On spring expectations: “Our expectations are the same every spring — did we get better by practice 15 than we were at practice one? Individually, as a unit, as one side of the ball, and then overall as a team. Our season started right when our kids got back here after the Rose Bowl win, in terms of what they were doing in the winter with coach Radcliffe in the weight room and whatnot. But now it’s our first chance to get back and start doing football with them, and our expectations are the same: just improvement in every aspect of what they’re doing. That’s what we’re looking forward to and getting excited to get back out there and play some football.”
On the quarterback competition headed into spring: “Everything’s wide open, doesn’t matter what position you play on our team. It’s always been that way, since day one, and it’ll always be that way. Our program’s founded on competition, so we don’t go in saying who’s what at every position. Besides quarterback, we play a rotation, so are they going to get into the rotation? At quarterback we like to settle on one guy; everywhere I’ve been it’s always ended up being one guy. So everything’s wide open. We run so many plays and get so many reps in practice that everybody’s going to get a shot at enough reps for us to make evaluations. But we won’t make a determination on who’s the starter at any position on this football team until the week before the Arkansas State game. There’s not even a talk of, ‘Who’s our ones, twos and threes?’ and all those other things. And really besides quarterback we don’t have ones, twos and threes.”
On looking forward after last season’s success: “We’re really proud of what last year’s team accomplished, but I think it was Bill Parcells who said, ‘Every year, you kind of get reborn.’ We have a lot of memories, and a lot of these guys were part of it, along with those outgoing seniors, but now it’s time to go see what the 2012 version of the Oregon Ducks will look like, and we understand how we’re successful. We’re successful because of our preparation.
“It is a new year, it’s a new time, and that’s the exciting part. There’s pieces to the puzzle that will be new, and it’s exciting to see how those guys will fit in.”
On three incoming freshman who will enroll early: “Jake Rodrigues enrolled in January, and then Evan Baylis — a tight end from Colorado — and Arik Armstead — a defensive lineman from California — will all be here. They start school on Monday and we start practice on Tuesday. Our philosophy is we always teach to our fastest learners. So they gotta catch up, and that’s part of what we do. But we get enough reps and we get enough opportunities. And with spring ball, with no games, it’s about improvement. You’re not trying to see who’s going to play in your defensive line rotation, you’re not trying to see who’s playing in your tight end rotation. You’re just (looking at), how do those guys get better from practice one, two to three to four, and on and on and on. But they’re going to be thrown right in the mix on the first day, and that’s the way we’ve always done it here with all those guys.”
On Kenjon Barner’s expanded role: “You never know how it’s going to play out, but I know Kenjon is capable of being a 25 carry guy if need be. It always helps that you have depth there, and we’ve been fortunate to have at least two guys, and sometimes three, and sometimes four that can do it. But sometimes trying to get carries for four guys is difficult, because guys like LaMichael come into a rhythm….and you can see those things in Kenjon. He has the ability to do all of that stuff, but I also think you gotta be aware of that you can’t run him into the ground.
“Right now, I think Kenjon coming back for his senior year, he’s going to be one of the top running backs in the country.”
On quarterback Marcus Mariota: “Feel real confident with him as he moves forward. He improved everywhere, and that’s the key. There’s never one thing, and it’s never, no matter who you are, ‘Hey if he does this thing a little bit better, we’re going to be okay.’ There’s gotta be improvement in everything. There’s gotta be improvement of his defensive recognition, there’s gotta be improvement in his footwork, gotta be improvement in his ball handling, gotta be improvement in his decision making. And that’s the one thing we were real excited about with him. Each week you could see him starting to grasp things. He’s a real sharp kid, you really don’t have to correct him more than once. He very rarely makes the same mistake twice, and has worked really hard at the off the field stuff — studying tape on his own and doing all those other things. He’s got a real good grasp of what we’re doing, so I think we feel real confident as a staff in our quarterback situation. They just haven’t played significant amounts of snaps in games, but I’m real confident no matter who ends up, out of those guys, pulling the trigger.”
On closing spring practice for the first time: “I would say we analyze everything we do here as a football program, and look at the pluses and the minuses. And if the pluses outweigh the minuses, then that’s the direction we go in. There’s a lot to be made of it, but I don’t know if we’ve ever had more than 15 people at practice, so it’s not like we’ve told thousands that they can’t come to practice.”