Press Conference: USF Football Fall Camp (8-16-22)

okay yeah um foreign you wow uh here hmm um um across your shoulders um uh um yes oh is is uh right you um so okay you know sunday oh okay i just finished our 13th practice today and you know we've had a half scrimmage today we had a full scrimmage saturday we had half practice half scrimmage today and then we'll have our last full scrimmage coming up this coming saturday defense dominated pretty much uh scrimmage on saturday and uh today was really the the offense the offense really got the best of the defense so it's good to see uh the offense respond and i know it's kind of one to one in scrimmage situations leading into saturday's final scrimmage uh also pleased with our kickers today they were three for three and kind of game-winning uh situations so uh overall uh pleased with what i saw today you know we're in the final week of fall camp and so we really talked about how are we going to finish this week with the right intensity in each practice and in each drill and then uh you know we'll have school starts uh this coming monday and uh so we'll kind of start getting into byu prep i'll start next monday and have two weeks to get ready for them but you know going back to saturday after taking time to grade that scrimmage on saturday uh you know coach trickett and i got together and just kind of looked at the body of work between our quarterbacks and decided that we had enough information to make a good decision and so after discussing with the staff on sunday myself and coach trickett met with both timmy and gary individually sunday night and uh informed both of them of our decision uh to to name gary our starting quarterback for this 2022 season uh you know quite honestly gary's just been outstanding since the day that he got here and you know whatever we thought we were getting whenever we brought him over for baylor we really have gotten uh that plus more and uh you know i think probably one of the early signs that we had was uh you know throughout the summer y'all heard me talk a lot about our grit scores and so what is that you know that's a daily grade uh throughout eight weeks you know there's 40 workouts there in eight weeks and each player gets a daily grade on their uh work ethic on their ability to strain and really on their leadership ability and gary being here his first eight weeks uh he ended up being ranked number two out of 114 players on the team uh that was a really good early sign and then also i can remember uh one of our early practices somewhere around practice two practice three just a little bit sloppy early on with guys kind of getting going and uh gary called the whole team up and uh really used that as a leadership moment and told everybody this isn't how we practice uh if we're going to turn this thing around you know we're going to have to practice a lot better than this and the best part about it everybody listened and then nodded their head they got to break down and we ended up having one of the best practices and i looked over at one of our coaches and i said you know in two and a half years i have i've never seen that right there and he was being real that wasn't him just trying to get up there and and you know kind of to make a statement you know for the coaches or anything that was just who he was and um so you know i think you know for us you know we're really graded everything there were about 10 different things that we really graded the quarterbacks on because i wanted to to make sure both guys had an equal opportunity uh the reps uh with the first group i think gary ended up with 121 and i think you know tammy was somewhere around 117 so it was about as equal as you can get you know gary ended up completing through the first 10 practices including the scrimmage gary was 80 completions throughout those 10 days and the next quarterback was 67 so it was really a 13 difference in completion percentage we also look at decision making and uh gary was just really in the 90 90 percentile in decision making and again this is a guy that did not go through spring ball with us in this offense and you know i think uh you know i've heard it said before that you know your team players kind of know it before your coaches know it right and i felt like that was really the situation hearing from a lot of our players you know after about the first week of camp they were really you know kind of telling me hey gary's our guy and i really told him hey i want to wait like i said and we're going to go for for 10 practices and get through the scrimmage and uh but it became obvious to all of us uh you know timmy has had a really good summer had a good fall camp uh he really has improved he's worked hard to improve and uh but you know the difference is you know gary is just at a very high level gary's three years older you know gary's uh you know 10-2 as a starter in the big 12. you know with with uh wins over byu oklahoma texas ole miss and the sugar bowl i mean that's just experience that you can't make up and that was part of our reason for for bringing him in was that experience and knowledge and you know part of my job as a head coach is uh to make the tough decisions and when i make decisions i have to number one what's best for the team and then number two what's best for the player and uh it was crystal clear uh to our coaching staff i asked our staff on sunday and you know by the raise of hands and it was 100 unanimous that gary is our guy i didn't do it with the team because i really felt that i already kind of had the pulse on that and seen how they've responded here these last two days i know they have but um you know timmy did a great job while he was here he's a first class young man he's going to be very successful because i think he has a big future ahead of him and i wish him the best of luck obviously we'd love for him to stay but in this day and age it's uh i don't know many situations where you can look at a guy that was a starter one year and the next year a transfer came in beat him out and that previous starter stayed that's just unfortunately that's not the environment that we're in and regardless of who won the job i knew there probably would be one of those guys leaving and that was another reason that i wanted to do this now so we would have three weeks to kind of get over that and really for the trey marsh to now get all the reps with the twos for the next three weeks rather than you know you make that decision on thursday of game week and then one of them leaves you right there then your backup quarterback hadn't really taken snaps um but i'm confident that uh we've made the best decision for this year's team to win this year that's really the way that you look at it you can't think about you know what's best for two or three years from now i mean in this environment uh it's about who gives us the best chance to win this year and that's really how that decision was made so we're moving forward i thought the offense like i said they had their best day that we've had in fall camp and um just i think gary's energy and leadership uh is uh contagious and then also uh you know trey marsh is a guy that we haven't really talked about a lot during fall camp because of the competition between the other two but he's been very steady and really solid he threw the ball well saturday and and through the ball well again today and then also byron brown i'm really pleased with his improvement from when he got here in january he's really kind of solidified himself as the number three guy right now and so we're moving forward that way some unfortunate news unfortunately we had an injury saturday in the scrimmage kelly joyner broke a small bone in his foot and we'll be having surgery this week and he'll be out for at least six weeks we're hoping to maybe get him back somewhere around uh time for conference play and i really hate that for kelly because man he's he's looked excellent he's had an incredible summer and incredible fall camp was doing really really well but you know went down and and thankfully it's only a six to seven week