area. It?s a team game and we struggled everywhere. It?s not just the defense. We should have been a lot better on offense too. I don?t think you can lay the blame on one side. Do we need to play better defense? Yeah. Do we need to play better offense? Yeah. If we can just take better care of the ball we can help both sides. We can help the offense tremendously and it would help the defense some too.

Q. Wide receivers. Do you see some guys that can be more productive?

A. Hopefully we?ll do a better job throwing the ball, but again that?s a team deal. It?s protection, it?s catching the ball and it?s throwing the ball. I think Lionel Wesley and Amir Jenkins have had great summers. They are better football players right now than they were a year ago, I can guarantee you that. Now how that translates? I don?t know, we?ll see when the season starts.

Q. There?s this misnomer that you don?t throw the ball at all, but you do, and when you throw it you need to hit that pass because that?s where you get some of your big plays. That?s the way this offense is set up isn?t it?

A. Yeah, I mean we probably called 20-25 passes again.

Q. So the percentage completed last year was not good?

A. No, when you complete 49 percent of your throws that?s not very good. Now, we aren?t one of those offenses that?s going to complete 70 percent or 65 percent, because we don?t throw three-yard drag routs. But if we can complete 55-60 percent of our passes we can have a really dangerous passing game because you?re going to average a lot of yards. When we throw it, we mean it. We aren?t going to throw it out in the flats. We left a lot of yards out there last year. We had a lot of guys running wide open that we didn?t hit or we had an assignment bust on the offensive line and the quarterback never had a chance to throw the pass and we dropped a lot of passes. If we could have hit half of those, who knows, it changes a lot of games.

Q. So is it safe to say that the passing game is a point of emphasis?

A. We?re just trying to get better. At most places I?ve coached we?ve made pretty good improvements on offense because the kids understand it better and they have a better flow. I think if we can get our offensive line intact and get them going that we can be a better offensive football team.

Q. Do you feel like your depth is better this year?

A. Probably not. We?ll know more when we get the pads on, but depth is always going to be a problem here. We have a lot of guys on the second team that haven?t played. Now they might be fine, but until you get them under fire you just don?t know.

Q. Do you feel like you have a better idea of personnel now with a year under your belt and a whole summer of film study?

A. I think we have a better idea. Kids change. Kids get bigger, stronger and faster. Sometimes kids who weren?t as good a year ago are better now. Until you get farther in the season I don?t know. I don?t ever want to put a label on somebody that they can?t play, because kids change every day.

Q. Have you made any position changes from last spring to now?

A. Not anything of note. We moved Ryan Barry from fullback to slot back. He?s a big guy that runs fairly well and we want to try and get him on the field. We need some depth at slot. We may slide some guys around, but nothing major.

Q. The fullback position. It seems on the surface that you have pretty good depth. Eckel and Brimage both showed well at times last year, Bronston Carroll had a decent spring and the Dingle kid is a big kid.

A. If we can get everybody to the gate healthy, if we have them all, that position is probably a good one for us. If we can get everybody to the gate.

Q. Do you prefer to just play one guy there?

A. Not particularly, I don?t care. If we have two good guys, I?ll play two guys.

Q. Would you rotate them?

A. We?d play the one with the hot hand. When I was at Hawaii we had two fullbacks and one might start and get hot and play the whole game or the other one might come in and get hot and play the whole game. We?ll see in practice who does the best. Kyle Eckel is as physical as any guy on our football team. I mean the guy came in at 240 pounds, he benched 435 pounds and he runs 4.6 or better. We have to find a way to get him on the field.

Q. Has he shown any effects from his injury?

A. Nope, he looks good.

Q. At the same time, Brimage had a better game than any of the fullbacks last year.

A. Brimage played very well. Brimage isn?t as physically imposing, but he has good feet and good vision. Bronston had a great spring, he runs hard. Once we get the pads on that will be a heck of a competition. You wish you were that deep at every position, then you could say you had good depth.