Below is a transcript from Notre Dame running backs coach Deland McCullough's interview session with local writers Thursday.
Questions may be paraphrased. Quotes aren't.
DELAND MCCULLOUGH
How do you see Audric Estimé benefiting from cutting down on his body fat?
“He's more twitchy. He’s more explosive. That's very evident. It gave him another step that we really can see. Audric, I meet with him very often just about how he can improve his game and some of those things. Coming into January, that was something that we talked with the nutritionist about: just trimming him down a little bit.”
Is the ceiling rising for him?
“Yeah. I'm really excited about him. Just the things he does from the leadership perspective, but then obviously, on the field he continues to be a guy, just like last year, who grades out on the upper end of the room or at the top as far as his grading every day, as far as his details, productivity, etc. So, the challenge I give to him and the rest of the guys is to maintain that, to keep it. The motto of the room is either you’re gaining on a guy or you’re separating. It just continues to make the room raise up. That's the challenge I give to these guys. When you hit this middle spot of a spring ball with guys kind of nicked up and guys feeling it just mentally. Now they physically have to bring themselves across the finish line.”
How soon can you get Jadarian Price back? Are you still as optimistic on him as you were before?
“Oh yeah. I'm very optimistic about him. We’ve seen from a front row seat of what he did during the spring last year and it was really, really really good.n He'll be starting to reintegrate into everything we got going on. Feeling confident that by the time we get in June he'll be a full participant. We kind of go from there. But skill set, the guy’s put together. He’s smart, fast, explosive. He has all of the competencies you want at that position. And the thing is if you go off one year ago, he showed it on a really high level. So yes, he hasn't been physically doing things, but he's continuing to be locked into what we're doing mentally. I'm excited to get him back out on the physical part.”
He’s seem incredibly mature. Does that play into it as well?
“No doubt. It's going to be a good thing. It's going to be good problems. I don‘t even want to call it problems. It's going to be a good discussion. When you get all the guys back: get JD back and some of the other guys coming in. We have some good things happening.”
What was your discussion with Chris Tyree about his move to wide receiver?
“The discussion I had with Chris — wow, this was in early January, like early, early January. I really just sat down with him and talked to him about some of the advantages of that move. Things kind of got cloudy when we had an offensive coordinator change, because then I said, ‘Man, I would hate for him to have to basically plant his flag in one spot.’ If we had a brand new coordinator, you have to say, ‘OK, what am I going to be?’ It's going to be hard to cross-train in both of them and really be effective. IS was kind of blessing in disguise that that coach Parker ended up being the offensive coordinator, so there wasn't going to be a system change. Chris, when we had that conversation, he was all on it. I said, ‘Man, look at what you can do here. You look at the NFL part of it.’ I said, ‘Man, there are some things you can do,’ and I’ve talked to a bunch of NFL guys when those conversations are what they are. But I think he's shown what he can do as an outside guy. Natural route runner, really, really good hands, explosive in space guy. And rather than as a running back, trying to create those scenarios, I said, ‘Shoot, why don’t we just put him out there?’ He's already out there. You don't have to come up with packages. You just run our offense. You put him out, and he's just a receiver.”
And then you still have options to hand him the ball?
“And the options remain of just bringing him into the backfield and just go ahead and go from there. I know he was excited about that. Coach Stuckey’s done a great job with him. Chris has done a good job of showing he can be an effective guy, just not a gadget guy at receiver. Like, ‘I can go out here and play the receiver position.’ It's going to make Notre Dame better, and that's going to help him too.”
What's it like for you to see what Audric and Logan have done last year and then you look over to Jadarian and say you can’t wait for that guy to come back?
“You have good issues right now as far as numbers and skill. Even same thing with Gi’Bran. I wanted to see this spring Gi’Bran show that he can be a guy that we can plug in there and not lose anything as far as effectiveness, attention to detail, discipline, dependability, and all those different things. During this camp live situations, he had two very long runs. Really good in pass protection, really good route runner, sure hands, different things like that. Logan and Audric, they set the tone just because of their productivity last year. So, OK, you have to look at them. But those guys know there are other dudes who want to play. Ain't nobody just bowing down and saying, ‘OK, you guys are just it.’ They know they have to continue to enhance their game. That's the beauty of this situation. Everybody is trying to grow every day.”
Because of what he did last spring, is it easy to understand how Jadarian fits in with this group?
“It'll be interesting to see, because you had a bunch of guys who were vying for a certain spot last year after Kyren [Williams] left. So, now you have a couple of guys who jumped out, because of their production last year. But everybody in that room knows how I operate. None of that really matters, because you have to continue to show it every day. JD knows he’s going to have an opportunity to come in and show what he’s got. Gi’Bran knows he's going to have an opportunity to show what he got. Jeremiyah when he shows up, he knows we ain't going to say, ‘Hey, just sit on the shelf.’ I'm giving every guy an opportunity. It's up to the dudes who are ready and prepared, which they all should be, to seize it and run with it. Then it's up to us as coaches to figure out how to play them.”
Did you find yourself thinking last spring about those good problems and figuring out how to play four running backs?
“Yeah, I've been in that mindset. Now, especially with being really good with what's happened with Chris. So you have Chris at a spot that he can be highly effective, do his thing. Boom, he's going to help the team, let's roll. So now we have Audric and we have Logan. And then you’re saying, ‘OK, yes, I played three. I could have played four last year. I really could have.’ I had a situation set up where I could have actually did four guys and felt comfortable about it. Even with that mindset coming into this season, that still remains. I'm just excited about it. We have good issues. Really good issues.”
What’s the latest on the book project with Sarah Spain? When do you think that will come out? Soon?
“No. We just signed with Simon & Schuster. Now we’re starting on it. It'll come out in a year or something like that.”
Will she be around the program at all?
“I don’t know. She's been interviewing me. I’m co-authoring this. As we know, it ain't a Notre Dame book. There's a whole lot of stuff that happened before I came to Notre Dame. But yeah, the book is underway 100%, paperwork and everything. The promotions of it is going to be strong: Good Morning America. It’s going to be huge. It’s going to be strong.”
Is that stuff that will come out when the book comes out? Like you’re balancing your time in the meantime?
“Umm.”
You say it’s going to be publishing and these things always have a lead time.
“Yeah.”
Because you have the run game coordinator title now. How excited are you about that? How did that change your weeks?
“Nothing changed with that. It’s cool. I appreciate everything that come with that, but at the end of the day, nothing really changed for me. Just getting my guys ready to play and being the positive contributor in the coaching staff and putting together a plan.”
How much of a priority is improving pass protection with the running backs?
“That'll perpetually be an issue, a positive thing that you want to build on. You look at last year when you put it all together, from the running back room, like actually the running back room, there were two sacks that came as a result of that. The way I look at sacks is was it a recognition sack? If you’re just missing guys, we have problems. LIke, ‘OK, I went this way and some guy came and just hit the quarterback.’ We have major problems there. We didn't have any of those. So you have more technical, fundamental things. If you say of all the times we took on guys, how many guys got by? That percent is very low. I'm saying 50 times we engaged a guy, two or three times somebody got by. OK. It's not OK, but in the grand scheme of it, that's not terrible. You want to continue to put guys out there who can win at the point of attack. That's the thing. That's why Audric was mainly our third-down guy. Logan has done it successfully. Gi’Bran will be able to do that well. JD, don't know. We haven’t gotten to that point. Physically, he looks like he can. But you have to get out there and do it.”
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