Everything Kyle Whittingham said after Michigan's spring game

Opening Statement

First of all, a big congrats to the basketball team right there. Great season with Coach May and the boys. Spring game, always an interesting situation. The main thing is get a look at everybody and as game-like situations we can manufacture, especially twos and threes that haven’t had much game experience, if at all. Offensive production today wasn’t real good, obviously. Only found the end zone one time, but there were a lot of positives.

I thought we did a good job taking care of the football. There were no turnovers, but again, you’re playing yourselves, that means your defense didn’t create any takeaways, so it’s give and take. Highlights, I thought Tommy Carr showed a lot of poise and did some good things. Bryce had limited time, just that first quarter, and when you play a spring game, and you split up the team evenly like we did, you’re playing with the ones that aren’t together, and the twos aren’t together so you’re kind of a hodgepodge, but you still get a good idea of who’s a playmaker and who’s not. We felt like we got a lot accomplished this spring as a whole, exactly what we needed to. The football team got better fundamentally, technique-wise, got complete schemes installed on both sides of the ball, so we had a lot of work to do this spring, and I think we made a lot of progress, as I said.

Huge importance, we came out of this game with nothing, no injuries, and only one significant injury throughout the course of spring, so fortunate in that regard. What will be key now is to continue to build upon what we got going through the summer. They’ll have the month of May off, nothing going on in May, come back June 1st for the summer conditioning cycle, and it’ll be key and critical that our players do a good job with the player run practices and doing things this summer to stay sharp so we can hit the ground running in fall camp when that starts right around August 5th. I think we’re in a good spot but plenty of work to do, so, questions?

On where he thinks the offense is now compared to the start of spring

I think we’re on track, we’re not where we need to be ultimately but I think we’re on track given that it’s April 18th and we’ve got a lot of opportunity ahead of us to get better and so we saw the same thing last year at UW, we had the same exact situation, we installed an entire new offense and I’d say we’re right on par with where we need to be relative to what happened last year. We ended up with a really good offense last year, he was 3rd or 4th in the nation in scoring and 2nd in rushing so no panic at all and we feel like we’re heading in the right direction, like I said there were some real bright spots out there today, I thought Savion Hiter really showed that he’s an explosive back, he didn’t really get loose out in the open but he’s a powerful back that’s going to be a big factor for us this fall.

On whether Savion Hiter and Salesi Moa are the most impressive freshmen he’s been around

Yeah, without a doubt, they’re both highly recruited, highly rated freshmen coming in, both just fresh out of high school, they’ve only been here a few months, and for being in the program for 3 months and very young, I thought they both did a nice job today, and both their futures are very bright.

On Bryce Underwood’s performance in the spring game and how he’s developed this spring

He progressed all through spring, there’s some things that may not be noticeable to just the general populace but his footwork, his pocket presence, he’s improved in all areas, he still has work to do, he knows that, we know that but I think he’s ahead of where he was certainly prior to or from last season and we think he’s got a big upside, we’ve still got a lot of confidence in him, there’s no real different sentiment than what we had when we first got in here.

On Deyvid Palepale’s role on the defensive line

Deyvid’s in that rotation, we’ve got 5 guys inside and 5 guys outside on the edge that we feel really good about and we think are going to help contribute to winning games, and Deyvid is a guy that has gotten better and better this spring. He did have 2 or 3 days there where he was out with an injury but he was able to come back and pick up right where he left off and he’s a big body in there, he’s 330-340 pounds and tough to move and he’s got some quickness and he’s going to be a guy that takes reps for us this fall.

On his message to Tommy Carr about competition

Well Bryce is our starter right now and that’s not any different after today but Tommy has really made strides and just really has a great pocket presence and escapability, he can extend plays, keeps his eyes down field, all the things that you look for in a big time quarterback, I believe Tommy possesses and I was still really early in his career but what he’s doing out there relative to his experience level here I think is pretty impressive.

On when things slowed down for him after arriving and what the downtime will look like for him

I’d say we were settled in when spring ball got here. We had been with them the entire winter conditioning cycle and in the weight room and in the conditioning and some meeting room stuff, I think we settled in, and throughout spring, just became more, I don’t want to say comfortable, but things started to really smooth out. Going forward, it’ll be critical, I think we’ve got the best strength coach in the country and Doug has those guys again starting June 1 for another eight week cycle and that’ll be critical to continue to develop not only strength but mental toughness and the work ethic that this program is going to be known for and I just think that we’ve come a long ways in what, three and a half months but we’re going to need every bit of preparation time that we have before September 5th when we line up and play.

