University of Houston Athletics
National Signing Day Press Conference
2/6/2019 4:14:00 PM | Football
HOUSTON FOOTBALL
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2018 • Houston
HEAD COACH DANA HOLGORSEN
On adding four new signees today and the progress made on building the team
"In five weeks, we've hired 32 people in our building. I've personally been in 60 high schools in Houston and New Orleans. I've been at six basketball games over here, which is incredibly important, because it's all about building relationships with former players, current players, obviously high school coaches. I've spent a lot of time getting to know those guys. I've also been to tons of booster club events.
"The four kids we signed today are a small part of what we've done over the last five weeks and I'm happy to have those guys. We've had two recruiting weekends. The first one was to bring in some of the guys who signed in December and we feel good about them. We signed three in the mid-year and had two that enrolled at the mid-year who were part of the December signing class. Those are the five guys who are current players and we're coaching them hard.
"Yesterday was the first time we coached, which was nice. Monday was the first time we watched video and that was nice too. This morning we added four more. We're currently at 16 and only get 20, due to what they did in August (with five transfers counting forward). We have four more to get. We need defensive players and offensive linemen. The numbers are skewed offensively, so we'll fix that, and we're going to bring in the best four we can moving forward.
"I know this is a National Signing Day event, but it's not in my mind. It's another day on the job. Recruiting is a year-round job, and so is getting our players right and our team right. This is just another day."
On being straight forward and transparent with recruits
"There isn't anything fake about what you're looking at. I take pride with that. It was that way for eight-straight years at my previous institution and I've been like that for forever. Hopefully, eight years from now we'll be talking about another good class of guys we signed.
"I don't know what's in store and I don't think anyone does. I've had good conversations with those guys and their families and felt really good about them when they left. I thought they would all sign and they did. That's not how it always works, but that's how it's supposed to work."
On Atlias Bell being first family member attending college
"When you recruit as many guys as we have to sign a class, you're going to run across stuff like that. With Atlias, that's a unique situation. He's a Hurricane Katrina kid which we've all been familiar with Katrina kids because they all come to Houston. We've recruited a lot and I've recruited a lot that came to West Virginia that were Katrina kids that came from Houston. Guys that are on our team that are Katrina kids that came to Houston. This guy went to Iowa and I wanted to ask him why, but it just didn't feel like it was my business. I grew up in Iowa and I'd rather be in Houston than Iowa. I mean who wouldn't? I guess him and his family. I know a lot of his family went back to New Orleans, so that says Iowa next to his name, but Louisiana is a focus. He's Louisiana and has an interesting story. He's a big kid and we're excited to have him."
On setting a blue print through recruiting
"It's the number one focus. I know a lot of people say that, but we were in high schools here every day. I personally was probably in about 50 of them. Talked to the Region V Texas High School Coaches Association in the Houston area. I went there and shook a lot of hands last Saturday but didn't get to spend nearly as much time there with them as I wanted to. Just by actively recruiting their players every day, period.
"I've been in a lot of the high schools, went down and sat with the coaches and talked with them and rekindled a lot of the relationships I've had with them. I've known a lot of these guys from when I started recruiting here in 2000, 18 years ago. Actually, there's a very small part of 1999 that I was in some of these schools. So, it's been a long time and I talked to a lot of the ones that I knew. Since I've kind of been removed for eight years, there's a lot of younger coaches that I really didn't know prior to this past week.
"Our practices will be open to those guys, because we want as many high school players and coaches to come watch us and see what kind of coaches we are and our style of play. By actively recruiting those guys you, don't have to go really far and that's going to be a huge focus for us. I think Louisiana is a good neighbor, I think there's a lot of Louisiana kids that come to Houston and see family. That just makes sense, as far as recruiting that."
On Terrell "Smoke" Brown
"I signed two offensive guys and two defensive guys. Cam'ron Johnson was the offensive tackle from Shadow Creek, which is an important high school for us. Manvel has been very important to this program, with obviously D'Eriq King and the success that they've had. That's an extension of that area, Pearland, Dawson, Manvel, and now Shadow Creek area is crazy. I was in that high school, I think it was our first stop. I went to North Shore, I went to Shadow Creek, I went to Fort Bend, Marshall and Episcopal, so those first four were important. I got a lot of UH ties there.
