Sylvester Croom Quotes on Spring (6 Quotes)

I thought we got better every day defensively. And we made improvement offensively. We had some big guns out most of the spring.

The offense has made up a lot of ground this spring. We're better off there than we've been at any time. We've gotten a lot of improvement on the offensive line. We've moved Brian Anderson back to right guard and when (junior college transfer) J.D. Hamilton gets here, we should be solid at offensive tackle.

The most impressive thing about our team right now is that we understand our schemes. We've been in it two years now, and the younger guys have grown up in our systems, and they understand what we're doing from a technique standpoint on offense, defense and in the kicking game. One big emphasis of the spring was that we really wanted to pay attention to details and do the little things right. We continued to work on being physically and mentally tough and on being a team that finishes plays and plays physical football. I think you saw that out there today.

Last February, one of the first major decisions he had to make as coach was determining the fate of leading returning rusher Nick Turner , whohadstruggled academically and had plead guilty to passing counterfeit money. Croom ultimately dismissed Turner from the team but allowed him to keep his scholarship for the spring semester so he could leave the school in good academic standing. If a kid doesn't get that degree, it's going to affect him, his family, the kids he's going to have, ... That's a heavy burden to have. I agonized over that decision for a week.

The key to our defense will be our defensive line. Last year, we held our own against some very good football teams. I think we gained some confidence. Titus has really made some plays in the spring.

He played a very, very good ball game (Saturday night). (He gave) great effort and great intensity, ... And we saw that out of him early this year, but he did not have a quality spring. He was distracted by some things off the field.