Michigan State University Athletics
Offensive Coordinator Jay Johnson Press Conference Coverage
10/2/2020 3:50:00 PM | Football
EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Jay Johnson answered questions from the media on Friday afternoon as the Spartans continue preparation for their season opener on Oct. 24 against Rutgers.
A transcript from the press conference is below:
On the quarterback situation…
That's a good question. I kind of want to know that too (smiling). But it's been good. Right now, I think kind of the most veteran guys in Rocky (Lombardi), Payton (Thorne) and Theo (Day) are the guys that have been getting all the reps, and quite frankly, I've been moving all three of them together, tracking them every day; they're very, very equal right now in terms of total amount of reps in both basically 7-on-7 and team activities. I guess at this point I've seen some good things, but then I've also seen some inconsistent things. I guess the biggest decider for me right (now), we've been kind of running around in just our helmets, but obviously we've just been out there in two days in pads, and so now it's starts to come to be a little bit more. So we're still in that process. I think I'll have a better take of where we're at probably in another week or two, just because it's more real when we have pads on, everything is so much more real. And only having two days, lots of unanswered questions. But right now, I've really wanted to look at all of them and look at all of them somewhat equally since I'm the new guy on the block. All of them have been doing some positive things. And yet, there's been some inconsistencies that we're working through. A lot to be determined yet there, but I do like the progress that we're making.
On Rocky Lombardi's experience…
To be quite frank, anybody that has playing experience, obviously it's just different. It's hard to get that game day type of experience, and he (Rocky) certainly has more, and you guys probably know this better than I do, but Theo has played a few snaps but not much, and obviously Payton redshirted, so I definitely think there's a little innate things there because he has some of that game time stuff, but everything is new that we're doing, new language, new terms, new everything, so through the 18,000 Zoom meetings that we've had (smiling), all of us, as we sit here today on Zoom, I've really been impressed with all of them in their football foundation. Obviously the guys did a nice job with them here in the past. I think they all have a really solid foundation, we're just hoping to build on that.
On a back-up moving into a starting role and having success…
I think that's very much the case. It's hard to know. So many things are situational too, (like) what the foundation of the team is? What are the surrounding cast and characters of the current situation? I've definitely seen that. My time at Georgia, we had different people playing, and injuries over the past year…so it is what it is. I think guys will position themselves, even in that back-up role. I think it's going to be competitive for a long time at that spot.
On if he foresees the QB battle lasting into the season…
I guess I could see it going that way if there's not a clear picture presented to us as a staff. I think there's always a chance of that. When you get into that position, that gets hard too. When you get into that role at times, there's positives and negatives to that, so if we have to go that route, we could, but I'm hoping here in the next three weeks that through a bunch more practices that we have coming up that things can kind of present a pretty clear picture. So that's my goal. But I'm not afraid and I'm not unwilling to do that if that's what we need to do. I'd prefer not to, but if we have to get there because it's not a clear picture, we will.
On taking a QB battle into a game week, and how tricky that can be…
It is a little bit, because so much of your preparation, because of your practice reps and so many different things there that you need to get the guys reps so that they're prepared for the game, and obviously, now you're trying to work two of them, and then are you getting the critical reps to both of them that you want to be prepared if that situation comes to be on a Saturday, so that is a little bit of a juggling act. As we've all seen, the back-up quarterback becomes so prevalent, that that guy needs to be prepped, but obviously you're going to give the one guy a little bit more, and so it is kind of an interesting juggling act. But all of the guys have to be prepared. We talk about it each and every day with the QBs, when the opportunity presents itself, are you going to be ready? And that's why so much of the elite quarterbacks and even at our level, they got to do a lot on their own to get where they need to be to be prepared.
On trying to set yourself a part when you're in a three-way race at quarterback…
For me, a lot of it goes to your preparation and kind of what you're doing away from here, and from the standpoint of…at the end of the day, you certainly have to know what we're doing offensively, but the keys to the success come on what's the defense trying to do to you. And so to me it's study and that preparation. You talk about the great ones in the league, and you've heard of Peyton Manning and his notebook; well, he kept his notebook so he didn't become complacent with the process. A lot of times his notebook was to take notes on defenders that he was playing over the years, and he kept that, and he journaled that, and so that's kind of the things that I'm looking at with these guys. I said right now, our opponent is our defense. It isn't Rutgers. We haven't even talked about Rutgers. For you to prepare yourself and have success even in the practice setting, you have to figure out what the defense is trying to do to us. To me, a lot of that foundation is really understanding the basic fundamentals of defensive football, and then being able to see that in film study, see that in practice, and then applying it to proper use.
