MOBILE, Ala. – With the first week of preseason camp behind them, University of South Alabama football head coach Joey Jones, offensive coordinator Greg Gregory, defensive coordinator Bill Clark and several Jaguar student-athletes participated in media day Thursday at the USA Fieldhouse to discuss the upcoming season as well as the team’s progression in camp.

A few highlights from Thursday’s media day are below:

Head coach Joey Jones
Opening statement:
 “We are very excited about this season, our players and staff have been anticipating this for the last year. We know the competition is going to be much tougher, and as competitors our players and coaches look forward to a schedule like we are playing. It excites us to be playing in some of the venues we will be playing in this year.
 “When I have looked out on the field the last few days you see a different team, you see guys who are bigger and faster and stronger than we were even a year ago. A lot of that has to do with the fact that we have guys who have been in our program for three years, they’ve been in the weight room and been conditioning and eating right, doing all the things that it takes to become a Division I football player. I think our guys have really stepped it up there, it’s just a noticeable difference now with the size, strength and speed we have on the field.
 “Are we there yet, are we where we want to be? No, but we feel like we’re in a good spot and ready for the challenges ahead.  We’re looking forward to this season with great anticipation, looking forward to the work we have to put in every day to become a great football program. Our players realize that, they realize it is not going to happen overnight it’s going to happen day by day by day by working hard and having a belief we can be great. I think our kids and our staff really bought into that and are moving toward that goal.”

On his positive demeanor:
 “I do believe in being positive, but we truly have a bunch of great young men. They come to work every day, it’s been the best group I’ve been around. Their goal every day is to become better, they have a passion at practice that they are going to play with great intensity. They’ve just got great character on top of all that, they are a joy to be around; you don’t have to get on them very much.
 “In fact, I think sometimes I have to pull them back in practice where they almost practice too hard and too physical.  When you have that, you’ve got something.
 “I am a positive person, but on the back side of that those guys are great character kids. It’s just who I am, but I can credit a lot of that to my mom who was a very encouraging, positive person. I learned a long time ago during my childhood from my mother and having coaches who I looked at in different ways — some were a little negative, some were more positive — but the ones who had the most positive effect on me were the guys who were positive.
 “There are times where you have to get on them, so it’s not like we’re positive 100 percent of the time, but I do think that 90, 95 percent of the time if you’re positive a kid will respond more to you. I’ve learned that kids respond to people, not to goals — we’ve got goals on our board, and that’s a motivating factor, but the most driving motivating factor in a person is for me to not let you down.  If I think that you care about me, then I am going to respond to you in a positive way, and I think that’s our general theme in how we motivate our players. We’re going to care about them, and that goes along with being positive.
 “It’s a little bit different, but bottom line that positive energy comes into showing somebody you care about them. When you have somebody who cares about people, then they are going to respond to you and you respond back to them and you have a love there, you have a family and a team that builds together. That’s the basis of how we built our foundation here.”

On what to look for from the offense:
 “Coming in here the first year, I made the decision we were going to be a run first, pass second team, mainly because we had a freshman quarterback from Canada who had never played American football. I did not want to put our jobs on the line with a young freshman quarterback throwing the ball every play.
 “We evolved last year and threw the ball a little bit more, we got into [an] empty [backfield] a little bit, so to answer your question we are going to become more and more spread as we go.  But, we still start with the running game. We’ve got to block people up front and be able to run the football because if you can do that it’s the easiest way to beat anybody. If you play a game and it’s windy and it’s raining and it’s hard to throw and catch the football you can have a bad game throwing the football, but you can always hand the ball off to a great tailback and run the football.
 “So we’re going to start with that, but are going to expand much more in the passing game as we go because I think our quarterbacks — we have one who it will be his third year of experience and one with two in C.J. Bennett and Myles Gibbon — so we’ve got guys we feel comfortable with, we can put them in empty sets and they can execute the play.”

