DeKALB, Ill. -- Northern Illinois University head football coach Rod Carey spoke at NIU's pre-spring football press conference at the Jeffrey and Kimberly Yordon Center to talk about the upcoming spring football practice. Joining Carey were left tackle Max Scharping and defensive end Sutton Smith. Below are excerpts from the press conference.
 
Opening Statement
"We're going to go the first three days are in the morning, class schedules dictate that we do that right now. I think the guys kind of enjoy it. They don't enjoy getting up that early, but they enjoy having their day to themselves and that's a bit of the tradeoff. Then we will take the weekend off for Easter and we will be on more of a regular schedule Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday as the weeks go on from here."
 
"I'm looking forward to getting them on the field. Obviously it's a later start. I'm trying to get the later start going to get better weather as we get to the end of it. We like to get outside a lot. We have a great indoor that's fantastic but there is nothing like getting outside. We want to get outside as much as we can. That's really the reason for starting spring ball so late as we planned this back in last August. Guys need it too, they've done a great job of working out and running and being in shape. We got some football stuff done with the rules allowing us to get some stuff done, but getting into that mindset of more football is going to be good for them. They're anxious for it and ready. It will be fun to see them get out and get out on the field.
 
"There will be a lot of position battles that go on. Obviously, we have a lot of guys coming back, but with that they've been competing with themselves in the weight room and there will certainly be a lot of competition on the field as well."
 
On the quarterback position
"Obviously we have a ton of experience. Graham's still working his way back from his elbow, I know he's extremely frustrated with how long that's taken. He is still getting a long ways there, as far as his elbow. He is still not cleared to do all the throws yet and all the movements together. We want to see him come along. Marcus ended the year as the starter, then the other two with [Anthony] Thompson and Rodney Hall, we have seen good improvement with them this offseason. That's kind of how we will go into it."
 
What kind of tone to set for the first day tomorrow
"It'll be good. I don't know that I necessarily have to set it. I think they have already set it. They are excited to get on the field. That is the biggest thing I can tell you about this team. They're very excited to get back on the field and I think they know they have an opportunity to get better individually and collectively. They're chomping at the bit to do it."
 
On areas for improvement
"As we went through the self-scout through the entire offseason there are obviously a lot of good things defensively from, at times, pass coverage to stopping the run and rushing the passer. We'd like to see ourselves tighten up in the coverage aspect and do some things to fit our personnel a little bit better than maybe we had the opportunity to do last year. I think that'll be a big part of what we are trying to improve on from the 10,000-foot view of the defense. Individually, we have a lot of guys that have played a lot of football, so now it's not just can they be good, but be great at their specific skillset or their position. There are a lot of guys that want to get on the field. The guys who take care of themselves will be the guys that get on the field."
 
On what Jeff Knowles bring to the table
"We certainly are always going to take a look at our personnel and fit our system around our personnel within the scope of what we do. There will certainly be some different x and o's part to it, that Jeff and I believe in. A little bit more than maybe before, but that's not to say, we didn't do exactly what we should've done last year with our scheme. Now we're just taking the next step. You'll see some things, maybe not to the naked eye but maybe to us some different techniques, some different stances. Things like that."
 
On the new coaches on staff
"It's been a good thing that we started spring ball so late, because it gave the coaches time to really get in there together and mesh. I feel great about the staff and all the new ideas that come with new people and how they've fit in and brought new things. We are ready to see those on the field now. It's been a positive thing certainly overall. Certainly felt good about the staff last year, and feel even better about the one this year."
 
On fall signees being on campus during spring
"Devin Haney, Antwain Walker, C.J. Perez, and Leon Payne. For those three kids that really should be on high school, what it's allowed them to do is get adjusted college academics and college life. There's no substitute for going through that and having time to adjust. The first half of this semester, which we just got done with, is really a time academically to see how their routine works now. It's a lot different than being high school.
 
