Video/Transcript: Todd Monken Interview – August 11, 2022
On how Stetson Bennett has capitalized on being a starter …
“Being with the first group, being expected to be the starter, it’s invaluable. His confidence level is raised with our confidence in him. I think that is probably the most important thing.”
On using four tight ends in a single formation …
“Well, if you run it too often, you get every wideout in the portal (laughing). We do have great players at that position. You do have to utilize their skillset, but you also have to balance that because there is a cost to that. It is one thing to say we are going to utilize three-team personnel, four-team personnel, then it is like ‘ok, what are we going to do out of it to execute?’ That is probably the toughest thing is how do you get through practice and execute how you want it to look once you get to the game. That happens a lot in offense and defense meetings, where a defensive coach will say ‘boy, that really gives us problems.’ It only gives you problems if we can execute. If it gives us problems as well, it is really not worth anything. We do have good players there. We do have to find a good way to get them on the field and use all of our talented players.”
On his relationship with Stetson Bennett …
“He has always been in there, so he has always heard how we want to do it. I think he is doing a much better job of in between his reps of carrying the message that we talk about and to make sure we are on the same page. I think that is the biggest thing. It is not him talking to receivers in terms of how we would do it. It is that we are all on the same page, carrying the message from our meeting room to on the field. That’s a sign of leadership — going over ‘how did you see it?’ ‘well, this is how I saw it, this is how we talk about; let’s get it right.’
On talk that the offense might carry the team and if that is something he agrees with …
“I really don’t know what that means. In fact, we’ve got good players on defense. Sure we lost a lot of really good players. I don’t think that changes for us. I don’t think last year we thought of it that way other than all we control is how often we get the ball and how many times we score when we have the ball – points per possession. That is all we control. Obviously, last year there were scenarios where it made no sense to continue to put ourselves at risk. That may not be the case this year that may be the case this year. I don’t know. That is to be determined but to carry that is ridiculous at a place like Georgia. We have good players on both sides of the ball. Just like last year, to say that the defense had to carry us is probably unfair.
“But, we were tremendous and defense. I get what you are saying. I don’t mean to be rude. I am just saying in general I think we get carried away with overall points and overall statistics or carrying things over. Ultimately, each game is where you have to continue to score points and stop people. If you get into averages, it’s not any good if we score 51, you get 25 the next. You would like to be more consistent right there in the middle every week that you can count on that. Just like whatever happened last year has nothing to do with this year.”
On the wide receiver group …
“Well, we lost George (Pickens) last year. Maybe in some ways that made us better, you know. In some ways once George went down, we had to figure ‘ok, we don’t have an x, we don’t have someone you can ok, just go three by one, and they kick their coverage, and we can throw it there,” So, you have to get into more tightened sets, condensed sets. How are we going to run the ball better? How are we going to use our tight ends? Not knowing exactly at the time what we had in Brock Bowers or A.D. Mitchell or whoever. At the end of the day, you figuring out the puzzle is probably the No. 1 thing we are paid to do is, and no one really cares who you have. We do have more options at receiver probably at some spots, but at the end of the day whether it is using our backs, using our tight ends, using our receivers — it is what you are paid to do. Figure out a way to score and not turn it over.”
On Arian Smith…
“I think the biggest thing is staying healthy for Arian. He just hasn’t been on the field long enough as a developmental player. He is fast. He is athletic. He is a great kid. But not being healthy and being out there to develop… What that does, is that restricts you from a player being an every-down player to get on the field more often because you can’t trust them and everything you’re asking them to do, so they have to be situational players, if that makes sense. You have situational players and everyday players. There is more that goes into it because say hey, let’s go fast. Players have to know what to do. So, we are looking to bridge that gap from being a situational player to a player that we can trust to be out there in more than just when you want to use explosiveness to threaten the defense. Plus, they complement the run game. Put him out there and it’s like are they going to play a two-shell, are they going to play an extra safety that allows you to run the ball more effectively if they don’t want to put more guys in the box and allow him more space.”