recovery um so we know we'll be excited to get him back but that's probably the deepest position on our team is the running back room and we really feel with kelly that we had five or six guys that we could win with and so to be that next group i think a guy like mikey dukes really stepping up and getting in the mix this fall camp really helps us be able to help ourselves with that situation so that and we had no injuries that i know of today in this scrimmage so happy about that all right with that i'll open up for any questions yeah i think what i've learned is no matter how fair you try to be and how you try to do everything above board i mean i was the one that told brian not to put out the release on the davey o'brien award because i didn't think that was fair to timmy being our returning starter for us to be pumping the transfer out there for that award so what i've learned is it doesn't matter how nice or how fair you are at the end of the day when you're in those situations the guy that doesn't get the job is probably leaving and so you know probably better off going ahead and doing it now you know i kind of go back to and i thought about this a little bit go back to 2017 2018 and clemson you know 2017 kelly bryant you know led us on a 12-2 uh season right we lost in the first round of the playoffs uh this you know tall long-headed guy comes in trevor lawrence but kelly you know was a senior very loved by his teammates and really done well as a junior and so we were going to kind of let it go throughout the season not you know not make an early decision and hope that we could kind of you know keep both of those guys there and then finally in the fourth game at georgia tech uh trevor went in and made an incredible throw and uh so after that game we decided to go ahead and name trevor the starter game five and kelly decided to leave at that point right and uh you know sat out that year and went to missouri and had a good year the next year and trevor led us to a national championship that season so at the end of the day especially with the quarterbacks especially when you've got a guy that was a starter i think when you've got guys competing they're coming in you know those guys are going to be a little bit more patient but a guy that was a starter and then maybe the other guy comes in and wins the job you know he's got to leave and there's nothing i mean i've thought through it i mean i i knew i knew whenever we allowed gary to come on an official visit i had to be okay with the fact that if he comes here and wins the job that timmy's probably going to leave before the season so i had to think about that before i ever brought him here on an official visit and i actually called timmy and his dad on that friday before i brought gary on a fishing visit so i tried to do everything just above board the right way but at the end of the day you know that position there's only one ball and timmy's definitely uh a very good quarterback and and i know he'll have a good career but i think it was just in the best interest of this team to win this year uh with gary's leadership his experience uh his talent and that's why we kind of made that decision it's a hard decision and some of the best advice that i got from coach sweeney he said when you know there's a hard decision to be made and you're not willing to make that decision then somebody else deserves to sit in your seat and that was just really i mean these are tough i mean i love timmy uh and he knows that the way we've treated him i mean i love that young man he's got a bright future i mean we love kelly bryant we went 12-2 with kelly bryant went to the playoffs and his senior year trevor lawrence was just better and so there's 119 other players in that room and you owe it to the team to to do what you think is best for that team and uh yeah it's a tough decision when you're dealing with with young men and big decisions like that and that's not the fun part of the job but that's also you know why you know you're in that seat because you know the leadership trusts you that you're going to make those decisions and those aren't the only ones right there's these things come along and some are behind the scenes but this was a very uh obviously one out in the open and i knew it was going to be difficult but you know i know that we we made the best decision for the information that we had i feel very confident that our players see that another thing i'll say about gary is the first night of fall camp before the very first practice something we've done for years on both sides of the ball we do an all-in vote and so the offense is in one room the defense is in another room and coach trickett one of the offensive players passed out a sheet of paper and he had every offensive player list uh the top three leaders in this room who are the guys you listen to who are the guys you look up to who are the guys that are gonna lead us to a successful season this year list your top three don't write your name on it they turn it all in all right that was before the very first practice and gary was in the top three had 27 votes we didn't have another quarterback with one vote and so that was before the first practice when i tell you that our team kind of knows you know that that gives you the confidence as well as a coach that uh even though it's a tough decision those guys know they're around there all the time and they see things and it was actually uh brad cecil mitch harris and and gary bohannon were the top three uh before the very first practice jeff is the idea of dealing with adversity waiting for your time being better antiquated we're not we're not going to see this anymore you lose the battle and you're out is that how it works yeah um i think the the rules have kind of allowed that a little bit um you know as a old school soul a little bit in college football growing up since i was little right i mean that was you know what coach morris said coach morris here with us and said man i'm sure glad that when deshawn came in and he didn't win the starting job we named cole stout the starter desean's freshman year i'm glad desean didn't leave and go to auburn or something and it turned out pretty good for him you know but the rules have changed so much with the transfer portal it's just uh you know uh transfer portal uh giveth and the transfer portal taketh away right so we can't complain about the portal if we're bringing a guy like gary bohannon in you to also lose some but you know timmy was the first player since i've been here in two and a half years that left that i really wanted to stay and i felt like had an important role for our team but that's going to happen i mean everybody across the country you know loses i mean georgia won the national championship right they had several guys they wanted that left to go other places so i think you just uh accept that it's part of it and the other thing that you have to think about right you can sit here and say about man well i know gary has one or two years and what's gonna happen after that but the reality is what's gonna happen after that you're gonna see how your your guys have developed and then you go look around the country and you find the best quarterback if you need another quarterback you know i mean the market's always open so this this thing of like i gotta have this guy here for the next four years i mean we we found out about gary in three days and he was here about two weeks later you know and so that's how transient i think it is a little bit um but you better make sure you have at least one i mean we're we're really fortunate that uh trey marsh came out of the portal in december and came back uh because we could have been in a different situation than we are now that was probably one of the lessons you learn in that is don't don't let those uh you know threes or fours leave because you're going to need them if you have a really good contested race between one and two you're going to lose one of those that other guy needs to step up so really fortunate that trey's here and doing well if there's any benefit to