Central Michigan University Athletics
Ask Coach Kelly: Segment Three
9/20/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Head coach Brian Kelly will answer fans' questions throughout the season right here at cmuchippewas.com. Submit your questions for the coach, then check back to read his thoughts each week.
How do you and your staff balance recruiting during the season with preparing your team to play?
Rob
DeWitt, Michigan
Coach Kelly: Wednesday night is our call night. We’ll start making calls to recruits beginning at 9 p.m. on Wednesday nights. High school kids have such different schedules now, it seems like the only time you can reach them is later at night, so we’ll make our calls between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. And, we are allowed seven contact days to go out and evaluate prospects, which we typically will use during our bye week.
There was a lot of talk early in the year about the team’s new uniforms. Now that you’ve played three games, how do the players like them and are they what you thought they would be?
Sam
Mount Pleasant, Michigan
Coach Kelly: They are exactly what we thought they would be. Our players are very comfortable in them, and, quite honestly, it’s part marketing as well. We’re trying to find unique ways to market our football team and program, and the uniform is one way to do that.
What went into the decision to use Bazuin, Kress, etc. in the goalline package?
Jerry
Ithaca, Michigan
Coach Kelly: We wanted to be more physical in short yardage situations. I thought we might be starting to be too much finesse and not physical enough. We are going to continue to use that package and develop it as the season progresses.
It seems that it has been your philosophy to redshirt the incoming freshmen, however, this year there have been more true freshmen to play. Has their performance changed your outlook on future freshmen receiving an opportunity to play?
Harry
Mount Pleasant, Michigan
Coach Kelly: Only recently has the rule changed to allow us to bring the incoming freshmen on campus during the summer to get them into classes and accustomed to college. We use the summer now as an evaluation period and it gives kids an opportunity to earn a spot. Without that, it would be very difficult for a kid to come to camp and play right away, so the rule change has helped from that standpoint. And, we hope that this is the last time we have to add depth to a position by playing true freshmen. We won’t have to do that in the future.
During the Akron game it seemed that Bazuin was getting held the whole game and yet there were no penalties for holding. As a coach how do you react to this during the game and after to try to make sure your players have a fair shot while on the field?
Michael
Sterling Heights, Michigan
Coach Kelly: It’s difficult to do much during the game, because no matter what you say, the officials usually aren’t going to listen to you. We do have an evaluation tool in place where we can file a report with the head of officials, so there is a reporting mechanism in place. After we file that report, we hope that our concerns are seen and addressed.
