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C O A C H S P E A K E X C E R P T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ' S B O W L P R E S S E R What are your impressions of Geor- gia's acting head coach, Bryan Mc- Clendon? And what kind of an opportunity is this for him to be the interim head coach for a program like that? Really nice guy, really sharp guy. Ob- viously, he's got a long history with the University of Georgia. For whatever rea- son, our paths had not crossed a whole lot before this. But I think it's a great opportunity. Whether it's being an in- terim head coach or being a head coach, it's one of those deals where, as an as- sistant, until you do it, you think you understand, but you really don't until you're in that seat. You can do as much preparing as you want, but when you're responsible for all those things and wearing all those hats, it kind of changes your perspective on things. Hopefully he'll have a chance to be a head coach soon, but I do know going through this experience will really help him have a different perspective on things as a coach. We'll see. But I look forward to interacting with him and his staff and his players all week long. But first impression was a great impres- sion. You faced Maryland earlier this year when it had an interim coach. Are there a lot of wildcards playing a Georgia team with an interim coach and some GAs who are going to be running some things? Do you have to be prepared for a team that may be doing a lot of different things than it did during the regular season? I think it's hard to kind of recreate yourself at this point in the year. I do think there will be things, parts of the package, that maybe they want to em- phasize more than others, things that might [depart from what] the previous coaches would have done. So yeah, you'll see a different flair. You'll see some changes there. But it's not like we're going to go out there and it's going to be the wishbone. There are going to be a lot of similarities to what they have done. It's no different than when we played Maryland. It was- n't like we had not seen those blitzes and pressures from them before. But not to that percentage. I think up to that point, they may have been blitzing 25 percent of the time, and then that game they played that pressure coverage and blitzed like 75 percent of the time. So probably the biggest difference is you'll see is a certain aspect of their game em- phasized more than others. During the bye week, you talked about the redshirt freshman offen- sive linemen and their progressions, and I'm sure you've gotten to see plenty of them, and even the fresh- man guys so far during practices. What have some of your takeaways been? Have you seen the improve- ment you were expecting to see? Ryan Bates is a guy I think I mentioned to you guys earlier. There was a time there where we were thinking about maybe burning his redshirt. He's done some really nice things in one-on-one sessions. He's done some really nice things in team periods, in competitive periods, against [Austin Johnson] and [Anthony] Zettel and those guys. Right now, we have him working al- most predominately at center, but I think he's a more natural guard. But that center experience is valuable for him in terms of creating flexibility for us and really kind of taking control from a leadership standpoint. But he's now just under 300 pounds, about 297 pounds I think, so now he's put himself in posi- tion where he's big and strong enough to do it. [Steven] Gonzalez is a guy we're ex- cited about. He's about 330 pounds right now, which is about where he was when he arrived, except the weight is different. So if you look at his body fat percentage and things like that, they've really changed. He's a powerful guy. He's a guy who can really get movement and create space, [draw] double-teams and things like that. So [we're] excited about those two guys. And then the other guy who I think has really done some nice things for us is Sterling Jenkins. Sterling is probably one of our most improved guys. A lot of times, the guys who are that long are not very strong in the weight room. He is really strong in the weight room for a guy with almost 34-inch arms. And his pass sets have really improved. He still needs to be more physical. That's an as- pect that I think is going to continue to grow. But he's got really, really light feet. He's very athletic. When he uses his hands, he's got a good punch. Those three guys, as true freshmen during the redshirt period, have really improved. And then the other guys, who are redshirt freshmen who are coming on, like the Noah Behs and guys we've talked about, like Chance Sorrell, those guys I think have really taken another step, as well. Those guys are exciting for our future, in terms of the depth and the size and the experience that we're look- ing for on the offensive line. What have you seen from Trace Mc- Sorley and Tommy Stevens in these developmental practices? And also, how do you think they fit into what new offensive coordinator Joe Moor- head wants to do with the quarter- backs? I think those guys have a lot of differ- ent skills that could fit into a lot of dif- ferent systems, and that to me is how we want to recruit moving forward and how we've always recruited. You want to recruit guys who create great flexibil- ity. And Trace and Tommy both do that. Obviously Hack does, as well. I think all three of those guys. And then obviously we've got other guys in the program who are doing a good job for us in [walk-ons] Billy [Fessler] and Jackson [Erdmann]. I think having those guys sit behind Hack now for a year or two years has been valu- able, to [allow them to] learn from all the things that Hack has done well and learn from some things that they may do differently based on their skill sets and things like that. That's valuable, that time. Hopefully they will have another year to season and learn, and be ready when their op- portunity comes. D E C E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 5 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 14

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