Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Back to the Craig Way Show. Connect with Craig through
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
In this hour. We began it with Olympics, but now
we move on to some football and back to Long
Warn football, which has an evening practice tonight, and they
come off a very productive Monday workout, and so here
they are in the dog days of these triple digit
(00:37):
temperatures practice and now tonight it'll cool off. It'll be
in the nineties you're practicing tonight. It might even be
in the low nineties when they're practicing tonight. It might
even be in the upper eighties by the time they
get done. But Long Worns head coach Steve Sarkisian continues
to be impressed with the approach that his guys have
(01:01):
taken to these workouts and even coming off of the scrimmage.
So since they're all working very hard, one of the
questions for sark at his media availability yesterday was does
he already have his starters figured out? A top twenty
two if you will, you know twenty two players on
(01:23):
offense twenty two Deve, does he already have his starters
figured out on all of that.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, you know, I think I think the one thing
for us is that we really need a top forty four,
you know, just the way the season is going to go,
the length of the season, the extension kind of four
non conference games before we get to conference play. You know,
we're really looking at two deep rather than just the
(01:49):
one deep. And we're really trying to look at that
those group of guys on both sides of the ball,
as they're all starters, and then there's guys that are
going to have unique packages within that, whether it's third
down on defense or specific packages offensively. And so I
would say I would probably be minimizing it too much
just to say twenty two when in reality we're really
(02:11):
looking for forty four.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, the forty four means too deep on both offense
and too deep on defense. Now that takes on some
added meaning when there is attrition at position, and we've
all seen what's happened of late with a running back spot,
with you know, CJ. Baxter gone for the year with
(02:35):
the knee injury. We did learn that Christian Clark did
suffer a lower leg injury, the extent of which has
not been released and revealed yet. We may find that
out over time, but it still is bringing up holes.
(02:55):
That's one in the running back spot. There's holes in
the other thing. And you know, quite often, even with
eighty five scholarship athletes, walk ons have a big role
with any successful college football program, no matter the level.
I mean from junior college all the way up to
(03:16):
Power five or Power four. Now I guess since the
PAC twelve is down to the TUPAC, so you know,
it's important to have those preferred walk ons pwos as
they're known, because what's meant by preferred walk ons is
getting the reference to Sark from say, high school coaches
(03:38):
and other folks as well, who would know about a
young man. So Sark was asked, are there some p
wo some preferred walk ons who have stood out so far? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I think two guys that have stood out to me
have been you know, Marshall Landware, you know, a linebacker
on defense, but what he's been doing on special teams,
he's definitely showing up. And College Calling Page has done
a nice job. He's been impactful on special teams and
ran the ball well Saturday as well. So those two
guys definitely have stood out to.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Me, all right, So Land where it's nice to know
there also because of you know the nature of that
position linebacker, and Maurice Blackwell got banged up, so it's
it's nice to have other guys who can step in
and do things. And then for Colin Page running back, Cameron,
(04:28):
you saw Colin Page. I saw Colin Page. We saw
him play for Anderson. He did a heck of a
job at running back for Anderson. Now Anderson and Andrews
and it's high school. In fact, Anderson even dropped a
five A this year. But he did a good job there.
And that's a good program run with some tough guys.
I mean, seems like ed Small's been there eight years,
you know. Seriously, I did ed Small's first ever high
(04:53):
school football game working with Well, worked it with a
Roger Wallace Tacer Shack Bowl telecast and and that was
three years ago, so and he was starting as a
freshman and did a heck of a job. And we
know at one time he was committed to Texas for baseball.
Now he's committed to TC for football. But that program
has turned out some guys that work very hard and
(05:13):
Colin Page is one of those guys who has worked
very hard and they might need him to help out
a little bit with the depth that is that is
really being tested at that running back spot, depending on
how long Christian Clark could be out. Jerk Gibson has
done a good job, but he is a freshman. And
then of course, you you know CJ. Baxter was probably
(05:36):
the starter, although Jayden Blue expected to get a ton
of time. Baxter now out, so Blue is really the
number one guy and Trey Wisner is the number two guy.
But you're talking about three scholarship guys at running backs,
So Colin Page may be able to add a little
bit of that there. And you know there's other reports
(05:58):
that Ryan Niblett, they may take a look at them
moving him from receiver back to running back as well. Now,
on the defensive side, coaches love to say that they
love to get pressure from four and what they mean
by that is the dal lineman that college football coaches,
(06:19):
pro football coaches, high school football coaches, whatever you're talking about,
whatever level, would prefer to blitz by design, not by necessity.
And it's a fine line sometimes whether you have to
send blitzers more than you probably would want to. So
in the case of Petewakowski, the defensive coordinator, you know,
(06:43):
how is he feeling about it? And for that matter,
to the head coach, how to Sark feel about his
front four? Can they get enough pressure on the quarterback?
Or they're going to have to do more blitzing than
they might otherwise have planned on doing.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Well, I'll want to do both, you know. I think
one of the challenges is, you know, we want to
be a really versatile defense, you know, just like we're
trying to be a really versatile offense, and you know,
we we don't want to just be stationary targets and
and we want to have the ability to mix some
things up. You know, I would say, you know, Vernon
and Alfred are playing at a really high level, and
(07:20):
they have a different skill set, let's say, than than
Murph and Sweat had last year. You know, their movement skills,
their length, they're different players. But you know, Anthony's disruptive.
We saw that last year when when we added him
into the into the mix, and what he could do
even coming off the edge, And so I think we're
maybe a little bit more versatile this year that way,
you know, obviously with the addition of Trey and the
(07:43):
versatility of a Baron Surrell and Ethan Burke. You know,
Justice Finkley's had a good camp, uh and Colin Simmons,
as we know, you know, can can get after the quarterback.
So we're a little you know, we're maybe a little
bit different, and and because we're a little bit different,
we have to adapt and evolve as a staff as well.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's interesting now in case you're not completely up to
speed on some of those guys that he was merely
mentioning by first name. When he says Vernon and Alfred,
obviously he's talking about Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton and
what they've done. When he said, you know, he mentioned
Justice Finkley, he mentioned Anthony, that being Anthony Hill, who
(08:22):
was moving inside at his linebacker spot. And today, by
the way, his name was named to the Buckus Award
watch list. He brought up we said Trey. He was
talking about trade more of the transfer from UTSA that
they're looking for there An he even mentioned Colin Simmons,
and I haven't heard Sart talk that much about Colin
Simmons since he signed. If you watched Colin Simmons play
(08:45):
in high school at Duncanville. He was a wrecking crew.
He was apologies staying him. Dangee fans about the wrecking
crew comment there he was, he was, He could wreak
a lot of havoc. He was, he was something else.
And Alex January is another guy from Duncanville who's making
progress strides. He mentioned Ethan Burke and Baron Surrell obviously
(09:09):
a defensive end. So he was mentioning the entire group
of it, the ensemble cast. And that's just the point
that it's probably going to take all of those guys
being able to make plays in order in order for
start to have peak quick Kowski send blitzers by design
(09:31):
rather than just necessity, to be able to blitz when
the situation really can capitalize on it and when the
opponent might not necessarily otherwise be expecting it, because that's
when your blitzer get home more and you have more
success with those. All right, Well, you're more from Sark
coming up next hour. We get some pro football notes
(09:52):
to get to next when we continue on Sports Radio
AM thirteen under the zone of the iHeartRadio app