Notes from Saturday’s Press Conference

Charlie Weis met with the media Saturday after a rain soaked practice. Here’s a quick review of what he had to say.

• Weis did not completely disregard the idea of using quarterbacks situationally. He said he wanted to first get the offense running first before thinking about using any one player situationally, but that surprised me a bit. I figured Weis would have responded with something along the lines of “my starter is my starter unless he’s hurt” or something like that. He didn’t though.
• Each week one quarterback will the be the #1 and each quarterback will also spend time as the second, third, and fourth quarterbacks. To make things completely fair, each quarterback will spend time at each level for the Spring. Weis did not mention who has already been first or who will be first next.
• Decisions on the evaluations of the quarterback will most likely not come until June. Weis mentioned he will be on the road the day after the Spring game and won’t return until May 22. From there, he said the staff will meet and go over everything for two weeks.
• George West has emerged as the second receiver for now. West is running with the first team along with David Grimes.
• Weis confirmed Anthony Vernaglia wanted a chance at receiver this spring before Corwin Brown was hired. Weis has agreed to give him a workout at receiver the week before Spring Break, but after Brown was hired, Vernaglia changed his mind.
• The installation of the 3-4 defense has been slowed, but steady. Weis mentioned that they have yet to practice in a Nickel defense, but that they will play nickel defense against multiple receiver sets on Monday.
• Weis reiterated a common theme this spring that they are making a conscious effort to not give the defensive players information overload.
• The offensive line was the unit that best held up stamina wise to during a series of plays where the staff aimed to improve stamina.
• Matt Carufel is making a lot of progress at the right guard spot, but will be challenged by Dan Wenger once Wenger gets healthy again.
• Eric Olsen has been working at the left guard spot along with Michael Turkovich.
• The inside linebackers are further along than the outside since there is more experience amongst the inside backers. Weis mentioned a few “incumbents” with younger guys pressing for time. Overall, he said he was encouraged by the play of both the inside and outside backers.
• Nate Whitaker had a great day in practice yesterday and saved the team from running some gassers at the end of practice. So far it seems Ryan Burkhart has not done too much to standout.
• Weis confirmed Chris Stewart is banged up but made no mention of the severity.
• The secondary is the deepest its been under Weis. He mentioned that they are three deep already in Spring which is a far cry from where the secondary was two years ago.