Spring Coordinator News Conference Transcripts | April 23

PHIL PARKER: Welcome, guys. Thanks for coming out. I know that this is a great time of the year.

Where we're at defensively -- obviously we lost a lot of guys, and I think the good thing is the group we have working right now, different spots between the linebacker crew, the defensive line, and the secondary, we're pleased with their growth.

The biggest thing right now is trying to find the younger guys and try to get them on a wave that. They have a chance to get in the game and they have to be ready to go. Very pleased with the way people they are working right now.

Q. You have some big shoes to fill at linebacker. How have Jaden Harrell, Karson Sharar, Rexroth, that group and the group behind them continued to develop?

PHIL PARKER: All three of those guys are doing a good job. Every year you start going back and say, Hey, the guys that left before you, look at Jay and Nick and Fisher. Those guys took off, but who led those guys? You had Campbell before them. Then you start going back. Every one of these guys are good players as you're going. It's time for these guys guys to step up. I think they've been doing a really good job.

You look at Montgomery. He's done a good job and really like what Karson is doing. Those guys are working well, and obviously there are some other parts in the back end. We lost some guys in the back end. I think with a guy like Lutmer having a chance to play a little bit more out there. Koen is doing a good job. Obviously X is doing well. TJ is playing well in the back end and Deshaun.

Just the growth of how they're doing and how they keep on improving every week and every practice has been really well.

Q. You know what Ethan Hurkett and Aaron Graves bring to the table, but there's some projection maybe with Max Llewellyn and how he can be an every-down guy and the two transfers. Can you talk me through each of those three guys and what your impressions have been thus far of those three, Hawthorne and Pace?

PHIL PARKER: Hawthorne and Pace, they're coming from good programs, and they played a lot of football where they have. I think they're going to be able to help us out. I see those guys getting into the mix right away. I think they will give us depth, but you can see them rolling them in even on the first series or whatever it is. They've done a good job.

Graves has been doing it so long. You've got Pittman -- has been a little bit injured a little bit and backing off -- but he is doing well. Very happy with the inside guys. I think Max has really improved. He's been playing both sides. I like his progression. As you get older and mature and you start understanding the game a little bit, he's been playing very well.

I'm happy where they are right now. We're good inside. The development on the other side, Hurkett, he's an established player -- he hasn't practiced very much -- but has good leadership. He's been out a little bit. Brian Allen, if he can come back and help us out, it would be good. We're not where we want to be yet, but we're getting there.

Q. I wanted to ask kind of along those lines of the defensive line, losing somebody like Yahya Black, who was an underrated nose, really did some damage for you as far as taking out blockers. Do you have a player that can play like Yahya, or is this going to be kind of by committee until somebody kind of establishes themselves in that regard?

PHIL PARKER: Well, obviously when you lose good players, you want the other players to come in. What we did is we did help reinforce ourselves with the portal, so that has helped in the depth area. I think it's going to take all four guys to help us out a little bit and playing a little bit maybe a little bit more of everybody.

He played a lot more than some guys at some point, take more snaps, but I think with the rotation nowadays you still have to have the rotation up front that's very important. I think the depth that we did in the portal and bringing guys in like that is going to help us.

Q. I know you mentioned Koen, Zach, and those guys and, of course, TJ and Deshaun. Some of those younger guys that have now been around for more than a year, Jaylen Watson, Rashad Godfrey, what have you seen from them at that cornerback spot?

PHIL PARKER: I seen some growth. Obviously last year was their first year here, and Jaylen got a little bit more playing time than Godfrey. You start working at it. There's another guy that we flipped over a year ago was Mota. He came in. He really can jump. I've been impressed with him.

So there's going to be some guys competing. If we can get five or six guys getting ready, obviously do we have enough guys in the back end? We're probably going to have to be open to bring other guys in to help us out in the back end to have a full team.

Q. Kind of along those lines with the secondary, it seemed like there were maybe a few more big plays given up last year than what would be kind of characteristic for you guys. What do you attribute that to, and what's the key to kind of correcting that this year?

PHIL PARKER: I think sometimes you have to go look at it and evaluate it. Obviously, we gave up way more than we usually have, but our standard is a little bit higher than everybody else's about giving those up. So when you give them up, you know, why?

I think sometimes where we try to press too much and try to say, Hey, did we have to make that play? I think let the plays come to you I think is a lot easier than saying, Hey, I got to go out and make a play.

Sometimes it's like that. You give up some plays that you shouldn't, but overall you're 11th in the country in scoring defense, something like that -- it's still good -- but it's not as good as we like it.

So we have to work on that, and we're obviously going over here the last 13 practices. We probably give up a little bit more than I would like, but I think it's been very competitive in the spring. You know, they're doing a real good job against us. They're trying to get our eyes all over the place, and you slip and miss a guy, and all of a sudden it opens up for an explosive play.

Our philosophy is, don't give up the explosive plays, and hopefully two or less and hold them to 13 points. Hopefully you have a chance to win a game.

Q. I want to have you bring me back to Super Bowl Sunday and where you were when you see Cooper DeJean, one of your former guys, returning interception for a touchdown in the Super Bowl. What's your reaction like in that moment?

PHIL PARKER: It was kind of interesting. I don't really like watching the Super Bowl unless you have somebody in it, and obviously Cooper was in there. The play kind of reminded me a little bit of Rutgers his sophomore year. A very similar play that he picked off and ran for a touchdown.

You could just see the way he moved around. He read the quarterback a little bit, and as soon as he caught the ball and cut across and he's probably going to score. Just like any kind of punt return that he might have had in Minnesota. Same type of deal. The guy has a great talent, has great vision. Just a really good football player.

I was happy for him. For how humble he is and for him not even thinking he could play here at some time when he first was coming out and probably coming out of high school. Can he really play here? To see him grow as a person and to see how he excelled, he wasn't starting at the beginning of the year, and then all of a sudden now he becomes the head of it, and I'm really proud of the way he handled himself in that situation. I'm sure Philly is too.

Q. You brought up Alex Mota, who is a few weeks into moving over to the other side of the ball. If you watched him at Marion, anyone in this room knows you can plug him in a spot, and he was going to perform. If you could talk about the process of him flipping over to the other side of the ball, and I know he's battled some injuries the last couple of years too.

