After a week off, BC was back inside Fish Field House for the second spring practice of the year on Tuesday morning.

The Eagles spent about two hours in shells before head coach Jeff Hafley met with the media:

ON GETTING BACK INTO THE SWING OF THINGS AFTER A WEEK OFF
“Well, we just had shells and helmets. Still going through the no pads, but you wouldn’t know it if you watched us. Energy was great. Tempo was great. Guys came back from spring break and they were ready to roll. Good meetings this morning, good practice today. It’ll be good to get into more of a rhythm now, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we’ll go the rest of the way."

ON WHAT THE RAMP-UP PROCESS IS LIKE DURING SPRING BALL
“You have to go a certain amount of practices in just helmets, so there’s no pads on right now. So, you’ll ramp that up and do more team stuff once the pads come on. We’ll do more stuff live once the pads come on. Right now, it’s mostly tag temp, so we’re tagging the running back because no one’s wearing pads. Once we get the shoulder pads on we’ll thud, so we’ll wrap people up and then once we get everything on, we’ll do some live periods. Not sure about the spring game yet, but we’ll see where injuries are at. You want to get through the spring healthy, that’s the key, because if anybody gets hurt, then they’ll miss the summer which is crucial for the development and getting ready for the season. So, it’s a pretty easy progress schematically too. If you looked at our call sheet (Tuesday), we didn’t run very much, so we’ll build that up too. It’s mostly about fundamentals and technique. We’ll build scheme, we’ll build through the physicality and then that will culminate with the spring game and we’ll go from there.”

ON IF AS A COACH HE WORRIES ABOUT RECEIVING BAD NEWS PHONE CALLS DURING OR AFTER SPRING BREAK
“We’ve got really good kids. You always worry when you get time off, but you always worry about them, right? We’ve got good kids. Being at a place like BC, with the types of guys we get here, probably a little less. Everybody made it back, made it back healthy and practiced today, so we’re in pretty good shape right now, but I understand the question.”

ON PLANNING AHEAD FOR THE SEASON SCHEDULE
“Once spring is done…right now, we’ll go through spring, and then the coaches will go on the road. When we get back, we’ll go through the spring cut ups and then once we’re done with spring cut ups at the end of June, then we’ll take a look at our first three opponents and kind of do mock game plans for the first three. Usually with your first two, you’re not really getting any more film than you already have unless there’s new coordinators. So, we’ll go through that in June.”

ON CONNOR LYTTON AND HOW IMPORTANT A BOUNCE-BACK YEAR IS FOR HIM “Huge. I showed the team (Tuesday) in a team meeting, he was 10-11 in practice. Today, he didn’t miss one. It’s a new year. We’ve stressed a bunch of different things to him and we’ve gotten some guys to help him. I have confidence in him. He had a great first year. We’ll consider last year a bad inning and we’ll move on. I have confidence in him, but we’re going to need him to make those kicks. Those are crucial, which is what we saw last year. Liam (Connor) will compete with him, so there’s definitely some competition. Just like at any other position, we’re going to play the guy that gives us the best chance to win. So, whoever is most consistent with field goals and extra points will be our field goal kicker. Liam came on strong last year and won the kickoff battle. He’s got a really strong leg and is a really good athlete. Those guys are in it right now. That’s our job to create that competition and make those kids, we’ve got to make them.”

ON MOREHEAD EMERGING AS LEADER IN THE QB ROOM
“I think he’s emerged as a leader throughout the offseason so far. He’s got a really good relationship with both sides of the ball, offense and defense and I think you saw it last year. It’s not just the offense, he’s also got the defense behind him. You could see that in the offseason work outs, how hard he works. You can see it in practice. He’ll jaw back and forth. Him and Donovan were going at it today - in a fun way - but, it’s been good. He’s got a lot of leadership qualities. He has to gan experience and play more and more, but it’s there. Hopefully we keep progressing.”

ON HOW O-LINE TRANSFERS ARE DOING AND OVERALL THOUGHTS ON O-LINE SO FAR
“Good. I think the biggest thing is it just creates competition and depth. Kevin Cline got hurt against Virginia Tech…he came last year and I thought was taking off. He’s not even out there practicing. Now, you’ve got everyone from last year, with Christian back also. Then, you bring in the two transfers with everyone else we have. You can just see there’s a heightened level of competition. Those guys that played last year have a taste of it and want more. The guys returning that were injured want their jobs back and then you bring in two transfers that want to take their jobs. It’s really competitive right now. Both Kyle and Logan have done a really good job. I noticed with Logan today, he’s got really strong hands, man. I don’t know who it was, but on a pass rush he just kind of struck him and the guy buckled, That was kind of good to see. We’ll see how they progress and then it will be the best five will play.”

ON COACH APPLEBAUM AND RE-TOOLING THE O-LINE “The nice thing is, Matt knows a lot of these guys. Matt recruited most of these guys…he already has a relationship with them. Then, with (Shimko and Coach Chud) they’re working through the scheme. Matt’s got a really good eye on the run game and protection stuff. They’re piecing it together, so I think having that relationship helps. I think he’s excited about the group. It’s a group that went from ‘who are we going to play and pulling guys from defense?’ to ’who’s going to be the starting five?, which is night and day from where it was last year. We just have to stay healthy.”

ON WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT THE OFFENSE ALREADY COMPARED TO THIS POINT A YEAR AGO
“Chud wasn’t really part of the scheme and structure of everything we were doing, so it’s a whole new voice in there. The scheme is different. The terminology is different. It’s like we brought in a coordinator from the outside. This isn’t just run what we’ve run. This is going to look very different and sound very different. There’s an attitude and a different energy. I think they’re picking up the scheme pretty good. It’s harder on the defense because they haven’t seen much of this stuff. There’s some playmakers out there too. Joe Griffin isn’t practicing yet, he will soon. George Takacs isn’t practicing yet, but he will soon. The team’s got a good feel to it. We’ve got to build, we’ve got to get better. That’s what the spring is for. It’s very positive and it’s exciting right now.”

ON IF THERE’S BEEN AN ADJUSTMENT PERIOD WITH NEW COORDINATORS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BALL
“Defensively, no. Not at all. The scheme’s not changing, the position coaches haven’t changed. We’ve added some stuff. We’re going to continue to build and be multiple, but no. That hasn’t changed, we haven’t skipped a beat there. Those guys have done a good job and we have Paul Rhoads who brings a ton of experience and knowledge to the room. You can already feel the presence he has, which is awesome. Aazar and Sean, Aazar has a ton of juice to him in front of the room. He was really good today, got them all fired up. I think you’ll see those guys play with maybe a little bit more juice. I think that’ll rub off on them. The offense, there’s going to be some mistakes early. A lot of it is new, we haven’t done it. The defense is seeing stuff for the first time. Really competitive today. Offense started off hot. Hit some big shots and were running the ball really well, then the defense came back and made a bunch of plays, which is really what you want to see, the back and forth at this point.”