On the running backs’ pass-catching abilities…
“Kenny (McIntosh) is going to have to take more of that slack. It was nice having both of those guys (James Cook) a year ago with their versatility. I think our other guys have improved dramatically in terms of their ball skills and route running ability, getting the ball to them down the field, and their ability to track the ball. That’s probably as much… James could really track the ball. You could put him out there and feel good if we threw it 40-yards downfield. That’s completely different than most of the balls that running backs catch, which are right in front of them. Intermediate. Short. So Kenny, Daijun (Edwards) has really improved. That is an area where we don’t have as much depth. When you had James you didn’t have to worry about in a given game plan if one guy went down that would be Kenny. Now the other guys have gotten better at it, but you have a short margin of error. You’d hate to go into a game with all kinds of things you like for Kenny, and then all of a sudden something happens and you’re stuck. When Kenny was healthy we had the luxury of having both of them.”
On melding his offensive philosophy with Georgia’s traditional style…
“Actually it’s not really a rhetorical question. It’s fair in the fact that I do like to throw it. I think people think that I don’t like to throw it. I’m paid to score, I’m not paid to win. I’m paid to add as part of that, but to score. But I’m also paid to be responsible for winning. Again there is a big part of that where they think that Kirby (Smart) dictates what we do on offense. No, he dictates that we play smart. That we be explosive and we utilize our personnel. Do everything in our power to win games for the University of Georgia. That’s what we should do. Believe me, when I’m thinking game plan-wise, I’m thinking about how we can be explosive yet how we can run the ball to help us be explosive. You can’t control the game if you can’t run the ball comfortably. You can’t. You cannot control the game. You can have a bunch of statistics that make it look better and make you feel better, but if you can’t run the ball comfortably you can’t win the game. That comes from a guy that likes to throw it. My background is wideouts and quarterbacks, so I do want to throw it. I enjoy throwing it. Two years ago, against Mississippi State here couldn’t run it. We didn’t run it well at all. That was on me. We threw for 400-yards, thank God, and won the game. Cincinnati we turned the ball over a bunch and didn’t run the ball nearly as well, but luckily we could throw it. I think the biggest thing is are you able to, when you’re not having success at one or the other, you’re not just one-dimensional. You’re not just a run team, where we get behind and have trouble throwing it, or a passing team when you have to run it. But it’s out there, it’s part of it. You have to do whatever you need to do to win the game. To be explosive and not turn it over.”
On the addition of Mike Bobo to the staff…
“Well first of all he is an unbelievable sounding board, like any other experienced coach that we bring in. Whether it was last year, defensively with Will Muschamp or with us Buster Faulkner. Anybody you bring in is a sounding board. You ask them, are we doing everything in our power to be successful? During walk-throughs, I asked him today… We’re working on pressures and how we are going to adjust to them. I walked right over to him and said okay, what are we missing? Is there anything that you guys did that was different? Is there any way of how you walked through in the past? Are we utilizing every opportunity to be successful? He’s been great, just like with Buster or anybody that has done it as long as he’s done it. In some ways, I’m sure he’s enjoying being back here, but there are other ways where it’s like maybe I wouldn’t do it that way. But he’s been awesome. He’s been awesome as a sounding board and I want to continue that in what we do offensively. We had a little bit of a shorter off-season with guys coming in, so we haven’t had as much time to really dive into certain aspects of it. Everybody that you have in your organization has to have value. Well, where is their value? Where is their unique value? Is it recruiting, player development, or offensive game planning? Whatever that is, if they don’t have an elite trait that adds to it, they have to go. Somewhere in that, they have to have some reason why they are in our building. I don’t mean to end on that with Coach Bobo. He adds tremendous value in terms of being a sounding board for us.”
On Dominick Blaylock’s journey back to the field…
“I can’t imagine getting hurt and getting reinjured two years… Probably a lot of times question whether or not what if I do all of this again. What if I do all of this and it happens again? I’m sure every day, anybody that has ever played basketball and you roll your ankle, you don’t jump for a month. Imagine tearing your ACL and then you do it again. How long is that going to take to recover on the mental side, forget the physical side, and just being able to get out there and go. Over time he has. Gotten to the point where he feels more and more comfortable. He’s always been a crafty route runner. He’s probably more crafty than he is fast. He has a knack. Some guys just have a knack for getting open and making plays and contested catches and you can see that every day that he is out there.”