this it might be the fact that if both that stay and jerry doesn't play too well and you put timmy in and he plays really well now you start to get back into a quarterback yeah i mean honestly i don't even kind of go there in my mind because it's just so hard to get there and honestly what i'm looking for i'm looking for one quarterback to be our quarterback and to go lead our team and short of injury he's our quarterback right i mean go back to my experience trevor lawrence deshaun watson they were the quarterback and you knew it i mean you can name the good teams in college football and you can name who their quarterback is you're getting this deal and you're kind of going back and forth you know kind of been there done that and that was probably part of why i made the decision now because we need to you know this is not just the starter for byu this is the starter for our season and so i needed to go ahead and kind of declare that and i wanted to do it before other schools other programs started class and all that so whoever didn't win had a chance to go somewhere else and move on so that was also part of the process you get a point right there that's a point right there yeah that's exactly right um bryce came in and chase bryce came in against syracuse and uh led us on like a 94-yard touchdown drive a couple fourth down fourth and six we ran a washington route t higgins right there and syracuse was going to beat us and i believe that was the national championship season yeah that was that that same season that that made it that might have been the week or two weeks right after kelly had left one week right after that so that's i'm glad you brought that up after uh remind trey that and give him a little history lesson there yeah there's there's no doubt um i mean you've seen it all over the country right now you know when you have more quarterbacks leaving and transferring and going you know and they haven't you know then whoever wins the job and then there's one more you know group that kind of leaves so i just need to make sure you know you got the one you feel gives you the best chance to win you know this season i think it's the best movie yeah so yeah so trey you know you guys have heard me talk really well about him he hasn't played well in some of his opportunities that he's gotten in a couple couple games but if you were to go out and watch his practice he's one of the best throwers on our team and uh you know sometimes it takes guys a little bit longer but he's been working at it and uh you know i feel confident especially with him having three weeks to to kind of get ready um you know i feel confident with him if his number is called but i think he's matured you know kind of from the process of where he was coming in just as a young guy a little bit immature just kind of a big arm to understanding you know when you go through those experiences those are kind of scars that you get right and that kind of stays with you and kind of motivates you to take a little bit more attention in that meeting and figuring out where your your hots are and how how to to handle the blitzes and all that whenever you get hit in the back and ball comes up and they go score on your national tv so i think he's learned from a lot of that and uh you know my big message to him is you know be ready when your number's caught you can look at uh baylor's season last year with gary right and gary goes down next guy comes in and wins the conference championship game you know so i think those guys definitely have to be ready and i'm confident that trey will there's a lot of things to address here and you know the corvette competition your guy from last year has left all the emotions but you're moving on and you've got a guy with gary's experience and talent and leadership to lead you into the season how do you feel about having a guy like that yeah feel great i mean we do a safe seat on each night for the first 15 minutes of our team meeting during fall camp it's really an opportunity for the players to get to know each other so last night was gary's night to come up and just kind of talk to the team a little bit i kind of asked him some questions and it was like a coach talking to a team and every guy just sitting there listening to every word that he said and he was just so genuine and so real i mean that that feeling in that room there wasn't a lot of a lot of people really worried about you know kind of our future i think they're they're confident and gary and confident in us moving forward but again just to kind of reiterate that's why i wanted to do this now it was kind of a 24-hour 48-hour story and now let's move on i didn't want that to be 48 hours before byu and somebody didn't show up for the bus to go to the game and now we've got drama and pre-game and all that stuff let's go ahead and i mean these are tough things right you got to address them head-on do it the right way handle it the right way and uh and then let's move forward and i mean the guys move forward maybe quicker than the coaches and that's what you know coach morris told me walking off the field yesterday said hey man just get your head up the players they're already over they're good they're moving on you know sometimes as coaches just when you invest a lot and you know spend a lot of time with a young man it uh you know a little bit more personal in that part but you know our guys are young guys move move on and especially when they know uh that it's the right decision and all that uh you you get good buy-in and they also know the situation in college athletics with the transfer portal and i don't think all of them blame you know tammy for what he's doing either you know they wish him the best of luck but but we're moving forward could you overall see a better sense of stability in your quarterback you know let's say at the start of fall camp versus when you came because you know obviously it's been a bumpy road to get where we are yeah i think when you think of your quarterback room you always start with do i have a real guy as our starter and yes i feel like we've got a real guy as our starter obviously you know he's one of three quarterbacks in our league to be a davey o'brien you know pre-season list or whatever whatever that means i mean he's a real guy and you know i don't listen to the radio during the season but you know early in the morning there's not much on and late at night when i go home there's not much on so i'll listen to maybe xm radio espnu and i've heard gary's name talked about probably 10 times over the last two weeks just because he's been kind of that national scene and whenever they're talking about baylor and all those things and some of the games last year so i feel very confident that we've got a real guy and not just a quarterback throwing the ball but a leader i mean again to be a to be a good team you've got to have that quarterback that can drive that car and really move that offense and our o-line we got good leadership there they've been trying but it's kind of hard to lead from the you know front bumper right you got to have that driver that's in that seat that's talking to everybody you know that's truly leading and and that was part of our decision when we decided to recruit gary is we just felt like we had a lot of good pieces but we just really needed that that driver that could really drive that car for us and get us to where we wanted to go yeah well i mean i think when you say expanding you know we're we hadn't seen coach trickett's first play yet right so uh but yes gary uh as any as most fourth or fifth year player i'm not sure exactly where he is uh in that i think this is his fifth year three one and one going into his fifth year so he's had four years but yeah he has a very high football iq and uh on his official visit he actually brought this up last night when he's talking to the team his official visit here instead of going out downtown with the players uh him and coach trickett went in the video room till you know about 1am you know watching on an official visit so he's just a guy that just loves ball he