PHIL PARKER: Yeah. When he came over, obviously he had a wrist problem, and he was trying to practice with a club on his hand and stuff, so it was a little hard for him.

In the last two or three weeks, I see the progress, what he's done. He's made some really good plays. He's starting to get comfortable with what he has to do. It's a little different on offense. They give you a play, you have to do it, you have to adjust.

It's different. You know where you are going instead of reacting. I think he's doing a really good job and improving. It's going to take over the summer and camp to say, Hey, this kid has a chance to go out there and compete.

Q. I wanted to ask about Xavier Nwankpa moving from strong to free safety and why you think that's a better fit for him?

PHIL PARKER: I think it's another opportunity. We had some other guys that were trying to get on the field over there, and I think sometimes if you want to try to bring him down in the box, a bigger guy, it would be helpful I think to bring him down there. I wouldn't say a linebacker depth at times. I guess we would bring him down, and I think he can see more. I think he's more comfortable there at free safety.

With Lutmer and Koen being on the other side, I think it was just a better fit. I think he's happy there, and we have seen real big improvement with him the last three weeks. So hopefully we get him healthy and get ready to go for the summertime.

Q. It feels like most years in recent memory you've known who your No. 1 corner might be. Maybe it's Riley Moss or Matt Hankins or Cooper DeJean or Jermari Harris, but this year I don't know if it's quite as solid. When do you usually know if you have that No. 1 guy at corner, or do you have that guy yet?

PHIL PARKER: I kind of don't like to always give the answers to the test. I like to keep them on just like I keep my wife off balance when I'm coming home.

I think there's some guys that made some good improvement. I'll go back to TJ Hall. The progression that he's made from the first time that he's in there starting until he played a lot last year off and on all of a sudden until where he is right now. I think he's probably made the biggest jump of talking about being exact on every play.

He's not perfect. Nobody is perfect, but I've seen the biggest growth from him where he is starting to count on, Hey, I expect him, and the leadership is even better. I could say that about all the guys right now, the five top guys that's over there out there playing right now holding the other guys, the younger guys, and demanding what the expectation is on the field. So I would say right now probably TJ, but Deshaun Lee has done some really good things. Just seeing the growth, but he would probably be the top one right now.

Q. I wanted to ask about two of your guys that have played a lot last year and more in the subpackages, Koen Entringer and Zach Lutmer. Lutmer was in a lot on dime. It seems like those two are really kind of ascending players, that they had some really good moments. In what ways do you think that they can make that next step, and what do they bring quality-wise to the field that would suggest that they're kind of the next in line of a lot of the great players you've had over the last few years?

PHIL PARKER: Out of those guys right now I just think the way they've been -- their movement. You can go out there and start watching. The improvement they have in their footwork, and then obviously some things that you might not be able to evaluate just by the way they move around, but the way they diagnose plays and to be able to read the run, pass keys and understanding what plays are being run against them based on the formation, based on the motions. Just the growth of the knowledge of how to prepare for practice, how to prepare for a game. These guys have really grown.

One thing about Lutmer I would say he needs to be more vocal. Koen, I don't think he's going to have a problem being vocal. I think he's taken good leadership over there.

You've got to drag it out. You have to make sure they're talking. Communication is a big part of it because usually I don't care where, you look at the film, and you are going to say, hey, the guys that usually screw up mentally, that's what happened. Not too many times are you going to be beaten physically. It's going to be usually a mental lapse. Playing any team, they're trying to get you off balance, trying to control your eyes.

I think the eyes are the most important thing. Then I think your feet are. Then your feet and then your hands and to be able to be on balance.

Going back to Cooper, he was really special at that. I see that in Lutmer, and I see it in Koen, and they have ability to go down and play the catch. They he have the ability to play free safety. They have the ability to play strong safety.

Moving them around sometimes is good, but sometimes it could be overwhelming too, so you have to watch how you handle it, you know, and don't wear them out.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

LEVAR WOODS: Thanks for being here. It is a beautiful day outside right now, and you guys could be out on a run or a bike ride or something like that, but you're here, so appreciate you being here.

Just to kind of give you a brief overview of where we're at this spring. Just finished our 13th practice.

During the spring, it's a great teaching time, great opportunity for young guys to learn and improve and to try to get a little foothold for themselves moving into fall camp. This spring has been nothing short of that, so it's been good from that standpoint.

We install a punt, field goal, field goal block. Those are the phases that get installed, and the rest of the other phases we kind of install piece by piece, drill by drill, nothing schematic goes in in those during that time. That's kind of where we're at. It's been fun. You see young guys taking a step forward, trying to teach them the skills, the techniques they need to be able it on compete and help our football team here come fall and in the season.

You see a lot of progress, a lot of good work from guys. It's also a good time to help galvanize the team, build the team, kind of push the team and the units forward. So it's kind of where we're at right now.

In regards to the specialists. Starting off with Drew Stevens, most experienced guy. Senior right now. Definitely, definitely has grown and matured. You guys have heard me say that about him before. He keeps doing it, and it's fun to watch. He's in a good place right now. He's kicking the ball really well. He's working on his leadership, which isn't necessarily natural to him because he is a pretty quiet, focused guy, but it's been fun watching him grow in that role. He's doing a really good job with it. Kicking the ball incredibly well. As good as I've seen here. That's fun to watch.

Behind him right now a young guy, Caden Buhr from Bettendorf. He's doing a really good job. The kid should be in science class right now in high school, but he's choosing to be here, so he's getting a little bit of a jump. He's doing really well. Bright future. Been a good addition to the room. It's fun watching he and Drew.

He reminds me of Drew as a freshman when Drew was kind of very talented, but kind of just crazy, head all over the place. Now you see Drew the other way where he's more mature, level-headed, and then you have Kaden. So it's fun I think for Drew. You guys can ask him this if he sees it this way, but to see, man, that was him when he was a freshman.

From a talent and ability standpoint, it's all out there for Caden. He's been a good edition.

Talking about the punter, Rhys is having a good spring. Sort of got thrust into everything last year. I know I've been on record saying this before. You've seen him improve each and every game last year, each and every opportunity as he learned the game and understood the game. He's sort of at a point right now where he's at that point, but now we're trying to adjust and trying to tweak and how much better can we be? How much more consistent can we be punting the football?

