Tony
Levine, Houston: "I'm going to answer the question two ways. Winning
football games comes down to a number of things. It's holding onto
the football offensively, creating turnovers defensively, cutting
down on penalties, controlling the line of scrimmage on both sides
of the football. That, to me, philosophically will never change. For
us, specifically for this season, you're going to see a lot of young
men on the field in game one running onto the field for the first
time in their careers in a significant role. We have quite a few
young men playing who are inexperienced. We tried to create some
game-like situations this spring. We may have some true freshmen
play into the mix. The quicker the young men can gain valuable
experience, learn from their mistakes, which they'll make, the more
successful we'll be."
David
Bailiff, Rice: "Offensively, to improve, we've got to have some big
plays. We've got (to) have yards after catch. Instead of a
three-yard run, we need a seven-yard run. ... We've got to take care
of the football. We had too many turnovers last year. Defensively,
we've got to reduce the big plays that we've been giving up, which
means we've got to stay on wrap-arounds. We've got to secure the
tackle with the first hit. Defensively -- stop big plays,
offensively -- make some big plays and reduce turnovers. ... We have
a really talented football team. We only have eight seniors but
they're all pretty good players. We have very talented players below
them. We've got a returning quarterback who struggled last year but
I think Taylor (McHargue) has his confidence back. ... I really feel
good about the kind of football team we can grow into."
June
Jones, Southern Methodist: "The quarterback situation. I think
that's probably true of any football team. The quarterback better be
a player. In our offense, it's even more so that way because we
feature the quarterback. That's probably the key. We have some
talented kids, three really good passers, but again they haven't
lined up and played in a game for us. You really have to learn how
to play in a system. You've got to get in the system and play. ...
I've kind of made a decision right now that a transfer kid (Garrett
Gilbert, who started his college career at Texas) is going to be the
guy. He'll get the same reps as the others will initially but two
weeks before the game (at Baylor, Sept. 2) he'll be getting 80
percent of the snaps. He's played at the highest level as an 18-year
old freshman in the national championship game. I think he'll be
more ready to play. The good thing for him is that he's going back
in to some things he did in high school where he had a lot of
success. ... He had some things at Texas with change of coordinators
and systems and he got his shoulder hurt."
Andre
Patterson, Texas-El Paso: "I think, No. 1, for me, is that we truly
have to become a team. I'm going into my third season and I don't
feel that we've grown all the way in that area. People always say
chemistry but you've got to have team togetherness to be a
successful team, whether it's college football or pro football. In
order to be successful in this game, you have to play this game for
something bigger than yourself. If you're just out there to get your
stats and to make yourself feel good, you will never reach the
potential as a football team that you desire. I've always thought
that that's something we've got to grow into. I started to see parts
of that this past spring because we have a lot of returning guys on
both sides of the ball. That gives us an opportunity to achieve
that. No. 2, offensively, we've got to take care of the football. We
didn't do a great job last year in our turnover ratio. We not only
turned the ball over but we turned 'em over for scores. ...
Defensively, we have to do a much better job of defending the
running game and we have to eliminate the amount of explosion plays
that we gave up."
Curtis
Johnson, Tulane: "I think it's getting the continuity together as
soon as we possibly can — getting our football program, our football
team as a team, jelling together. Being a new coaching staff,
there's just the unknown, being in a new conference. I think that's
the most important thing — just everybody coming together and doing
what we ask them to do. I thought things were excellent in spring. I
thought Ryan (Griffin) did an excellent job as a quarterback. He's
been a starter for two years. On the other side, (linebacker) Trent
Mackey was a leader, (linebacker) Darryl Farley was also a leader.
They're guys who have played already. They are an extension of us as
coaches. I think that's working out pretty well."
Bill
Blankenship, Tulsa: "The main factor for us is just chemistry. If
our guys start the year off with the way we finished spring, I think
that can give us some traction that leads to some victories. I don't
think there's any place where it matters more how you play together
than the game of football. You can have talent and you can have
experience -- you can have all those things -- but they key is how
do you do it together. I think (defensive back) Dexter McCoil is a
great example. He makes the guys around him better. If they'll do
that on both sides of the ball, you have a pretty good chance. I
think it's true all across the conference. It's not going to be just
talent. It's going to be how quickly they jell."
East
Carolina head coach Ruffin McNeill (above)
and ECU defensive back Damon Magazu (below)
represented the Pirates at Conference USA's
media kickoff event in Dallas. They each
spoke with Bonesville's Al Myatt.
