Football Season In he Air
The Blue Raiders begin practice this Thursday, but before they put the pads on coaches and players took time out of conditioning to meet with the media and answer questions about the 2016 campaign. Coach Stockstill was first up to the mic, beginning the session with a brief analysis of the off-season stating, “Our guys have had a good summer program, we look like we’re in good shape.”He continued by saying, “After every spring practice I told the guys how much i believed in them. There are some question marks that have got to get answered here in August, but I”m really looking forward to the season.” He then opened up the floor where he would answer questions for 30 plus minutes.
Rick Stockstill Talks With The Media
The first question proposed to the head coach was about his son and starting QB, Brent Stockstill. Rick was asked if any pressure is taken off of him by knowing who will be taking snaps this season rather the team being in a QB battle like last preseason:
“As a coach you always feel comfortable having your quarterback back or having a guy you have a lot of confidence in and i think you can say that at any level of football, we feel good about that position going into camp.”
Not much time went by before MT standout Kevin Byard, 3rd round pick by the Tennessee Titans in last April’s draft, was mentioned. Stockstill was asked how big of a void is left by him moving on to the next level:
“I really feel good about the leadership on the offensive side of the ball, we have a lot of guys coming back on that side of the ball. The question marks I have on defense aren’t just about KB, but T.T. Barber, Pat McNeil, we lost not just some really good football players, but also some really good leadership. But your not going to replace a guy like KB in one year.”
Coach Stock was then asked about the new rule passed about college coaches use of Twitter:
“I hope there’s no kid out there who is going to decide where he wants to go based on how much a coach re-tweets him.”
Rick was asked about MT’s future since he’s had the team bowl eligible an impressive seven out of the 10 seasons since his arrival, so what was the next step for the program.
“I’m proud of every player who’s been through here, every coach and the next step is winning the conference and winning a bowl game. Is it far fetched to say i want to be one of those four teams in the playoffs, maybe a little far fetched, but why not believe it?”
More tomorrow from the press conference.
