On what he looked for position-wise when recruiting:

“Well, we needed offensive linemen. I believe there were 10 junior college players in this class, and when you look at the two offensive linemen, I have always said any time you take junior college players you need to try and take high school players with them.”

“When you look at the two offensive linemen in the junior college players, you are going to look at immediate help from them. There were two wide receiver junior college players that were transfers with Paul Turner and Kevin Gary. We had one defensive lineman. You had two in the secondary; two safeties in the secondary. But, the biggest need was the three linebackers, which is where I think the biggest need for next year could make a difference.”

“One of the things we talked about, especially late, was if we did not feel like a young man could come in and help this football team next year, then right now let us hold that scholarship, because right now there are not a lot of those to go around. So, let us make sure. I would rather sign a young man at Christmas a year from now that has a chance when we have a year to recruit them than I would just go and give them out this year just to say we gave them out. Then you are out recruiting a young man.”

“The junior college players are the biggest ones, but there are other freshmen that are going to have an opportunity to make an impact on this team.”

On whether missing out on high school linebackers hurts this year’s recruiting class:

“Well, the class is not over. That is what I said. That is why we have saved a number of scholarships because there are always some that show up late that you have the opportunity to take. It is probably the thing that is the biggest or the one thing I would like to change is being able to close a couple of those high school linebackers out at the end. If we could have, I would have like to take a few more linebackers, but we just were not able to close it out in the period of time we had from a recruiting stand point.

On recruiting without knowing what positions you needed:

“No, it is the numbers. There is a whole formula to the numbers with how many offensive linemen are on scholarship or how many linebackers. It was not so much big, strong needs as much as it was where we have our numbers because it is very difficult right now for us to identify what all the strengths and weaknesses of this football team are. That is one of the hard adjustments about walking into a program in your first year is having to evaluate your team, and we have not had a chance to practice with them at all. Yet, you are sitting in a living room recruiting young men, and that is one of the hard things that people talk about in a transition year.”

On how many first-year freshmen could possibly start or see playing time:

“Again, I would say it is very hard for me. I can tell you there are some great, talented freshmen that I think are going to have a chance to come in and compete. I have always said that freshmen play because upperclassmen give them the opportunity to. I will have a much better feel to that question when I come out of spring ball.”

“Some of the questions we have going into spring ball is to find out how many starters we have. And everybody says that is foolish because you know you have 11. We need to find out how many we have on our team. We know we have to start 11, but I do not know how many we have on our team right now on the offensive and defensive side, and that is all going to be about level of competition. That is one of the things I am so excited about going into spring ball.”

On how easy it was to sell the quarter system to recruits: