Blog matters: Mike Leach’s press conference and Paul Petrino’s spring standards

A sampling from the past week of entries in The Spokesman-Review blog SportsLink at spokesman.com/sportslink.

Cougars

Jacob Thorpe

A sampling from Mike Leach’s press conference on Wednesday:

What is your message to the team heading into spring?

There is always a message, there is always a message and typically it’s linked to having a vision of your potential and the necessity of hard work to take you there. Occasionally there are some little things you might address as far as how to get there or what. But basically it’s the overall “keep raising the bar, keep chasing your goal and each day is an opportunity to take a step,” and go from there.

How much does it help to have your entire staff return for spring practices?

I think it’s really good, I think it’s big. We’ve got a great staff, we do a lot of really good things together so it’s great to have them. It’s the best staff I’ve ever been on and it’s great to have everybody.

How much of a priority is the secondary?

I think they’re a priority. I guess you would say we’re a little more balanced team as far as – we’re a young team, but we’re a little more balanced as far as having bodies assigned to the positions. It’s not like you have zero of this, and in some cases we’ve got people that on the outside they haven’t heard of but we feel good about them.

So we’re a little more balanced as far as that goes, but as far as where I think it will be kind of dynamic, you know, who becomes starters and some things, I would say the secondary, I would say the offensive line, perhaps running back, too.

Is Daquawn Brown a member in good standing?

We’re going to have to wait and see how everything unfolds. I mean, right now it’s appearing most of what’s come out and been spewed around has been greatly embellished so we’ll just have to see how all that comes out.

Has the team embraced the bowl game as a baseline?

We’ve got to go to one every year, I’ve always felt that way. Go to one every year. But that starts by winning one game a week a lot, you know.

Vandals

Josh Wright

Paul Petrino’s second spring football at Idaho will look similar to his first a year ago. But there will be key differences.

The quarterbacks will be off-limits after getting whacked last year. The coaches might try to install the playbook quicker now that many of the players are in the second year of the system.

And for at least the first little bit, the Vandals will have Robert Asencio, a 6-foot-9 basketball player who’s never played football, trying out with them at wide receiver.

“You don’t see too many 6-9 guys walking around who can run and catch,” Petrino said, “so I’m excited to get him out there and see what we can do.”