wants to know every little detail and when you have a guy that's like i mean again the best quarterbacks are coaches on the field right you see in nfl all the time right they're letting some of those guys call plays and do things and that's what it feels like when you have a fourth fifth year guy out there with his experience so it does allow you to to expand a little bit and really in this day and age it allows to you know the rpos you know it's having that guy that can make good decisions in rpos you know use the rpo it's either really really good here and bad here or good here and bad here it's usually not good either way and so having a guy that can make quick decisions understands the different defensive looks i mean defense have been going against rpos for a while now so they have different things they do so you can give him a little bit more just because of you know his experience level and seeing a lot of different defenses i mean go through that list of defenses he played last year that's a pretty pretty big group right there um so yeah i think we're able to do a little bit more with him but i think also at the same time beginning of the season you want to start here and then and then kind of build it build your catalog as the season goes i'll give you two uh one would be a joe joe a receiver this spring coming in trying to to learn even though it was a similar offense terminology was different he struggled a little bit was not as consistent and uh he had two nice touchdowns today he's really come on and doing very well so i would give you that and then the other name i'd mention this guy's played a lot but i think he he took a lot of had a lot of adversity in his first two years here it's probably the mvp of our defense right now is uh matt hill you know he's moved to a different position there uh where smoke was and that nickel sam and he's probably been our mvp of the defense you know through the first 11 days and i think it's a really good position for him he does really well around the ball and uh so we're expecting big things out of him uh did not see flight defender today yeah so clyde is not with us uh he had some academic things that he's working through and uh so he's not with us right now do you expect him to be back at any point or is it still kind of too special uh i think it's probably to be determined yeah but it's out of our control which is really between him and academics on campus and we'll know more here as it gets closer to school starting one of your former players yeah yeah that was awesome we took our uh team to the bucks game saturday night and uh nolan was out there playing a bunch of plays that was awesome to see because i do remember uh whenever we signed nolan you know coach sweeney uh played with nolan's dad at alabama and really watched nolan grow up and i think we were the only clemson was the only uh power five offer that nolan had coming out of high school that normally happened at clemson uh maybe the only other one was uh hunter renfroe that turned out pretty good uh hunter renfro actually walked on uh he didn't have a scholarship but nolan was a guy whenever he came in again a lot of the clemson fans are kind of questioning you know why he's there but you know coach sweeney believed in him and saw a lot out of him in high school and he was a guy that came in was just a student of the game i mean really you know the nfl obviously you've got kind of that first tier of just incredible athletes they're just giants and just a kind of phenoms right but then really your core of your teams are guys that are just they're pros and how they go about their business on the field off the field the way that they study the way that they train you know he's you know to me i would kind of put him in that that category that i said hunter renfro when he walks in the room he's not going to impress anybody but he gets out in the field and uh he he gets the job done so i'm really pulling for nolan and definitely would not be surprised to to see him be able to make it it's exciting yeah uh mottos i learned a little bit more about matos we had the safe seat with him that was pretty interesting he was like a rising baseball star in the dominican republic and uh we kind of were not sure if he was telling the truths up there if he was just kind of telling uh some some fibs but uh you know he really was he's a great baseball player early on and then he moved over to basketball and then now he's moving transition to football um he's probably the best looking player on the team as far as you know he's going to be the guy we left off the bus first for sure but he's still learning a lot about i mean he he looks like the nfl guys right now but he's got a lot to learn i mean he's just never played football before so he's got a lot to learn but what i'll say about him is it's important to him and again i keep going back to that grit score thing because that's just a that's a consistency and work ethic he was in he was in top 10 in grit score coming over to football never being here going through football workouts because he just has a desire and a drive that he wants to be great but there's also just a lot to learn so he's getting better but i i i would say with his size and ability and his want to it's gonna come it's probably gonna take a little longer because literally him he never played one high school snap you know in the scrimmage saturday the first time he ever played in a scrimmage situation but you know the the good news is uh you know he's 20 something years old and he's got four years of eligibility left so he's got a long time but we we put him inside working him at d tackle just because he's you know whatever it is six six or six seven maybe and uh you know 285 290 pounds he'll be 300 pounds pretty quick after we start traveling and eating the hotels on fridays and saturdays and uh so i'm excited uh about about him in the future but it's still a little bit early for him he's he's learning you can't just stand up and you know try to look over the o line in the backfield they'll run you backwards so he's kind of learning through a little bit of that but what i can say about him is and his desire to do it that's really what you look for and guys that come over from basketball are coming from another sport it's you know do they really want to do or they just think they want to do it and he really wants to do it so it's going to take a little while but whenever he clicks for it we're going to be excited that we have him what kind of impact do you make on special teams yeah um he's really good at blocking field goals because of his length and he's done a good job with that and then also with his link we've had him working a little bit on uh field goal protection just being able to help out as a wing and kind of use those long arms and so i think that's probably where he could have a an early impact on special teams and then as it goes hopefully we can get him some some game experience and and see how he does great uh i love jimmy jimmy's doing awesome i think it was the last press conference we're talking about kind of those guys that come in as freshmen and the light kind of comes on and just a maturity level and all that he's a hard worker he's at an outstanding fall camp and i really expect jimmy and weaver to be two of the top receivers in our league before the season's over what does gary began what does he do best i would say lead the team that's what i'd say just his presence in the room and people follow like i said that early practice we had where didn't quite have that energy right and i really called the team up because i wanted them to take a knee and i was going to kind of address what i saw and this and how we're going to start it and he just stepped right in front and i was like okay this would be a good time and uh and he kind of told the guys hey this hit the standard they said how you do it they said how we're going to do it and i said i agree broke down and we went but the biggest thing that i saw in that is the guys listen to him and he'd only been here you know you know