Feb. 2, 2011
"This is an exciting day for us. It's the culmination of a year's work. I think this morning, talking to all of our signees when they call after sending their faxes in, you could feel the excitement talking to these guys. They wanted to be at Samford. It's exciting to talk to them and so much has gone into it."
"This past year, overall, we lost a lot of seniors. I think there were a lot of positions that we needed to fill. I think through our class this year, we were able to fill our needs. We started on the offensive side of the ball; we lost some linemen. You know, it always starts up front. We were able to sign four big offensive linemen. We've got some scat-back types that are coming back in Fabian Truss and Jonathan Sillers. But we needed a bigger back to take Chris Evans' place."
"We've got some real good speed at wide-out. We needed some taller guys, and we got a couple of tall ones there. It's always great to get a quarterback and a leader, and we were able to do that, and we were able to sign a transfer tight end."
"On defense, we've got it spaced out as well. We got two on the defensive line, two at linebacker, two in the secondary, and we lost our long snapper who had been snapping for us for four years and we were able to get one of those."
"I'm excited about all of them as people, the good character they have. They've all done a great job in school. I think they are going to mean a lot to our football team and to Samford."
ON POSSIBLE IMMEDIATE CONTRIBUTORS
"I think a lot of them will come in and contribute. I don't know that we can single out particular ones until we get them here. I know, with our depth situation, we are counting on a bunch of them coming in to play. They'll all get the opportunity to come in this fall and earn a position. Each year, there will be guys who will come in and step up and play and end up being starters. Who they are right now, I don't know, but I think anyone in this class is capable of doing it. I don't know of anybody right now that we are saying we are going to redshirt this guy and hopefully he'll be able to develop down the road. I think all of them have the potential to come in and play and help us this year."
ON THE POSSIBLE EFFECT OF NEW OC Rhett Lashlee ON OFFENSIVE SIGNEES' DECISION TO COME TO SAMFORD
"They were guys that we were on and I certainly think it helped, no question. When you are talking to athletes, and they see a guy who has a chance to coach them who's coaching in the national championship game, you can't buy that kind of publicity. A picture is worth a thousand words, they say."
ON THE NUMBER OF RECRUITS
"It's about where we wanted to be. One of the things that we want to do is, after the end of the year, we hope to reward some guys with the financial aid that they need or want at the end of the year, but that's not here yet."
ON IF THERE WERE ANY SURPRISES
"We lost a couple of kids to some SEC schools. And that's good if we are on those kinds of guys. We also got a couple right at the end that we were excited about. Is it like what's going on on ESPNU right now? No. But it's all very similar, in that you're trying to get the right guys and the right fit for your program. Our guys (coaches) are working just as hard, and maybe even harder, than some because we don't have an airplane to get on to go visit these guys. But we have so much to offer here at Samford, just like this facility right here (Cooney Family Field House), at our level, to have this is something that is special. When you start talking about things that we try to sell here, they are things like being a student-athlete, graduation rates and the environment on campus. If we get people here on campus, our success rate of getting them to become Bulldogs is tremendous. We probably get about 8 out of 10 that we bring in here on official visits."