On how the loss of Courtney Smith affects the wide receivers:
 “When you looked at our team last year at the wide receiving corps, we had Courtney Smith who was such an imposing figure out there with his size and speed, he was just a great player. Everyone pretty much knew when the game was on the line that we were going to go to Courtney, that’s just the way it was. At Cal Davis, we throw a 50-yard touchdown pass to him late in the game to win.
 “This year, I think we have a bunch of good receivers who I think have become really good football players. I don’t see that one dominant receiver, but what I do see are a bunch of guys who can play the game. We are about eight deep at receiver right now with guys I think we can put in the game that can play for us, so we’ll be a little different; all the numbers will be bunched up at the top in who is going to have the most receptions and the most yards.”

On the secondary:
 “I think there has been a major upgrade there. You look at the guys we brought in, B.J. Scott, everybody knows about him signing at Alabama and how he was a great player at Vigor High School. He’s great on the field and a great character person, he’s in the film room every day studying by himself; that’s the kind of guy you want back there. You have Damond Smith who came last spring, who is to me a great corner — not just a good one, but a great one. He has a great attitude and is very tough, he will be a great corner for us. And Gabe Loper has come in at safety, he is very good athlete; he’s 6-3 and 210 pounds with great range back there.
 “And you have Anton Graphenreed who is coming back from last year, he has great speed and is one of the fastest guys in the Sun Belt [Conference] in track and is a great cover corner guy. Ken Barefield is a solid player back there, he’s a very good hitter and a smart guy who has a couple of years experience in the secondary. We feel good about the guys we have back there now, especially with our three additions; after losing a couple guys from last season we had to bring some guys in.”

Defensive coordinator Bill Clark
Opening statement:
“We’re excited going into the year and we have high expectations, as we always do. We have a good mix of returning guys with some new faces that are going bring some excitement. The challenge is, we know the game is stepping up. We have some FBS opponents and our guys are looking forward to that. The first two years are behind us. We feel good about the tone we’ve set defensively, but we know the challenge is ahead of us in stepping up in classification. Practice has been going really well; it’s a good start thus far.”

On the defense:
“At inside linebacker, we have three guys that played a lot, in Jake (Johnson), Enrique (Williams) and Bryson (James). We have two young guys in (Ben) Giles and (Desmond) LaVelle that are coming on, but that is a talented group. We feel like, on our schedule, they may be as good or better as anyone we’ll play. Up front, we have some guys that have been through the wars. We’re not the biggest, but they’ll fight their butts off. We lost some guys academically that we’re a little disappointed in, so the depth could be better, but I’m excited about the group. We’re more athletic in the secondary and that will allow us to do more things.

On new personnel:
“I think you’re going to see a few new faces. We lost a few guys that you had seen before, but there are four guys that will stand out, starting at cornerback Damond Smith, our transfer from Western Michigan that was here in the spring. He’s a super-talent. He looks the part, he’s six-foot, 185 (pounds), he can run and he’s strong as can be. We’re excited to be able to put him in the boundary and play whatever coverage we want. He’s a competitor. We have two safeties in Charles Harris and Gabe Loper that both came from junior college. Gabe played some corner at 6-3, 6-4 and safety. Charles is a safety so we have some size there, which is going to let us move Ken Barefield to more of an outside linebacker-type position, and as everybody knows, B.J. Scott, who for us will play free safety. We have three guys to play two spots that can be really be terrific.”

Offensive coordinator Greg Gregory
Opening statement:
“Offensively we’re completely a veteran team. I don’t know if there will be a new comer playing a whole lot. There might be one or two. The offensive line is intact, quarterbacks are intact, running backs (are intact, except) Demetre Baker is new, but I don’t consider him new because he was here during the spring. He’d be the one new player that will play a lot of football. Our receivers all played a lot of football last year. We lost two key players. We lost Courtney (Smith) to graduation and we lost T.J. Glover academically. Those are two big losses because they made big plays. We have to see where the big plays will come from. We were a pretty good passing team last year, especially once C.J. (Bennett) became our quarterback for good.”

On C.J. Bennett:
“I think he has a chance to be as good as or better than any quarterback I’ve personally coached. He’s an exceptional talent, can really throw the football and really knows the game. When he tells you something happened in practice, when you go back and look at the film, that’s exactly what happened. He’s not guessing out there and he can correct mistakes as he goes along. He has that ability where you don’t have to be open to throw it. He can throw it and make you open. He can really get the ball out and in a hurry.”

On how much is left to do before the season starts:
“On offense, we worry far more about ourselves than the opponent. We’re going to know our opponent, what their base schemes are and what to expect, but we work on polishing our game. We’re going to run our offense and we’re going to be good doing it. In practice we’re trying to get better and focus on ourselves than West Alabama. Most defenses these days are either a three-man front or a four-man front – they pretty much do the same things.”

Tight end Paul Bennett
Opening statement about preseason camp and expectations for the upcoming season:
“We have just been working hard at camp and just seeing how things unfold. We’ve got big expectations this year. Everybody’s kind of questioning us about who we are and who we’ve played the past two years. I’m ready to end those questions. We are just looking to have a breakout year. We’ve improved in a lot of areas. We’ve worked real hard during the spring and over the summer to get stronger and faster. We have some good new players too. We’re going to be good and I expect a very successful season.”

On being chosen by his teammates to wear former teammate Anthony Mostella’s No. 5 jersey this season:
“It’s a tremendous honor. ‘Mo’ was one of my best friends. We came in at the same time in the fall of 2008. He was also my neighbor at the Grove. Justin Dunn, who was my roommate, also played with him at Birmingham Southern and they were real close, so naturally I got real close with him. It’s just a tremendous honor to follow in (Anthony’s) footsteps. He came to practice every day like a true player should. He was very consistent, very humble. He just loved to play the game. He loved to tote the ball and I hope I can just honor him the same way this year.”

On how much better he feels the offense is this year:
“As far as the offense goes, I think that we have grown by leaps and bounds. Everything is coming a lot easier to us. The second year, we were still learning because coach was still putting new things in every now and then and on the fly, but now things are  a little more concrete. Granted the plays change, but we have the firm concept of the play. For a lot of people, it’s just about being there and learning about it. We have some people who have started for three years now and they have a firm grasp on the offensive concept. I think that’s the biggest thing. We have some new faces, but they are picking things up pretty quick and hopefully they make an impact on our team.”

Defensive back Anton Graphenreed
Opening statement about preseason camp and expectations for the upcoming season:
“Going into my last year, I just want to finish out strong with all of my teammates. These guys are my brothers. We’ve all been growing together and getting better together. I feel like we are going to set a lot of people straight. There are people who have counted us out a lot, so I just want to prove them wrong in the biggest way possible and that’s going out with a bang. We have great expectations for the season.”

On progress of the secondary:
“Looking at the defense as a whole, we have done well in the offseason. We just keep getting better. Looking at the secondary, because that’s what I’m around the most, I feel like we have improved tremendously. We have really worked on the little things, because that’s what counts. When you have guys who have been here a while like myself and some others, and someone like B.J. (Scott) who has come in and made an impact and been a leader, the young guys cling to that and want to work even harder. It just makes everyone better as a whole. I know we are going to continue to get better.”

Offensive lineman Jon Griffin
On the offense’s progression in camp:
“We’re moving along well on the offensive side of the ball. We’re doing a lot better than we were last year in terms of knowledge and what is going on, and where we need to be in order to be successful.”

On the progression of the offensive line in building depth:
“There is about four of us who have been playing together for about three years, so we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and we seem to gel together. And a couple of new guys have done a good job. The coaches are scheming well, and they are going to put us in the best possible position to win.”

Linebacker Jake Johnson
On the defense’s progression in camp:
“We came along really well defensively in the spring, and brought what we learned then into camp. We have a couple of really good transfers in the secondary, and they have helped us out a lot.”

On the depth at linebacker:
“It helps a lot having depth at any position, because you never know what could happen. It helps knowing that everybody is rotating in at practice getting reps, learning from watching film and from coach (Kurt) Crain. So if we sustain an injury, we can always put somebody in who will do a great job at the position.”

On how changes in the secondary have affected the guys up front:
“You can feel the difference with the secondary. The pass rush has more time to get a good rush, and when we blitz as linebackers we have a little more time to make a move on the linemen. We know we can trust in the secondary to cover their men so we can get there and get a sack, pass breakup or quarterback hurry.”

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com.  Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

-USA-