What's the most pressing issue or concern for you going into the spring?
Greg Schiano: We're a really young football team. It's like 62 of our 85 scholarship players, when we report to training camp, will have three or four years of eligibility remaining. It's one of those deals where we've got to develop our younger players, but at the same time, it's not an excuse. That's who we are right now, and we've got to be able to go out and perform the best we can and hope that best is good enough, because we have good players. It's just that some of them are young.
Let's go position by position, starting with the offensive line. You lost three key starters. How do you see that unit right now?
GS: We have guys there. They've got to come through. You know, we didn't play very well on the offensive line last year, so to me, hopefully it's going to be an improvement. It needs to be an improvement. Not too long ago, we had the best offensive line in the country in sacks, rushing yards and all those things. We need to get that level of performance back.
I look at guys like Desmond Stapleton and Desmond Wynn, guys that haven't played a ton of football here but who are talented players. It's their turn, and they need to step up. A guy like Howard Barbieri, who played for us last year a good amount, he's now become a leader of that line. Art Forst, a guy who was probably forced into action before he was ready, now hopefully he's ready. Now is his time to really shine. A guy like Caleb Ruch, who played some, but he wasn't ready to play. He played because we had to play him. Now he's a junior.
I said earlier we have so many guys who have three years left. On the offensive line, we have a bunch of guys that have two years left. So hopefully that means they've been in our weight room now for three years. Offensive line is a little different position; the Anthony Davises who come and play right away are few and far between. These guys, I think they're good players. How fast they get good is going to have a big say in how fast we get good.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/tag/_/name/schiano-qa
Greg Schiano: We're a really young football team. It's like 62 of our 85 scholarship players, when we report to training camp, will have three or four years of eligibility remaining. It's one of those deals where we've got to develop our younger players, but at the same time, it's not an excuse. That's who we are right now, and we've got to be able to go out and perform the best we can and hope that best is good enough, because we have good players. It's just that some of them are young.
Let's go position by position, starting with the offensive line. You lost three key starters. How do you see that unit right now?
GS: We have guys there. They've got to come through. You know, we didn't play very well on the offensive line last year, so to me, hopefully it's going to be an improvement. It needs to be an improvement. Not too long ago, we had the best offensive line in the country in sacks, rushing yards and all those things. We need to get that level of performance back.
I look at guys like Desmond Stapleton and Desmond Wynn, guys that haven't played a ton of football here but who are talented players. It's their turn, and they need to step up. A guy like Howard Barbieri, who played for us last year a good amount, he's now become a leader of that line. Art Forst, a guy who was probably forced into action before he was ready, now hopefully he's ready. Now is his time to really shine. A guy like Caleb Ruch, who played some, but he wasn't ready to play. He played because we had to play him. Now he's a junior.
I said earlier we have so many guys who have three years left. On the offensive line, we have a bunch of guys that have two years left. So hopefully that means they've been in our weight room now for three years. Offensive line is a little different position; the Anthony Davises who come and play right away are few and far between. These guys, I think they're good players. How fast they get good is going to have a big say in how fast we get good.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/tag/_/name/schiano-qa