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Trace threw his first touchdown pass. I knew this was something that was a goal of his in his future. We've talked about this in the past, how we do our spring games. It gives me an opportunity to evaluate guys, as well, when they are calling plays for the num- ber two or number three offense against the number one defense on both sides of the ball. That's part of it. It's funny, because I tell our GAs and I tell our coaches, I'm not a big believer in resumes. I'm not a big believer in inter- views. I get it, especially with people you don't know, but the reality is, Ricky Rahne has been interviewing for this position since he was a graduate assistant for me at Kansas State. Ricky was the offensive graduate assistant and Scott Frost was the defensive graduate assistant on our staff at Kansas State. So he's been preparing and interviewing for this responsibility for a long time. Are there going to be some adjustments? Is it going to look exactly the way it's looked in the past? Is there going to be time for growth as an offense and for coaches? No doubt about it. Our offense didn't look exactly the same in the last two years. It's constantly evolving. I think all of those things factor into it. The way we do things offensively and de- fensively is that we script parts of prac- tice. He's been doing that for a while, and it's the same thing on the defensive side of the ball. There will be an adjustment pe- riod, there's no doubt about it. But I would make the argument there's less of an adjustment period doing it this way. That was a big part of doing this. Do I go out and hire someone from the outside? When you do that, they're going to expect and you're going to expect them to [in- stall] their offense. You don't have them come in and run what you're doing, be- cause that's not how they were successful. They were successful running their sys- tem. So this allows us to continue to build what we're building here. I also thought it was the right thing to do for Trace and Tommy and the rest of our quarterbacks, because they are very comfortable and confident in this system right now. And then also the fact that Ricky recruited every quarterback in that room [was a factor]. I think it just allows us to continue to keep building. It will be a process, but I'm obviously very confident or I wouldn't have done it. Are there things that you're seeing from Washington that might be similar to USC last year? I think there are similarities whenever you play a team from the same confer- ence, unless they are a team that is really different in the style. So yeah, I think there are some similarities in terms of how the Pac-12 and Big Ten play. There are different styles. But you know, at the end of the day, it's about evaluating their roster, evaluating their film, how they play, how they call their offense. They have had a change at their [offensive] coordinator position. I was just talking about Ricky [Rahne] and Scott [Frost] and then Bush Hamdan, who was a graduate assistant for us. He was hired from the Atlanta Falcons to be [Washington's] offensive coordinator. He won't do it for the bowl game, but they've had a little bit of [staff turnover], as well. I think there are some similarities from a conference standpoint, but we're mainly focused on Washington and what we've seen on tape the last four or five games of the year and making sure we're watching the tapes and the games that probably have the most similarities to us. They are the games that are the most valuable. I get that. I don't control what you write, what you want to talk about. I pre- fer to keep my team as focused as possible on Maryland, then at the end of the sea- son talk about some bigger-picture things and some perspective [and] maybe do some things aBer the bowl game com- pletely ends. What have you seen of Miles Sanders the last two years that assures you he'll be able to take on a larger role if and when that opportunity arises? I don't know if anything assures you. We're excited about Miles and his future, and obviously he's done a really good job behind Saquon Barkley and when he's got- ten opportunities, really running with it. You really see every aspect of his game over the past two years really developing, from ball security, from pass protection, in terms of just getting bigger and stronger. You look at him the other day, his lower- body development, it's impressive to look at him. The game comes natural for him. He's got some areas that I think he's going to need to work on, but it's no different from every other player in our program. When I was in Green Bay, we had Brett Favre and we draBed Aaron Rodgers. Aaron was able to come in there and sit behind Brett for a couple years, learn and take it all in. How many times do you see in that league a guy get draBed in the first round and they are forced to play, and sometimes they aren't ready? I look at that a little bit like we have with Miles. He's been fortunate to sit behind a great player, a great person and a great leader, and he has been able to learn from him and allow himself to evolve into the job. Obviously, you've got Mark Allen, Johnathan Thomas, Journey Brown and a bunch of guys who are going to have op- portunities to battle for playing time. The other thing is, I had a conversation with some of the running backs the other day about how we're not even sure how the model is going to look [next year]. I think they all assume it's going to be just like it was this past year. You could be in a situation where you have a little bit more rotation than we had this year. It will probably be more like how we did it the first couple of years. How long have you known that you wanted Phil Galiano to be a part of your staff in some capacity, and how has the transition gone with getting him in with the specialists and out recruiting? Phil is a guy who I kind of knew from a distance. Actually, he and Sean Spencer go way back. Sean coached Phil at Ship- pensburg, and then we had an opportu- nity to bring him here. He obviously had a lot of success at Rutgers, and then was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and just a lot of experience. He's also another Pennsylvania guy. He's got a lot of ties. We have a lot of similar people who we both know. … And then I've just kind of been around him. He's got tremendous experience. He's really pas- sionate and he's a really sharp guy. So his family was living in the Bethlehem/Allen- town area, so they are going to be moving to town, which is awesome. Once again, when you can have some people who are already on your staff and you can promote from within, I think that's the ideal situation whenever you can do it. We were fortunate to be able to get Phil here in this role because it made sense for him and it made sense for us. Now when we transition, he already knows how we run special teams meetings. He already knows how we practice. He knows our D E C E M B E R   2 7 ,   2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 11

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