University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Post-Game Quotes -- Black and Gold Spring Game
4/1/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 1, 2006
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HATTIESBURG, Miss. - - Head Coach Jeff Bower
His thoughts on the game: "I thought it went well; I saw a lot of good things out here today. I think that all of our quarterbacks did some good things, and both teams were able to run the ball effectively. Conrad Chanove stood out by the way he ran the football, and Shadler Manning had another good day, defensively. Conrad might be the hardest working football player on this team. He plays hard every time he comes out, and is another walk-on who earned a scholarship this past fall. He's a great kid, and I wish we could get all of them to play as hard as he plays. Overall, I think we accomplished a lot today."
On the play of both the black and gold teams: "I thought both teams played well. Other than the first couple of drives, everything else went fine. We limited a lot of things, with this being a shorter game, but I think we got what we expected out of this game."
On what player has made the most improvement during the spring: "I think it would be Shadler Manning on defense. He was our most improved defensive player and defensive end, and he had another good day today. Shadler has really come on and is starting to play the way he's capable of playing all the time. On offense, it was offensive tackle Ryan McKee. Ryan's only a freshman, but I think he's going to be a really good player for us. On special teams, it was Britt Barefoot. He has to become more consistent, but he worked hard during the spring. He's a better punter than what he showed, but he hit a couple today that showed what he's capable of doing."
On if Jeremy Young is currently the starting quarterback: "Jeremy Young is our starting quarterback right now, and will go into the fall as our starter. He did some good things today, though we probably played some of the other guys more than him. I thought all of our quarterbacks threw the ball well. Travis Clark did well today, and Stephen Reaves did a lot of good things at the end of the game. We had some dropped passes out there, but overall, it was a good day for our quarterbacks. Jeremy has come a long way, and he's giving us that added dimension of being a good runner by being able to pull the ball down and make some plays. I think he's starting to gain a lot of confidence in himself right now, and that's really important."
On Marcus Raines: "Marcus is vying for a starting spot (at middle linebacker), but he's currently a backup to Mitch Craft. However, Marcus is going to play a lot, and the battle for that starting spot is going to carry on into the preseason. He still has an opportunity to be our starter at middle linebacker."
On what he's most pleased with from the team: "I think we got better at tackling, as we worked every day on that during the spring. I didn't see as many missed tackles today as I have in previous scrimmages. The other thing I was pleased with was our ability to run the ball more effectively."
On what the team needs to work on in the summer: "There are a lot of things that we need to work on. We still have to eliminate giving up big plays, defensively. That's probably the one thing that still concerns me. We had too much of that this spring. Offensively, I like what we're doing running the ball, but we need to be a lot more consistent in our passing game. Our guys around the quarterback have to be a lot better than what they were last year."
On Cody Hull: "Cody looked good today, but he's had a banged up ankle the past week and a half, and didn't get as many reps as some of the other running backs, but he's had a good spring for us."
On how the entire team played from a depth standpoint: "We didn't play bad, though we had a couple of motion penalties. I do think we got a little tired toward the end of the game, as this is by far the hottest day that we've had. You don't ever play a spring game with a lot of depth, so everybody has to play a lot, and I think that showed up today. We didn't run and chase the ball like we're capable of doing, and that is unacceptable."
On if Brett Favre called the plays during the first half: "He called them all. He told me to tell (the media) that he called only the ones that worked, and the ones that didn't work were the ones that I sent in. He said that some things never change. You also noticed that he never called an option! It was good to have him here, and we had a great time out here talking. He did a great job talking to our players before the game. You can imagine that when a guy like that comes to talk to them that they're going to be all ears. Yesterday, we had Gene Gibson and Hanford Dixon, who were our other honorary coaches, talk to our team and they did a terrific job as well. It's neat for those guys to come in here and talk about some different things. We were very glad to have all of our honorary coaches, and we're really glad that they came."
On the play of the offensive line in running the ball: "I thought that both sides ran the ball well. We have to make bigger plays, as our longest run last year was only 29 yards. We didn't have a long run today, but we did have some that were nice gains."
Overall thoughts on the spring: "It was a good spring, and was very physical. I was disappointed that we had so many guys get hurt, and that we couldn't do more in the kicking game, but we did the best we could for this game and got a lot out of it. We didn't play special teams (punt return and kickoff return teams) because we had too many injuries. We would have had to put guys there that didn't work there."