a couple weeks in the summer and they listened to him and they responded and um and leadership like that's hard when we talk a lot about leadership right you can see the uh you know the highlights of the locker room speeches by tim tebow and that's very rare these days for guys to to be able to step up in front of their teammates and really lay it on the line and for the guys to listen to them and you know even at clemson we had a lot of great players but sometimes we had a lot of quiet leaders just kind of lead by example and they could still be okay but you need that guy when it's not going well they can get everybody together and look them in the eye very similar to what tom brady does with the bucks and everybody listens and they respond and that that's that's what i'd say that that uh gary does your best situation has not only been unsettled but there haven't been any guys in the spot you know that have played and won i'm going to um that this is a guy that maybe maybe in the past the team just has some jobs yeah apparently i think that's something you can ask me share in a minute i think that's part of it too you know i think is maybe one of those god week moments my first team meeting in january whenever i was kind of using a couple teams as an example of how you can change from one season to the next with a great offseason and attitude mindset and i used baylor as that example and i remember they were the first team i put up there the guys were just kind of stunned right there they went from two and seven to twelve and two they went from pick second to last the conference like we are and then they were the conference champs right and then i didn't have any idea that gary wasn't going to be their quarterback i didn't even really keep up with any of that and then you know five months later the guy that led him on that season just how it worked found his way over here so immediately when you walk in the room and that you know that quarterback's been out there in some big time battles and beating byu and in texas and oklahoma and ole miss and you know then that brings some credibility and guys want to listen to that and uh so there's no doubt i think that becomes uh contagious and we're not just bringing that to an offense that you know doesn't really have the pieces and we we've done a lot of really good things you could probably say overall in two years offensively you know just kind of an inconsistent quarterback play has probably kept us from from some wins and so that was part of my decision of if we can find a guy that can bring consistency there and i owe it to these guys to do that all right thank you all appreciate it harris one of our super seniors on the offensive line gary will hannah will be shooting shortly i mean i mean i think the team was happy with it uh i feel like gary we felt like gary proved himself throughout the camp throughout since he got here summer workouts a great score um it was a tight battle too i mean it just wasn't like gary ran away with it it was a like a tough decision but i think the decision that was best for the team so i think everybody's happy with it with the decision uh i mean i i honestly didn't know until coach scott told us yesterday but like i said both of them made great plays throughout camp both of them worked hard i mean gary pushed timmy timmy pushed gary um and yeah we was waiting just like everybody else was waiting when we found out i mean not shortly after like everybody else found out so yeah a decision like that is is pretty seismic and then you know said to have you know the news come out that the timmy center before you know shortly out after you know that what's everyone's emotions about losing a i mean i mean it's tough it's tough losing anybody especially quarterback um but i mean the toughest thing about quarterback is only one you know offensive line there's five of them your receivers the alignment they kind of rotate but quarterback uh it's only one guy um i mean we wish timmy was still on the team you know it kind of stung us uh but you know he felt like he did what was best for him um and his future we will and we wish him nothing but the best but you know the train got to keep moving so what is it about gary that this coach said when he talks everybody listens what qualities does he have allows him to do that just that that leadership uh like we joke about it like we say like he got like the moxie uh he's just like obviously he's been at like the highest level doing it at a big time stage so he brings uh he brings all that experience over here and then i mean just like he blended in like first day with the guys he works hard he stays extra i mean i mean i heard the story i mean like first week he stayed like 10 11 12 o'clock like trying to learn two weeks he knew the playbook so when we were out there running 707 when we were out there uh doing like uh just player ran stuff and he you got this you got that hey no you got it's like man like this dude really wants it and so when you see that it's like man like i can i can get behind this guy and we can and we can do something special this year this is the thing where as a player you respect him so much you want to play well so you don't disappoint him i mean definitely i mean off the line we protect anybody whoever's about that anyway but when you see somebody busting his tail trying to trying to make us better it just makes you go like like just a little bit harder just a little bit more because it's like man i can't let him down i can't let the guys next to me down i can't let the defense down so it's just playing that complimentary ball uh like that brotherhood just this is the standard just everybody playing for each other like all in like we're all in everybody's all the way bought in everybody's competing at a high level and we try to make everybody better when you look at your offensive line i think you're either the top school or one of the top schools you talk about definitely definitely uh i mean we just wanted we just want to do something special i mean we all could have left we could have you know probably tried for the league probably could have transferred anywhere but we was like man we want to we want to do do something special here um just uncommon i mean anybody man y'all won two games last year y'all y'all need to go he's like no we because we knew what we had and it's not like a lot of the off of the offensive line has changed it's been the same line for the past you know four or five years so uh just like man we gonna stick it out one more guy like i'm talking to brown i'm talking to donald like yeah let's run it back you know um so especially with them guys then he got trey and dustin hall mike lofton uh the red belly bringing in those guys as well just teaching them teaching those guys to weigh so i so when we leave next year the train keep rolling say that one more play at that time where you're just going to be snapping the ball everywhere oh man it's it's it's tough i mean uh coach aj coach ardis our strength conditioning coach um the the gaster that we ran just the the conditioning and just like the starting stop the starting stop just uh just practicing just go coach trickett implement his new offense it's tough it's definitely not easy but we know what we want at the end of the year and we know that you uh to get something that you want you have to do something that you haven't done before and so we're like i said we're all bought in and like we're prepared for it on saturday they out the frame uh and we was like man we knew we we know how good we are um it's still i mean we're almost done with camp about uh two and a half weeks until byu but he's like man we're better than this um so you came out today uh i mean first drive i mean we had took like a little 10 yard hits to the house and then like that just kind of sparked it and we just kept rolling all day um but i mean the defense uh with coach schoop and what he's bringing he's bringing something new every day it's never the same thing so uh that's going to prepare us for the byu the florida the louisville