On his offensive philosophy…
I guess at the end of the day, if you talk to most coordinators, they'd say, 'well, let's be balanced.' Well sure, I want to be balanced. I think in this day and age, first of all, you have to be able to throw it, and you have to be able to run it. I think that, when I always look at things, what do we have to do in this situation to be successful? Sometimes that game might lend itself to throwing the ball a lot more, and another game might lend itself to running the ball a little bit more. And I'm unafraid to do either one of them, in what we have to do. I think there's sometimes you can see that even change throughout the game. And so, I want to be as multiple as we can in how we present things, but yet our guys need to play at a high level because obviously they're going against some great talented guys here and they have to be able to make a play. We have to put them in a position to make plays. And again, by me dialing that up, it really depends, what is that game calling for? Where are we at with our team? And we're in the process, all of us as a staff, trying to figure that out, just in having two days in pads. I think we're getting a little better take, but I'm excited to see what the next couple two to three weeks bring.
On Elijah Collins, and his speed and wanting to break more long runs this year…
I think Elijah looks solid right now. I think he looks good. He's done a nice job, even during our restrictions, prior to being able to come back and get started again and trying to take care of himself, so I think he's made some progress there. I know that he's excited with Coach Novak and the strength and conditioning guys and what they're doing for him and helping him there, but I know that's a point of emphasis for him. I do think it's trending the right way. Obviously, time will tell once we get out there on Saturdays to see what the final result is, but I think it's positive at this point.
On the offensive line…
Right now. I you know, I'm blessed. I mean, we have probably the best O-Line coach, one of the best ones in the country, in Coach Kapilovic. He and I have been around together each other for a long time. And so I know he's gonna put them in a good position. Like you said, we're all trying to learn them a little bit, particularly now that the pads have come on. But I think that, the biggest thing that I see right now is they're willing. They're willing and they're not afraid to be physical. And so we're trying to try to juggle the pieces and get it all put into place. But, you know, I think it's, a bunch of guys that are willing to work hard right now and I do know they had had some injury situations in the past. And that is hard at the offensive line. You try to establish that consistency and it's a challenge when you have those guys in and out but we're really trying to develop the entire roster and I think we're making progress. It'll be nice once we get into some more padded situations to kind of see who keeps rising to the top. Right now, it's a little early for me to truly identify that but I know that's coming.
On trying to build depth with COVID issues…
It's a huge piece of our daily discussions. I can't tell you how much of our discussion involves just COVID situations on a daily basis.
I have a depth chart on every day. I have a column that's just COVID situations. Everybody's dealing with it and it's just a part of the new normal right now. But what we're constantly looking at, as we've talked about with Coach Tuck about, is developing the whole roster. Scottie mentioned it as well and then I've even started to look okay, 'Well now I have a certain player maybe this position. Boy if something happens here, can I move that player over here?'
We haven't made any of those changes yet, but we're looking at that because, as you know you could get impacted pretty quickly. So what we're trying to look at what, are there some of those, you know in baseball, those utility guys that might have the ability to do several things for us. We're trying to identify those guys and then I think, now that we've gotten the pads on and we'll get through this first week here, the first few days of pads, we might start looking at and maybe even cross training some players to help us in those situations If we do get impacted.
On the tight end spot…
I think they've done some good things. Obviously Trenton (Gillison) has played, and obviously Matt Dotson has played a lot here. He had the injury that he's still coming back from but I think it's a solid group, I really do.
I kind of say they're the MVP because they have to do an awful lot for us. They've got to run, they've got to be able to pass protect, they've got to run routes. They have to do a little bit everything. We've been moving them all over and trying to experiment with them and again, I think there's some young guys and we tried to look at a couple of wildcards there to help us, but I do like some of the things I'm seeing.
Another guy that that's done some good things for us is Adam (Berghorst). Really has done a nice job and shown some good physicality in our early practices. So I'm excited about Adam. Another young man that we're working with is Tyler Hunt. Tyler Hunt kind of came in and really has done some good things, more in the specialist category. You guys have probably never heard of Tyler Hunt, but he's done some really positive things. Coach Gilmore and those guys are doing a good job. I'm excited about the good position because I think we're kind of well-versed there. I think we have some different styles of players which I think will bode well for us.
On Tyler Hunt…
Somebody kind of brought him to our attention. They said he was really impactful player on special teams in general. And so when they when you looked at him physically, we're like, 'Man!' and so we said that let's do it. So we started that process during the summer and, obviously, it's quite a transition for him. But he seems to be catching on and his athletic ability does show up. So I'm excited to kind of get a few more padded days with him and see how he can progress.