He's improved dramatically as a holder. He's done a really good job in that role, and excited for him and the sky is the limit for him as well. I think we saw some of that last year as well.

With him working at punter is also Ty Nissen. He's a senior. Been steady for us. Been kind of quiet. He served as the holder last year. Did a really good job with that role. Continues to do well with that. He's also improved his punting. A lot of that I think has to do with the strength and conditioning program. He's faster. He's stronger. His leg is stronger.

Any much you that play golf, that swing speed is much faster, and I think it surprises him at times with some of the balls he hits and connects with. That's also been interesting to watch here this spring.

Then as far as long snapper goes, Ike Speltz is the one snapper we have here on our roster. He's a redshirt freshman right now going into his third year. Done a really good job. In the spring he's doing the work of two snappers right now. He's servicing everybody, so he's snapping a ton. We're sort of trying to fast track him developmentally-wise that way, and he's done a good job with that role.

All Ike lacks right now is game experience. That's what he just doesn't have, but the only way to get that is to get him in the game. That's what he's working towards right now.

We'll add another piece here going into fall camp. I'm unable to speak about that at this moment, but that's kind of where everything is from a special teams standpoint, specialist standpoint.

Q. With Rhys Dakin, we were talking to him a week or two ago, and he talked about adding a bunch of weight. How do you see that kind of helping him this year, and have you been able to see the difference yet?

LEVAR WOODS: I think it's physics. If you think about it heavier, more mass, more mass going into the ball. It worked for Drew Stevens when he was young at well. We definitely have seen improvement from Rhys. He's also trying to be a little bit more consistent with that. I think any time you add mass, it needs to be good weight. I know Rai and his staff are doing a good job with that.

Q. You didn't mention kickoff at all. Is that not something that you guys are doing right now?

LEVAR WOODS: We do work on returns, punt returns and kick returns. Returners practice every day. We put them in. We just don't install the schematics of it during spring football.

Schematically we don't install the kickoff coverage scheme right now in spring, but we do work on the fundamentals of how to cover kicks and competitive drills and that regard. That went in last Saturday. We continued that yesterday. We'll do it again tomorrow.

Q. Looking at I guess return, I know Max White entered the portal, but you have Kaden. Are you guys kind of looking at what you got and taking notes going into the fall as to who could be the other kick returner alongside Kaden?

LEVAR WOODS: Yeah, for sure. I was talking with other special teams analyst Brock Sherman who does a phenomenal job, by the way. He and I were talking earlier. It's, like (knock on wood) but have you ever been in spring practice where you felt better about the returners? I think we have a good pool of returners.

Obviously everyone knows Kaden Wetjen and what he did last year. Super pumped for him and excited for him. There's some good young guys coming up as well.

You talk about KJ Parker, Terrell Washington. Sam Phillips has done it in games in college. Talking about Zach Lutmer. Go down the list of the running backs. McNeil with Kamari Moulton, talking about kick return. There's definitely a good group. It's been fun working with those guys. We haven't installed the scheme of kick return yet.

Q. Going back to Drew Stevens, going into last offseason, had maybe a bitter taste in his mouth. A chip on his shoulder. Now he's coming off of success and having a huge moment in the regular season finale. How have you seen him take that tiger inside of him and channel it in a positive direction because he said handling success can be more difficult than handling failure. Then for you as his coach, what was it like to see him have that moment against Nebraska to have that redemption and to make the kick that he did?

LEVAR WOODS: Yeah, those are great questions you brought up. I think you nailed it with Drew because there is a tiger inside. I saw that when he was a freshman. He was a little bit ornery. There's something about him. A little quirky. There's something about him that was inside of him, and he had great success as a freshman. Made 90% of his kicks. If you look and you pay attention, you look who makes 90% of their kicks? Those guys play on Sundays in pro bowls. It's hard to do what he did as a freshman.

Coming into his second year I think some of the maturity stuff that he maybe wasn't quite ready for that success and how to handle that, and I didn't do a great job as his coach. He and I have had those conversations.

I think what you saw, he got humbled real fast in his second year. I think what you saw coming out of year two into year three was a more consistent guy, a more dedicated guy, a more focused guy. Talent has always been there. Then how do you harness it? How do you get him to see the things that you see the way that you see them? That's every coach's job, right?

I'm sure Phil will tell you the same thing as a DB. Tim will tell you the same things as a QB. You are trying to get the guy to see it the way you see it, see the game the way you see it. I think Drew has done that. All we've seen is this. Right now he's real focused and real deliberate with what he's doing. He's meticulous with his work. He's a grown-up, and it's fun to watch.

Q. Had a really solid long snapper with Luke. How are you seeing Ike kind of develop, and do you see that same level of consistency so far from him?

LEVAR WOODS: I think if Luke heard you say the word "solid," he might try to strangle you because that's a word in our room that we don't like. Solid means average, but you don't know that. There's a long story that goes back to the specialists at Iowa about the word "solid." (laughter)

Luke did a tremendous job while he was here. Unfortunately, we have to send him out the door at some point, but Ike has gotten a chance to watch Luke and watch how he operated, how he performed and his daily routine, what he did.

Ike is a very smart kid, and he followed, and he watched, and he paid attention, and he saw all that stuff. I think Luke gave Ike as much as he possibly could from a preparation standpoint, mental standpoint.

Now it's time for Ike to put that on the field and be himself, but still do the things that he's learned. We've seen that from Ike. He's had really good practices. He's had some ups and downs as well, but I think it's all in there with him. We just have to get the consistency ironed out. I mentioned this before. The only way to get experience is to get experience. So at some point that's going to have to happen, so...

Q. One thing Kaden talked about last week was the potential for guys to kick away from him. Are there things that you guys can do to adjust to put him in position to be able to return or counter the fact that teams might try to avoid kicking to him?

LEVAR WOODS: For sure. I think it starts with who is the guy back there with you? If you have another threat back there with you, that helps, right? You get guys, like I mentioned, with Terrell, with Moulton, with McNeil, some other guys out there back there with you. That forces the kicker to have to kick it to one of you guys. So that's one thought.

The other thought -- we've had this with Ihmir Smith-Marsette as well. We had to sort of prep him and get him ready to field balls wider than he would normally be used to fielding. So that's another thing that we've been working on or talking about as well.

