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Pat Narduzzi talked about an intense practice, key defensive players and more after Friday’s session, and here’s a full rundown of what he said.

Narduzzi: Got an intense practice in today. I think the boys are ready to put the pads on. They said they will see each other after spring break. So they’re going to take a week away here, it’s spring break, but it was a great practice today. It was intense. Too many guys on the ground in shorts here, just trying to teach them how to play fast. We count them during practice, I think we had 19 guys on the ground today; we had seven last Wednesday. So you know they’re starting to compete. They’re watching the tape and saying, ‘I would have made that play.’ Then they come out and try to make the play and try to go too hard. But you love the intensity, the energy and the effort they’re giving you.

But I’m happy with number two and we’ll give them a little freshness here and then we’ll come back and knock out the next 13.

Are your expectations pretty high for Dane and Jason going into this season?
Narduzzi: And Damarri Mathis. No question about it. They’ve been out there for a few years and obviously Dane is the older of all of them and he’s come a long way since his freshman year and we hope the rest of those guys. But really, when I look at it, I see us as having three starting corners. I think Dane’s a starter; we’re going to find out with Damarri and Pinnock, they’re battling it out. To me, those are all three guys are starters right now.

What about the rebuilt linebacker corps, how are they looking right now?
Narduzzi: I’ll have to watch the tape, but when you look at it, Chase Pine, I thought, had a great day today. At the Mike, I think Elias is playing strong. I really like what I see out of him, at least day one watching the video, but I don’t think he tailed off any today. At the Star position, Cam Bright is battling with Phil Campbell. I like the talent; now they have to know what to do and that’s what we’re working on in the next 15 or the next 13 to go.

You have Chase back inside?
Narduzzi: We have Chase doing both. We’re trying to find our best three linebackers and he knows that, so he’s playing a little bit of Mike. Wendell Davis really is backing up Elias in the first two days and we’ve got Saleem and Chase working at that Money spot to see who that guy’s going to be.

What about at running back? How do you feel about that group there?
Narduzzi: You know, obviously Qadree Ollison’s out here today so you guys might want to interview him today; he’s probably more exciting than me. But with the losses of Ollison and Hall, AJ Davis and Sibley are doing well. We saw some good things out of Sibley last year and obviously AJ played in the bowl game, but we’re excited to see what those guys have got. We have V’Lique Carter playing a little bit of running back, so he’s got a little bit different gear. It’s a total different gear than some of the bigger guys in there. So I’m happy with where it is after day two and we’ll continue to get better. We’ve got til August 31st.

You guys have had a string of 1,000-yard rushers and last year you had two of them. Do you feel like you have one on this team that you can count to be -
Narduzzi: I do. We’ll have one or two of them, for sure. We’ll find out who they’re going to be. I can’t sit there and name them today. And then we’ve got two young puppies coming in. So we’re going to find someone to carry the ball and we’re going to rush and we’re going to throw and we’re going to do what it takes to win a football game.

How much do you think that makes up this program’s identity? Some people call it ‘RBU’ - how much do you -
Narduzzi: Our goal is to win football games. We didn’t win enough. Obviously, we got to a championship game but we still would like to win them all. When you look at it, it doesn’t matter - ‘RBU’, running the football, throwing the football, I think you’ve still got to be balanced. Obviously, we’d like to run the ball but when you run the ball and you still can’t throw it, that doesn’t help you either. So we’ve got to be balanced in what we’re doing offensively but we’d still like to have some thousand-yard rushers.

What does Weaver bring you at the end position besides just his talent and his athleticism?
Narduzzi: What else is there? I mean, obviously he brings you character. He’s a character guy. I won’t get into details but he spoke to the team for about 35 seconds before practice today, just to bring up something. I guess I’ll just say, it was about Lily*. He just - he brings you everything. He’s first-class. Obviously, he’s athletic, he’s big, he’s fast, he’s smart. So he brings you everything you really want in a football player.

You had mentioned last year about Aaron Mathews blocking. How much more is there as a receiver that he’s ready for?
Narduzzi: Well, I think he’s ready. Depending on what we do in the passing game, I think Aaron Mathews is ready to do more than just block. He had a great year blocking, but it’s a different year, it’s a different offense and we’re doing some different stuff.

Is it strange that Aaron and Maurice and Damar and Amir are seniors already?
Narduzzi: It’s scary. Again, we hope to get another year back out of Damar, but yeah, it’s amazing how fast it goes. Our kids talk about it all the time. Ollison talked about how fast it goes. It goes fast. You blink and it’s gone, and it’s hard to believe that those guys will be gone after a year.

We talked on Wednesday about Phil and Wheeler switching positions, but didn’t ask - did those guys come to you with that or did you go to them?
Narduzzi: Phil came to me. Phil wants to play a little tailback, too. Phil came to me and we went to Rashad, just to see what we could do to make it a little bit better at that position. Again, just having an older guy - you can go out and get a grad transfer, you can get a JC guy or you can pull a great quality character guy from a position. So I didn’t tell him, ‘Hey, you’re moving.’ I never tell a guy, ‘Hey, you’re moving over here.’ I told him to think about it. We actually talked about it at bowl practice and I let him have time, just to think about what’s best and where he’s going to help impact the football team.

* - Weaver said that Lily is a girl the players met while they were volunteering for the Race To Anyplace fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society last month.