Q. Last year the offense had a lot of experience, this year with not as much experience how is your approach to spring different?

    A. "I don’t know if it’s going to be much different. Last spring we were concerned with the fundamentals and we were still going to be working on blocking and taking care of the football and so on and so forth. I do think you have to take a little more time maybe in these early stages of the fundamentals and with your gameplan. There might not be as many things that we’re going to teach as far as plays go and x’s and o’s though this spring with such a veteran group.”

Q. Tom Zetts has always been a leader, but now that he’s a senior do you sense something different about him?

    A. “We were talking about it as a staff just the other day. Just watching him now as a senior is amazing to see how he’s developed, even how he’s improved, strength and running. Just the little things now that he does and says to his teammates that you obviously wouldn’t as a freshman and now he’s doing all those things. I see a big jump. Sometimes in a guy like him you don’t know how much more he can improve because he was a good player coming in. It’s exciting to watch him continue to improve and the strides that he has made now that he is a senior.”

Q. Without the depth at tailback, are you a little nervous this spring because you don’t have that luxury?

    A. “I’m excited to see what some of these young guys can do. You felt fortunate that you had the guys that we had back there last year. We were blessed to have all those guys. We had some good players back there. I’m excited now more than anything else to see what some of the new guys can do.”

Q. If you looked at it now who would be your top back going into spring?

    A. “We have Jabari Scott back who is a player we redshirted last season. Brandon Nicholson is a guy who played some for us, he scored a touchdown against Slippery Rock early last season so he’s a guy that’s back. Jordan Edwards is a young freshman that we are working with back there as well. We have a couple other guys that we don’t know much about that we’ll see back there. Those would be the first three right now.”

Q. Is there one thing in particular you want to have figured out by the end of spring ball?

    A. “Make sure we get the quarterback-center exchange because we have a new center. That would be the first thing to make sure we can do. Just that we are fundamentally sound. That we are tough and aggressive. The one thing I think about this young group is you don’t know much about them and haven’t seen them but they are a pretty physical tough group of guys. When you watch them in the weight room and you get on them a little bit in practice and you see them giving effort and you think they can give a little more and you get on them and they give it to you. It’s an exciting group in that aspect of it. I really want to see how we compete as a group.”

Q. Going back to the running backs, what does each one of them bring to the table?

    A. "All those guys right now to me are very similar. They don’t have a bunch of experience. Jabari and Brandon have played a little bit. Jabari did in his first year and Brandon has played in some games last year. All those guys run the ball well and catch the ball pretty well. They can block. The one thing is how they fit into the scheme, pass protections and all the things that we continue to work on. Right now, I might be able to answer that question better after the spring what some of those guys bring to the table. It might be a little different.”

Q. With a lack of experience at that position, does that change the philosophy of the offense at all?

    A. “I think we always are going to try to do what we feel our guys can do well. You’re obviously going to take advantage of what Tom Zetts does well. He’s played a lot of football for you and you are going to try to take advantage of what he does. We have a few guys at tight end that we feel pretty good about, a couple of wide receivers that we feel good about and some linemen are coming back so we are going to try to do what we feel that those guys are good at doing. Maybe when you think of that you can take a little bit of the heat off of a young running back group with what you do offensively. We want to see what those guys can do in the spring so they are going to have their opportunity and give them the football and see what they can do.”