That stuff is definitely going to be out there. I would anticipate people trying to keep it away from Kaden, but I also -- we play against good competition each week, so they're not going to kick away from him forever.

Q. You could make a case that no position group is more impacted by 105 than special teams, especially the way you guys have built kind of the walk-ons have become All-Americans, whether it's Kaden Wetjen or Charlie Jones or Drew Stevens, Keith Duncan, whatever. How does that impact you the way you evaluate, the way you recruit, and now you have to keep certain players versus before you would be able to recruit even in your own stomping grounds, recruit small-town players who a lot of times blossomed into important players. How is that impacting you on a special teams level that you're not going to have the extra 25 players to put on your kick units?

LEVAR WOODS: I'll start first with that in the specialist room itself. Our specialist room is trimmed down pretty tight right now. The thought before typically is you have three guys for each position: Three snappers, three kickers, three punters with the thought of, okay, you have a starter and a backup, guys that are always competing. You have a young guy you're trying to develop along to get in that mix. Those days I think are gone.

You're going to have to have two guys that you know that you can count on to go in the game because things happen, and injuries happen. Sick mindsets happen. Whatever happens, the next guy has to be ready to go. That's been a point in this program for years. The next man in mentality.

I think you're going to see that more and more often not only in that room, in the specialist room, but also across the board. You're starting to see it in regards to special teams. It's going to be hard to keep guys on your roster just for special teams or guys that, hey, maybe they can't cut it.

We've had some guys that are coming to mind right now that maybe they weren't great as a position player, receiver, or DB, but they were phenomenal special teams players. Those guys are going to go a little further and farther between, but I think everyone just needs to be ready. Everyone is probably coaching everyone the same way, so we're trying to get everyone ready to play because you never know when you are going to get called on.

Q. Iowa is so known for the punt return coverage, kickoff return coverage, a lot of under the radar guys that galvanize the unit, whether it be over the years that gunner position. Who are maybe one or two of those guys that maybe don't get I don't want to say appreciated from the outside, but really are instrumental in galvanizing that group to make it so consistent?

LEVAR WOODS: You are talking about current or guys that we --

Q. Current.

LEVAR WOODS: I would say right now if you are talking about the gunner position, right off the bat you have Koen Entringer. You have Zach Lutmer, guys that have done it in games. TJ Hall that has done it in games. Jaylen Watson, guys that have done it in games. Deshaun Lee. They've done it. We've seen it. I think a couple of other guys that may garner some attention or surprise this year, Alex Mota. He's done a really good job. Brevin Doll. His potential for that as far as gunners go. We've also seen Alex Eichmann. Got a chance to see him a little bit on kickoff coverage last year. Maybe doesn't show up on the stat sheet all the time, but he is incredibly disruptive.

You go back and look at -- which I did yesterday. Go back and look at some returns, against our kickoff coverage unit that, man, Eichmann may not have made the tackle, but he was so disruptive in the back field, making the returner go the opposite direction that other people make the tackle.

I think those are sort of the guys you're looking at right now. The other guys that fit in that mix, you mentioned gunners. I'm talking about other coverage players. Nolan DeLong has done a really good job. I think quietly last year we saw it in the bowl game with Landyn Van Kekerix. He knocked the crap out of this dude on the opening kickoff, and he didn't say a word about it. If you ever talk to Landyn, he doesn't say anything.

I thought, man, he must have got penalized, something happened. Man, that was fun to watch, but we see that often here. You just don't always see it in Kinnick.

Karson, he made a ton of tackles for us. He's probably statistically showing up on the stat sheet more with he and Rex and also Montgomery, but this is a great group, man. It's awe fun group to be around. These guys work their butts off every day. They're super competitive. They get in there and compete and just trying to continue to build to see if we can make it better.

Q. I don't know how much you follow the NFL, but it's becoming more regular that guys just line up from 60 and kick field goals. Brandon Aubrey, for example. Drew Stevens seems like he's got that potential to extend the range, what you can do in a game. I know weather is a factor, but how far do you think he can push his range this year in terms of where you just send him out there on a normal kick, not end of half?

LEVAR WOODS: Like a normal kick or end of half?

Q. No, any time in the game.

LEVAR WOODS: I would say those are different scenarios.

Q. I know. Any time of the game.

LEVAR WOODS: I think Drew -- I have seen him do and I know what coach has seen him do. You are talking about 58 and in pretty regular. I've also seen him 68, 65, you know, somewhere in that. That's more of an end of half scenario. But definitely strong-legged. It's never leg strength. It's more the consistency of the line and how the ball is going to travel that's an issue -- or not an issue, but is a factor for him.

Drew definitely has the leg strength and leg ability. Again, you mentioned NFL kickers. That's sort of the norm right now. I think Drew is right in that mix.

Q. Drew mentioned just how important the book you guys read last offseason was for his development and going from a field kicker to a more technique kicker. What book are you guys reading this offseason? How have the guys responded to it? If you could expand on the “solid” thing a little bit more, where did that come from, I would appreciate it.

LEVAR WOODS: I would love to. I'm not sure this is PG (laughing), so starting with the book we read last year, it was a book called "Golf, the Sacred Journey." That's a book recommended to us by Nate Kaeding. It's really interesting if you get into it. I like golf. I am awful, but I do like to watch. I get really intrigued when I watch high-level golfers. I feel like I see that a lot kicking. I get a chance to watch high-level kickers. It's fun to watch and how they think and what they see and their approach.

The biggest thing I think for Drew was understanding the checklist that a pilot goes through or a golfer goes through. If you don't hit every step, man, the chances of you hitting a clean shot are not great. I think Drew -- the feel kicker thing that you mentioned, Drew was that way early. He couldn't tell you how he was doing it or why he was doing it. He was more wishing as he hit the ball every time.

Now, it worked until it didn't, and we all kind of saw it unravel a little bit his sophomore year. I think that part of the book he really gravitated to and really helped him out. This offseason the book -- I have a couple in mind, but we haven't confirmed one yet because I'm letting the players have input on that. I know one book that Tory recommended was "Mind Gym," which I have not read before or heard before. That may be an interesting one.