"The first year they play varsity they go 15-1 and lose in the state championship. We got two kids out of there. Ronald Nunnery is another one that is a teammate of his. Those guys are important. Smoke is a heck of a player and highly recruited at a high school that is going to have a bunch of guys every year. I asked him what he thought of Houston and he said, 'I love Houston,' so I said come out and visit and he said 'ok.'
"I told him not to be surprised when he doesn't want to leave, and he said he didn't want to. He's going to be a good player and we needed a young back like that. We're very senior heavy at running back and that's the future. I do want to say, everybody that we've signed, there's eight transfers and nine high school guys and counting walk-ons, are all pretty important to us. That sounds like panic as far as we have to get guys in here to fill a void on the defensive line.
"We're going from a three-down front to a four-down front and the number of scholarships are going up. We needed to do that. We're not interested in doing what I did last year at the place I was at. Those two graduate transfers were really good players. Jerbril Robinson and Kenny Bigelow Jr. were USC players that came in and started for us because we were making a championship run. This is about building the program. We signed three of them that are three-for-three, and a couple others that are three-for-two, which means we have the ability to be able to build our program for not only the next coming years, but for the future as well."
On importance of recruits for rebuilding
"It's the number one thing on offense. We're looking for a transfer quarterback because you have to keep getting those guys in on scholarship. Other than that, the offensive line was a huge priority because the numbers aren't nearly what they need to be. That's the most important thing to recruit, offensively, other than a quarterback. Getting these four guys – they're big, they're good players, we evaluated them, we brought them in, and we liked them. Hopefully we don't talk about them for about two years.
"We have three guys on our starting offensive line right now, which could potentially change. Three of them didn't redshirt and I've never heard of that. That's the most insane thing I've ever heard. Upwards of 50 percent of the roster haven't redshirted. That's unheard of. If you want to develop people the right way, you redshirt them and let them develop. That's why we have five full-time football strength coaches that are going to help us in developing guys, and these four guys are going to be important.
"I'd like to even be able to add another one, whether it's a high schooler or a play right-a-way guy. I'm not interested in one-for-one players. That's not where this program is at right now."
On how the coaching staff came together
"Do you know what it's like to hire 32 people in four to five weeks? I mentioned the five strength coaches. Darl Bauer has been with me for eight years. He does a heck of a job, and he hired four more. Those guys are guys that he is familiar with. (The players) are with our strength and conditioning crew more than they're with the assistant coaches and that's critical. To have hired four people for recruiting and recruiting only. We're going to add a fifth.
"They aren't these guys who recruit, but they really want to coach. We're not doing that. I hired five people in operations, and then we hired eight guys on offense and nine guys on defense. I have one more to hire on offense and that should come out in the next couple of days. Other than that, I feel great about all the people we've hired.
"They all have the vision as me and the same structure as me as far as what their job is. This isn't a hurry and win now deal. We're going to try and win every game that we play, no question. This is as competitive of a coaching staff that I have ever been around. It's about building it the right way."
On his assistant coaches' plans
"If I could I would put assistant coach by all their names until we had everyone hired. Shannon Dawson is going to coach tight ends because me and him have ran this same offense. We all speak the same language. When you start adding tight ends, it changes a lot of things. Shannon Dawson has been a coordinator at a bunch of different levels. He coached at Southern Miss, Kentucky, and Stephen F. Austin. He knows how that works.
"We'll be hiring a running back coach. On defense, Zac Etheridge will be coaching the corners. What's interesting about Zac Etheridge, Blake Gideon and Doug Belk is that they are all three in the secondary. They all were team captains, which I think was pretty interesting. Blake Gideon was a captain at Texas, Zac Etheridge was a team captain at Auburn and Doug Belk was a team captain as a quarterback at Carson-Newman.
"Doug Belk is the co-coordinator, and he's going to coach the safeties. Blake Gideon is going to coach the nickels because he's the special teams coordinator. Those are all secondary defensive team captain kind of guys – smart, young, and great recruiters – and I'm excited to have them."
On being with assistant coaches on "Mob Mondays"
"There's a lot of testosterone. Guys with big egos who like to talk, that's what recruiting is all about. Confident guys. It's a young, energetic group. I think I might be the oldest one of the group, but they're younger guys who genuinely like people, like football and like recruiting. They love UH and the city as well. That was fun to be a part of."