the the cincinnati like because he's bringing something new every day it's never the same look uh we just got to we just got the good end of the stick today that's all one of the things yeah i mean like i said i mean and he coming off the shoulder surgery too last year um so like we just motivated it's like like i said to to get something that you want you have to do something that you haven't done before and so even though we're fifth year senior like man i'm just going cruise tonight no we we peddled to the floor you know we hitting the gas we like the rpms are going up um and once they see the the seniors and like the leaders pushing even though it's their last year it's like man i remember when i was a freshman and i saw these guys pushing like man when i'm a senior i'm a push like them so the young guys can see it and that's basically like how you start building a program it's like nobody is nobody is uh just uh just taking it ain't no cruise control everybody's pushing even though he we we know brad about to start but he's still pushing i know i'm about to start you know gary just got named qb1 and he's still pushing we're still pushing the envelope so um just just building the coaching you have talent on offense it's a special team has specialty uh positions your offensive line is experienced having a guy with gary's experience to pull it all together what's that going to mean for your offense i mean it's great just having somebody that's already proven and uh and played at the highest the highest level i mean conference championship uh 12-2 last year sugar bowl and the thing about gary uh my people talk about last year i mean he wrote the best for three years at baylor and like i know he had he still had something to prove and he he got his opportunity last year and he proved that and so now he still played like uh with a chip on his shoulder he still works out the with the with the chip on his shoulder even though all the six that he had last year at baylor he's like man i'm gonna bring that over here because uh you know we haven't we haven't been hot lately so just bringing that experience what he knows and just kind of like uh mixing that in with uh coach scott coach scott's culture it's like it's gonna be special this year for sure obviously you've hinted a little bit you know this is this is your last ride this is it has it hit you yet i try to think about it uh but i mean i i think i think i i first started thinking about it like in jail like man i got 12 a month and then you look up it's it's it's march just like i got like nine more months and then it's it's one summer it's like six and that is always like that time like man it's almost done uh so i mean i just try to live in the moment i just try to uh i try not to think about the future i mean plan for the future um you know expect for the worst i mean prepare for the worst expect y'all know what i'm trying to say but uh but yeah i just try to live in the moment man and just try to enjoy it because once it's gone it's gone um and so just every day just trying to cherish this moment with these guys and just trying to leave usf in a better place than what i found it you've been here you've done a lot of practices so so my my freshman year was uh was quitting flowers last year so i was here with like flowers valdez and uh you know dj's tonight you know all those guys um i red shirted you know i just did i didn't play and uh i remember like some of the times where practice got a little you know uh and and quentin was just hey like clinton didn't talk a lot um i mean he played big but he didn't talk a lot but like when clinton talked it's like everybody listened um and it was okay man clinton said it like we got to go and like i said gary just got here in in the summer and when coach had brought it up uh like about like a week ago and he was about to like coach kyle was about to say something gary stood up he's like no we got to get this thing right and like i said it just goes to a testament to his leadership i mean he came in two months ago and he's already leading the team um so i mean something that comes with the quarterback position but everybody see how hard he worked everybody see him in the training room everybody sees him doing extra uh leading the young guy like byram and mars just like you have to respect it and for us just to buy into it like i said he missed he missed right in it wasn't like oh no he kind of knew like first day he missed right in and like i said when you see somebody working so hard and pushing it and you know you know where he's trying to go and you know where he's trying to take us it's like we can get behind that um that you brought that up so just today at the scrimmage i said uh i was talking to gary and uh i was like yeah cause we did we did a day like called the safe seat and so he go out there and coach scott you know ask him a few questions and i mean coach scott kind of like touched on it before he left and uh like the year before he was you know bailey was you know two wins and then like they won 12 games and fall camp gary has said that the first scrimmage was kind of uh you know defense had won kind of similar to saturday how the defense you know got a nutella and then gary was named qb one at baylor and he said the next practice it was like their best practice ever and then you you look at today's practice uh you know correlation don't approve of causation but i mean it was kind of just like man it's crazy how you know it kind of aligned this is our best offensive practice our best scrimmage that we've had all probably since 2022. and it's crazy i kind of like how it just aligned um i mean i don't know if you believe in the stars and all that but uh it's crazy how it kind of happened so i mean we we had that exact conversation an hour ago what are you talking about what do you call that the thing you're just talking about star constellation oh yeah yeah so so basically safe seat is uh because like we have a new a lot of new players everybody don't know everybody goes in the front of the room yeah some guy kind of like me and then coach got to be right here and you know like talk to them so like name where you from you know biggest adversity uh because i mean new guys coming in new people leaving everybody don't know it's a hundred and however many people and it's called it's kind of hard to know everybody like on a personal level so we do that safety you know sometimes it gets vulnerable sometimes to get deep personal um but it's like if i know my teammate i know how to i know what might make him tick i know uh what to say what not to say you know sometimes somebody don't need to get cussed out for motivation sometimes like hey man like let's go like let's just learn stuff like that just get really just getting to know your teammates are you questions asked different kind of questions like you wouldn't normally hear i mean for the for the most part about the same i mean like my toes went out there the other day i mean he has a very unique story i mean coming from dominican republic and just his whole transition from baseball to basketball to not playing football so i mean those are kind of like the one-offs i mean you got like a joe like from canada came down here so it it can go it's really like no set boundary is just you know just uh like an array of questions it could it could sometimes it does it's something that does but yeah is this time in your five years of him as an active player you knew who the starting quarterback was going to be two to three weeks before week one back in 2018. maybe maybe blake back then but i mean even then it was still kind of but yeah i mean we're solid with gary i mean i would say yes to answer your question yes to answer your question i mean like we know that gary uh week one against byu i mean knock on wood very like any injury like he's gonna go out there with the first team offense that's gonna be very meaningful to the offense perhaps a load off your collective shoulders you know this far out that's it jeff had mentioned that he yeah yeah yeah i mean that's kind of