"Athletically, for those three, it has really sped up the game for them. They're much farther along in the system. All three are bigger stronger and faster. It's definitely given them an advantage going into spring ball. Now they'll have 15 practices that you normally wouldn't have if you were a freshman coming in in the summer like the rest of the class will be. It's been a huge advantage for them.
 
"C.J. Perez is a junior college, which we have done before. There is a learning curve there too. It's not quite the same learning curve. It's a little different, because junior college has a lot of elements that college has as far as schedules and things like that. C.J. certainly has reaped the benefits of that athletically, being in more of a structured system with food and diet and rest, and weight training."
 
On the running back position
"Tre Harbison, Marcus Jones, Jordan Nettles, Jordan Rowell, and Jaden Huff. With Marcus and Tre, you have two guys that have played quite a bit. Really excited about the next three too. Jaden Huff has played a lot of football, albeit at Division II. He transferred, we redshirted him last year and now he'll have this his last year. Certainly feel like he could be a contributor in multiple places on the field. The other two are young freshmen that I am excited to get on the field. It's their time, they are off the scout team now and that gets to be hard when you're going from being the star to being on the scout team. So they are excited to get back on the field. I think there is good depth there and good experience out of the top two and good depth overall."
 
On injuries
"We have some bumps and bruises but really pretty good. Trequan Smith with his Achilles, he will be limited. Quinton Wynne with his toe is going to be limited, and a few other guys like that. It's more that it's not that they've been injured, but they're on the mend from the injuries. In football, bumps and bruises happen, so I'm sure we will have some guys with more bumps and bruises as the spring goes along."
 
On Kyle Pugh
"He's probably recovered and he's had almost a full training cycle, but he'll be a guy we will keep an eye on too with reps from the standpoint of you'd like to have a full eight-week training period before you really start practice. When he was finally cut loose in full it was somewhere in the four to five week range to train full, so kind of a half a cycle."
 
On how excited he is to have Kyle Pugh back
"I don't think I'm as excited as he is I can tell you that. He hasn't played football in a while after the fourth game. Certainly, Kyle will have to step up in that leadership role and he knows that. Along with getting himself fully healed, he has a lot of skills, a lot of care, and a lot of desire. When you have that combination of things, I am expecting a big year from him."
 
On expectations for this year
"Expectations are always high around here, so I would think that this year is no different. There's a lot of excitement. We haven't set our team goals yet, what we are going to do. We know what the mission is. That is to improve right now, individually and as a team. And then as spring ball goes on and we start to learn what we can be on the field. I have a good idea of what we are off the field. They're a really bonded group together, and really that is an important process of how you build that bond. As we get a better idea on the field, we will attack that as we go. I can tell you this much, it is not going to change much in the meantime."
 
On if the pressure this year is any different than last year
"Pressure doesn't change with me. You got to understand, pressure with coaches, there is never more pressure than what I put on myself, and what our staff puts on themselves, and what our team puts on themselves. There is no outside pressure that is greater than any internal pressure.
 
On if, sometimes, pressure is a good thing
"There is an excitement to this team. I enjoy being around these guys. If they continue to work at what's right in front of them with the attitude they have and with the bond that they are forming between each other, I think that's a positive. They have a chance to be a really good football team. There's a lot of work in front of that, but they have the beginnings to that. I think that is something you look for if you have been in this business as long as I have, you can kind of sense that from a team. They have a good start."
 
On how will Sutton handle the high expectations
"I don't know how you can have numbers like that. I mean those numbers were outrageous. I hope in Sutton's mind he thinks he is going to beat all the numbers he had last year. Realistically, how do you go in and beat those numbers? He led the free world in TFLs and sacks last year. I don't know. Lurry had ridiculous numbers in 2015, and I thought in 2016 he played better, but he didn't get any of the recognition because he didn't have the numbers.
 
"Sutton's position is a little different because he's going to be at the point of attack a lot and as soon as the ball's snap, he is going to have two to four eyes on him every time. He's going to have more opportunities each and every play. With Lurry, if they just threw it over here it didn't matter. Sutton has attacked this thing the exact way you want to see someone attack it. I think he is six-nine pounds heavier than he was coming out of the season last year. I think he has set PR's in the three major lifts, squat, clean, and bench. So when you look at those little incremental things, he is attacking it the right way."
 
