Jayhawks Endure High Temperatures Thursday
Aug. 18, 2011
Post-Practice Interviews:Coach Long
LAWRENCE, Kan. – With temperatures hovering near 100 degrees, the Kansas football team battled through a two and half hour practice here Thursday afternoon. The Jayhawks will hit the practice fields adjacent to Memorial Stadium for another practice Friday afternoon, before holding an open scrimmage at 11:30 a.m., Saturday at Family Fun Fest.
“Again, we finished the day focusing on different types of situations we will face on game day,” said Kansas head coach Turner Gill. “Today we piped in some crowd noise to see how they would perform in that environment and we put them in some high pressure scenarios. Overall, I am pleased with our progress.”
Following practice, Kansas offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Chuck Long met with the media. The following is the transcript from his interview:
Kansas Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach Chuck Long
On the difficulty for the freshmen in their first year:
“I think it’s harder for defensive players to get acclimated than it is on offense. You can give an offensive player a five or six play package of what he does well – he doesn’t have to know the whole playbook. Defensively, you need to know everything all the time. So I believe offensively it is easier to come in as a freshman.”
On who he believes is the best pass-protection running back:
“We are still figuring that out, we aren’t opposed to any of them. We feel that James (Sims) does pretty well as a blocker. As for the rest of the running backs and their blocking abilities, we’re still trying to figure that out.”
On the running backs with more experience:
“Don’t count those guys out at all. Rell (Lewis) is a guy who is very experienced, he has shown great maturity from when we got here to now. He may very well be our third and long back, when we need a good pass protector. I’ve always believed that you need as many running backs as you can get.”
On Brandon Bourbon:
“He ran well today, the last two days he has run very well. He is working and fighting through pain. To be a running back at this level, you’re going to get banged up, and it’s all about how you work through that. I think these past two days have been his best days of camp.”
On how comfortable he is in his second year:
“I’m much more comfortable. When we came in last year, we didn’t know what our guys could do, we didn’t know what would happen. This year, with more games and practices under our belt, we as a staff are much more comfortable. We went into last season thinking, `Let’s see what we have on gameday.’ From last year to now, it’s night and day.”
On the receiving corps:
“We don’t have a lot of experience at that position, but we really think Chris Omigie can help us out, he can be instrumental in our success. Our young guy, JaCorey Shepherd, is a really good player. We really like Marquis (Jackson), our freshmen are really pushing some of our older guys. Kale (Pick) and D.J. (Beshears) have had exceptional camps, they have really been mainstays for our offense.”