tough uh because like i said it's only one quarterback you know and they play their play styles are similar i mean one's right-handed one's left-handed uh one's a little bit more experienced more one i mean like they're both good players but it's like man who is it going to be today who's for officer lyon it really don't matter we got to block no matter i mean it could be joe blow back though we still got to block but uh but just knowing that gary's back there um and he's going to lead our team it's like it's like all right we know 11 back there we good you know definitely i mean definitely like hey gary's the guy and there's no there's no there's no confusion there's no rumbling like man i think gary's a guy is there anything that changes when you have a right anderson um me personally i don't think so maybe for the tackles a little bit uh interior is it's about the same um i mean i play i have played center in the spring a little bit a lot i played center the whole the whole spring with brad being out but i don't i don't think it's nothing different the protections are still the same the cause of now maybe for the quarterback his rollouts and maybe his reads are a little bit different but for the offensive line i mean run left is running left right right is running right it don't matter who that does so good i appreciate y'all i'll ask the question everybody wants to know this team turns it around goes to a bowl getting 50. it's going to point to you yes sir i feel like i'm good for it i've always been a guy that embraced the the good and the bad i mean adversity it all comes together and all i mean at the end of the day whether we lose the game win a game the fingers pointed at me it starts with me so if i could be the same guy each and every day come in with my energy and bring my best game each and every day i feel like the guy's gonna follow the guys gonna bring their best game so i'm excited for whatever comes what's been the key from the day you walked in to now guys said you learned the playbook quick you showed your work ethic you became a leader what's been the key to establishing that and really kind of a short amount of time for you being here um honestly for me um before i even got into portal and i announced um well after i got important i announced that i was coming it was about me just praying about it now i'm just making sure i'm the best version of myself every day being consistent also i'm the same person every day which everything you said as to me as a person anyways i'm a guy that loves the game i'm gonna do everything possible to make sure i'm the best player i can be the best person i can be and i and each and every room i walk into i try to touch everybody i try to be that the energy i try to be that uh when god's not having the best days you can look at me and you can feel my presence so for me that's really been that's really about all it's been for me honestly take us through your pre-snap read what are you looking at before the ball's even snapped on the rpo um it just depends on the rpl could be a slot uh slot rpo or outside wide receive rpo um we got to make sure there's no pressure because everybody knows when it's pressure on rpo you got to read the blister could be rotation depends on who it is it could be apex defender or overhang defender um could be uh if it's to the boundary it could be a corner caddy and that's safe to get off the hatch you could have a big window right there so it just depends on rpo gary what have the emotions of the last 24 or 48 hours been like you're named the starter timmy leaves you you're moving forward how have you weathered that and where are you guys you know boom you're full speed ahead moving forward now i mean we everybody know we're three weeks out um we can't blink that's been the thing i'm just not blinking um i mean for me i mean i became a starter but for me i've always prepared as a starter every day i always wanted to feel like i started everything when the bus started every day so for me nothing has changed i'm just continuing to be me i mean be a little bit more vocal um make sure i'm even more energetic more locked in things like that but honestly just continue to be myself what was your reaction um i looked at him i smiled i'm always smiling i smiled and the first thing i said thank you i really appreciate it um just for the opportunity it's a blessing because a lot of guys want to be in this position i'm at the start of quarterback for um top tier program um for me i was just honestly just excited and blessed like it's kind of held my emotions in but i know when i got home i called my parents that were excited about it so it was like a accomplishment for me a big one so a lot of smiles a lot of excitement um we prayed um really i said it was just all exciting honestly obviously now you know travis will get the number two job and environment behind him out of those two guys in particular and how they've improved i can honestly say from the summertime and i got her those two guys when we live together we work out together those guys have been owning each and every day those guys are we push each other to prepare every day no matter it's not a qb one to keep you to a qv3 it's about developing each other pushing each other and making sure we're all ready because everybody knows you will snap away from playing so just looking at those guys each and every day going out there with them i'm just excited for the growth that they're having the growth that i'm having and the way they're pushing me in the way i'm pushing them i mean i love those guys they all know that and we're gonna continue to get better as a group when anybody comes into a new situation or a new job or whatever that you have to feel their way in but the guys were saying there's been many occasions where you've spoken to the team and you haven't been here that long and they listen to you and you speak do you you just have a confidence in you that allows you to do that i would say that's what it is i'm very confident i know what i do every day i know my abilities i know um i'm just i know the confidence i have in myself in my in my game i mean if you look at me every day you're like that's how it's supposed to be done like i want to be when people look at me that's what i want to be so it's like once you see a guy that's doing it consistently every day he's out doing what the standard is he's doing he's outdoing what's mandatory he's just doing extra i feel like you have to have respect for that guy like for me i don't care what position you play whether you're a kicker or um my top receiver whatever it is my typo line whatever it is like once you see a guy that's a walk on once you see a guy that's he's really working he earns that right he has that respect so i'm i'm even the guy i'll um speak up a lot but i sit up and listen somebody tell me something like i got one of the quarterbacks travis told me i walked off the field the other day i went back and ran off the field just things like that like just being a standard and leading by example coach aranda had a lot of good things to say about you even after the transfer it sounded like the whole you know process you know he was very transparent with you guys with kind of how things ended at baylor um almost gave you the one writer said gave you nearly like a four months head start to kind of figure out your next plans you know what can you say about coach miranda and just kind of the ending of your time at baylor and transitioning here from maybe the baylor perspective i always just say um it was exactly how that said that's how i went um they gave me a good heads up of everything so let me be able to make a decision um much respect for the program much respect for coach aranda i mean he's an amazing coach i mean love him to death he helped me out in a lot of situations um full support i'm pretty sure i still support them they still support me there's no i mean this is the game that's the game we play so it is what it is at this point he said the quote that stood out to me was he said there is no failure in what happened