Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Football holds first practice of Spring Ball season
02/28/2017 | 5:31:00 | Football
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Southern Illinois football team held its first Spring Ball practice today at Saluki Stadium. Under the direction of second-year head coach Nick Hill, the team will hold 15 practices and scrimmages during the next six weeks, culminating with the annual Spring Game on Saturday, April 8 at 2 p.m. Practices will take place at 4 p.m. on March 2, 4, 7, 9, 21, 23, 28, 30 and April 4, 6 and 7. The team will hold scrimmages on March 25 and April 1, with times and locations to be announced.
Coach Hill held a press conference prior to today's practice.
Did you feel your first spring last year was good and what would you anticipate about this spring?
I'm excited to see the difference. I felt like it was good and we got a lot out of it and it was the first year for a lot of coaches. When you're out there for the first 15 practices, you're probably still getting to know everybody's name and what they do well. The entire same staff coming back, knowing our roster and what we want to tweak and get better at, that's what I'm excited about. Last spring was about setting the tone, the culture, and how we want practice run. I feel like going into year two we can really dive into the small things and become a better team. We need to become a better fundamental football team. We feel like if we want to contend for a championship in this league we need to get better at a few small things.
What do you have to be able to say about your defense at the end of the spring?
In the offseason what's always fun as a coach is you go back and you watch every rep of the season, and each game we played well on defense at spurts during the football game. We gave up too many explosive plays and didn't make teams earn it all the time. Hopefully, in the spring when you compete against yourself, there's going to be days where the offense looks good and goes on drives and puts them together. That's going to happen in this day and age in college football, an offense is going to put together a good drive and they're going to go down against a good team and maybe score, but you better look on film and make them earn it. You better tackle, you better not give up explosive plays that you didn't make them work. There were too many times we had on film where there was miscommunication. Now in year two, we've played a ton of young guys and an entire secondary is coming back, the communication and the calls have to improve this spring.
How much more comfortable are you with your coaching staff entering this season?
I think you're always more comfortable the longer you've coached together. I'm looking forward to it, getting back out there and continue to grow. That's another thing of going a few weeks early here, we're ready to go back onto the field. You see more and more teams doing that. I saw Youngstown started yesterday and they played a game in January in the national championship. We want to get back out on the field and we want to keep that momentum going from that last month of the season where I really felt like we practiced our best and started to play our best. We got to get back out there and put it back on film. I'm really excited about watching our redshirts that redshirted this past year and now they get to be in live situations and not on the scout team. I feel like there's a lot of good players in that group that redshirted.
Will having two quarterbacks in spring ball be challenging?
You'd like to maybe have one more. I might have to loosen up a bit and throw a few balls [joking]. We'll watch those guys and we don't want to overuse them. Usually when you have two older quarterbacks they get the bulk of the reps. It's the one-on-ones and the routes on air where you have to watch the amount of throws they get in a day. You don't want to sit there and wear their arms out. We'll monitor them and the logistics on taking care of their arms.
What's the goal for Sam Straub this spring?
I think just to continue to grow. He doesn't have to go out there and prove anything here in Practice One on throwing touchdowns. He makes great decisions, but I think there are little things that he can get better at such as footwork in the throwing game. We put some goals to get better in the throwing game for Sam. We want to see him have overall command of the team, you want to see him come out there for 15 practices. We want people to say when you leave the field that No. four was the quarterback out there. We've all been around quarterbacks or teams that have had that guy and Sam needs to take that step in becoming that.
Is Dequan Isom there from the jump? And is this going to be very important for him?
It's very important. He's probably had the best January, February, two-month stretch of anyone on the team and I told him that today. He's had a great off-season and he continues to work his butt off. He's also done well in the classroom. We feel that we have six good running backs and five that have played some football. But they will all get their turn. It's a big spring for Daquan, he's no longer a freshman or sophomore. He's on the back end of his college career as a junior. I told him today that it's fun to watch him mature and grow up and I'm excited for him this spring.
Are Jefferson Vea and Ryan Neal both going to stay at safety?
Both will stay at safety and Jeremy Chinn won't be in spring ball. He'll be out there looking and feeling good, but we have to be careful with him. Same thing with Craig James. Both guys are in the same rehab to get back. We'll keep a close eye on them. James Ceasar will also go back to safety. He played some corner and really kind of all over. We feel that he can be a good safety. He started games as a true freshman. We get Torian Lewis back this year. I said last year before the spring game that he had the best spring, but then he got hurt in the spring game and we lost him for the whole year. He'll come back with two years left to play. Shawntrez Spates did a good job for us throughout the year and then we have Roman Tatum and Craig James. We're pretty deep with secondary players and I'm looking forward to watching them get better.Â
Who will return punts for you, Nick? You don't have Reed or James right now?
Deionte Gaines is a kid who transferred here from Colorado State and had to sit out last year. He was an All-Mountain West returner. He'll bring a lot to our offense and to our return game. I'm excited for him to get back there. Matt DeSomer has also returned punts for us and Craig James whenever he gets healthy he'll be back there, too. We have plenty of returners that's for sure.
Is it too much for D.J. Davis role to expand to punt returns?
No, I think his load has to expand a little bit. We definitely didn't think we wore him out. He was the kind of guy that got 5-8 touches a game and we'd like to see that get to 10 or more. He has to do a good job of catching punts because he's a great return guy for kickoffs. But catching punts is a lot different, fielding them is different. Against Youngstown when we needed a good punt return, we put him back there and he came through for us. He just gives us a little more in the return game. We were last in the league in punt returning. We fair caught just about every single punt. We need to get something out of that. Having D.J. and Gaines and a couple of freshmen back there, we need to get better there.
You had some momentum with the Western win, you have some hype with your recruits. Do you need a solid spring to have a good season? Is spring an important part?
I definitely think it is. Everybody will talk about who had a good spring after it's over with. Only time will tell when we get to the fall camp, but a good spring is about competing every day. Sometimes you go at it for 15 practices with your own team, and you have to do a good job of managing it. You want to compete every single day, but also know that we're a team and we have to work together through certain situations. As a coach, you have to put them in situations that get them better. We have to learn the game. We were in many games last year and there were many situations that we can look to from last season and try to emulate those types of situations out on the field. Just learn how those situations effect the game. This is the time that we can get our hands on them in the meeting rooms. So when you're not in practice you have a chance to meet with guys and help their growth in the classroom.Â
Scale from 1 to 10, how weird is it for you to be Pat Poore's boss?
[Laughs] I wouldn't even say its weird. Coach Poore makes everything pretty simple as far as working and playing for him. It's more like a friendship. I have the upmost respect for him. There hasn't been too many days or weeks that go by that we haven't been in contact since I stopped playing in 2007. His family is more like family to me than any former coach, or whatever. Having him back here has been the most natural transition you could possibly have. The day he stepped in the staff room meeting, he knows just so many people. From all the guys that came from Minnesota, Marty and I played for him, so once you get to know Coach Poore he's not to hard to get along with.
