"How we doin'?"

Great. Are you game ready yet?

"Getting there, yeah. We're getting there. Now that we've kind of shaved it down to the guys that we think are going to participate in a game, that's always kind of when you start making a little bit more progress. You're not working with your third team guys all the time. You're working with the guys that are actually going to play in the game. You can start getting a little chemistry, and it starts going better."

You have six running backs on the depth chart. How many do you think will actually get carries?

"Who knows? I don't know. Fitz [Toussaint] is going to be our starting running back, and we're going to play it by ear. I don't have an answer to that question because Fitz is going to be the running back and we'll just see how things go."

Have you ever listed six guys at running back before?

"I think so. At one point I did. It may not have been at running back. Yeah, I'm sure I have, yeah. At some place I've been. That's a lot, though. I will say that."

What are you seeing about Fitz that convinces you that he's "back"?

"Well because he just looks like the old Fitz. Fitz is a hard worker and he goes hard every single down and he's got great feel for our system and our run game in particular. A little bit of everything. [Blitz] pick-up in our passing game. He looks comfortable. He doesn't look like he's really missed a beat to me. Now we're not going to hit him too much. We hit him some. But I think this will be a good test for him this game. Get him a few carries, get him knocked around a bit. Make sure he feels good about his knee or his injury, and I think that will tell you more than anything. But just from watching him practice and watching him scrimmage, I mean he looks like the old Fitz."

At what point did Graham Glasgow start standing out at guard?

"It goes back to the same thing I've been saying since I got here. You want to play the best five offensive linemen and somehow some way fit them into the right positions. A year ago we thought for a long time that Ricky Barnum was going to be our center. But as we got closer to the game and started playing the guys that were really going to play, it became increasingly evident that Mealer was a better center and Ricky was better suited to guard. That kind of worked out here. Jack has come to the forefront, and Graham, who's a good player and has proven he's one of the top five at this point, you have to make sure he plays somewhere, too, so we moved him to guard and that's kind of how it all shook out. Just trying to get the best five guys on the field. That's the key."

MGoQuestion: You've said before that targeting was an issue for the offensive line. By that do you mean targeting linebackers?

"Targeting anybody. When we talk about targeting, we talk about who to block, okay? Having a play call whether it's a run or pass and everybody knowing who their target is. If you target a running play, is it the defensive end? Making you sure you know that's what it is and what technique it takes to block the defensive end. If it's a pass protection situation, which way is the turn going, where's the running back look first? When we talk about targeting, we're just simply talking about who's your assignment on that play."

MGoFollowup: That first level of targeting seems pretty straightforward. What about getting to the second level?

"Well I'm not sure how to answer that question, but what you initially do is you try to tell them who to block and then knowing that there's always some adjustment on the run, where maybe a guy you're blocking could be eaten up by somebody else in turn forcing you to block his guy. Again, that takes some experience, some understanding and all that stuff. When you have guys that have done all that before it helps."

How have your receivers adjusted to Amara's absence?

"They've done a pretty good job. But most of them, guys like Jeremy Jackson, who's kind of been a jack-of-all-trades since he's been here, has had an outstanding camp. He's kind of taken over. He's done a really nice job of supplementing that with Jehu Chesson. Jehu played X the whole spring, and then we moved him to Z. There's been some adjustment there, but he's worked out very nicely. Between the two of them, you've got capable replacements."

Does quarterback depth impact Gardner's number of runs in a game? 

"Oh it can, yeah."

Any discussions with him about getting out of bounds, not taking hits?

"You know, you don't ever want to take any unnecessary hits. I don't care if you have a really good or really seasoned backup for a quarterback. You have to understand it's a delicate balance from a playcaller's standpoint. You want to make sure you explore the skillset of the man under center. If you don't, you're probably not doing a very good job of coaching, but by the same token, that heightens the probability of him getting hit more, which in turn heightens the probability of an injury. Where does one stop and the other one start? Well like I told you before, we're not going to run him 25 times a game. Those days are over. But to say all he's ever going to do is throw the ball and hand it off, we're not going to do that either. So we can't play scared. We can't go out there and say we're not going to do this. You can't coach football that way, and you certainly can't play football that way. But there's times when you have to use good judgement and understand that you can avoid taking the big hits sometimes by getting out of bounds, by getting down. As a playcaller, there may be a time to call off the jam, if you will, with regard to having the quarterback runs. So that's kind of a roundabout answer, but that's really the essence of the issue."

You've had eight months to come up with new plays for Devin and new schemes. Is it exciting to test out all the new stuff in a game?

"Oh yeah. Yeah. And to find out also, not just so much as schemes, find out how guys react under pressure, you know? How do we take what we practiced into the game? I tell the players, sometimes the issues that come up on Main Street don't come up on State Street. That simply is because there is more to it. People are watching. Everybody's watching on television. There's pressure. There's officials there now. There's so many other things. Sometimes we have what we call game spasms, which is when you get to a game and all of a sudden someone's doing something they've never done before. And that happens more with guys that don't have much experience. They usually go away. I mean, after you've done that a while, you don't have much of that. But guys that haven't played a lot, it can happen to more often."

Any true freshmen you think will get some snaps for sure on Saturday?

"Uh, no. We'll see. I'm not going to say no freshman are going to be in there. There'll be some freshmen in there, but if I say it, you'll probably hold me to it, and I'm non-commital."

Not even Jake Butt?

"We'll see."

MGoQuestion: How is Dennis Norfleet looking in the slot?

"Good. He's got a lot of skills. He's quick, and he gets in and out of cuts fast. He's still learning the position, you know. So there's some growing pains with that. He certainly fits the physical qualifications of the position, even though he's not a big guy. He makes out for it a lot with his mobility, quickness, and he's got good hands, too. He can catch the ball pretty good, too."

How have your backs looked?

"Good. Really good. Now some of the younger guys are still kind of learning it, but Fred's done a nice job of training several kids that can handle that. You get in pure pass and you see a variation of blitzes, twists, or movements. We have several kids that can do the job there that Vince Smith did a lot of last year and several of our other guys."

How difficult is the pass protection?

"That's the hardest thing. That's it. If you had to pinpoint one issue with a young back, it's trying to figure out all the pickup and the protections, whether it's six-man protection or whether there's play-action or whatever. Him just figuring out who to target. That's not always easy to do. Now, some guys get it faster than others. Most of the pro teams will tell you that. The young backs, you have to be very careful because you get your quarterback killed."