On attending the Houston sports awards
"Patti Smith cornered me and got me to be a part of it. I know D'Eriq (King)'s up for college player of the year. Coach (Kelvin) Sampson's up for the basketball coach of the year award. Anytime I can support those guys. I know (VP for Intercollege Athletics) Chris Pezman is going. I know (Senior Associate Athletics Director for Strategic Communications & Digital Media) David Bassity is going as well. Anytime I can support UH in a setting like that, I'm going to do it. We'll know a lot of people, and I'll try to represent UH as best as I can."
On D'Eriq King's health
"He looks good to me. I haven't seen him throw a ball, but he's going through all of the offseason stuff. He's kind of cleared but he's not cleared. There's some change-of-direction stuff he needs to be careful about. He's been in the weight room. He's an outstanding leader, we've seen him do conditioning in the indoor facility and you can tell he's the guy that cultivates everybody. As far as our schedule, the next five weeks will be all offseason. We can do football stuff, we can incorporate two hours a week and video or we can practice technique. I'd like to start spring football a little earlier, but we just not going to be prepared for it. We'll go five weeks and get them in good as shape as we can. We'll start after spring break and do spring football for five weeks."
On if he needs D'Eriq King to play during spring ball
"I'll give him as much opportunity to practice as he needs. It's a new system, but a lot of it will make sense to him. He did at Manvel and what they've done here will make sense, but there's a whole bunch of things that need to happen first. Yesterday was the first time we communicated about football. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so the more he can handle, the better."
On how happy he is that he can get back to coaching
"I've had Facebook stuff, booster club stuff, now I've got to deal with you guys. I'd rather be in a room upstairs watching video and coming up with game plans. I'm excited about it. I'm a ball coach. We're starting to get into cut-ups and developing our stuff. This is the first time we've introduced our system in eight years. There was a change from Texas Tech to Houston, Houston to Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State to West Virginia. Every time there's a change, we get to recalibrate it. We're recalibrating stuff and coming up with some better ways to do things. At the end of the day, that's what I prefer to do."
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2018 • Houston
HEAD COACH DANA HOLGORSEN
On adding four new signees today and the progress made on building the team
"In five weeks, we've hired 32 people in our building. I've personally been in 60 high schools in Houston and New Orleans. I've been at six basketball games over here, which is incredibly important, because it's all about building relationships with former players, current players, obviously high school coaches. I've spent a lot of time getting to know those guys. I've also been to tons of booster club events.
"The four kids we signed today are a small part of what we've done over the last five weeks and I'm happy to have those guys. We've had two recruiting weekends. The first one was to bring in some of the guys who signed in December and we feel good about them. We signed three in the mid-year and had two that enrolled at the mid-year who were part of the December signing class. Those are the five guys who are current players and we're coaching them hard.
"Yesterday was the first time we coached, which was nice. Monday was the first time we watched video and that was nice too. This morning we added four more. We're currently at 16 and only get 20, due to what they did in August (with five transfers counting forward). We have four more to get. We need defensive players and offensive linemen. The numbers are skewed offensively, so we'll fix that, and we're going to bring in the best four we can moving forward.
"I know this is a National Signing Day event, but it's not in my mind. It's another day on the job. Recruiting is a year-round job, and so is getting our players right and our team right. This is just another day."
On being straight forward and transparent with recruits
"There isn't anything fake about what you're looking at. I take pride with that. It was that way for eight-straight years at my previous institution and I've been like that for forever. Hopefully, eight years from now we'll be talking about another good class of guys we signed.
"I don't know what's in store and I don't think anyone does. I've had good conversations with those guys and their families and felt really good about them when they left. I thought they would all sign and they did. That's not how it always works, but that's how it's supposed to work."
