Watson on Pickett, the OL, deep passes and more

What kind of progress have you seen Kenny make in the last six weeks?
Watson: He’s done a really nice job. I’m really happy where he’s at. The things that he’s got to do, he’s got to clean up - he’ll do so well, every once in a while, I’ll forget that he’s still a younger player. So some of the things he hasn’t experienced or seen that he’s getting to do because he’s a full-time guy out here now, he’ll have a speed bump. He’s still a work in progress, but a great work in progress. I like his improvement. His decision-making’s been really good, he’s very, very consistent. I think, fundamentally, he’s made all kinds of - he’s made some nice adjustments, really just trusting himself, you know, the footwork aspect of it, which is really learning how to use your eyes and feet together. So fundamentally he’s done a nice job. I’m really happy with him.

What’s one speed bump you’ve had with him?
Watson: Speed bump, you know, just like in situational football. How to manage, for example, a four-minute situation…because he’s a coach on the field, and being able to manage those situations where it’s just him. You know, two-minute; he had a speed bump in there. So those show up in situational football; they’re not big speed bumps, but they’re things that - I’ve learned to trust him so much that it’s like, ‘Man, I have to remember he’s young, I have to still keep coaching and coaching and coaching.’

He’s a great student. I love him. It’s awesome.

He committed and enrolled here before you even got hired. Were you familiar with him at all?
Watson: I was. We watched him as an earlier player. Early in his career, he had some pop coming out of high school in that region, and when you recruit the country for quarterbacks, you hear about the kids. But he was a skinny dude at that time, a small guy, and he hadn’t grown into who he is today. But he always - I remember in watching him as a sophomore, he’s a very competitive player. The same guy that’s out here is the same guy he was in high school as a young player.

Now, I didn’t get involved past that; that’s kind of where we were with that class at that time. He was on a lot of people’s radar screen and probably because of size or whatever the other people were saying - he knows that better than I do - people just kind of went to another guy. I’m glad he’s here, though. I’ll tell you that.

Who flashed to you in the scrimmage on Saturday?
Watson: I thought Darrin Hall played really, really well, up to his standard. On the offensive line, Jimmy had some speed bumps but he did play well overall. I mean, I can see Borbs’ coaching coming through with him. Bookser played good. I’ll tell you, two guys that have played pretty good offensive line that I’m really pleased with its, Connor Dintino has really become a factor in there and Mike (Herndon) has. Mike’s done a heck of a job. We missed him for a couple days or a day he was out, just had a little back spasm, but he came back and had a really good scrimmage. So that group of four showed real well.

A guy that keeps flashing out here is Taysir Mack. He keeps flashing. Young receivers - Darian Street, he’ll flash, Michael will flash. I mean, okay, flash; we need it to stay on. So we’re still at that point with the young guys: hey, let’s leave these things on now. It’s just being consistent in our coaching and keep developing them.

The young line, you can see guys - the Houy kid is doing a heck of a job. You can see his potential and see that he’s getting it. He flashes more consistently now.

The two young tailbacks - our defense does a lot and they have caught up with understanding, so there’s been a breakthrough there.

I could probably go through every position and say something that’s kind of broke through. The tight ends, they’re getting a lot of time and they improved on some areas that we’ve challenged them with, you know, setting the edge in the run game. They’ve been very consistent in the pass game. Everybody’s still got a lot of work to do, but we have made progress, especially with the younger players; I can see them starting to make some flashes.

How much could Taysir help you this year?
Watson: Big time. He’s an awesome player. When I was at Indiana, I thought he was one of our best guys. He was in the top two or three. He’d be a major help.

In the stats from Saturday, it didn’t look like a completed downfield passes. Is that a matter of situation?
Watson: Situations, yeah, because you get in those kind of scrimmages, there’s a lot of situations in there. We did two-minute, four-minute. We did a really cool drill at the end that was kind of four-minute/two-minute. You can get in all kinds of different situations, so a lot of that’s dictated by situations. Then we had some normal-down drives and we were trying to - honestly, we were trying to emphasize stuff, too. We’re still trying to teach, with the line especially, so we emphasized blocking - you know, just different aspects of the game.

It’s still spring ball where you go in working on stuff. But they did a nice job, really, especially that first group of kids; those four linemen did a really nice job.

Do you see the potential personnel-wise to stretch the field more than you did last year?
Watson: Yeah, we’ll have to. The whole thing we’ve been trying to do in spring ball is develop a run game that can dictate that we’ll get those looks, because you need to get the box loaded so that you can take those shots. And we’ve got some guys down; with Aaron being down, I don’t know that we’ve been able to realize all of that. You know, Tre’s coming off of his injury. But we do - like, Taysir Mack, you feel him. Michael flashing, Darian flashing, those guys are very capable of doing all of that, and they, as younger players, have to learn how to technically get open. It’s not like high school anymore; that guy’s just like you - meaning that they’re evenly matched, so you better use technique to get open. That’s coaching showing up. That’s us. But yeah, we’ll be able to do that, especially with [Kenny Pickett] and those kids.