On the receivers…
I think Jalen Nailor, in his early practices, obviously coming from the injury as well, has done some real positive things. So I'm really excited about him.
Another guy that with the transition of transferring, Jayden Reed really has shown some good things.
I'm excited about those guys. A little bit new, but they've shown the ability to make some plays.
The other guy that that's really doing a good job making plays for us early has been Tre Mosley. Tre has done some really nice things there. So I'm excited about them. I think those top guys have done some nice, nice things. C.J. Hayes also has been in there and then doing some positive things.
I'm kind of excited about some of the newcomers. They've shown some good skill sets. I do like those top guys that you mentioned and they have shown some good productivity early and we hope we can keep that going.
On surprises from camp…
There's a couple guys. One in particular for me is Spencer Brown, offensive lineman, big skill set, and he still is so raw, still has a lot of growing to do and learning the game and all that, but, man, his ability and want to play and as big as he is and the athleticism he shows is really exciting. We got him playing tackle right now, so I'm really excited about Spencer. I think he's done some good things.
There's been other guys, some of the running backs. I think our running back group is pretty solid. Connor Heyward has done some things, obviously we have Elijah (Collins), Anthony Williams you know is talented. Another new one on the block is Jordon Simmons, who's really been pretty impressive early in camp. I know it's really early and we got to get more padded days to truly get a final eval on that but those are some of the guys right now that I've been impressed with.
On position moves or experiments…
That's the main one right now (Tyler Hunt), but we have looked at some possible ones moving forward but we haven't done anything at this point.
On how much the coaches can install from a play-calling standpoint…
I don't know, it's hard for me to put a percentage on it. We went really hard with install for the first six days, we were pretty much full-tilt and then I cut it back. And then I paused it for a minute, because I did feel like we had a little bit of the overload mode. I was trying to challenge him a little bit mentally, but it's been pretty decent.
I'll be honest, I told the QBs yesterday we already have more offense in now than we'd ever have in for a game. From an install piece, there are wrinkles and things that we need to certainly continue to add and install but the nuts and bolts I would say is already in and now it's working on fine tuning that.
I'll give the guys credit. For all the different things that were going on, trying to do this through Zoom, they've really done a nice job. They've really done a nice job. I didn't know how much they would retain it, and sure, we had to go back and kind of start a little bit at ground zero, but there base was really pretty solid going through all that in the summer months and late spring and all that, so I think that helped us a lot.
A transcript from the press conference is below:
On the quarterback situation…
That's a good question. I kind of want to know that too (smiling). But it's been good. Right now, I think kind of the most veteran guys in Rocky (Lombardi), Payton (Thorne) and Theo (Day) are the guys that have been getting all the reps, and quite frankly, I've been moving all three of them together, tracking them every day; they're very, very equal right now in terms of total amount of reps in both basically 7-on-7 and team activities. I guess at this point I've seen some good things, but then I've also seen some inconsistent things. I guess the biggest decider for me right (now), we've been kind of running around in just our helmets, but obviously we've just been out there in two days in pads, and so now it's starts to come to be a little bit more. So we're still in that process. I think I'll have a better take of where we're at probably in another week or two, just because it's more real when we have pads on, everything is so much more real. And only having two days, lots of unanswered questions. But right now, I've really wanted to look at all of them and look at all of them somewhat equally since I'm the new guy on the block. All of them have been doing some positive things. And yet, there's been some inconsistencies that we're working through. A lot to be determined yet there, but I do like the progress that we're making.
On Rocky Lombardi's experience…
To be quite frank, anybody that has playing experience, obviously it's just different. It's hard to get that game day type of experience, and he (Rocky) certainly has more, and you guys probably know this better than I do, but Theo has played a few snaps but not much, and obviously Payton redshirted, so I definitely think there's a little innate things there because he has some of that game time stuff, but everything is new that we're doing, new language, new terms, new everything, so through the 18,000 Zoom meetings that we've had (smiling), all of us, as we sit here today on Zoom, I've really been impressed with all of them in their football foundation. Obviously the guys did a nice job with them here in the past. I think they all have a really solid foundation, we're just hoping to build on that.
On a back-up moving into a starting role and having success…
I think that's very much the case. It's hard to know. So many things are situational too, (like) what the foundation of the team is? What are the surrounding cast and characters of the current situation? I've definitely seen that. My time at Georgia, we had different people playing, and injuries over the past year…so it is what it is. I think guys will position themselves, even in that back-up role. I think it's going to be competitive for a long time at that spot.