On freshman running backs Andrew Paul and Branson Robinson…
“They’re going to be really good players. What’s interesting is whenever this started, 10-15 years ago, when players came at mid-semester; at one point there were four to five of them and you had 18 or 20 that didn’t come. Now it’s the reverse of that. You have most of your class coming in at mid-semester. You are so used to freshman being up to speed a little bit more. But missing the Spring takes a toll on any player that was not here because you’re asking a lot of them. They’re both going to be tremendous players. They’re working awfully hard at their craft, and every day we install. Summer is not the same. It’s really not because you have the physical part. Every day, we install, and the defense installs. We keep going, and it compounds the looks. It’s one thing if we kept the same place, and they changed, or vice versa. But now they’re changing looks, and we are changing plays. You think ‘Holy Cow,’ and you can become overwhelmed. It’s hard at that point to really see their true skillset because they’re processing and not playing fast, but I think they’re both going to be really good players.”
On recognizing when Stetson Bennett was a championship-level quarterback…
“As we got going in the year it’s funny because I’ve been on teams where we struggle, we weren’t where we needed to be, and when you’re going up against the same guys, you have no way of knowing really how good you are. You may think you are really good or bad, but you have no idea when you face the same dudes. After a while, you think we are really not that good. Or you go for awhile and there are some days in practices that I’m going, ‘I don’t think we are very good.’ When we play other people, I think we are really good. I mean that collectively as a team. There are moments with your quarterback where you think you are very good. We are really good on defense, and we can be really good on offense. When that happened, that was a few games – it sure wasn’t after Clemson – but after a few games, you start feeling that, ‘I think we are going to be pretty good.’ Respectfully, the quarterback room was good. Both of them were good players. It was never where you thought just this much of the other. So, as we kept going along, we thought Stetson and the ability he gave us gave us a chance. It was a little bit different in terms of who we were going with. At some point I thought we can win it with either one of them at quarterback.”
On Gunner Stockton and Brock Vandagriff…
“They are tremendous players. Brock obviously has been here longer, but his playmaking ability is tremendous. He has a chance, just like Gunner does, to be a tremendous player. I really do [think that]. They’re different in the way they go about it, as well as their personalities, which is normal. You’re never going to have the same player. You can have three kids, and they have different personalities, all of them. You love them all. This one is a little more quiet, and this one is a little more outgoing, but both of them are going to be tremendous players. It stinks because I think we have a really good quarterback room. People look at it and think they aren’t a good quarterback room because of Stetson Bennett. But no, Stetson Bennett is a really good player. Those guys are really good players, and I think they will continue to get better. We ask a lot out of them. We do a lot of quarterback controls, so there is a lot that we ask them to do. It makes it hard on them.”
On Arik Gilbert’s potential…
“Well Arik, a lot like Brock, is a unique talent. Their skill set – Arik is little bit different in that Arik has wide receiver background in route-running. He’s good with the ball in his hands after the catch, whereas Brock’s background is more get the ball in his hands, H-Back, full-back, run after the catch. That’s probably the difference. So as Brock needs to continue to develop his running, he’s one of those guys where you just have to get it in his hands. And he has better catch radius than I thought. Arik is more of a route-runner. He’s been in that, in terms of what he’s developed, it’s almost like an air-raid lock. So that’s been a part of that. Both have unique skillsets. We didn’t know exactly what we had with Brock. We knew he was rare in how he worked, and how he came every day. How that developed and kept going, we just kind of fell into it. We knew he was fast once he could catch and run with it. That’s different. The GPS says one thing on the field, and you think, ‘We have to keep trying that.’ Darnell is an unusual talent, but he has a foot issue, and we can’t use him. Keeping them healthy, all those guys healthy because they’re different. Who are your unique skillsets that you can take advantage of? Wes Welker at one time was excellent for the Dolphins, and then he was brought to the Patriots and was turned into a Hall of Fame type of player. There are certain guys, certain backs where if you can utilize some of their skillsets, you are going to enable them to excel, and that’s what we want to do.”
On the offensive guards and Tate Ratledge’s recovery…
“I’ll start with Tate because Tate missing obviously other than four snaps of the Clemson game, missed the whole year and that’s going to take a toll on him mentally. He is still a young player. It’s not like he is Jamaree Salyer and older players, so mentally he has to work back into it. He has all of the attributes you want, he just has to get himself back going again. I don’t care how much you are in meetings, I don’t care how much you are watching, you are not actually executing. If you shoot a rifle, you can’t watch people shoot the gun, you have to actually shoot it. He has to get out there and doing. So getting him out there helps that. We have a lot of depth at guard and tackle, and if we can be mean up front. We have a lot of really good players up front, and now we are just working through it. I don’t want to name names because I’ll miss somebody, but we have a lot of really talented football players up front. Now we are piecing that together so we can function as one.”
