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Sonny Dykes after first day of spring workouts

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Sonny Dykes after first day of spring workouts

Postby PonyPride » Thu Apr 08, 2021 11:09 pm

Had some camera issues Thursday, but here is what SMU head coach Sonny Dykes had to say after the Mustangs' first spring.

On first day of spring workouts:
You know, I thought it was good. Good first day, I thought our effort was good — you know, lots of mistakes, and guys kind of figuring things out. But the good thing is the freshmen and the newcomers, all those guys … now, after Day One, now they’re veterans. They’ve got to have that mentality, and we forneed some new guys to grow up and help us, and you know, just get ready to play. But I thought, overall, that the effort was outstanding — you know, we had 123 people out here today, and our numbers are so much better than they used to be, our depth is good.

A lot of players, defensively, are playing new positions, so there’s going to be a period of adjustment for those guys — we understand that, and respect it. There are some things we’re doing differently, but I thought the effort was outstanding, and I thought the coaches did a great job of setting the standard, in terms of … the way that we want to practice and the way that we want to compete consistently. We’ll watch the tape, make adjustments and clean it up and improve tomorrow, but I thought it was a good start.

The one (position change) that I think people will notice is Keke Burns moving over from offense to defense, and playing an outside linebacker position. That’s the kind of athlete that we’re looking for to play outside, a guy that has length and is a good athlete, and has range. It’s a new position for him. He played defense in high school, so we’ll see how he adjusts. I thought today that he did some really good things, but it’s going to be a learning curve, and we expect that. But that’s probably the one that’s going to garner the most attention, just because he’s an easy guy to notice. But we have some guys that were playing corner playing safety, and some guys that played safety playing corner, and some different things just to try to get the right guys on the field. You know, we’re looking for the best 22 players we can find to play for us, so that was probably the biggest change.

Whether he would like a No. 1 quarterback by the end of spring:
You know, we just kind of let those things happen naturally, really. The way quarterback stuff works is, you wake up one day and you come to practice, and the players really know it before the coaches. Everybody just kind of goes, “well this guy is the best guy, and we (players) have known for a month, and you (coaches) did whatever you did, but we’ve all known for a while.” That’s typically what happens. So we’ll let that play out. You know, I was very impressed with our newcomers today — you could tell they put a lot of work in. I was impressed with, really, all the guys at that position. Derek (Green), I think, made a big jump. I thought Tanner (Mordecai) and Preston (Stone) both were impressive. So it’s good to see. I think that after one day, I think that those guys are, quite frankly, a lot further along than I thought they would be. Now tomorrow will be a different set of plays, a different challenge, but … just looking at it in a broad view, I thought it was … ahead of where I thought they would be.

On whether he had any injury news:
No, I don’t think so. I thing we had a couple of guys that a couple of things, here or there, in practice, but I don’t think we had anybody significant. Obviously T.J. (McDaniel) and Reggie (Roberson) are the two guys that everybody’s aware of. They’re both progressing nicely, and I anticipate having both of them this fall. Hopefully when we come back in … July, really, hopefully both of those guys will be fully released and ready to go, and have a chnce to get back on the field and do what they do.

On whether team will get vaccinated:
Yeah … so we’ve been encouraging guys, really from the very beginning, to try to sign up at different places. I think it’s like anything else: we’re not going to tell guys what to do, but at the same time, the more players that can get vaccinated, the more quickly things can return to somewhat normal. We’re kind of looking at some of the protocols that Major League Baseball has. We’re still not using our locker room. We’re still doing everything we can to make sure that we don’t spread out during meetings, (we’re) wearing masks … the whole thing. So our guys are … certainly, it’s not back to normal, but it’s … we’ve had a number of players that have been vaccinated — I can’t tell you the exact number, (but) I think it’s in the 20s. I know that SMU is getting some doses, or has gotten some vaccinations, and I think our players are going through that process, just like the regular students are, to get signed up. So we’ll see. I think the quicker we can get a large number vaccinated, then we can have a return back to our locker room, hopefully. I don’t anticipate that happening until, at the earliest, in June, but we’re hoping that at that point, maybe that can happen and we can continue to progress. But we’re certainly going to do so very slow and cautiously, with our players’ best interests in mind, for sure.

On the loss of former offensive line coach Jamal Powell:
I just was heartbroken. I knew Jamal had been sick, and you know, the last year has been hard — we haven’t had an opportunity to see him as much as we’ve wanted to because of Covid, and his health wasn’t very good, and the last thing any of us wanted to do was get him sick. So that part’s a little bit heartbreaking: you know, we just didn’t get to spend as much time with him as we would have liked to. Jamal is like part of the family, part of our family. His family is an extension of ours. Rachel and his kids have handled it remarkably well, Jamal handled it remarkably well. I think it’s one of those things where you see the way that he dealt with his situation, which I think was really inspiring for me on a personal level. You know, he never complained, he never said, “why me?” He had some significant challenges, and he knew it, he dealt with them the best he could, and he was an incredible example, I’m sure, until the very end, just like he had been the entire time I knew him. Just an infectious personality, just a really special guy — very unique, very humble, kind … he’s certainly going to be missed.
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Re: Sonny Dykes after first day of spring workouts

Postby Ikus » Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:58 am

Hope Burns is as effective switching from offense to defense as Courtland Sutton was going the other way
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