On if he foresees the QB battle lasting into the season…
I guess I could see it going that way if there's not a clear picture presented to us as a staff. I think there's always a chance of that. When you get into that position, that gets hard too. When you get into that role at times, there's positives and negatives to that, so if we have to go that route, we could, but I'm hoping here in the next three weeks that through a bunch more practices that we have coming up that things can kind of present a pretty clear picture. So that's my goal. But I'm not afraid and I'm not unwilling to do that if that's what we need to do. I'd prefer not to, but if we have to get there because it's not a clear picture, we will.
On taking a QB battle into a game week, and how tricky that can be…
It is a little bit, because so much of your preparation, because of your practice reps and so many different things there that you need to get the guys reps so that they're prepared for the game, and obviously, now you're trying to work two of them, and then are you getting the critical reps to both of them that you want to be prepared if that situation comes to be on a Saturday, so that is a little bit of a juggling act. As we've all seen, the back-up quarterback becomes so prevalent, that that guy needs to be prepped, but obviously you're going to give the one guy a little bit more, and so it is kind of an interesting juggling act. But all of the guys have to be prepared. We talk about it each and every day with the QBs, when the opportunity presents itself, are you going to be ready? And that's why so much of the elite quarterbacks and even at our level, they got to do a lot on their own to get where they need to be to be prepared.
On trying to set yourself a part when you're in a three-way race at quarterback…
For me, a lot of it goes to your preparation and kind of what you're doing away from here, and from the standpoint of…at the end of the day, you certainly have to know what we're doing offensively, but the keys to the success come on what's the defense trying to do to you. And so to me it's study and that preparation. You talk about the great ones in the league, and you've heard of Peyton Manning and his notebook; well, he kept his notebook so he didn't become complacent with the process. A lot of times his notebook was to take notes on defenders that he was playing over the years, and he kept that, and he journaled that, and so that's kind of the things that I'm looking at with these guys. I said right now, our opponent is our defense. It isn't Rutgers. We haven't even talked about Rutgers. For you to prepare yourself and have success even in the practice setting, you have to figure out what the defense is trying to do to us. To me, a lot of that foundation is really understanding the basic fundamentals of defensive football, and then being able to see that in film study, see that in practice, and then applying it to proper use.
On his offensive philosophy…
I guess at the end of the day, if you talk to most coordinators, they'd say, 'well, let's be balanced.' Well sure, I want to be balanced. I think in this day and age, first of all, you have to be able to throw it, and you have to be able to run it. I think that, when I always look at things, what do we have to do in this situation to be successful? Sometimes that game might lend itself to throwing the ball a lot more, and another game might lend itself to running the ball a little bit more. And I'm unafraid to do either one of them, in what we have to do. I think there's sometimes you can see that even change throughout the game. And so, I want to be as multiple as we can in how we present things, but yet our guys need to play at a high level because obviously they're going against some great talented guys here and they have to be able to make a play. We have to put them in a position to make plays. And again, by me dialing that up, it really depends, what is that game calling for? Where are we at with our team? And we're in the process, all of us as a staff, trying to figure that out, just in having two days in pads. I think we're getting a little better take, but I'm excited to see what the next couple two to three weeks bring.
On Elijah Collins, and his speed and wanting to break more long runs this year…
I think Elijah looks solid right now. I think he looks good. He's done a nice job, even during our restrictions, prior to being able to come back and get started again and trying to take care of himself, so I think he's made some progress there. I know that he's excited with Coach Novak and the strength and conditioning guys and what they're doing for him and helping him there, but I know that's a point of emphasis for him. I do think it's trending the right way. Obviously, time will tell once we get out there on Saturdays to see what the final result is, but I think it's positive at this point.
On the offensive line…
Right now. I you know, I'm blessed. I mean, we have probably the best O-Line coach, one of the best ones in the country, in Coach Kapilovic. He and I have been around together each other for a long time. And so I know he's gonna put them in a good position. Like you said, we're all trying to learn them a little bit, particularly now that the pads have come on. But I think that, the biggest thing that I see right now is they're willing. They're willing and they're not afraid to be physical. And so we're trying to try to juggle the pieces and get it all put into place. But, you know, I think it's, a bunch of guys that are willing to work hard right now and I do know they had had some injury situations in the past. And that is hard at the offensive line. You try to establish that consistency and it's a challenge when you have those guys in and out but we're really trying to develop the entire roster and I think we're making progress. It'll be nice once we get into some more padded situations to kind of see who keeps rising to the top. Right now, it's a little early for me to truly identify that but I know that's coming.
On trying to build depth with COVID issues…
It's a huge piece of our daily discussions. I can't tell you how much of our discussion involves just COVID situations on a daily basis.
I have a depth chart on every day. I have a column that's just COVID situations. Everybody's dealing with it and it's just a part of the new normal right now. But what we're constantly looking at, as we've talked about with Coach Tuck about, is developing the whole roster. Scottie mentioned it as well and then I've even started to look okay, 'Well now I have a certain player maybe this position. Boy if something happens here, can I move that player over here?'
We haven't made any of those changes yet, but we're looking at that because, as you know you could get impacted pretty quickly. So what we're trying to look at what, are there some of those, you know in baseball, those utility guys that might have the ability to do several things for us. We're trying to identify those guys and then I think, now that we've gotten the pads on and we'll get through this first week here, the first few days of pads, we might start looking at and maybe even cross training some players to help us in those situations If we do get impacted.
On the tight end spot…
I think they've done some good things. Obviously Trenton (Gillison) has played, and obviously Matt Dotson has played a lot here. He had the injury that he's still coming back from but I think it's a solid group, I really do.
I kind of say they're the MVP because they have to do an awful lot for us. They've got to run, they've got to be able to pass protect, they've got to run routes. They have to do a little bit everything. We've been moving them all over and trying to experiment with them and again, I think there's some young guys and we tried to look at a couple of wildcards there to help us, but I do like some of the things I'm seeing.
Another guy that that's done some good things for us is Adam (Berghorst). Really has done a nice job and shown some good physicality in our early practices. So I'm excited about Adam. Another young man that we're working with is Tyler Hunt. Tyler Hunt kind of came in and really has done some good things, more in the specialist category. You guys have probably never heard of Tyler Hunt, but he's done some really positive things. Coach Gilmore and those guys are doing a good job. I'm excited about the good position because I think we're kind of well-versed there. I think we have some different styles of players which I think will bode well for us.
On Tyler Hunt…
Somebody kind of brought him to our attention. They said he was really impactful player on special teams in general. And so when they when you looked at him physically, we're like, 'Man!' and so we said that let's do it. So we started that process during the summer and, obviously, it's quite a transition for him. But he seems to be catching on and his athletic ability does show up. So I'm excited to kind of get a few more padded days with him and see how he can progress.
On the receivers…
I think Jalen Nailor, in his early practices, obviously coming from the injury as well, has done some real positive things. So I'm really excited about him.
Another guy that with the transition of transferring, Jayden Reed really has shown some good things.
I'm excited about those guys. A little bit new, but they've shown the ability to make some plays.
The other guy that that's really doing a good job making plays for us early has been Tre Mosley. Tre has done some really nice things there. So I'm excited about them. I think those top guys have done some nice, nice things. C.J. Hayes also has been in there and then doing some positive things.
I'm kind of excited about some of the newcomers. They've shown some good skill sets. I do like those top guys that you mentioned and they have shown some good productivity early and we hope we can keep that going.
On surprises from camp…
There's a couple guys. One in particular for me is Spencer Brown, offensive lineman, big skill set, and he still is so raw, still has a lot of growing to do and learning the game and all that, but, man, his ability and want to play and as big as he is and the athleticism he shows is really exciting. We got him playing tackle right now, so I'm really excited about Spencer. I think he's done some good things.
There's been other guys, some of the running backs. I think our running back group is pretty solid. Connor Heyward has done some things, obviously we have Elijah (Collins), Anthony Williams you know is talented. Another new one on the block is Jordon Simmons, who's really been pretty impressive early in camp. I know it's really early and we got to get more padded days to truly get a final eval on that but those are some of the guys right now that I've been impressed with.
On position moves or experiments…
That's the main one right now (Tyler Hunt), but we have looked at some possible ones moving forward but we haven't done anything at this point.
On how much the coaches can install from a play-calling standpoint…
I don't know, it's hard for me to put a percentage on it. We went really hard with install for the first six days, we were pretty much full-tilt and then I cut it back. And then I paused it for a minute, because I did feel like we had a little bit of the overload mode. I was trying to challenge him a little bit mentally, but it's been pretty decent.
I'll be honest, I told the QBs yesterday we already have more offense in now than we'd ever have in for a game. From an install piece, there are wrinkles and things that we need to certainly continue to add and install but the nuts and bolts I would say is already in and now it's working on fine tuning that.
I'll give the guys credit. For all the different things that were going on, trying to do this through Zoom, they've really done a nice job. They've really done a nice job. I didn't know how much they would retain it, and sure, we had to go back and kind of start a little bit at ground zero, but there base was really pretty solid going through all that in the summer months and late spring and all that, so I think that helped us a lot.
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