Stanford football held an open to the public practice today. Head Coach David Shaw met with the members of the media present to talk about the day’s event and the Cardinal’s spring practice. Here is a transcript of what he said.
Shaw started with a general thought on Saturday’s practice.
“Today was a good day for us because both offense and defense made some plays. There was a lot of back and forth which is what we expect. When you have a good team one side of the ball does not dominate. The defense kicked the offense’s tail two days ago. Today we had some back and forth which is good.”
Shaw was asked about the move of David Yankey to left tackle.
“We had a couple of minor injuries, nothing to keep guys out but a couple of guys got banged up and we did not want to put them in for long stretches. Brendon Austin and Cole Underwood got some time, but we did not want to leave either one of them out there for a long time so we put Yankey out there just to put him out there. But he is our left guard. The good thing is he has the versatility to do that. That is where he started playing early on so if we got into an emergency he could do it, but I don’t anticipate that happening.”
Shaw was asked if there was a game tomorrow who would be the third tight end, Ryan Hewitt?
“Thank God we don’t play a game tomorrow. Hewitt has great versatility. He would have to do some of it. Davis Dudchock has done some great things in the passing game that could probably help us at some point. But we hope the resurgence of our receiving core, Ty Montgomery has done some good things, Jamal (Patterson) did some good things today, Drew Terrell is doing some good things. We have some guys coming in, so hopefully we won’t have to lean so much on the tight end position. Hopefully we can be a little more balanced at those two positions.
Shaw was asked about the health of wide receiver Ty Montgomery.
“He is healthy. He is cleared to do everything. It is just the way we do it. We are overly cautious. He is completely protected on his hand. I did not want him getting tackled today. That is just me. So the two live team reps he got thrown the ball were going into the end zone so hopefully he would not get tackled. But the doctors say he is fine and we will probably be overly cautious again and I have to make the call if he is going to play in the spring game or not.”
If Montgomery is not returning kickoffs, who would step in?
“That is going to be a battle for kickoff return. Anthony Wilkerson has expressed interest and he has a chance. Kelsey Young has done some great things with the ball in his hands and he has expressed interest. There is a group of guys. Usua Amanam has done a good job back there. We have a group of guys. I would not be surprised if Ty is not the guy just by my choice. Ty is going to be playing a lot of football for us so if we can have another guy step in and take that roll that would be great. Anthony has a good shot if he comes back healthy and ready to go.”
I asked Shaw about the quarterback rotation with Josh Nunes playing with the first team today.
“It was his turn. Brett (Nottingham) did it Thursday, Josh did it Tuesday. It is just a pure rotation right now.”
Kevin Hogan went first with the third team over Evan Crower.
“That is a rotation too. That is close. They are all different guys. We are not comparing apples to apples with any of them because they all have different things that they do well. Kevin is so athletic and throws the ball so well on the run. Evan is a great pocket passer. He is 6-5 and can see everything and gets the ball out of his hands quick. Those guys are on a different level of competition but honestly if worse came to worse and we had to go with one of those guys, as a coaching staff we feel great. We are in a really fortunate position right now with the guys that we have. It is going to play into training camp.”
Who stood out to Coach Shaw from Saturday’s practice?
“There is a guy that has been driving us on offense crazy since last year and it is Kevin Anderson. That sucker is high motor, which is what you saw at Palo Alto High School. High motor, physical, strong, fast, relentless, he is difficult for us to block. We think he is not going to just be good, he is going to be special and that is in a group of special outside linebackers.”
There were an unordinary numbers of penalties at the scrimmage today.
“Sloppy. We wanted to emphasize the snap count today because the defense got after the offense the other day so we wanted to change up the count and get them to jump offsides a couple of time. Conversely when you do a lot of off normal cadence you get some offensive guys, especially the backups, jumped multiple times. It was just sloppy. But we were trying to emphasize the snap count. We talked about it as a staff this morning. Every time you do this you create more penalties but at the same time it is something we just have to do.”
Shaw was asked what format the Spring Game would take next week?
“It will be very similar to last year. We are going to meet this week and decide for sure but I would count on it being very similar.”
Shaw was asked about some of the walking wounded on the sidelines today.
“Wilkerson will be out the rest of spring. So will Blake Lueders. Blake’s might even be longer, we will see what happens. We might have to go back in and straighten him out a little bit. He has an arm deal going on.”
Will Lueders have surgery?
“Possibly. Blake might be a long term deal. We’ll see.”
Could he miss the entire season?
“We’ll see where he goes.”
