COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Football training camp took a short break on Tuesday morning as the Terps held their annual media day at Gossett Football Team House.
Maryland players and coaches spent the morning posing for team photos and meeting with members of the media to discuss the upcoming season. Following the morning photo session, head coach DJ Durkin held a press conference with reporters, followed by media availability with the players and assistant coaches.
Quotes from Coach Durkin's press conference are below.
Head Coach DJ Durkin
Opening Statement
“I appreciate everyone coming out and spending some time with us. I know everyone has a busy schedule and a bunch going on. This is great for our players and us. We appreciate you and all you do for us. We just finished practices nine and 10 yesterday. We had a two-a-day yesterday. We are just doing meetings and a walk through today. We will go out and have a two-a-day tomorrow. I am very, very pleased with our guys. We have made this thing very hard. It has been a tough, physical, hard camp with one practice after another. The weather has really cooperated with us. There has been some good heat everyday, the sun has been out. That has been great. We have been practicing right in the middle of the afternoon intentionally to get out there and make it a little harder. We are going to be playing games in some of that, obviously. It has gone well. We have been able to stay healthy for the most part. Our guys, like I said, are working really hard and learning our schemes and buying into what we are doing. We have a great group of freshman that have come in and already have shown up at practice.
"The way we did practice early on was that we had split squad. So we had two different groups practicing at different times throughout the day for the first couple days of camp. And now when we are all out there together, we are still breaking up the reps on two different fields. We are just trying to get as many reps as we can with as many guys as we can. We want to give everyone an opportunity to show what they can do and earn a spot. It is great for us as coaches to evaluate that many guys. We will continue with this schedule then back off a little bit and begin to revaluate and see where we are as we get two weeks from game time.”
On the health of Caleb Rowe and Taivon Jacobs:
“Both guys are working really hard. Both are ahead of schedule. Those guys will be back soon. They are doing a really good job and are very conscientious guys. They work hard at rehab and do everything that is asked of them. They continue to be good teammates and leaders even being out of practice.”
On the quarterback competition:
“The number one thing is really the guy that can lead the team and lead the offense the best. There is a lot that goes into that but it is a lot more than just throwing. The decision-making is really critical. We talk a bunch about protecting the football and having great ball security. That is the guy that has the ball in his hands every snap. He has to be a great decision maker and protect that football for our team and us. It has been a really good competition for that spot. We will start pairing it down after we have another scrimmage. Every guy has different strengths in terms of what his abilities are talent-wise. We can design our offense based on whatever that is. It is going to be the guy that can make the best decisions and lead the team the best.”
On timeline for determining starting quarterback:
“I do think it is important and it is good for the guys to know what we are doing moving forward in the season. I don't have any certain day or target or amount of time set. It is once we are comfortable that someone has clearly emerged as that guy. A critical component of our program is allowing guys to show what they can do in practice. There is nothing worse for me than being on a team where a guy feels like no matter what they do in practice the coach already has a guy in mind for the starting position. For me, you lose something with your team. We are clearly the opposite of that. We are going to compete at every spot including quarterback.”
On the standout freshman:
“Really positive. I could go through a long list of names. The DeMatha guys are all big time. We got what we thought we were getting. They have done extremely well all throughout camp. Those guys will contribute and help us play. They all have very bright futures here. We brought in a significant number of defensive backs this year and those guys are going to help us too. They have all the ability and tools to do it; they just have to learn the schemes. You are going to see freshmen and young guys out there for us. If nothing else, on special teams to start, and then as we bring them along they will help us with the scheme. They are competitive, they play hard, they are coachable. They are the kind of guys you want on your roster. As we said going into it, we felt really good about the class and ten practices in, we feel even better about the class.”
On bringing in alumni:
“It is so critical in college football that you embrace the tradition and those that have come before you. I cannot say that enough. We will continue to reach out to our guys and build it up and bring in guys.”
On the defense:
“Our defense is improving every day. I won't draw comparisons or parallels to last year. I know since we have been here, since day one, we have made great improvements. I think we have a good group of guys that are talented and they need a plan and some direction and that's what we are providing for them. They are really buying into what we are doing. We had a scrimmage yesterday and I thought that the defense played pretty well. There has been good back and forth with our team on offense and defense. You can tell our guys are feeling comfortable with what they are doing and they are playing that way. We just noticed the other day while watching film that when you go back to spring time, this looks a heck of a lot different in a positive way. We expect to play good defense.”
