Watch: Offensive Coordinator Conor Riley | Quarterback Avery Johnson | Running Back DJ Giddens | Running Back Dylan Edwards | Wide Receiver Keagan Johnson | Offensive Lineman Taylor Poitier
Media DownloadMANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State offensive coordinator Conor Riley and five offensive players – quarterback Avery Johnson, running backs DJ Giddens and Dylan Edwards, wide receiver Keagan Johnson and offensive lineman Taylor Poitier – met with members of the media for the first time during fall camp on Tuesday at the Vanier Family Football Complex. Links to video and audio of the media availabilities are above, while a transcript of select Riley quotes are below.
CONOR RILEY, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On concentrating on installation vs. personnel…
“Really, it's always a combination of both. We are very early in the evaluation phase for those guys because we do go so heavy with our installation in those first five to six practices. In fact, just this morning, as we were looking at our install cut up and our schedule, it was a little bit less. So, you have to keep things in context. You got to stay relative to say, ‘Man, there's this young kid who's really flashing right now,’ or maybe he's making a few of the mistakes, but as we start slowing that down, now, how much can they grow? Because their growth is never linear, and it's hard to explain that to young kids. There's going to be those ebbs and flows. So, it’s really a combination of both, but I'd say that we have the lion's share of our offense in already.”
On wide receiver Keagan Johnson…
“I've always had a ton of respect and admiration for Keagan. It goes back to recruiting his older brothers when I was at the previous school, and even recruiting Keagan. I think his final two schools were us and Iowa. I've always been impressed with his maturity. Where I see a ton of growth is in his confidence, and that confidence comes with just being in the program and understanding what to expect on a day-to-day basis. But I absolutely admire the young man. I heard you guys talking about his ability, but the type of kid that he is fantastic. I’m really glad that he's with us.”
On simplifying the passing game…
“It is a process because there is a simplification of some things, but then, without going into too much detail, there's some ownership that the wide receivers do need to take, and the ownership that they need to take within some of your decision making. What I love about that – and it may look complicated or sound complicated – is it really gives ownership to those guys to say with some of the things that we're doing, ‘What am I seeing? What is my responsibility?’ In my mind, it also builds a little bit better of a relationship between quarterback and the wide receivers. So, I think that it's going very well. Are there still a few mistakes? Absolutely. In part, there's some mistakes because, I believe, that our back end, our secondary, is pretty dang good and they make it pretty difficult on us. So, the pictures that these guys are seeing, they're ever changing. That's probably as we go into install, it's not, ‘Okay, what are we running?’ But now, ‘What do we have to run that against?’ These are great lessons to help us here moving forward.”
On what he likes about Sam Hecht’s progression at center…
“Everything, quite honestly. I couldn’t be more pleased with Sam Hecht. You go back to his story, I recruited his older brother at the last place I was at, and for him to be a walk-on and earn his way into this position, and, interestingly enough, the last two kids are Kansas walk-ons that have started at center, and both have been pretty dang good. I expect that same thing from Sam Hecht. His attention to detail, his physicalness, his coachability, he doesn't make a bunch of mistakes, he takes ownership. Those are things that I absolutely love with Sam. Now, I'd like Sam to vocalize a little bit more, but that's a little bit of his personality as well.”
On what Matt Wells has brought to the table…
“Well, he's not only brought a ton of conceptual thoughts in some of his experience that fit within what we do, he's brought a ton of perspective. This is a system – like I've stated before – that has evolved that I've been a part of since 2013. Just his perspective from having been a coordinator, from having been a head coach, from his responsibilities at Oklahoma last year, just saying, ‘Why do we do this? Why do we do this? Can we become more efficient in how we communicate?’ So, conceptually, in the passing game especially, there's going to be some changes. It's something that he's familiar with. It's something that you can tell Coach (Matthew) Middleton is familiar with as well.”
– k-statesports.com –
RYAN LACKEY