On the wide receiver position
"Good experience coming back there. Christian [Blake] and [Chad] Beebe played really good as seniors. I know Beebe fought the injury bug but when he was in there he played really well. I thought Christian had his best year of football here last year. You're obviously going to need the guys like D.J. [Brown] and [Jauan] Wesley, the guys that have played along with Spencer [Tears] to step up. You want seniors to play like seniors, that's the number one thing.
 
"Guys behind them that I'm really excited about is really a young group. Leon [Payne] we already talked about will have an advantage over the other freshmen coming in. Guys like Dennis Robinson, Cole Tucker, and Jordan Robinson all redshirted last year and certainly have a big time opportunity to contribute a lot. One because of their skill set, and two because they are a year older faster, bigger and stronger."
 
On replacing Shane Wimann
"That one is a little different. I'm just going to be honest with you there. He is in the discussion of the best tight end that has ever played here, at least from what I could tell going back to coach Novak's years. He's in the discussion. You're not going to replace Shane by Mitch [Brinkman] or [Daniel] Crawford; you're going to do it with both of them. Ty Harmston is going to have a role in there too. I think we have really good depth there with those three tight ends. We took and moved Corey Lersch from linebacker over there and excited to see what he can do at that tight end position and developing.
 
"Mitch is one of those guys coming off a bit of an offseason surgery. He's on the mend so he will be a little bit restricted here at times in the spring.  We might not get a full glimpse of him here at spring. Crawford and Harmston have had really nice offseasons. Ty being a year and a half out from that bad injury, I think now it isn't about fighting the injury, now it's getting back full speed, and I think he has been there during the entire training cycle."
 
On Marcus Childers starting at quarterback by the end of the season
"I don't see that we have as open of a quarterback competition as we did last year. The year before we had Drew but he was hurt going into it. That is a little more settled and it is a little easier and that can be an advantage because you aren't rotating guys in with the ones, so you can group together all 11 of them. Minus the competition battles and people beating each other out, but you have a chance of all of them working together."
 
On the Huskie Bowl
"The Huskie Bowl will depend on health. We will try to do it. I like the guys to be able to draft themselves. I like them to have a spirited competition and have that competitive format that we've done in some years. Now, that will depend on health. A few years in there in I know we switched offense against defense because of health reasons and guys being out and things like that. We will keep an eye on that but as it stands today, we want to do the nine series like overtime starting from the minus 25 and letting them play and have fun and draft each other. It is always a good steak dinner compared to beans and weenies on the line so that is a good thing."
 
On the non-conference schedule
"I have to make sure I mention this; we took that Florida State game because of the budget situation we are in with the state. We saw the opportunity as a program to step up and make a difference and save jobs to be honest with you. This is not a normal non-conference schedule that you'd see because of that, and we are happy to do that. Everybody is pulling their weight; we aren't just saving jobs in the athletic department but all across campus as well. I know everybody in the entire university is dealing with this, so we felt that was our part.
 
"Now with that being said could we use that? Yes, absolutely. Are our guys flinching? Absolutely not. We are excited about the non-conference and really the only thing we have talked about is Iowa, because that is the first one. I know I am going to get these questions in the offseason. The guys see it and know it. It is March; they're excited about it. There's no question we're excited about it. We won't flinch on that. Is it the way I want to schedule every year? No, probably not but sometimes there are bigger things, and the guys are really excited about it."
 
On confidence in the secondary
"I have a lot of confidence in this group. I know Shawun [Lurry] and Mycial [Allen] left, but Jalen played quite a bit and TQ [Trequan Smith]got hurt in the Boston College game but he was a starter the entire year before. Trayshon Foster played a lot and I feel like we have a lot of depth there with experience. I think that they have an opportunity because of time spent on the field they have, individually and as a group, I think they can be better than last year's group. That's one thing I'm looking for and I think they are accepting that challenge and you add a guy like Tifonte Hunt who played in the Bowl Game but was ineligible through the bowl and now it is his senior year so he is hungry too."
 
