Kentucky football press conference quotes.
Opening statement on transferring quarterback Dusty Bonner:
“The reason that I (delayed) this press conference was because I wanted to give Dusty plenty of time to make his decision as to what was going to happen. While he was deciding whether to go or stay, I didn’t want to come out here and influence him either way because I wanted what was best for him.”
“Dusty Bonner is a great young man. He has high character. If I had another son, I would want him to be just like Dusty. He never did anything at Kentucky other than try to do his best. There was never any disciplinary problems or any kind of overshadowing event to lead me into changing my mind. Basically, I changed my mind and Dusty did everything he could to retain the job. He did it all in a class manner. Everything he did at Kentucky, including leaving, he did in a class manner.”
On backup QB Mark Perry:
“Mark Perry has been on scholarship here since last January and he earned the scholarship on the field last fall. We are very fortunate to have Mark at this particular time because obviously we need him.”
On the events leading up to UK’s quarterback change:
“Basically what I did at the end of the spring game was to take the video in the film room for about three or four days. I went to the film room with the idea that I was going to prove myself right. I wanted to evaluate our offense and every position on it – receivers, quarterbacks, offensive linemen, running backs – and in the course of evaluating the quarterbacks, it would become apparent that what I had said (naming Dusty the starting quarterback for the 2000 season) was correct. But about three days later when I came out of the film room, I couldn’t say that.”
“What I did was to look at routes, throws, the timing of balls in the air – from the time they leave the quarterback’s hands till the time they get to the receiver – and how much room the receiver had to run with the ball after he caught it. Jared threw some balls that really caught my interest so I started looking at some video from Tim Couch’s era here and I went back to compared it to 1999, all of which is pretty normal stuff.”
“What kept popping out to me was that the fact that the last four games of last season we averaged 18 points per game, which isn’t near enough. We also had safeties and linebackers really playing forward on us and really pressing us. I felt like we were not stretching the field enough and that it was hurting, not only the passing game in the deep and intermediate areas, but also the running game which slows our whole offense down.”
“Then I started adding up the pluses and minuses at quarterback. Obviously for Dusty the pluses were his experience and the minuses were his arm strength and somewhat his pocket feet, but he had improved some of that with his work in the spring. Actually his arm got stronger too, but it’s still – in my mind – kind of a minus. The minus for Jared was experience but the plus was his pocket feet and his ability to stretch the field with his great arm. At the end of that, I looked to see if Jared has the intangibles and some of that was connected to his grades, so I had to wait a bit on that until the middle of May. In the process of looking at those pluses and minuses, I kept asking myself as a coach, How can I make us better?’ I could give Jared experience but I couldn’t make Dusty’s arm stronger and that was the bottom line. I couldn’t stretch the field any more except by changing. I came out of the film room determined that I was wrong and had made too hasty a decision in the spring.”
“After I made the decision I asked several members of our staff, who at that point had no idea that I had changed my mind, and they were trying to diplomatically tell me that we should start Lorenzen. I talked to several other people close to our program and got the same answer, so basically I decided in early May that we needed to make a change, but it still hinged on Jared making his grades. When his grades came back we made the final decision.”
On meeting with Dusty after making the decision:
“I first met with him last Friday and called him over to talk to him and told him to think about it. The next day I met with him and his mom, his step-dad and his brother at my house for about two hours. We talked a lot about his options and what he could do. If he was going to consider transferring, I told him that the Valdosta State option was really a good one and the only one he should consider simply because of (former UK assistant coach) Chris Hatcher. It’s also the same offense and he’d have a great opportunity to go in and start for two years. I also presented him the option of staying here and that if Jared faltered, he’d have another chance. However, if Jared didn’t, he’d be the backup quarterback. The No. 1 thing that I wanted to do was make him happy and allow him to make his decision wholeheartedly.”
“It was not a decision I enjoyed making, but it’s not one that is unusual either. Last year at this time, we had to tell Jimmy Haley that it would be best for him to play defense after he and James Whalen had about the same stats the year before at tight end. Two years ago, I had to call Lee Wesley in and tell him that even though he had started 11 games the year before, we were going to go with (Jeff) Snedegar and (Marlon) McCree. When I took the job at Kentucky, I had to call my own son in (Matt Mumme) and tell him, I know you’ve been grooming for three years to be the starting quarterback, but you’re not going to be it. If you come to Kentucky, Tim Couch is always going to be the starter.’ So it’s something that I really have to deal with on a regular basis. My main focus is to just put the best team on the field every Saturday on the fall.”
“I was hoping Dusty would take to (the situation) and be okay with it, but when he came in on Friday and told me that he was leaving, I told him that I would have probably done the same thing. I can’t blame him because it’s a great situation for him. VSU is a great university and Chris Hatcher is a great coach. They are going to run a great offense (Mumme laughing) so it will be good for him to be in it.”
General Comments:
“The easy thing for me would have been to wait until August and have some little contest between those two despite knowing in my heart of hearts who was going to win the job. But that would have cut Dusty out of having the opportunity at VSU. I just didn’t feel like that was the thing to do for our team, and I certainly didn’t feel like it was the fair thing to do to Dusty.”
“Obviously this is a gamble, but after watching video and with what I saw last year, I thought it was more of a gamble not to make the change. It seemed like defenses had a book on our offense by the end of the year. With Jared we have a guy who can just really throw the football and really get it down the field. I felt it would be more of a gamble if we tried to do it like we did last year and then turn around in the middle of the year and make a change. There would be too many variables for our receivers.”
“Jared has really earned his spurs. I particularly liked the way he handled things when I didn’t name him the starter coming out of spring. He came out and said it was all his fault, that he didn’t take care of business in the classroom and didn’t play well the first seven workouts. He said that he was going to keep working hard and keep pushing Dusty Bonner and try to earn the job. Unlike a lot of guys who mouth that, he actually went out and did that and improved greatly over the last half of the spring.”
“I’ve never been concerned about Jared’s weight. He’s never going to be a guy who gets down to 250 pounds. People are just going to have to get used to a 6-foot-5, 270 pound quarterback who looks like a linebacker. Agility is not a problem with him. He has great finesse, great touch and he moves around well so I can’t find anything wrong with him.”
“Jared is a guy who has great field vision and can push the ball 50-55 yards to our quick receivers and that makes a big difference in our offense. If we get single coverage with a guy like Quentin McCord on the left side and Quentin gets 35 yards down the field, the corner can’t give up on him and know that he’s done his job and that’s it. Quentin has to keep running the route because the ball can still come over the top, 50-55 yards. That forces the corner to play all the way down the field and also forces the safeties to play that deep if they don’t want give up single coverage. That also opens up intermediate routes as well as the running game. That is where I thought we needed to improve the most and to me only way to get the improvement was to put Jared on the field.”
“We are really excited to have both Jared and Shane Boyd as quarterbacks for the future. We like both of them and that is why we recruited them. I had a good meeting with Shane this morning, he’s going through the whole thing with the baseball draft. We really like both of them.”