Shaw was asked if Chase Thomas, who was not suited up, was hurt.
“He got stepped on the other day. He of course being Chase says tape it up and I’ll go. If we played a game he would be fine and he would play. But he got stepped on and it was a little sore. It is not even swollen anymore. He could have gone today. He’ll be back on Tuesday.”
Shaw was asked if scrimmages like this are better for the backups.
“That was the thing. Murphy got stepped on a few days ago. So we took this opportunity to not give Murph as many reps so we could give more Kevin Anderson more reps. In hindsight not a great idea since we could not block him on offense (chuckle). But once again, a scrimmage like this is not for Chase Thomas, it is not for Murphy, it is not for guys that have played a lot of football. It is not for Stepfan Taylor. It is for Ricky (Seale) those other guys that can get in and get a chance to play.”
Shaw was asked about the play of safety Kyle Olugbode.
“He has a chance. He is a physical kid. He is a tough kid. A lot of people around here know him because he is a local kid and he rushed for a million yards his senior year. He is a good athlete. It is going to be a battle. We have two more guys coming in as safeties, both of them wanting to come and compete and the ability to come in and compete. The one real bright spot so far has been Ed Reynolds at the safety position. The rest of them are jumbled up.”
Shaw was asked about the competition between Josh Mauro and Henry Anderson, who both looked good today, to replace Matt Masifilo.
“They are doing really well. We talk about guys turning the corner and starting to show that they are ready to play. Those two guys have done that. I told them both, I don’t care who starts I just get excited when I see the opportunity to possibly play multiple guys in there to stay fresh and stay on the attack. A guy like Ben Gardner does not have to get warned down. We can roll them through, we can put Henry in there. Hopefully guys like Aziz Shittu can come in and give us some depth there also so we can have guys that can roll through. The best team I have ever been on defense was with the Baltimore Raves, we were two deep at every position. Not just guys that can play but guys that play well. Right now Henry Anderson and Josh Mauro are giving us that depth that guys that don’t just go in there and flop around, they go in there and make plays.”
Shaw was asked about how James Vaughters is doing with his move to inside linebacker.
“He is getting very comfortable. He is a big physical kid. He does not know it all yet but he is getting comfortable and he is making plays. He is hard to block for the offensive linemen on the second level. He is a big physical guy that can run so it has been a pleasant surprise to see him get comfortable there.”
Has Vaughters finally found a home?
“We found another spot because he was pretty good at the other spot too. We talk about depth. He can play inside, he can play outside, and he can play a third down pass rusher with his hand on the ground. We want as many guys like that as possible. That is the way Chase is. If we needed to we could put Chase inside. He could play inside, outside and defensive end in third down situations.”
Ricky Seale was another standout star of the day with a 50-yard touchdown run. Shaw was asked if he is earning some playing time this fall.
“That is a great question. The way he is running the ball he is going to force us to put him on the field. That is what we tell all the young guys. Don’t look at the depth chart. When you get a chance to play, make the most of it and Ricky is doing that. The way he is running the ball right now, we will find a spot. We played four running backs last year, we will play four more this year. I have no problem doing that. The guys that earn the right to play, we will put them on the field.”
Jordan Pratt caught a touchdown pass at the back of the end zone by going up and over the defender. Shaw was asked about the play.
“That is the thing that is what he did in high school. He was in high school a long time ago. That is what he did last year on the scout team. He judges the ball well being an old baseball player, he is tall, he has long arms and he can elevate. He goes up and gets it and it was great to see.”
Shaw was asked if tight end Davis Dudchock is a complement to the two starters or similar?
“He is still trying to find a role for himself as well. He catches the ball extremely well. He runs great routes. He has improved as a run blocker which is number one for our tight ends. We tried to put him in some situations today it just so happens the ball did not go his way because of the coverage. He has made some plays, red zone, third downs, he has made some tough catches. There is a chance for him to get in the mix but in what role, that will have to shake itself out.”
The follow up question was if Stanford has a new Coby Fleener on the roster?
“We have identified a couple in recruiting. There are none on our team like that guy. We have been scouring the nation for three years trying to find more guys like the ones we have. The hard part is sometimes convincing guys getting recruited as defensive ends to come play tight end. Everybody asks us all the time where did you get those guys? Levine Toilolo would be playing tackle or defensive end someplace else. We wanted to make him a tight end. Somebody would have kept Zach Ertz at receiver and not ask him to gain the weight. Coby Fleener was a tall receiver. We have to keep finding guys like that because they are a huge advantage at this level and the next level.”