Sutton Smith, LB
 
On gaining weight during the offseason while maintaining his speed
"I'm at a very good point in this process. I'm roughly around 230 and I feel even more explosive than what I was and coaches have seen that and told me that.  I mean, I'm still beating everybody, not everybody, there are some fast guys on our team, but I'm still beating a lot of people that I was beating before so I don't think I've gotten any slower. I think I've gotten more explosive and faster."
 
On the difficulties of his off season work
"Yeah, because you have to get used to the weight, when I put on seven pounds really quick it was kind of different, because you felt a little more sluggish, but you'll get used to it and only get faster. My body fat hasn't even gone up a full percentage and I've gained mostly muscle.  So it's just a little different to get used to but you get used to it really quick, it's not very noticeable."
 
On how to continue his level of play and how he can up it
"Really, like I say all the time, the film room. I have to go back to the technique with some of the double and triple teams. How they do chip blocks? How they do full slide with chip? Stuff like that. You got to prepare for it, and that's why going up with this cat right next (Max Scharping) to me is so good because he's one of the best in the country hands down. He gives me a big run for my money and he wins a lot. It's a big back and forth battle but you know going hard every day. The effort there has to be it, because if you don't have a lot of effort going up against double teams and stuff like that, you're not going to get very much you're going to quit after the second guy comes and that's not my type of play.  You just have to keep looking at what they're doing and how they are doing it and move past it."
 
On the upcoming schedule and opponents for next year
"For me, playing against these guys I see them as equal.  I think were just as good as any team out there.  For us to go against them it's a challenge, but it's going to be the right challenge and the right challenge for us because we have a great team. I think that were going to give them everything we got and they're going to have to give everything they got against us.  Same with Nebraska from last year, so we got this year to look forward too.  We're going to go out relentless, smart, tough, you know it's going to be a ball game.  I don't think anybody in this country thinks otherwise, if they do, then get ready to watch."
 
On how good this team can be
"Very. Very. I agree, (with Max Scharping).  We want to prove that we are one of the best teams in the country and there is no ceiling.  We got to do what we got to do.  Work hard and everything will fall into place like it should.
 
Max Scharping, LT
On the expectations and pressures of this season compared to previous seasons
"I don't think the pressure is very high.  We set a pressure on ourselves because we expect excellence here.  We don't pay really much attention to outside stuff, its mostly internal.  Obviously we have a lot of guys coming back, both offensively and defensively so we expect to be the top team in the MAC just because that's how it is here.  We put that pressure on ourselves, but other than that, its full go."
 
On the strengths of the offense
"We always try to have a good running game.  We have all of our offensive line coming back so that should help, but also we have a lot of good receivers coming back, we have good running backs coming back.  Marcus Jones, Spencer Tears, Jauan Wesley, DJ Brown, we got a lot of guys coming back at every position, so the full offense should be great to watch."
 
On what he learned last year
"Leadership was one of the biggest ones, because I was put into a bigger leadership role last year than I had even thought I might get.  I was out there as a captain sometimes, and I was not expecting that at all.  How to bring the whole offense together, how to bring the whole team together just trying to get the whole team working towards one goal.  I think that worked well at certain points of the year, but I still have to get a lot better."
 
On what it is about Sutton Smith that makes him so hard to contain
"There's really two things.  One, he's really fast, so it's really hard to get your hands on him, and secondly he's just relentless.  If you get your hands on him by some luck, then he's not going to stop.  And I think that's what really sets him apart from other guys.  I've played against guys who just stop once I have them blocked at first, and you never see Sutton do that."
 
On how good this team can be and what the ceiling is
"I don't think there is one, because you see our opponents, you see what we have against us.  And we want to prove to ourselves that were one of the best teams in the country.  So, I mean, I really don't think there is one."
 
-NIU-