On the lack of 1,000-yard wide receivers…
“I really don’t go into it that way, but I get it. I get skill players. I’ve coached them all my life. If you’re in basketball you want to score, if you’re in baseball you want to hit, and if you’re a skill guy you want to touch the football. I get that, and I understand certain skill guys frustrations when they don’t. That’s their value. When is was at Oklahoma State in 2011, Justin Blackman won the Biletnikoff. We had like seven kids with 100s of yards. Then the next year we had Josh Stewart who had a 1000 yards. So they were different offenses, more air raid like, and some may have had a few more games. But I would’ve guessed if we had George, we would’ve had a thousand yard receiver last year because he’s a unique skill set. When you get into run-play action and utilize matchups, like we had a number of guys that way, it’s almost like inevitable. You’re not going to have somebody do that. I’m going to compare it to one thing because I find it very intriguing. It’s easy to pick on. No matter which way you go, I found this in the NFL. You create this with quarterbacks where the touchdown to interception ratio exists. Yet everybody knows if you get in the red zone, your best red zone team is more able to run the football in. How does that make any sense? If you’re really good at running and you run for touchdowns, and you have the quarterback only throwing for 17 touchdowns with 10 picks, well you could’ve had 10 more you just didn’t need him to. It is what it is. The idea is for us, and it’s frustrating for our players, is to score as much as we can, be explosive, and utilize the skill sets we have. We get in the red zone and score touchdowns regardless if we throw or run it. The rest of it is the talk, not really in terms of the value of what it really means. I get what you are saying, I really do. You would love to have someone you can count, too. We had to be really creative last year with who that is. Is it Brock? Is it AD? Last year we had 4000 passing yards and 2000 yards rushing, so that’s elite. You would love to have that, but sometimes it just doesn’t work itself out that way.”
Video/Transcript: Dell McGee Interview – August 11, 2022
On the current running back group…
“I’ll start with Kenny McIntosh, a senior, who had a really nice spring and showed a lot of leadership in the summer work program, and he’s doing a great job of mentoring the two young guys who had just come in in Branson Robinson and Andrew Paul. Kendall Milton, a junior, who has suffered some injuries each year that he has been here. He’s been very healthy this spring and he’s also been healthy this summer, so we’re looking for big things out of him and he also serves in a leadership role because he had a chance to be led by Zamir (Cook) and James (White), four-year guys, and Kenny. Those two guys, along with Daijun Edwards, who’s been a consummate student-athlete—he’s very unselfish, a team player, knows his role and fit—he’s going to be counted on as well this year because he adds value to our football team.”
On Kendall Milton…
“He’s looked great during fall camp. You lose reps when you’re not on the football field, but the way we structure practice and walkthroughs, he’s getting those mental reps that are well-needed against various looks. So, from that perspective, he’s still inclined to be a good running back on Saturday nights and afternoons.”
On freshman running back Andrew Paul…
“He comes from a good high school program that won a state championship. He’s six-foot, 220 pounds, great size, has good speed. He’s a great kid from a great family. Very quiet, hard worker, so he fits all the character of things we’re looking for in our football players. We also needed another running back. We always like to keep five in our roster. Our lineup number is six, but we’ve been kind of shorting that number because of the talent that we’ve had in the room. He’s just getting here—he wasn’t a mid-year, so he’s behind from a mental standpoint. We’ll get a chance to evaluate him further in the scrimmage on Saturday, which I know all of our guys are looking forward to it.”
On securing a late commitment from a highly-coveted recruit in Paul…
“He has family from Georgia, so there was a connection there. The running back tradition here speaks for itself. That tradition was developed way before I got here. Just getting in there late in the month of December and January allowed me an opportunity of getting to know him and his family and him getting to know me, and just what he wanted in goals and aspirations. It just fit coming to Georgia.”
On Branson Robinson…
“Branson, the way he’s built, he’s built like a brick house. He doesn’t have a neck. He’s very similarly built in the shoulders like one of my old teammates, Takeo Spikes. Nick Chubb was a good-looking student-athlete as well. Branson is more than just muscle. He’s very dedicated. He works hard in the weight room obviously, and in strength and conditioning. He’s a sharp young man with a lot of promise this year.”