As far as, "solid," (laughing) okay. It happened in a meeting. We were watching practice. We were evaluating the film. We're watching. I had a player ask him how he felt about that ball, that punt he hit. There it is. I gave you the punt piece. He's, like, yeah, it was solid." I was, like, Solid? That's average. We grade everything, right? A, B, C, D, F. I asked guys, How did you feel about that? How did you feel about that ball? Grade that ball so I know what you think an A-plus is and what I know an F is.

He's, like, Yeah, it was pretty solid. It was solid. It was not solid. It was solid if you want to talk about high school punting and, Hey, I did this at this camp, and that coach liked me and followed me on Twitter and stuff that I think is very average. So it turned into solid became a very bad word. I think I slammed my desk, hand, like I'm not trying to be solid. I'm not trying to be average, but they got the message, and now it's become a running joke in the specialist world, so yeah. I will tell you that player did this after that. There you have it.

That's the PG, dumbed-down version as best as I can. Ask Keith Duncan or Shudak or any of those guys sometimes. Yeah, solid. If you ever say, Oh, that was solid, they'll get bristled up when they say that was solid.

Q. You just named 10 guys on the coverage team gunners and all that, but between Jayden and Jaxon and Karson, that's like 95 games of primarily special teams experience that now rightfully so get their shot at ones in the linebacking core. Jayden Montgomery is there. Eichmann has been out there. Have you seen anybody start flashing to start rising up and filling 90-plus games of special teams experience because those are very important reps.

LEVAR WOODS: I do. I think you see a couple of young linebackers. You look at Cam Buffington, who was a freshman last year. Got no playing time. Maybe one kickoff I threw him on. Preston Ries. Again, two guys that are really showing up on defense and show up in my drills and the competition. You get a chance to see that. Same thing with Derek Weisskopf. Those are guys that show up where, also, the early enrollees with Carson Cooney and Blake Goucher. Those are just to name some linebackers. Other guys you see, DJ Vonnahme is a tight end. He does really well. Again, we put these kids in these poxes, these drills, to them it may not seem like much, but you can take that little snapshot and then you show it to them in special teams or show it to them on offense and defense how it relates and how it helps them become a better football player. Then all of a sudden it clicks. I think we're seeing some of that. A lot of times when it's early and they're young, they don't always -- it's hard, right? They get in these awkward positions, and it looks terrible to them, and they can't figure it out. Then all of a sudden the old are they get, the more they understand the drill, the more they understand how it fits into football, they get better. So that's what we're seeing right now. Those are just a handful of guys I can think of right off the top.

Rashad Godfrey is another guy that keeps standing out to me in those drills.

Q. First off, I'll keep mine a little bit short. Are we going to see you at Drake Stadium over the next couple of days?

LEVAR WOODS: Tomorrow for are sure. I heard the weather is going to be great. The weather is supposed to be nice, right? If you get anything above 60, that's a win.

Q. You have a guy in Luke Elkin who has a chance to maybe compete at the next level. I was just going to ask if you had NFL teams reach out about him because there's obviously very limited spots in the NFL for a long snapper, but do you think that he's got a pretty good chance of being picked up by a team this offseason?

LEVAR WOODS: I do. I think Luke is as good as he wants to be, and he's going to be a really good pro. He was really good here, and he's a very diligent worker. I would never bet against Luke Elkin, particularly playing at the next level. The difference right now between college and pro is in the pros it may take you a little bit longer to get in because the practice squad rosters have extended. Rosters in general have expanded a little bit there, so sometimes I think they try to stuff guys or hide guys a little bit more. That's the life of a specialist in the NFL.

Unless you are drafted, you have to be willing to ride a year or two or sometimes three. Just ask Casey Kreider. Ten years later he's doing what he's doing. He's doing it very well. Sometimes it takes that at that position in particular because of the roster limits, but I could definitely see Luke playing on Sundays. I've had plenty of people reach out. Plenty of people come here to work him out. Yeah, Luke snaps a really good ball, man. The only thing he has not done yet is protect. The only way -- we don't ask our guy to snap and protect as far as punt goes. That's the one thing he hasn't done, but it goes back to the beginning when I talked about Ike and experience. The only way for Luke to get that experience is to get the experience.

At some point he's going to have to do that, and some coach in the NFL is going to trust him, and some coach in the NFL is going to look like a really smart kid. They're going to get a good kid and good snapper.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

TIM LESTER: Really the only thing I really have to say to lead off is the spring has been productive. Our guys have been chipping away, getting better. Year two is a totally different animal than year one, in a good way, as far as teaching and them understanding what's expected of them and really just taking the next step.

Every position has different steps they need to take, and they've been working hard, and we're chipping away. I do see a lot of growth in different areas, areas that we need to focus on. We've been successful with what we've had to work with, but we have a long way to go.

We're cautiously excited about where we're at, and we have a long way to go, and ready to get to work tomorrow morning. We get another chance. Looking forward to that.

Q. Having signed Bryce George. I know he was a tight end out of high school. Did you offer him, recruit him at Western Michigan?

TIM LESTER: I did. From Detroit, tight end. Got hurt his senior year. Great athlete. It's ironic that when his name came across the desk, I knew who he was, and I knew the family a little bit. Had a ton of success at Ferris.

His offensive coordinator was one of my coaches in college. Called him immediately. He had nothing but great things to say about him and his family. Excited to get him into that competition up front.

Q. I know he played right tackle at Ferris. Is the vision to move him over to left? What are your thoughts?

TIM LESTER: I don't know. There's a lot of competition up there. Obviously I feel really good at right tackle with what we got going, and we've been trying to move with Lauck and Dotzler. When he shows up, it's going to be a third amigo in that battle. They're all getting better.

It's funny from day-to-day, offensive linemen normally take a little bit longer. Watching the way Dotz is coming off the ball right now is different than last spring. It's been exciting to watch. Lauck, same way. He's an extremely talented athlete. He has great feet.

It's been fun to watch those guys. We've been rotating them everywhere, and we'll probably do the same with Bryce, until he really feels that he fits in somewhere. The left is obviously the biggest position we're working on, but there's a lot of different moving parts.

Bryce does an unbelievable job of moving people around. Guards playing tackle. Tackle playing guards. Not worrying really about winning a drill in practice, but trying to continue to expand their growth as understanding the offense.

I'm sure once we get into camp, we're going to start narrowing it down and getting people in the best place to help us.

