San Diego State Football head coach Rocky Long held a press conference to talk about his favorite time of the year, spring football.
At the press conference an intriguing storyline developed into an quarterback controversy. Long revealed Christian Chapman will be unavailable for some time to recover from thumb surgery which he sustained during the Las Vegas Bowl victory.
And within 24 hours Rutgers graduate transfer QB Chris Laviano declared he will make it out west to join the Aztecs for his last year of eligibility. It is not clear and highly doubtful that he will be with the team in time for spring football.
Coach Long will creatively deal with a QB no matter what happens with Chapman or Laviano this spring because he made it well known that the developing offensive line will be the emphasis of spring ball.
Coach Long on the reason for the emphasis:
“The youngest position on our team is the offensive line. We’ll have four new starters next year. Going into spring practice, we predict that two or three of them are going to be redshirt freshmen, which makes you nervous a little bit because of the (non-conference) schedule that we play.”
With potential NFL players Nico Siragusa and Donnel Pumphrey gone, there is a renewed focus to coach up the offensive line than years before. Rashaad Penny will either benefit or be destroyed by a young offensive line that at this moment hasn’t played enough together.
Coach on the struggles of coaching up his offensive linemen:
“We’re going to put four or five freshmen out there that are potential NFL guys, but they have not played at this level. All it means is that they’re big enough, strong enough and athletic enough to be good. Their technique is horrible and they’ve never seen the speed that they’re going to play against.”
Looking forward the Aztecs, have a lot of work to do build upon their successful 2016 season and it will come with controversy in the 2017 season.
Here is the full press conference: