Cavalier Corner Digital

✦ QUOTING KELLY "There's a lot of bragging rights, a lot of emotion attached to [the game against Purdue], so we know what we are going to get." On rebounding physically from a trip across the Atlantic Ocean: "We had a great shakeout [Monday]. Our guys had good energy, and [Tuesday] we'll have a full two-hour practice. My own eyes, talking to our play- ers, no excuses. We feel great. "We think the plan that we have put in place over the long term has really worked out quite well, so we can focus strictly on playing the ballgame." back Everett Golson: "There's so many things that he has to improve upon, but they are items that we feel really confident that he already has a good grasp on and will continue to evolve, and then there are things that we have to continue to work on with him on a day-to-day basis. On how he feels about first-year starting quarter- "This is a process for Everett. This will be a continu- ation week to week of growing as a quarterback. I guess what I like the most in the big picture sense was his comfortable place out on the field. He did not seem over- whelmed at any time. He was extremely communicative when he got to the sideline. He could tell me what was going on. Those are all big picture, good things, after game one." a process for all of those safeties in terms of developing them. We were pleased with Matthias [Farley] and his first collegiate experience. He was close to the ball [in the hybrid Star position] and involved in the action every play. We were really pleased. He's a young man that's really growing as a football player. But as you know, we have a number of young, talented players that we need to continue to work. "Nicky Baratti, [Eilar] Hardy, we had a number of On what seems to be a logjam at safety: "It will be guys that played limited roles in special teams, but im- portant roles. We'll continue to do that. Each and every week, you're going to see their names popping up as they continue to grow and develop. Hopefully we get a chance to see them play more and more." unconventional offense in Navy: "It's so difficult. You saw, [Navy QB Trey] Miller was scrambling for every throw. He never was comfortable taking a three-step drop except for maybe one or two passes. It is hard to evaluate. "I think we saw things that we liked in terms of the On trying to evaluate the pass rush against an push that we got from Stephon [Tuitt] and Ishaq [Wil- liams] and [Prince] Shembo, kind of what we expected. It will be a totally different evaluation when you go against Purdue and Michigan and Michigan State. That's going to give us a clear indication of that pass rush." On what he saw from his running backs in the opener: "We were obviously in more direct snap, more downhill runs; if you're in the shotgun, you're more east and west. I think our backs responded. I thought Theo Riddick ran extremely hard, physical. I think George [Atkinson III] is getting there, and we know his ability to hit daylight. "I would say, it starts with, we are in a lot more direct snaps, and those kids ran really, really hard and physical. And we'll continue to mix that in. It doesn't mean we are not going to run the shotgun; we are. We'll be able to feature both of those. But it's nice to have the ability to be able to say we have backs that will run downhill and we'll run physical." you're defending man to man, essentially, on double and triple moves. So you look like a center fielder that's had to back up looking for a baseball. It's hard because you're not on your back pedal, it's not as structured. "What we liked about them is the discipline. There are fundamental and technical areas we have to improve on. They were very disciplined, and didn't cut guys loose — we slipped on the line of scrimmage on the long play against KeiVarae [Russell] … "From a big picture standpoint. we leave the game On the secondary: "It's so hard [to evaluate] because Head coach Brian Kelly believes his team will not be affected by its overseas trip to Ireland, noting: "We feel great." PHOTO BY MIKE BENNETT/LIGHTHOUSE IMAGING ✦ PAGE 9 knowing that those guys are going to be able to play our system." ✦

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