Dan Scott Interview: Tommy Bowden |
Dan: Are you ready for August 4th? Bowden: Once this golf tournament happens, it kind of signifies the beginning of season, at least from a coaches’ standpoint. We've had a lot of things happen over the last eight months to a year, now its time to direct all of our attention to Texas A&M. Dan: Will your team have had enough time with the new system before Texas A&M? Bowden: There is a learning curve when you have new guys come in. We're not going to use that as an excuse. I like the scenario that Auburn had. They had four offensive coordinators in the past five years and won thirteen games this year. That's the approach I'm taking. The learning curve is what you allow it to be, if any. That's the approach we're taking with the players. Common sense will tell you that I am not naive enough to think there won’t be a little bit of a learning curve when that happens. Dan: What are the fans going to see different offensively right off the bat? Bowden: First off, they are not going to see any landmark differences, because we have had some success over the last six years so you don't want to deviate to far and Rob has a background in what we were doing, so that will be fairly similar. What I hope you'll see after Texas A&M is a more successful running game, if Texas A&M presents us with those opportunities. So I think this first game of not knowing how they are going to play us or what they are going to give us, I would say hopefully they would see a running game approach that's different than what they have seen over the last couple of years. Dan: How is the rhythm and pacing of the offense in general? Bowden: The communication will be different from the quarterback to the sideline. The pace is kind of limited by the NCAA rules. You'll see a little bit different pace in the fact that our play calling procedure will be different which will look, to the average fan, that the pace is different. Dan: I know you love and respect your dad, but with the problems they were having in the off season, you don't feel too sorry for him do you? Bowden: Every coach in this profession at one point or another goes through it, and it usually goes in cycles. You'll have several years were nothing happens and all of a sudden it gangs up on you. It looks like this off season he has had his run with off the field problems. Dan: Is it next week were you go into your annual hide-away, and lay out the master plan for the season? Bowden: That's right. We have the South Carolina High School Coaches Clinic this week in Greenville, which our staff will participate in on Monday. I'll fly to Virginia for the ACC media Tournament, and then on Tuesday we start our hide-away. We'll seclude ourselves and isolate ourselves to go through the program A-Z, which will be from Tuesday through Friday. Then we'll follow up Monday, and then we'll have some time to make the ends meet before our freshman come in on August 4th. Dan: Can you identify what your biggest concerns are and things your are excited about? Bowden: The concern as always is the running game. I'm excited about Charlie Whitehurst, and the kind of year he's going to have. I'm excited about the new things we're doing on offense. I'm excited about our freshman class coming in. The schedule is going to be challenging, opening up with A&M on ABC September 3rd. There are a lot of thing that our players will be excited about getting started. Dan: What do you think Charlie needs to do early on to get things off on the right foot? Bowden: I don't know if there is any one thing. He's a seasoned veteran. I think he learned a lot last year in the fact that when we didn't have success early as a team. He tried to take too much on himself. I don't think there is anything you can throw at him that will guarantee that he'll have success. I think the fact that lessons he learned last year, mentally, will be positive early. I don't think you could throw any curves at him that he's not already seen early in a season.
Listen to the full Tommy Bowden interview Here: Real Audio - Windows Media
Listen to the full Tommy Bowden interview Here: Real Audio - Windows Media
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