March 29, 2005
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Notre Dame football team took to the field on Tuesday afternoon under bright blue skies and temperatures in the mid-60’s to conduct their first spring practice under new head coach Charlie Weis. The Fighting Irish worked out for two hours before several of the players, along with Coach Weis met members of the media to give their impressions of day one. Here are some thoughts from Coach Weis and sophomore quarterback Brady Quinn on how the practice session went.
Charlie Weis – Head Coach
His impressions of the first practice …
“I thought we started out slow. I think the effort level was very good but I think that my expectations for execution early on are very high. So that’s why one of the first things we worked on were called starts because I just wanted the guys to get in a habit of coming in and out of the huddle and have a play called in the huddle with the new language and those types of things. It took the first group three or four times to run the first play because on the first one, one guy went the wrong way and on the next one I just didn’t think the effort was good enough. If you let those little things go by right from the beginning without trying to correct them you are sending the wrong message and I think that is what we tried to do. But actually there were a lot of favorable things that I saw on both offense and defense.”
On what the coaching staff needs to work on during spring practice …
“The biggest thing that we are going to have to do here in this training session during spring ball is to develop our front-line guys and try to find some more guys from the back-ups that can step up and be dependable players. I would say the biggest problem that I had with today was not seeing enough people that I don’t know enough about make a statement for themselves. If I’m going to have this open-door policy where everyone gets a fair chance and fair opportunity to make a name for themselves you’d like some guys to stand out and do some things.”
On the possibility of being frustrated with not having the talent at Notre Dame that he had with the New England Patriots …
“I was happy to be out on the field. I’m a football coach and not an administrator. For the last several months, administration has been as much of the job as football. You have to be able to wear those multiple hats and I understand the balance of that but the bottom line is that I’m a football coach. So I would say that there was zero frustration other than the fact that you want to take this group of guys and work hard and don’t place any blame on anyone and get everyone on the same page. I’m actually very encouraged with the first step. Would I like it better? Sure. If I wouldn’t like it better I’d be kidding myself. I was just happy to be coaching football again.”
Brady Quinn – Sophomore – Quarterback
His initial impressions of the first day …
“It’s different because coming in as a freshman you don’t know exactly what is going on but the older guys kind of lead you around because they’ve been through it. But today it was more or less Coach Weis and the other coaches leading everyone around. We were just kind of following their lead.”
On if Coach Weis’ hard-nosed attitude is good for the team …
“Yeah definitely. That’s the type of attitude where things aren’t good enough and you do it over and over again until you get it to where he wants it. That’s exactly what this team needs. He obviously knows how to get as close to perfection as you can get. He knows how to get those results because he’s been there and done that and he knows where we need to be.”
On having Coach Weis work so closely with him …
“That’s the type of coach that you come here for. I’ve been so fortunate to kind of be under him and be tutored under him.”
On learning the new playbook …
“It hasn’t been too bad. Obviously being through a system where there are some similarities, being in a college system that is somewhat taken from a pro system allows you to pick up on a lot of things quicker. I think the terminology has been easier to understand and learn. Looking back today from when I was a freshman I think it went better and I felt more confident out there as practice went on.”
–ND–