Coach Freeman's Monday Press Conference

Head Coach Marcus Freeman spoke to the media on Monday afternoon. Coach came right out of the gate talking about the injury to QB Tyler Buchner, and Drew Pyne taking over as QB1.

“I’m going to start off with addressing Tyler Buchner. He ended up getting a high-grade, grade 5 out of 6 AC sprain in his non-throwing shoulder. He’ll end having surgery tomorrow (Tuesday, 9/13), by Dr. Ratigan, and expected recovery time is about four months, so we can all do the math, and it probably puts us somewhere in mid-January. So that’s where we’re at with that. Moving forward from that, Drew Pyne will be our starter, and as I said when we addressed the quarterback competition in Fall Camp, I had the utmost confidence in both of them, those guys in being able to lead our offense, lead this football team. We are still very positive and optimistic about the future, moving forward with Drew Pyne (leading) our offense, I’m excited for his opportunity and what he’s going to present to our football team.”

Coach Freeman was asked about how, if any the offense has to change with Drew Pyne at quarterback:

“You’re thrust into a leadership position, you want people to be able to follow you, not just through your actions, but through your words and who you are as a leader, he’s a natural leader, has a lot of the natural qb traits that you’re looking for, I don’t see the offense changing extremely amounts. I see we’re still going to be able to do some of the qb runs we did with Tyler. Obviously, the passing game we’ll continue to enhance it, and figure out ways to be more consistent in it and put him in a situation to have more completions. Again, I don’t see the offense in terms of the entire package changing, because of Drew being at quarterback, but I do see us trying to look and say, hey, where can we be more efficient as an offense.”

Coach on what he’s seen from Drew Pyne since Saturday and Sunday:

“It’s what I’ve seen from him the minute I told him he wasn’t going to be QB #1. I remember that conversation in my office, and I told him, you know what we’ve made a decision, but I’ve never been a part of a program where you haven’t used more than one quarterback through the course of the season. I didn’t know when his time was going to come, but I knew it was going to come at some point, and here it is. He’s always prepared like the starter, he’s prepared like a pro, that’s who Drew Pyne is, and went out yesterday, and was Drew Pyne. He doesn’t need to be any different than who he’s always been. He’s, no matter if he was QB 1 or QB 2, he was a leader, came out there with great energy, just now got to put the execution element to that persona that he has.”

Coach Freeman on new QB-2 Steve Angeli:

“I spent some time obviously with him on scout team, you know I’ve been trying to be pretty involved with those guys, specially scout team offense. Steve is another guy that has those natural leadership traits ab out him. He took ownership of that scout team offense, and that was good to see. And he’s got a strong arm, you know, but it’s a little bit different when you’re looking at a card, versus when you’re going to have to read the defense, get the signals, and put the guys in the right position, and so yesterday was the first he was running with the twos at practice, but you know again, I got a lot of confidence in Steve Angeli, and he’s a freshman, and so he made a lot of progress from the start of spring to the end of spring and even fall camp, so I’m sure that he’ll be meeting extra with Coach Rees, and you know Drew will be pulling him along, and helping him along. And, Tyler Buchner, that’s going to be his role now. You’ve got to become a coach and you have to somehow make our team better, even though you’re not going to be playing. I see some growth in him.”