Q. We got the chance to speak with Mark a couple of weeks ago. It seems like he oozes natural leadership and perspective. I know he's not obviously fully cleared, but coming in to earn the respect of the offensive players, his teammates, and just sort of picking up the system and then looking at the quarterback room as a whole, it's kind of crazy to think that is a completely revamped room just from the last spring, I guess.

TIM LESTER: Very different.

Q. Talk about the depth of it and how you are moving in the directions there?

TIM LESTER: Mark has done a great job. He came into a building where Sully was very well-respected and one of the leaders on you are on team. He did a great job -- I mean, those guys became friends, just the way they approached the business every single day of being a pro and wanting to work in the weight room.

You can earn a lot of respect as a quarterback in the weight room. It's something Sully did, and Mark really. So he's done a great job. He hasn't been able to do much. I think he's throwing a Nerf ball right now. Something like that. I would like to see him throw a real one eventually, but he's doing a lot. We have him back there taking mental reps. Extremely intelligent.

I'm impressed with how he has acclimated himself to our team. No expectations other than to come in and compete. That was probably the most important question that I ask guys out the portal is, What are your expectations? My plan is for you to come in and compete. Some of them love that word, and some of them don't. If they don't, then you probably won't fit in very well here because everyone is going to have to earn their spot.

He's ready to do that. I'm excited to see him get out there and when he can. Just talking football with him, you can tell he's played a lot of football, and he's seen a lot of coverages. He's seen a lot of blitzes, and he knows how to react well. So that will be fun to see it come to light when he's able to get out there.

Q. We talked to a bunch of receivers last week, and they seemed to be pretty optimistic about how the passing game has elevated a little bit, even with different quarterbacks now. I guess what have you seen? We talked to you I think last midseason maybe. You're, like, the passing game takes the longest in the Shanahan system.

TIM LESTER: It's taking a long time.

Q. Where is it at now?

TIM LESTER: It's growing. I think the biggest difference is, one, we're healthy. When I got here, I was impressed with the wideout room. They were just young.

But when you know what you are doing. I mean, you run. We are running right now, which is fun to watch. To watch Seth and Wetjen run, they're not thinking about what to do. They're thinking about how to run the route.

So there was a lot of thinking going on last year. There's not a lot of thinking going on. It's just trying to press the issue, especially when you are trying to stretch the field vertically.

The ability to run a route and not look back at five yards and don't look back for 20. Seth has done a good job of that. Dayton is doing a good job of that.

It's been fun because we're a faster team right now in the passing game because they're running faster. The plays haven't changed. They just have run them enough times finally.

So I think that's helped us. They're getting themselves more open. Obviously the quarterbacks, the more open the receivers are, it's been really helpful to them to have the tight ends know what they're doing, the wideouts know what they're doing. And they're starting to learn coverage, which is a big part of this offense. I don't know how much it was before.

When we started teaching them coverage and why we motion and what information we pick up from the motions, they looked at me kind of funny when I first got here. Now they're starting to answer questions. I asked Dayton a question the other day in a meeting. He led off his answer with, Well, I know it's man coverage because of the motion. I stopped and clapped. That was a great start to this answer. You know the coverage now, so how are you going to run the route? They're starting to see things. I think they're more comfortable with the system.

I'm excited with where they're at. We have a long way to go, but they are just more confident, and we're able to make nuances, adjustments really quick. They can go out there on the next route, it's fixed. We're still a little short on routes sometimes because we get excited, and we get a lot of third down red zone situations where there's a lot of little nuances that we have to get better at.

But I've been very happy away their progression as we expected it to happen, and it's obviously shown with some more success.

Q. With Mark obviously once he's out on the field, what can a quarterback of his skill set really unlock in terms of what you want to do schematically? Any regrets back to your Western Michigan days of not offering him?

TIM LESTER: We recruited him. I have to remember the year and how it went down. A lot of times when it comes to recruiting, especially at a Max school, you offer ten dudes and hope to get one. So whoever commits first, gets it. Just because you're happy to get one, you know? It's a different type of recruiting.

Here we offer one or two. There I was way more offers. So probably should have offered him, no doubt, with the success he's had.

I think the biggest thing, when you have a quarterback that can consistently provide positive football plays, it's a big word. Positive football plays. Especially when you are calling it aggressively where he can bail you out of, Hey, this is a bad look. Just check it down, get us a yard. Throw it away for all I care. Just don't take a sack. Don't throw a pick.

It's been fun. We've had him in the back.

He's been taking more mental reps than anyone else. We see it on the film. I know exactly where he would have gone. The receivers know it. They all watch what Mark would have done on that play because he's pointing to where he would have gone, and 90% of the time it's the same as the guy that's holding the ball.

Now, back there there's no pass rush, so he's really comfortable back there standing there hopping up and down. It's been good for him just to get reps because there's a muscle memory to everything you do. He's doing all the fake handoffs to nobody, him and his imaginary team back there.

He's having a blast doing it, and when he actually gets out there and he has to bring all the motions and do all the movements, we're just trying to shorten the curve really so when he gets out there, we can start seeing a more comfortable version of a guy who has played -- I don't even know how many games he's played. A lot. I know how many he's thrown for, which that has to be a lot of games.

He's very comfortable, and my job is to get him more comfortable so we can get him ready to compete in the fall.

Q. You decided not to go on the road this year recruiting. What was your reasoning? What was Kirk's reasoning for that? Then how did that impact you this spring and what you were able to do to the offense and take it another step forward?

TIM LESTER: It was huge, to be honest with you. Everything in the offseason is optional, but me being in my office when you had Jimmy graduate high school early and came in, Hank was new. Obviously, Mark was new. I was in my office every morning. We really didn't have anything to talk about in the morning other than what quasi-questions do you have? We would just talk football.

For those three guys that literally just came here, even Jimmy. He is swimming a little bit, as he should be, but they're way further ahead because of the amount of hours we were able to spend. They were all in different lifting groups, so one was 8:00 to 9:30 or whenever he left, and Hank would roll in, and he would be there for a couple of hours. Then Mark would roll in, and he would be there. It would be 1:00 before I knew it. The next day we would do it again and again, and all the way through Friday. It happened for almost two months.

