Scott: I hope everybody's doing well today just finished up our final practice of the week here on our team Thursday. And tomorrow, we'll be focused Friday guys will come in tomorrow morning and have a get tested in early morning. And then we'll have meetings. We'll do our Friday Focus walkthrough out here on our practice fields, and then we'll load up and head up to Cincinnati. So you know, it's good to be back in a game week coming off of last week. And our guys are looking forward to a great challenge and great opportunity as we start conference play. So with that, I'll open it up for any questions.
Moderator: All right, we'll start with Leo Haggerty.
Leo Haggerty: Good morning, coach. Morning. Coach from all reports Luke fickle, turned down to Michigan State job, he must think he's got a heck of a program going Cincinnati. What do you see it on film?
Scott: He may have better players at Cincinnati than he would. So those other jobs, you know, he he's done an excellent job. I've admired his work, I guess I could say for four years, as I was at Clemson and, and he was at Ohio State, he has a great reputation as a as a ball coach. And then also now as a head coach and a leader. And you know, someone like myself, it's just joining the American conference in my first year as a head coach, and, and kind of getting our program going under, you know, my staff's leadership, you know, I've kind of taken some time and studied some of the coaches in our league and the ones that have been very successful. And Coach Nichols, right up there at the top. And, you know, again, back to back 11 plus win seasons, you know, last two years, and this conference is a you know, very impressive and, you know, when you turn on the video, you see that you see a program that's in year four, of a championship winning culture that, you know, does all the little things, right, they've recruited extremely well, either through guys in high school or adding quality transfer guys, and, you know, when I when I look at their team, it's a, it's it's something that I want to be sure to build our program to look like that one day coming off multiple 11 win seasons, that would definitely be a goal for myself and our program.
Nathan Bond: A quick question for you know, after you guys pause, practice last week, how many practices were you able to get after, you know, sorting out the contact tracing and how many people you were able to practice with last week on the bye week?
Scott: We had a two practices at the very end over the weekend. And we were limited in numbers with guys that were out due to contact tracing.
You know, we've been, we've been limited pretty much every single week. You know, I think another thing, just for everybody to kind of be aware is it's not just the guys that are positive that may be out, it's not just guys that are close contacts that may be out.
But you know, every day, our medical staff, you know, send a survey to our players that they have to fill out. And if they say that they have a sore throat, they say that they have a cough, if they say you know they have any stomach issues, then they're out of practice.
And so you when you start adding all of the guys that are out of practice, you know, that's where I said maybe early in the week, I made a comment that, you know, we've been out here many times, and this week, very similar many days where you're, you know, right around that 78 to 82, the number of guys that could practice a typical year you have 115 players, if you think about five guys typically out for injury, you're usually practicing with 110.
So it's kind of one of those things, it's easier to count the number of guys are standing on the sidelines, than it is to get counted guys that are on the field. If you count, you got six on the sideline, you know you got 11 on that side of the ball in the field, you're like I got 21 guys over here on this period. And so it's it's very unique.
I've never coached in the NFL, but I could just imagine talking to a lot of those coaches that are working with small and tight rosters. It's definitely a challenge and I told our staff if we ever do get back to a point of normalcy, where we can have 110 or 115 guys out here, we'll probably appreciate it a whole lot more. And, you know, with that, I got to give a special shout out to our scout team guys, you know, because really, both sides offense and defensive scout team, you know, there's probably 12 guys for 11 spots.
So these guys are going almost the entire practice. And they know they're not going to play on game day. And, you know, they get water every four plays, but you talk about ultimate sacrifice for your teammates, in a year where it's easy to opt out if you don't want to play. And if you're a scout team guy, it's really easy to opt out, you have a reason to, to choose not to be on the team and take a year off. And so I have a lot of respect for our guys on the scout team, because they're giving us a great look and going a lot more reps than they would in a typical year.
