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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 5 22 Hazell: "Yes, without a doubt. No concern about that at all. He's very comfortable standing with his feet firm in the turf and slinging it. He's not a guy that just drops back and starts scrambling around. That's not who he is. But that's what he has. That plays to our benefit if he's the guy. Austin can get himself out of trouble, too. Proba- bly not as well as David, but he certain- ly can get himself out of trouble." Q: Before the spring, you seemed a bit concerned about Blough not making the best decisions within the flow of the offense, and then, after the spring game, you seemed like you had more confidence in him. Did your opinion of him change over the spring? Hazell: "His personality, which you love, he's so competitive. He's such a gunslinger mentality-wise. Some- times that bites you. That was my concern going into the spring — not being careless with the ball, chucking it down the field because 'I'm going to beat you on this play.' He gotten better at that, which was a point of empha- sis. … He'll make some plays because of that (risk-taking), but those are things that could also crush you if you don't make those plays." Q: Can you live with that? The variation? Hazell: "No. That's why he's got to lose too many of those risky situations. And he has. He's lost a lot of those. The first couple days, he just threw it up, tried to throw the long ball late and couldn't get it there. But you saw him pull it down and run or do some oth- er things where he was more careful with the ball, less careless." Q: Besides Marshall, who else separated themselves to be a first- team type of guy at receiver? Hazell: "I think (Cameron) Posey has quietly done everything we've asked him to do. He's not that guy who's shy or can break you down after the catch, but he's the guy who's in the right location all the time. There's al- ways a place for that guy, finding the seams and sitting down. Catches it, has done a good job of consistency with catches. Trae Hart has shown us some things. I thought DeAngelo (Yanc- ey) had a really nice spring, which was good to see. There's still a couple things, more so in the run game, you'd like to see him to be better at, but we need him to be a productive guy when the lights come on. That would help us immensely. I thought Greg (Phillips) would be louder with his play than what he was a little bit. Not bad. I thought he would be a guy who would have an off-the-charts spring. I just thought he was good. Solid. I thought he'd take a huge step. I'm not down on him at all. He works hard and can make plays, but we need him to take that next step go- ing into camp." Q: Do you view it as having good enough receivers to win throwing the ball? Or maybe good enough backs to win just running the ball? Hazell: "We're not good enough to be able to do that. We've got to be able to do them both. We can't line up and throw it 60 times and think we're going to have success winning that way, nor can we line up and run it 60 times. We're going to have to be able to mix and match and keep people off-balance." Q: Is that where play-action comes in? Hazell: "That's where I think we made huge strides, our play-action study in the offseason, just watching those teams push the ball down the field off speed tempo and not allowing people to get into the right spots, snap- ping it quick, hard play action fake and then sticking it in the seams behind them has been really good." Q: Did you push the ball down- field as much as you wanted and do you like where that is right now? Hazell: "Yes. We can't do enough of that. We especially have to do it early in the season. Even if we miss some shots, I think we've got to push it down the field. It's just a whole new world you're looking at when you do that. It's hard to cover, especially off play-action fakes, but it gives our guys a chance to make some plays. This is where I think we took a major step — the quarterbacks finally kept the ball on the field, on the playing surface, to give our guys a chance. That was not the case the previous two seasons or in the previous two springs. We were always trying to tight-rope the sideline or the ball was going out of bounds. Q: You unveiled the gray uni- forms and the white helmets this spring. Why do you think it's im- portant to change up the look a little bit? Hazell: "It helps morale of our foot- ball team. It'll help us in recruiting. Some people get upset about going away from tradition. That's not what we're doing. We're trying to stay en vogue with the times. You have to do it. We know who we are and we love who we are. That's not the point." Q: You did more lifting this spring than your routine in the past. Hazell: "Yeah, we trained through it. It was a key for us to keep get- ting stronger and try to maintain our strength. There were one or two days where I thought, 'That lift probably got them yesterday, but it'll help us in the long run.' Where we are, you have to