On what attributes Carr has for a QB

Well, first of all, he’s got that it factor for a quarterback, that confidence, that field general mentality, the way he carries himself, he’s a football junkie, I’m in the facility at 10 at night and I walk by the quarterback room and there’s Tommy Carr watching film all by himself in the film room and so he is completely just immersed in his development as far as trying to get better and doing everything he can to perfect his craft. And that’s really what you want to see in a quarterback, and he’s a leader by nature and by virtue of the position. He better be a leader at the quarterback spot, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves because he’s still got work to do, but it’s just been a very pleasant surprise. If you say who’s been the most pleasant surprise in spring, it’d probably be him and Savion, although I wouldn’t say they’re surprises, but guys that are really looking like they have bright futures.

On the edge rushers during spring

Dom Nichols, he’s coming into his own. He’s a force out there, he’s 6’4 plus and 260 pounds, and really has a great first step in pass rushing skills. He’s a guy that I think has a chance to be all Big Ten before he’s finished here. I think he’s that good, and it’s up to him how good he can be. If he continues to work hard and put everything into it, then he’s going to play this game for a long time.

On other edge players standing out

Yeah, Nate Marshall has showed progress. Cam Brandt had a really nice spring, he was consistent for us all spring long. Dropped a few pounds and really helped his game, he lost 5 or 10 pounds, it gave him more quickness and a little more burst off the edge. Lugard, I can’t pronounce his last name exactly right yet, so I don’t want to butcher that, but he’s a guy that we think could help us as well.

Big long frame, 6’7 or whatever he is, and very athletic. And then we don’t even have John Henry Daley out there right now; he’s been out of spring with the injury, but he’s expected back on June 1st. So again, that appears to be our strongest suit right now as far as depth goes and 10 bodies ready to play. If you can be two and a half deep on the front on defense here, that’s a real luxury for you.

On Salesi Moa and the receivers

Yeah, Salesi, you saw him make a few nice catches today. He started off spring really well, hit a little bit of a wall there towards mid-spring ball, but then started to progress and take off again towards the end. I think, like Savion and Tommy, I believe his ceiling is very high, and he has a bright future. The pass catchers in general today, I didn’t see a lot of drops. I’ll have to go watch the film, there might have been one or two that we could have come away with. But overall, the receivers have had a really nice spring.

The two top guys, Andrew Marsh is wide receiver one, there’s no doubt about that. J.J. Buchanan is wide receiver two. And then trying to figure out who’s going to be three, four, or five, that’s still a work in progress.

On whether OL pass protection needs to improve

I think the O-line is going to be fine once all is said and done. Jim Harding is a proven commodity. He’s an offensive line coach. He’s been with me for over a decade and has produced a solid offensive line every single year. I don’t think this year is going to be any different. We have two or three guys that were very limited or out this spring.

They’re going to be very prominent in the fall and pushing for starting jobs. So I don’t necessarily think, especially today, you have to split up the O-line. Half are on the ones and half are on the twos. I don’t have a big concern about it because I know Jim Harding’s track record. I know the talent level of the players that we’ve got there and the guys that are going to be joining us coming off injury. I think we’re going to be solid once we get into the season.

On whether he found out what he needed to about the team during spring

I think it was about what we expected. We had a chance all through the winter conditioning to observe them and watch them. Even though you can’t play football per se, you watch them move around and run through the agility drills and the change of direction drills and all that stuff. So you get a good idea of what you have athletically and talent-wise. Now, of course, the ultimate test is what they do on the field. But I would say to answer the question, it’s pretty much what we expected. I don’t think there were any surprises in a negative way for sure.

On his message to the team heading into the second phase of the offseason

It’s important that we not only improve strength-wise. By the way, we improved tremendously in the first cycle. We had guys improving their bench 70, 80 pounds in a three-month period. So that was very impressive. But the team has got to come together. The chemistry that you start to develop when you get in this day and age, you have half a new football team pretty much every year. So the bonding and just coming together as a team is going to be critical this summer. We’ve got a few team activities in line to help that take place.

The leader’s got to lead and continue to set the pace. If you’ve got your top 10% of your team that works their butt off and trains hard, everyone else seems to follow suit. So that will be critical for those top 10% guys to really set the bar and demand everyone else live up to that.