On recruiting non-running back prospects…
“As a staff, we have to go out and recruit other positions. I’m only signing one or two running backs. I’ve got a great relationship and rapport with high school coaches. I feel like I can talk to any parent, any race, any socio-economic status. I try to fit in where I can to help get the best players here. I’m one of the longest-tenured coaches here. That’s part of what Coach Smart wants, and whatever he wants from me, I’m going to do it.”
On Daijun Edwards’ impact…
“He’s really quiet, he’s not going to be a boastful guy, he doesn’t talk a whole lot. What you are going to get is what you see, based on what you’ve seen. He is very unselfish, he closed out a lot of games, he wasn’t a guy that was pouting because he didn’t get in earlier in the game. He has value and has a role on special teams and that’s a very, very important component of our success on the football field. He is going to be a competitor and he is having a great camp thus far and he had a great spring too so, we expect great things out of Daijun. He has graduated to a level where he is, level where he is going to get snaps.”
On how things have changed since the first season …
“First off, we don’t have to take that fifteen-minute bus ride to the solar panels, the only thing we lost from that was little a connection piece, you got to talk to the players before and after practice on those bus rides. But the facility speaks for itself, it’s the best facility in the country. Our kids are well deserving, and they are treated very, very well and it adds to our practice efficiency on a day-to-day basis. Other than the fact our fields not being side by side, I think that is probably the only drawback, the distance you have to travel from one field to another. As much as we practice two spots, will add yards, unwanted yards, is not needed and can cut the efficiency of practice at times.”
On Todd Monken’s impact on the offense…
“First, it goes back to recruiting. We recruit very, very well on the offensive line, so everything starts up front. Coach Monken, he is a very, very smart detailed-oriented, consistent coach. He demands a lot from the coaches, and he also demands a lot out of the players. I think he does a great job identifying the personnel, what fits certain plays, trying to use the dynamic of each individual player to maximize their abilities on Saturdays. I will say his NFL system gets us, he didn’t come in and try to change every single thing, and he is also open to ideas, and that gives us a lot of input. When talk about adding Mike Bobo, a twenty year plus coordinator, Buster Faulkner, who is an eleven plus coordinator, and Bryan McClendon who has been an offense coordinator as well, you have a lot of knowledge and experience, and he leans on that too. I think it is a real joy to work with Coach Monken, I learn a lot from him, he is very particular on details, so small things, the little things and he holds everyone accountable.”
On deciding the running back rotation for games…
“Decisions are made during practice, so you have got to show that you understand the details of the assignment and then you have to execute whatever plays coming up during practice. I think, through practice, you build days up and stack days, you build confidence, and the coaches try to find roles for those guys. Everything that we do and make decisions about all come from how you do at practice and execute those assignments.”
On the sacrifices of being a collegiate coach…
“You have to have a strong wife at home to kind of choreograph the days of the kids and bills, I don’t even know what’s in my checking account, I don’t do anything in regard to house or insurance. So, I think having a great leader at home is big, then stressing to your kids that this is a sacrifice. It’s tough at times, but Coach Smart does a great job on relying on us to get back home and spend time with our families. The biggest time consumptions are right now while we are at camp, but once you get into the season, you get into kind of a routine. You know from Saturday after the game all the way until Wednesday you are going to grind, you get off and go straight home after practice on Wednesday, we kind of have our day, Wednesday as a family. Thursday it’s the same, sometimes that’s not the case for myself or non-coordinators because on Thursdays sometimes we have to get in place to recruit and watch prospect players on Friday night. But it is part of the job, I love the job that we have, it’s us giving back.”
On the journey from Carver-Columbus HS to Georgia…
“I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Being a high school coach really taught me a lot, how to communicate with the kids, I constantly had parents that weren’t involved and that I had to try to get involved. We definitely had a very, very low socioeconomic status of kids when I was at Carver, so resources weren’t necessarily there. So just being connected to my players, communicating to my players and parents, saying the right things at the right time, really, really mattered and at the end of the day it’s how you treat people, relationships that you develop and have with your players and parents. I still have continued relationships with guys I’ve coached in high school as well as here at Georgia, I think that is just as important. You get more than a coach when you get me, you are getting someone that is going to be, what I call, part of your lifeline forever. I get invited to weddings, ex-players tell me when they are having kids and things they are going through, they for advice, in the professional or even outside the professional circle. As a coach, you wear a lot of different hats, and being a high school coach, the only thing I do now is cut grass and line the field and fertilize grass and loads of things have kind of stopped. I love being around people, I have been part of the locker room since I was basically ten years old, so being part of that team component, that camaraderie, celebrating after wins in the locker room, that’s part of my job.”
