2014 UTSA Roadrunners Football Larry Coker
2014 UTSA Roadrunners Football Larry Coker National Signing Day Press Conference Transcript Wednesday, Feb. 5 Opening statement … “I think it’s a real pleasure to be recruiting for UTSA. The thing I’ve seen in the few years I’ve been here is that it’s getting bigger and better. I think that’s the thing Lynn envisioned when she started this program. I think it’s happening. We are bigger and we are better. We’re recruiting better and it’s an exciting time for us. "I can’t say enough about our assistant coaching staff. They did a phenomenal job and worked extremely hard. Somebody asked ‘Did you get everyone you wanted?’ You never get everyone you want, but we have an outstanding class. A big responsibility of that goes to our assistant coaches. Football has a lot of facets our administration, academics, strength program, trainers, on and on that spent time with these kids that came in to visit. We have a lot to sell and we’re very, very proud of that. That’s exciting for us and that’s exciting for UTSA. "I think this is an outstanding class. It’s balanced with eight on offense and eight on defense. We have some big kids and some that can run. This is a step up. Again, I like this class a lot. When you see where we are now, we’ve made a lot of progress facility-wise. We’ve moved on campus. We know we’re a work in progress. Again, that’s really helped us. With our weight room, guys come in and those are huge additions for us. That’s exciting for our class. We’re taking a step up. We’ve made ourselves better with this recruiting class and we’re excited about that.” On closing the recruiting season strong … “Our coaches worked extremely hard. They really did. Sometimes it’s relationships. Our coaches built some great relationships and, when we get people on campus, they like it here. They love San Antonio and what we have on campus. They love our potential. You go down to the Alamodome and they love that. Mike Villa, our equipment manager, does a phenomenal job. We get all these uniforms and they look great. You go to the Dome and it’s a fantastic place to play. We have a lot to sell. Our professors talk to our guys about academics. Again, that’s really, really huge. When it comes right down to it I think that’s the bottom line.” On the recruiting challenges with a limited number of scholarships … “I think with a limited number of scholarships you don’t have a lot of margin for error. I don’t think we have a lot of errors in this class. Normally, you get surprises. When I was at Oklahoma State, Barry Sanders was a surprise. He was a late signing for us and he went on to win the Heisman Trophy, so you get some surprises. I think they're sometimes good and, sometimes, they're bad. I think we evaluated well and met our needs. We got offensive guys and defensive guys. We got skill and I think that’s huge for us. But it remains to be seen. You know how this sport goes. I saw that Alabama had a top recruiting class. Nick Saban said, ‘We won’t know this until a year or so when these guys come out and play.’ That’s kind of where everybody is at this point, but I really like this class. I think we’ve got some very solid players.” On the overall quarterback situation … “I think it will be a competition. There is no doubt about it. I think with our situation now we would like to have another one. We don’t have enough quarterbacks. We need another one and we’ll look for another one. Again, I think we’ll be fine. The competition will be very, very good. It’s open. Tucker’s (Carter) going to be here and he has age and advantage. He’s really a good football player. Austin (Robinson) probably is about as talented as anyone we have. It’s going to be an exciting spring to watch these guys develop and watch them play. I’m excited to see it. Kevin does a great job of bringing these guys along, so that’s going to be huge for us. Blake is an outstanding talent and we’ll see how it develops when he gets here in the fall.”
On out-of-state recruiting … “It is getting easier. When you win games, people know about you. I think that’s one of the important things. If you get kids on campus in San Antonio, we have a chance to be impressive and sign kids. Jeff (Popovich) knows the coaches in Florida and has relationships there. I think the big thing is to evaluate well. Pat Jones, who I worked with at Oklahoma State, said, ‘In Texas you could just let guys sign whoever they want and when you come down here are still good football players left.’ That’s probably true and a little bit of the same thing in Florida too.” On looking ahead to next season … “I think it’s an exciting group coming back. They’ve won a lot of football games. Again, our theme for the spring and next fall is that what we did last year wasn’t good enough. We didn’t win a conference championship, so we have a lot left to accomplish. Is it going to be easy? No. We open up Houston’s new stadium. We come back home and play Arizona, then we go to Stillwater to play Oklahoma State. Then we have an open date. Our schedule is tough, but it’s a great schedule. That’s one reason why guys want to come here because it's a good schedule. I’m excited about our guys coming back. When I go sit in the weight room, they’re not complacent. They’re pumping iron and they’re getting better. They look different now than they did in the past. Now, they are in that fourth year getting themselves ready.” On the expectations of this year’s signing class … “Hopefully, it’s more down the road and we’re strong enough here that they'll have a hard time breaking in. We’ll have some of these guys who will compete and there will be some that will play. If they are good enough to play, we’re not going to redshirt anybody if they can help us right away. I think that’s the important thing. We want to get the best football team on the field. We’re not saving anything for any time in the future. Our future is now. We want to play the best football we possibly can. Some of these guys will help us. I know that and we expect that. If they don’t, we would probably be a little disappointed. That’s the nature of college football.”
On out-of-state recruiting … “It is getting easier. When you win games, people know about you. I think that’s one of the important things. If you get kids on campus in San Antonio, we have a chance to be impressive and sign kids. Jeff (Popovich) knows the coaches in Florida and has relationships there. I think the big thing is to evaluate well. Pat Jones, who I worked with at Oklahoma State, said, ‘In Texas you could just let guys sign whoever they want and when you come down here are still good football players left.’ That’s probably true and a little bit of the same thing in Florida too.” On looking ahead to next season … “I think it’s an exciting group coming back. They’ve won a lot of football games. Again, our theme for the spring and next fall is that what we did last year wasn’t good enough. We didn’t win a conference championship, so we have a lot left to accomplish. Is it going to be easy? No. We open up Houston’s new stadium. We come back home and play Arizona, then we go to Stillwater to play Oklahoma State. Then we have an open date. Our schedule is tough, but it’s a great schedule. That’s one reason why guys want to come here because it's a good schedule. I’m excited about our guys coming back. When I go sit in the weight room, they’re not complacent. They’re pumping iron and they’re getting better. They look different now than they did in the past. Now, they are in that fourth year getting themselves ready.” On the expectations of this year’s signing class … “Hopefully, it’s more down the road and we’re strong enough here that they'll have a hard time breaking in. We’ll have some of these guys who will compete and there will be some that will play. If they are good enough to play, we’re not going to redshirt anybody if they can help us right away. I think that’s the important thing. We want to get the best football team on the field. We’re not saving anything for any time in the future. Our future is now. We want to play the best football we possibly can. Some of these guys will help us. I know that and we expect that. If they don’t, we would probably be a little disappointed. That’s the nature of college football.”