On Atlias Bell being first family member attending college
"When you recruit as many guys as we have to sign a class, you're going to run across stuff like that. With Atlias, that's a unique situation. He's a Hurricane Katrina kid which we've all been familiar with Katrina kids because they all come to Houston. We've recruited a lot and I've recruited a lot that came to West Virginia that were Katrina kids that came from Houston. Guys that are on our team that are Katrina kids that came to Houston. This guy went to Iowa and I wanted to ask him why, but it just didn't feel like it was my business. I grew up in Iowa and I'd rather be in Houston than Iowa. I mean who wouldn't? I guess him and his family. I know a lot of his family went back to New Orleans, so that says Iowa next to his name, but Louisiana is a focus. He's Louisiana and has an interesting story. He's a big kid and we're excited to have him."
On setting a blue print through recruiting
"It's the number one focus. I know a lot of people say that, but we were in high schools here every day. I personally was probably in about 50 of them. Talked to the Region V Texas High School Coaches Association in the Houston area. I went there and shook a lot of hands last Saturday but didn't get to spend nearly as much time there with them as I wanted to. Just by actively recruiting their players every day, period.
"I've been in a lot of the high schools, went down and sat with the coaches and talked with them and rekindled a lot of the relationships I've had with them. I've known a lot of these guys from when I started recruiting here in 2000, 18 years ago. Actually, there's a very small part of 1999 that I was in some of these schools. So, it's been a long time and I talked to a lot of the ones that I knew. Since I've kind of been removed for eight years, there's a lot of younger coaches that I really didn't know prior to this past week.
"Our practices will be open to those guys, because we want as many high school players and coaches to come watch us and see what kind of coaches we are and our style of play. By actively recruiting those guys you, don't have to go really far and that's going to be a huge focus for us. I think Louisiana is a good neighbor, I think there's a lot of Louisiana kids that come to Houston and see family. That just makes sense, as far as recruiting that."
On Terrell "Smoke" Brown
"I signed two offensive guys and two defensive guys. Cam'ron Johnson was the offensive tackle from Shadow Creek, which is an important high school for us. Manvel has been very important to this program, with obviously D'Eriq King and the success that they've had. That's an extension of that area, Pearland, Dawson, Manvel, and now Shadow Creek area is crazy. I was in that high school, I think it was our first stop. I went to North Shore, I went to Shadow Creek, I went to Fort Bend, Marshall and Episcopal, so those first four were important. I got a lot of UH ties there.
"The first year they play varsity they go 15-1 and lose in the state championship. We got two kids out of there. Ronald Nunnery is another one that is a teammate of his. Those guys are important. Smoke is a heck of a player and highly recruited at a high school that is going to have a bunch of guys every year. I asked him what he thought of Houston and he said, 'I love Houston,' so I said come out and visit and he said 'ok.'
"I told him not to be surprised when he doesn't want to leave, and he said he didn't want to. He's going to be a good player and we needed a young back like that. We're very senior heavy at running back and that's the future. I do want to say, everybody that we've signed, there's eight transfers and nine high school guys and counting walk-ons, are all pretty important to us. That sounds like panic as far as we have to get guys in here to fill a void on the defensive line.
"We're going from a three-down front to a four-down front and the number of scholarships are going up. We needed to do that. We're not interested in doing what I did last year at the place I was at. Those two graduate transfers were really good players. Jerbril Robinson and Kenny Bigelow Jr. were USC players that came in and started for us because we were making a championship run. This is about building the program. We signed three of them that are three-for-three, and a couple others that are three-for-two, which means we have the ability to be able to build our program for not only the next coming years, but for the future as well."
On importance of recruits for rebuilding
"It's the number one thing on offense. We're looking for a transfer quarterback because you have to keep getting those guys in on scholarship. Other than that, the offensive line was a huge priority because the numbers aren't nearly what they need to be. That's the most important thing to recruit, offensively, other than a quarterback. Getting these four guys – they're big, they're good players, we evaluated them, we brought them in, and we liked them. Hopefully we don't talk about them for about two years.
"We have three guys on our starting offensive line right now, which could potentially change. Three of them didn't redshirt and I've never heard of that. That's the most insane thing I've ever heard. Upwards of 50 percent of the roster haven't redshirted. That's unheard of. If you want to develop people the right way, you redshirt them and let them develop. That's why we have five full-time football strength coaches that are going to help us in developing guys, and these four guys are going to be important.
"I'd like to even be able to add another one, whether it's a high schooler or a play right-a-way guy. I'm not interested in one-for-one players. That's not where this program is at right now."
On how the coaching staff came together
"Do you know what it's like to hire 32 people in four to five weeks? I mentioned the five strength coaches. Darl Bauer has been with me for eight years. He does a heck of a job, and he hired four more. Those guys are guys that he is familiar with. (The players) are with our strength and conditioning crew more than they're with the assistant coaches and that's critical. To have hired four people for recruiting and recruiting only. We're going to add a fifth.
"They aren't these guys who recruit, but they really want to coach. We're not doing that. I hired five people in operations, and then we hired eight guys on offense and nine guys on defense. I have one more to hire on offense and that should come out in the next couple of days. Other than that, I feel great about all the people we've hired.
"They all have the vision as me and the same structure as me as far as what their job is. This isn't a hurry and win now deal. We're going to try and win every game that we play, no question. This is as competitive of a coaching staff that I have ever been around. It's about building it the right way."
On his assistant coaches' plans
"If I could I would put assistant coach by all their names until we had everyone hired. Shannon Dawson is going to coach tight ends because me and him have ran this same offense. We all speak the same language. When you start adding tight ends, it changes a lot of things. Shannon Dawson has been a coordinator at a bunch of different levels. He coached at Southern Miss, Kentucky, and Stephen F. Austin. He knows how that works.
"We'll be hiring a running back coach. On defense, Zac Etheridge will be coaching the corners. What's interesting about Zac Etheridge, Blake Gideon and Doug Belk is that they are all three in the secondary. They all were team captains, which I think was pretty interesting. Blake Gideon was a captain at Texas, Zac Etheridge was a team captain at Auburn and Doug Belk was a team captain as a quarterback at Carson-Newman.
"Doug Belk is the co-coordinator, and he's going to coach the safeties. Blake Gideon is going to coach the nickels because he's the special teams coordinator. Those are all secondary defensive team captain kind of guys – smart, young, and great recruiters – and I'm excited to have them."
On being with assistant coaches on "Mob Mondays"
"There's a lot of testosterone. Guys with big egos who like to talk, that's what recruiting is all about. Confident guys. It's a young, energetic group. I think I might be the oldest one of the group, but they're younger guys who genuinely like people, like football and like recruiting. They love UH and the city as well. That was fun to be a part of."
On attending the Houston sports awards
"Patti Smith cornered me and got me to be a part of it. I know D'Eriq (King)'s up for college player of the year. Coach (Kelvin) Sampson's up for the basketball coach of the year award. Anytime I can support those guys. I know (VP for Intercollege Athletics) Chris Pezman is going. I know (Senior Associate Athletics Director for Strategic Communications & Digital Media) David Bassity is going as well. Anytime I can support UH in a setting like that, I'm going to do it. We'll know a lot of people, and I'll try to represent UH as best as I can."
On D'Eriq King's health
"He looks good to me. I haven't seen him throw a ball, but he's going through all of the offseason stuff. He's kind of cleared but he's not cleared. There's some change-of-direction stuff he needs to be careful about. He's been in the weight room. He's an outstanding leader, we've seen him do conditioning in the indoor facility and you can tell he's the guy that cultivates everybody. As far as our schedule, the next five weeks will be all offseason. We can do football stuff, we can incorporate two hours a week and video or we can practice technique. I'd like to start spring football a little earlier, but we just not going to be prepared for it. We'll go five weeks and get them in good as shape as we can. We'll start after spring break and do spring football for five weeks."
On if he needs D'Eriq King to play during spring ball
"I'll give him as much opportunity to practice as he needs. It's a new system, but a lot of it will make sense to him. He did at Manvel and what they've done here will make sense, but there's a whole bunch of things that need to happen first. Yesterday was the first time we communicated about football. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so the more he can handle, the better."
On how happy he is that he can get back to coaching
"I've had Facebook stuff, booster club stuff, now I've got to deal with you guys. I'd rather be in a room upstairs watching video and coming up with game plans. I'm excited about it. I'm a ball coach. We're starting to get into cut-ups and developing our stuff. This is the first time we've introduced our system in eight years. There was a change from Texas Tech to Houston, Houston to Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State to West Virginia. Every time there's a change, we get to recalibrate it. We're recalibrating stuff and coming up with some better ways to do things. At the end of the day, that's what I prefer to do."
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