On senior OL Michael Dunn:
“He is consistent. He is a hard worker. He finishes plays. He is one of those guys that will play to the end of the whistle not to the whistle. He has a tremendous training camp. We have challenged him to take on a leadership role and he has embraced that. The guy just comes to work everyday. When you watch tape on him you can't tell if it is the beginning or the end of practice.”
On preparing for the different defenses the team will face:
“The way our practices are designed, we are taking time everyday to prepare for those types of offenses. [Offensive Coordinator] Walt [Bell] does a great job with us. In college football nowadays, I've been in so many different conferences now, you better be able to defend up-tempo teams. Being an up-tempo team, we have probably seen this throughout the country, some teams are up-tempo no matter what and their defense gets sacrificed because of that. That is not going to be our style. We are going to be able to mix up or tempos.”
On the success of the change in culture within the program:
“It really ultimately boils down to buy-in or leadership of your upperclassmen. You have a bunch of guys who have been doing things a certain way for a long time and that's where you are going to get the most push back, usually. There hasn't been any of that. The guys came together and said they are willing to change and they want to win and be successful. Usually people are more willing to change when something they were doing, they feel, was not working. All the young guys know is to follow the guys ahead of them. When you get that type of buy-in from your seniors and upperclassmen it usually speeds things up a little bit before you go through a year of butting heads. We still have a ways to go and work to do but our guys are great to coach and we are demanding in everyway. I am trying to create adversity. I am trying to make it difficult on them in everyway for no reason other than to see how we are going to respond. You are going to go through those times in the season and it's important to respond well.”
On Defensive Line Coach Mike London:
“I think Mike is really enjoying going back and coaching the defensive line. You can see it in his eyes he is enjoying going back. There is something about being a position coach where it is just you are your guys in that room. There is a sense of unity and togetherness that is hard to create anywhere else. When you do that the right way, which Mike does, his relationship with them is only second to a father-son relationship. Mike does such a phenomenal job with that. He has such a positive impact on these guys and that is why I worked so hard to bring Mike here with us.”
On best competition between players:
“There are a lot of good ones going on. Jesse [Aniebonam] and Melvin [Keihn] is a fun one to watch. Jesse is playing the best football he has played in his career. I am just so excited about him and proud of him for his motor every day. Things we have talked about him working on, he has worked on. He is just stacking good days back to back right now. The defensive backfield has been really good because you bring in a guy like JC Jackson who is very talented. Darnell Savage who is playing corner and safety, we are moving him around a little bit. Obviously Will Likely has been doing a tremendous job. Alvin Hill has been playing great football for us right now. Then you bring in a whole group of freshmen and all of the sudden Josh Woods and Denzel Conyers are lifting up their level of play because the room just got more competitive. To me, that is ultimately what you want to do. You want to keep bringing in talented players to your group and the competition makes everyone better. Tino Ellis and DJ Turner and Teldrick Morgan, all those guys are high quality players and have done really good things here throughout camp and creating great competition for those spots.”
On coaching staff:
“It is tremendous. I feel even better about it today than I did when we were announcing everyone. I can truly say that. One of the cool things about this is that if you are going to get everyone together and lay it out and say this is the vision and this is how we are going to do things, you lay that out in the beginning and then it becomes functional as you go. Different scenarios come up and they look to see how I am reacting and how I am doing things. I am going to them and there have been great conversations back and forth. The great part about our guys is that they have been awesome. They have bought into what we are doing. They are all going 100 miles per hour.”
On returning wide receivers:
“DJ Moore I think is having a great camp. He had a great spring and winter. The guy works his tail off. He is a model citizen for the team. Malcolm Culmer is having a great camp. Talk about a guy who is coachable. He will do whatever you ask. Levern Jacobs is a guy I am proud of right now. Levern is a guy that we have really had to sell and build up in terms of playing physical. He is one of our best guys on special teams right now. That whole group has great competition.”
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