Petrino, Bush and Smith Preview Cards' Spring Practice
March 30, 2005 | Football
March 30, 2005
Audio Clips
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - University of Louisville football head coach Bobby Petrino and junior running backs Michael Bush and Kolby Smith met with members of the media today at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium to preview the Cardinals' spring practice sessions.
The Cards will open spring practice on Thursday at 4 p.m. ET and will continue through the weekend with practice sessions on Friday (3:30 p.m. Et), Saturday (Noon) and Sunday (Noon). U of L will close spring practice with the Spring Game on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. ET at PJCS.
2005 U of L Spring Football Practice Schedule
| Date | Time |
| Thursday, March 31 | 4:00 p.m. |
| Friday, April 1 | 3:30 p.m. |
| Saturday, April 2 | Noon |
| Sunday, April 3 | Noon |
| Wednesday, April 6 | 4:00 p.m. |
| Friday, April 8 | 3:30 p.m. |
| Saturday, April 9 | 10:00 a.m. |
| Tuesday, April 12 | 4:00 p.m. |
| Wednesday, April 13 | 4:00 p.m. |
| Friday, April 15 | 3:30 p.m. |
| Saturday, April 16 | Noon |
| Monday, April 18 | 4:00 p.m. |
| Tuesday, April 19 | 4:00 p.m. |
| Thursday, April 21 | 4:00 p.m. |
| 2005 UPS Spring Game | PJCS |
| Friday, April 22 | 7:30 p.m. |
Comments by Louisville Head Coach Bobby Petrino
"Well, we're excited to get back on the field. I know our players had a good winter. I thought they worked extremely hard in the weight room and made some good gains as far as guys that had to gain weight, guys that had to get stronger. But now it's time to get back out on the field, and see exactly where we're at. We did lose a lot of good players. Any time you have six guys go the NFL combine, and perform well at the combine, it makes you a little bit nervous. I'm excited to see who will take over the leadership role, and how Michael Bush and Kolby Smith will do as the full-time runners. They have to be in much better shape to be able to carry the ball more, do a better job in pass protection, things like that. I know they're excited about it and can't wait to get out there."
"I think we should be strong on the offensive front. We've got a lot of experience back and some big guys. I'm really looking forward to see how some of the younger players do there. Guys like Breno Giacomini, Eric Wood, Michael Sturgeon so we can develop our depth and look ahead a little bit to getting them ready to play. Gary Barnidge is doing a really nice job for us at tight end. I thought he played extremely well the last half of the season last year, made a lot of big plays for us. Scott Kuhn would be the guy that would be our other tight end when we're in a two-tight end set. Scott's gotten much bigger and stronger. We're looking forward to see how he does in the passing game. I think he'll do a real nice job for us in the running game, and we've got to make sure we bring him along in the passing game."
"Back-up quarterback is a concern. We'll find out who that will be. Davis Manning, of course, who came in in January. We've got a couple of walk-ons from last fall that did a nice job for us. We've got to give all three of them reps and really see how they do, and find out who can handle the pressure."
"Defensively, I'm really impressed with our two outside linebackers. Brandon Johnson and Abe Brown played really well for us last year. Abe's up to about 235 pounds and has worked extremely hard in the weight room. Brandon's actually just hit the 220 mark for the first time ever. He has a little bit of a chest on him now. They should be the leaders for us back there."
"On the defensive front, we've got to get a lot of leadership from Montavious Stanley, Elvis Dumervill, and Amobi Okoye, a veteran now at almost 18 years old."
"Secondary will be something we don't have a lot of depth in the spring. We did recruit a lot of young players that will be here in the fall. I like the guys we have back there; it's just a matter of depth. You'll see William Gay coming back as a two-year starter. Rod Council will line up at the other corner. We're going to work Antoine Sharp at both safety and corner, which is a little bit new for him. We're going to have to find another starter at the other safety position to replace Kerry Rhodes. It might be Brandon Sharp, Antoine's brother, could be John Russell. You'll see Justin Deeley in there competing. He'll (Deeley) be a redshirt freshman walk-on from St. X that I like a lot. He's very fast and strong, but we just have to see those guys tackle."
"We're going to practice to start out with Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We'll go four-in-a-row. It helps us with our classes, and really being able to make a good emphasis of teaching our offensive, defensive and special teams schemes in those first four days."
"I'm excited to get out on the field. I can't wait to see the leadership take over. I can't wait to see how Brian (Brohm) does as the starter with the amount of reps he'll get, and us fitting the offense to what he does best."
On sophomore QB Brian Brohm: "I think he's a proven lead, he has all the qualities you want there. Now we just have to build everything around what he does best."
"The reason we played him last year was that I didn't want to go into the Big East conference with a quarterback with no experience."
"We want to be able to move him around and change where we throw the ball so defenses can't tee off on him."
On the receivers: "We have a very experienced group of receivers coming back. I think we need to find out who that go-to guy is. Could be Broderick Clark, maybe Joshua Tinch, Montrell (Jones); I really like Harry Douglas. Harry's the fastest guy on the team. We have to keep him healthy. He's been a guy that in camp both years, he's been injured. Nothing serious, but he misses practice time, and then it's hard to get back in the rotation. We're looking forward to see what personality our offense and defense takes on."
On the offensive line: "They're big guys. The best thing about them is that they're very athletic, with a lot of experience. That's the thing I like most about them. Jason Spitz and Travis Leffew have played in every game I've coached in, 25-straight games. Then we have Kurt Quarterman coming back. Kurt played extremely well for us last year in his first year. We are going to move Spitz in to center, and try to develop his weak-guard position."
"They are guys that are very experienced. I thought they protected the quarterback very well last year. They also allowed us to run the ball, particularly in the last part of the third quarter and fourth quarter where we could take the game over a little bit with the running game. We need to keep them all healthy and get the guys behind them a lot of experience this spring with good quality reps against our experienced defensive linemen."
On the running game: "Michael's (Bush) carried the ball a lot here. We were actually just watching some of his video before I came in here. He's so big and physical, and has great feet in the hole. One thing I did with Michael last year was to keep him fresh in the first half, and then gave him an opportunity in the second half to take over some games. He did very well. So I think his conditioning is something we've got to do a really good job of. He understands that and has worked real hard at it. He's actually down again in weight, which is good. I think he weighed in about 246 (pounds). So that's a good thing."
"Kolby (Smith) has been playing fullback for us the past two years because he's been the toughest of the four backs we had, and the most physical. I'm excited to see him carry the ball 10, 15, 20 times a game. He led us in yards per carry last year. He's a very explosive runner, very hard to tackle. He has really good hands so we'll utilize him in the passing game."
"And then we have to find out how Reggie Bradshaw and George Strippling are going to fit in to the mix."
On how the Men's Basketball team's trip to the Final Four affects his football program: "I think it definitely helps us in recruiting. Any time you have a team that's going to the Final Four, that's been on national TV all the time, and has been very successful, it helps. Players (recruits) we've been in contact with, and players that have been in contact with us, are all watching the basketball games too. So it definitely helps recruiting. I'm hoping that our coaches and our players all learn from our basketball team. I just like to watch them, just how tough they are. How they have multiple guys that can score and step up. How they can win games different ways; win games with their offense, win games with their defense. They're just a great team. That's what we'd like to do in football, is to be a real good football team."