It was huge for us. I had a chance to sit and watch film with the offensive unit if they wanted to watch, and we got to kind of watch them cut up as a whole. It's always great when the O-line hears what I'm telling the quarterback, and the wideouts hear what I'm telling the O-line. I love asking offensive line, What's the coverage here? Jones is right 99% of the time, which I think impresses everybody in the room.

Just having them all in a room a couple of times a week was big. They couldn't always make it because it's optional, but it really was galvanizing for what we were trying to do last year. We watched every game we lost and the things we didn't do well and talked through what we needed to change to move forward.

So it was definitely a calculated situation. I think if you really are trying to develop quarterbacks, it's really hard to not be around them and do that. It's also hard to recruit them when you're not on the road. It's a give and take, but it was obviously a great decision.

We've had more success in the spring for sure with those guys than we would have if I came back off the road and we had a couple of weeks, and then we went rolling into spring ball because we got to answer all their questions and watch a ton of film. So I think it was a good decision, but it was the first time I've ever done it. There's a lot of teams doing it now. I think it's going to continue to happen more and more after the benefits we've seen from it.

Q. Jimmy, Jackson, and Hank, the three of them have been there since at least the preparations for the bowl game. From starting then until now, how have you seen each of them grow?

TIM LESTER: Night and day, really. Hank obviously already played in the SEC, so he had experience. He needed to learn what we were doing.

Jackson was on the scout team until, what, the last four weeks of the season, three weeks of the season. He needed a lot more reps of running what we're running.

Jimmy should be going to senior prom right now, and he's here with us. He's had really good weeks, and then he'll have a day where he gets lost and can't get himself out of just forgetting to motion a guy, having the running back on the wrong side, not moving him. But he's way ahead of where he would have been. That six days and going to the bowl game and being a part of it and being a part of the team, being here for six months before the rest of his class comes is really giving him a chance to compete because it's going to be obviously competition.

Hank is doing a great job right now. He's been the most efficient out there. Jackson is getting better. He has hot and cold days. We need to have less cold, more hot.

Then Jimmy, you just got to wait. You know what I mean? You have to wait it out. He's throwing the ball harder. He's more confident. He knows when he's wrong before I have to tell him. It's starting to happen. Not every time.

But, yeah, it's a process with those guys, and the sooner the process starts, the sooner you get to the point where they can be effective. I think it's huge that Jackson played a couple of games and that although it's not good that Mark is not out there, they're getting a ton of reps right now, and that's going to help us moving forward.

Q. You have a new analyst.

TIM LESTER: I do. I have two.

Q. I'm specifically talking about Warren. What is he bringing to the table for you? Are you incorporating some of the things that maybe he was able to do at Wake Forest? Are we going to see slow mesh, any of that stuff?

TIM LESTER: Trying to dabble in everything. That's a whole thing. It's an expensive -- as Warren would say, it's expensive to do that because you have to do it all the time, and it has to be a major part of what you do.

We've just talked about how he came up with it and what it does to a defense and trying to find ways. He's just been a super successful coordinator in Power Five football for a long time. What he did at Wake Forest and the amount of scoring, I've known him since my days at Syracuse. We were doing some things at Syracuse. He gave me a call, wanted to meet, talk football. He's a football junkie, which is great. So am I.

So we met a long time ago. Ten years ago. We stayed in touch ever since. Obviously an unfortunate situation with their coach stepping aside, and he was available. I mean, he was the guy we wanted from day one just because I like the way his brain works. He's in the quarterback room with us. He's recruited and coached a bunch of successful quarterbacks.

When I'm not there and I'm over with the O-linemen or with the tight ends, he's in the room with those guys. It has been really good. We're trying to figure out. We have all his cut-ups. So we've watched some of the stuff they do. It's been a great start to the relationship. It's going to be even more helpful in the fall, because this is not an offense that you can game plan quickly. He's going to be able to get ahead. When we get done with practice on Wednesday, he'll move forward to the next opponent, so he'll be a couple of days ahead of us when we get in on Sunday. I think that's where it's going to make the biggest impact in our offense.

Just having someone that's done it that we can lean on that understands. From his interview it's so evident the O-line play, he understands linebacker play, he understands secondary and coverages. So he's a perfect fit because the more ideas, the merrier, and he has a ton of good ones. It's been a good start.

Q. I know going into last year you revealed that cutting things in half is a big deal to you. When you came here, Iowa was 132. You almost cut it in half to 72nd in scoring offense. I was just curious, you got into the top 40 at nearly every stop you've been. Is that something you're still kind of thinking about, maybe this could be the goal this year, and is that potentially attainable?

TIM LESTER: We haven't set those yet, but yeah, that's exactly how you do it, right? It has to be attainable and realistic. When you coach long enough, you take over great teams, you take over teams that have struggled in different areas, and you are just trying to turn the ship and get it headed the right direction.

Last year looking at us, we weren't very efficient passing team two years ago. We were an efficient running team. When you have something that's efficient, you try to find a way to make it explosive, and you have to find a way to make the passing game efficient.

We were way more efficient this year in the passing game. We weren't nearly good enough. We definitely weren't explosive, but we were efficient. On third down, our third down percentage went up. We were good on third and medium. We were definitely explosive thanks to No. 2 and the five guys and the tight ends up front, so we were explosive in the run game.

Now the question is what's the next step? What's that going to do for you? The goal is always to cut where you were at and cut it in half. I don't know what those numbers are. If we were really high in something, I don't know if I'll keep it, we got to cut it from 10 to 5 or something like that. If you are in the top 20 or 30 in something, you're doing a pretty good job, but when you are on the lower half of the Mason Dixon line, you have to get everything in there. You have to be able to do a little bit of everything.

I haven't put those together. I have it on my whiteboard in there that we need to come up with exact goals that we're going to present to the players. I don't know if it will be in half, but it's going to keep trending that way, and hopefully give them a realistic goal so we can go have something to attack.

Q. Kamari had some explosive plays as well when he got his shot last year. I don't know if I'm drawing this parallel just because I watched way too many games when you were in Kalamazoo of Kaleb Eleby and those guys, but they're the same height and same weight, both running backs. Is LeVante Bellamy a good comp? Does he have the potential to maybe -- you would love those stats, I know.

TIM LESTER: Well, Bellamy could fly now. I mean, Kamari does a lot more horizontally. Bellamy was a straight-line guy, and he was way too fast to be in the MAC. It was great. He was on our team. I think he was player of the year in the league. He was a stud.