On Kenny McIntosh’s ceiling…
“He can do everything. He can run inside tackles, he can run outside tackles, he’s really good on the perimeter. He has really, really good hands. Probably some of the best hands since DeAndre (Swift). He’s good at running routes, he’s a blitz pickup on third down, so he’s definitely a complete back. He’s learned a lot from James (Cook) and Zamir (White). He’s also a good example of, just like James and Zamir were, of staying the course, not being too anxious to enter the NFL or enter the transfer portal, just being patient. All of his hard work and his patience will come and pay off this year, but I think the sky is the limit for him. He’s definitely going to be an integral part of our offense and he will be relied upon heavily. He also adds value to our special teams as a kick returner.”
On changes from his first season …
“Well, I mentioned the solar panels, and if you think about it from the wins and losses, going from the Liberty Bowl to playing at the pinnacle of the National Championship in 2017 and then again in this past year, that’s what you strive to do as a coach. I think you can look at the fact that we only had one player drafted after that 2016 season, and now you come to this year and we had 15, so just a testament of the structure, what Coach Smart demands out of us as coaches in the recruiting philosophy, the everyday details and the staff that has grown, just creates competitive depth where our guys are competing and can’t get complacent it’s a pleasure, actually.”
On the inside linebackers …
“I think all the linebackers are capable. Starting with Pop, that’s (Jamon) Dumas-Johnson, his nickname is Pop. He looks like an old man, so we call him Pop. I think he’s done a great job. Smael Mondon Jr. is coming off an injury, I think he has a very, very bright future and will continue to develop. Xavian Sorey Jr. really, really fast linebacker that has great acceleration that has a great ceiling. Jalon Walker, who just got here as a midyear, possesses a lot of pass-rush ability. I think that’s probably a better question for our defensive guys, but all those guys are a handful to pick up on the blitzes. I know Coach Schumann and Coach Muschamp are going to do the best job putting them in position to make plays on our team. We’re only in day seven, so there’s a lot of answers that will be told once we scrimmage on Saturday, especially with our younger guys who haven’t player or just got here. We’ll see what we have from there, after that scrimmage.”
On the recruitment of Mykel Williams …
“It was definitely tough. He was initially going to commit to USC, but I was on his pops, his grandfather and his uncle for a long time, so we knew we were never out of it. We just stayed the course, stayed consistent, and it probably speaks for itself. Mykel is a Georgia kid that loves Georgia. I think he’s going to do things in an exceptional manner, which he has already. You can see the extra work and the attention to detail that he has as a young player. He actually came in and practiced with our team during the bowl week for a couple of days. He went through 14 spring practices and the spring game. Even this summer, you would see on off days he would be working. He would be working on Sundays, doing extra things to make him a better football player. So, we’re getting a very, very hard worker. Kind of unmatched from a hard work standpoint. That’s what you want out of a young player so they can influence their class as well as older guys, like, ‘Look at what Mykel is doing.’”
On the football success of the Columbus-Phenix City area …
“There’s a lot of talent in that area, down in Columbus and Phenix City. Of late, they’ve been really excelling on the football field. Had a lot of kids cross over the river a little bit. It’s just a great area. Always has been, always will be. Me being from Columbus, I’m definitely tied into the area and I’m in the know. I’ll know some of the kids before they even hit the high school marks, that, ‘Hey, this middle school kid I already know about. I’ve heard about the little league running backs.’ I have a little bit of a head start on everyone else, so we’re able to get those younger kids up to our camps and on campus. We’re able to build that relationship with those kids.”
On the progression toward being a head coach one day …
“Like I’ve said previously, I really don’t control that part of the process. I’m just very, very happy with being the running backs coach at Georgia. Coach Smart has been a blessing to me. I really want to thank him for affording me the opportunity to be the running backs coach here. Also the opportunities that he allows me to be in front of our football team, and in front of our offensive staff as well. Coach Smart has done everything as a mentor that you could do as a head coach and assistant coach. He’s very, very positive when it comes to his assistants moving on. We’ve had several assistants who have moved on to become head coaches and being a part of his pedigree is very special to me. But my main job is being the best running backs coach I can here. I feel like I am a head coach every single day, because I am in charge of the running backs and the special teams areas I’m in charge of, and I take all my jobs seriously, just like a head coach.”
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