last year without gary bohannon just you know how much does that you know that sentiment just just you know how does it make you feel um i mean it makes me feel good makes me feel appreciated i know last year stepping into it i have been to back up for a while i stepped into that role was just becoming myself really opening myself up to the team but with myself to the guys and just trying to be the best me every day like i said trying to do the same thing here um just just to hear that just to know that um that's exciting to hear that from head coach coach miranda is a special guy especially coach everybody know that so much respect for him in that program and much respect for that your baylor team a couple years ago won two games and then turned it into 12 in the championship i know you've looked at probably last year here won two games you know the talent that's here gonna turn around happen again oh yeah experience yeah that's what we're looking forward to um but it first starts off at practice one percent every day we get one percent better every day that'll add up i mean 365 days in a year that's a lot of percent um and so i would say honestly just for us it's coming up being uh putting our best foot forward every day um you can't you don't want to live life and look too far ahead for me it's literally one play at a time one day at a time and if we can live right there and be where our feet are i feel like everything's gonna shake out of place we can't yeah everybody we're from florida got these rival games playing ucl florida but you got to focus each and every day at a time if you don't get better today you can't you can't expect to be on point and play your best game three weeks from now four weeks from now five weeks from now so you just gotta stack days stack days stack days and when you stack those days it all check out you want to check out what do you think about what you got here mangum jimmy horn weaver the line just when you look at your offense what you what you plugged into here what do you got when i look at my offense i see like an instant cool down because it's like there's it's so much firepower like did the wide receiver room loaded oh line room loaded the running backs running load i mean for me it's just get the ball into their hands it's not making this crazy play get on the ball they'll make the play for man i mean as a quarterback that's all you can ask for like they make it they make my job so much easier those guys motivate each other motivate me and i mean you see them some competitive guys out there i mean they love the game football they're going to play the game of football to the best of their abilities and that's all you can ask for i mean i'm i'm excited about it i mean i'm excited every day going out there with them like wait we're excited as a team we're excited as a unit and so that's all i said just exciting about everything that comes with offense i always say uh my mom first off and i got a son i got a three-year-old son ain't cater that's my that's that's what makes me go every day um just being able to look at him every day um what kind of day i have i always come home to the same face the same smiling face for me that's why i have to do it for him and my mom because my mom before i had him my mom saw her do a lot of things that never complained my mom works to tell off to this day been working since she was like 13. i mean how can i complain i wake up every day like i work my mom today because i know my mom getting up 4 30 in the morning to make sure everything she's a principal make sure everything's in line with school called last night she was just not leaving school house it was 9 30. like mama what you doing you need to get home get you some rest you don't need to be driving that late on the road so for me um her then my son my son that makes me go every day jerry what is the prosecutor in the program so far what has impressed me the most i would say honestly well i saw the talent on film but the talent level is very very very very high like these guys can play anywhere and i've saw a lot these guys can play anywhere and then just how everybody welcomes each other and loves each other i would say like it really feels like a brotherhood like everybody here we're close um we hang out with each other during with the times we can i mean we outside of football we we're kicking it i'm in my first we can't hear my first week as soon as i got her on like a wednesday or thursday that weekend um i moved from texas i'm from arkansas a couple guys invited me out to get on the boat never been on the water um and i'm catching a short i'm here shark i mean just that i knew once that happened i picked the right place i i felt very welcomed at home and that just was a great feeling for me honestly oh we rented it we ran out of the boat we rented the vote we went through a couple guys here a lot of drivers and things like that so um it was vino um jimmy horn um zay vincent yates what else there's a lot of us there's quite a bit of us i feel like i'm missing somebody though it was a couple more where'd it go i don't know i don't even know i just know it's probably like like 50 minutes away okay i mean it wasn't in orlando though but you caught it i didn't catch it jimmy did yeah jimmy did i touched it again i ain't catching did i yeah i stayed back i mean i fished but we was out there last time i went kind of out there in the water fishing like that i kind of got sick so i was trying to avoid that to be honest with you it seems like from that point things have only just continued to get better and better relationships that i said it's getting better and better every day and that's all you guys for i mean i'm appreciative for that i can't ask for anything else but that i try to make sure that um i'm doing what i can to help develop those guys on and off the field be whatever kind of leader and whatever kind of influence i could be in anyone's life i write all my goals down honestly i want to i want to have 40 total touchdowns this year um at least 2 000 passing yards and at least a thousand yards rushing on my goals and to win the conference as a team um i want a lot of guys on the team to be all americans out to the season a lot of guys put up a lot of yards um that's pretty much it a good year a great year i succeeded better than that last time you were talking about um how you and timmy like were instead of a competition you guys were pushing each other to do better and uh get better um how was the interaction like between you guys after uh finding out the news of you starting and then entering um honestly um it was it was late at night when we found out just because we had meetings and everything kind of talked to both of us individually um after after uh means that night broke um i didn't get to see him after but um but there was no bad blood or anything i'm pretty sure i mean you know everybody knows how the way this game works how the position works something happens i mean i was just in that position i mean it's just it's a tough decision but you have sometimes you have to think think about what's best for yourself um what's best for your career so fully supporting that guy i'm fully supporting us in this team um i would say that's the advantage just because i know some of those players how they look on their scene i appreciate they will come up with some different things but for the most part i've studied them quite a bit um just looking forward to playing them to be honest with you i'm excited about uh playing those guys um i think it's a it's an advantage but i'm pretty sure they're gonna i gotta man they're gonna do something different i mean i'm in a new offense um a different offense schematically is different so i would say those guys there's gonna be something different about it so just got to prepare like i haven't played them honestly i talked to him a minute ago it's been a while i talked to him a minute it was a minute ago um he congratulated me and everything um once i announced that i was going to come here and everything but that was the last time no problem