The thing that he has that's like LeVante is that they can do multiple things in the pass game, they're good. The whole running back room right now, it's a fun room to coach. Omar has taken over an extremely healthy room. Abdul did an unbelievable job with recruiting in that room.

We have moved TJ Washington back. The whole plan was to put TJ at wide receiver so he could learn the pass game, so we now have a running back that knows the pass game, and he's a great running back, and he's really good out of the back field, which is not something we had last year. When you are trying to expand your pass game, that's always a good thing to have. So he can really catch the ball.

Really that whole group in there, I think it's going to be a running back by committee, but having that experience, watching the way TJ and Kamari ran the ball in the bowl game, they were comfortable. They were putting their foot in the ground. Day one we handed Kamari the first -- I think the first run of the season. He ran right into the O-line. He was nervous. I'm sure the game was happening fast. It slowed down for him, which is really the point where he takes off.

I'm excited. He's kind of taken a leadership role in that running back room. I'm excited for the year he's going to have because he's comfortable. He's ready to play. He really understands and can do so many things from running in between the tackles to running on the edges to catching the ball. We're going to be able to do more things with the running back position, especially with TJ in there than we were able to do in the past.

Q. I know you've had a ton of fluctuation in that quarterback room. Jackson Stratton, now the longest seasoned guy here.

TIM LESTER: Yeah, he's a vet. Got here in June. Did he get here in June last year? Yeah.

Q. I know you've got Jimmy here early. Looking at the fall, you'll have two walk-ons. You'll have two freshmen. Hank who just got here and Mark who just got here.

TIM LESTER: Thanks. Okay.

Q. How confident are you in your quarterback room's depth? Do you think you're going to add another quarterback via the portal?

TIM LESTER: When Sully left, that opens up a spot. It would have to be the right person, the right fit. You would have to have enough knowledge that he with think the guy could help us.

It's not my No. 1 thing because we're in the middle of spring ball, so I'm really just focused on those guys. I do like our depth. Obviously Jackson has played before. The young kid has a long way to go. We're going to see kind of how they develop.

Hank has really taken to it. He's done a really good job. I'm excited to see Mark. It is ironic that none of them other than Jackson have ever played before here wearing the Tiger Hawk on their helmets. It's a challenge. I think the people around them help a lot. That's also having a guy that's thrown for 10,000 guys in your room. That's helpful.

There's some good with it. There's some good with it, but it's a great room. Even Sully, we love Sully, and it's a tight room, and I'm excited for him and his future, but it's a good group that kind of supports each other because they're all kind of learning this thing together from the start, and it's way easier to learn when the people around you know what they're doing. You know, when you turn the corner, and there's three guys open as opposed to everyone ran the wrong route because they blame the quarterback no matter what.

If you take the ball and metric late it down the field, you did a good job. If you don't, you stink. That's the way it works.

With the guys around them playing well, it's really allowed those guys to have a little bit more confidence, and Coach has done a great job of putting us in tough situations. We're getting a lot of work done. We've got a long way to go, but I'm happy where the room is at right now.

If something comes along that we can add somebody else in there to add depth, we would do it in a heart beat.

Q. One of your analysts, Billy, you worked at Western Michigan. He was in the NFL for a while. Taught tight end and O-line, wide zone, a lot of what you did. And Omar has experience in the Shanahan offense too. How have they helped you kind of formulate your scheme going forward or tweaking things or tweaking things on the field to help it really perfect what you want to do?

TIM LESTER: It has been fantastic to have other people that can speak the language, right? We have a burning of coaches that are returning that are doing a phenomenal job, and they're in year two, and they understand it way more and have ideas, but then you bring in two guys that have been doing this for years. They have to learn some of the nuances that we had to change to get it to fit a college field and some of the timing. The speed of the receivers is a little different. We've made some adjustments, but they've picked it up.

Even the interviews when they start teaching our own protection to us, it's been really impressive to have them here. Like Matt at Green Bay, he would never hire a guy unless he could help game plan. You need ideas. We're going to run the same plays a lot of ways, and finding more ways to run the same play and make it look different, the more ideas you can get, the better. When you talk about Warren, same way.

Those two guys have a ton of experience in running this exact system, so they've come in with immediate ideas. Our guys that were here last year that I had to teach everything to -- tried my best to be an O-line coach and then be a tight end coach and coach the coaches first. They're in year two. Billy obviously was a GA for me and then was with the Jets with Mike LaFleur. He knows it forwards and backwards.

He's with the tight ends in that room. He sits in the room. Really he's here to help game plan and understand the system. We've watched a lot of Jets film. We've watched a lot of Bears and Packers and just tried to find ways that can continually evolve our offense so that we can run the same play and Phil thinks it's different plays every single time we run one. That's the goal.

They brought more and more ideas to the table, which is huge. So that part has been a lot of fun for me. It's just the beginning. We haven't really game planned. We're not really game planning. We're trying to find new ways to run the same plays so the guys get good at the techniques, but trying to make it look different to our defense every single time. It's already been big.

When we get to game planning and see different fronts and, Shay, when we saw this front, we would put this run with this can, pull the film up. We watch it. We love it. It's in. That's the kind of stuff that is invaluable.

Normally when you game plan, you normally have a ton of guys with ideas. Last year it was not so much that way, and that's one of the major things we needed to get changed going forward and having Billy and Warren start early and be a couple of days ahead and having obviously Omar with a ton of experience coaching running backs with the Bears. It should continue to help us.

Our job as game planners is really simple. We have to go out there and execute. My job is to hopefully help them get better leverage so their execution can be done easier. That's the job. They still have to execute. We still have to get to the right depth. We have to throw a strike, but hopefully whether it's disguise, whether it's they think it's a different play, the run play looks like a pass play. All of our run plays should look exactly like a play pass. Sorry.

The more ideas we have that we can help our guys, hopefully make it a little bit easier to execute, that's the main goal of a coach with the shifts in the motions and the leverages. So that's really where we're hoping it comes to fruition this fall by having those here. It's been fun to have them here. The room is different. It's a fun room. The confidence of the guys that were here last year is totally different. We're excited. Again, I'm talking about the coaching staff. It's been a fun group to be around. Spring has been good, and I'm excited to get into the fall and start game plan be with that group.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports