Gators tight ends/special teams coordinator Greg Nord spoke with the media for a little more than 15 minutes Wednesday afternoon and reviewed both departments:
On Jake McGee: “Well, I want him to go be able to do everything. I think as you look at our offense and see what we’ve done, there’s a couple of plays in there where Jake had a chance on some of the same plays that both the first game where C’yontai caught his big scores and Goolsby caught in this last game. Jake actually ran a couple of those same exact routes, but he didn’t catch the coverage that brought him the ball on those particular routes. You know if you’re a selfish guy you say ‘dang I’m not getting the ball,’ where if you’re not a selfish guy which he’s not, you realize you run the offense and when the defense dictates the ball comes to you then you catch it and go. You look at our stats there’s been the ball spread out amongst the receivers, tight ends, backs all over the place which is a good thing. ... It’s just the way it’s worked out, there hasn’t been a tremendous discrepancy in catches at this point. He’ll catch it, he’ll have a couple of them. There’s something in the game plan this week that’s going when we get it called and it’s the coverage we’re expecting y’all be talking about it next week.”
On C'yontai Lewis: “Oh, I’m not going to put a ceiling on the kid. He’s got a great chance to be a great player before he leaves here. ... C’yontai gets better every day. He’s a tough, hard-nosed competitor that loves football, which allows him to just be like a sponge. Every day, he learns something different and improves on the things that he already knew.”
On DeAndre Goolsby: “He’s a lot like C’yontai. The difference is he at least got to dress and play in a couple games last year, so at least when he went out for warmups and went in for the first snap, he at least somewhat knew what it would be like. But he continues to get better every day as well, and maybe expand his role and be able to utilize him in some different capacities as well.”
On Camrin Knight: "Very glad he’s with us. He’s got great upside. He’s just a guy that got here in the middle of the summer and he’s had, what, a month of preparation in order to go play in a multiple offense. You see the things we’re trying to do with the offense. So he’s had a lot of things to learn, yet he’s doing well doing it. He’s just had a hard time pushing some of other those guys out of their playing time. We look to continue working him and getting him involved and eventually be part of the rotation. But we’re very happy that he’s with us."
On the return game: "Well, we've just got to clean it up. You know, there's been a missed block here and a missed block there. Punting wise, to be honest, we really haven't gotten many guys to punt it to us. That kid last week was a very good punter. He directionally punted two or three of them out of bounds. First game, poor guy had a hard time hitting one returnable, hitting it 35-40 yards, it's going to be hard to get a return. Obviously we want that to be explosive. We had a chance last week with the one that he did jump out there, hit the long return after they scored, which we eventually took down there and knocked it in, so that was good. First game, the opening kickoff return of the game, we've got a chance to hit that for a home run, the guy got off a block and ran in there at the end. Obviously we want to keep improving on that every week and one of these days we'll hit that and it'll look just like we all want it to and expect it to."
On Austin Hardin: “Like any kind of golfer I’ve been around, when they go trying to change up everything and worry about changing this and changing that after every kick is usually when they get themselves in worse trouble. What’s you’ve got to do is forget the kick you just missed and do what you do right every time, rather than try to fix just went wrong the last time. What happens to you is you start overcompensating. I hit one left now I’ve got to get it right. He’s just got to do what he’s done all camp. Ever since I’ve been around him, he’s been a good, reliable kicker. He had a tough night the other night. I would have made things a lot easier for us. He’s our kicker, he’s got to go out there just like everybody on our team and improve on the things we didn’t do well and continue doing the things he does do well. Kickoff is pretty impressive. We had two kickoffs we had to go kickoff from the 20 following the two penalties and we banged them down there deep and were able to maintain relatively decent field position.”
On Johnny Townsend: “He had a shank but we still had well over a 40-yard average, so good job that way. What we gotta do, just continue working on where he’s placing the ball on his punts, make sure he’s not letting them get outside of the coverage. He had one that was a little squeaky as far as punting outside of the coverage; the one we got the clip on, if you remember that. He banged that down there 60-sometuhng yards and it was out a little more toward the field. If you’re on the hash and you kick out toward the middle of the field you start expanding your coverage over more area. That had us in a, you know, ‘giddy up boys’, you know when you gotta cover that much ground when you kick it that far. Just get a little more directional punting. I’d rather talk about the good ones that he banged inside the 10 and backed them up there where they had no return. We want every one of them to be perfect but this is football and not every one is going to be. Just gotta eliminate the ones that don’t work out as well as you want and not give up anything horrific.”
On Vernon Hargreaves as a punt returner: “Well, it doesn’t caution you if he’s well. That’s where we’re at with it. He’s well and ready to go, then that comes into play with one of the questions earlier. That guy back there makes a difference, so maybe he pops a couple of those returns if he’s well. I told him in camp. I said I’ve been around one other returner, actually two returners like you. I said one of them was Deion Branch who went on and became the MVP in the Super Bowl, and the other was Randall Cobb, who is making headlines still in the NFL. He’s an elite athlete, great player, and certainly him being nicked up and not being able to contribute, you saw on offense we stole him for a couple packages. When he got hurt, some of those packages were shelved for a little. If he’s well and ready to go and play, then we’re going to use him all over the field. He’s a great player.”
