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UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 3, 2016

Philip Montgomery

Tulsa, Oklahoma

COACH MONTGOMERY: Thank you all very much for coming. Obviously we're extremely excited about the class that we just signed. I think we've got five players from the state of Oklahoma. We've got 11 from Texas, two from Louisiana. One from Pennsylvania, one from California. As we looked at this class, I mean, this is kind of that first class that you've got a full year's worth of work as we built into it.

So it's doing extensive research, visiting with coaches, counselors, parents, everybody in town. Getting that type of relationship that you have to build is going to hold strong. And you're feeling it's kind of like a proud daddy, I guess, as you're going through it, because you're seeing kids as they grow and develop over the year, your relationship is growing with them.

And finally for this day, the day of celebration, we finally get to talk about them with you all and we can feel the excitement that is building around our program because of it.

So felt like we needed to address a couple of things. We always start in the trenches. That's where we're going to make our football team every year. You know, we had some holes to fill in there. Anytime you lose a guy like DA and Derrick Luetjen up front, you've got to come in replace them, big shoes to fill.

So being able to fill in those spots with four dominant type players that we've got, anytime you're losing those guys up front offensively, we signed a bunch of linemen in this class. And the thing that we look for, "D" line and "O" line, is we wanted guys that were big, physical guys that had great feet, that could bend, but that are playmakers at their spots.

For an offensive linemen, having a guy that can handle a single block, that can create movement on his own without having to double team every time we wanted to do it. We found some guys that have got some girth to them, got some strength to them, that are really going to be able to maintain that up front. But still have that athletic quality about them that we can still pull and do the things that we want to do up front offensive line-wise with them.

And they've got a nasty component about them, as you see their highlights. So that was important for us there. And the "D" line part of it, we got guys that can make plays, that can hold blocks, that are going to command a double team up front and keep our linebackers where they're free and being able to roam and move.

So it started up front with us in this class. Our first offer went out to Rowdy. He was also our first commitment and a guy that has held strong all the way through, and you added Tiller and those guys with him. Just a tremendous class up front on both sides of the ball. Staying on the defensive side, we wanted to increase our speed in our back seven. That was an emphasis for us last year, had to continue to be an emphasis for us this year and build that type of depth in there. From a numbers standpoint, a year from now we're going to lose quite a few linebackers. We felt we had to take at least three in this class and we feel like we've got three dominant players.

Start with Robert Revels, a kid out of Houston, highly recruited by a ton of people. He's a guy that's going to be a great type of Mike linebacker that can move, create plays, fights off blocks, but is very explosive hitter. But has got a great mind for the game.

He's going to be great. D.J. is a guy that is explosive that can light up a game, and then you've got Cooper who is just a giant of a guy we'll see where his body takes him. He's going to start at linebacker, but a guy that's going to be very physical at the point.

In the secondary, we added some experienced depth back there, when you start looking at Nu, he's the kid the JUCO kid coming out of Long Beach. Got, what a great kid, great personality. Got lean, athleticism to him. Great ball skills. It's an area that we really needed to address in this class, and we feel like he's a guy that can come in and get after it from day one. And then you add Montray out of Houston which is probably one of the fastest kids in the city of Houston.

So if you know anything about track, you know guys down there can run. This guy can flat fly. He's got good length to him. He's a 6'1" corner. Not a little guy. A guy that's going to be able to, you can lock down on people and he's that type of cover corner.

And then Manny Bunch, the athletic guy that played everything. He's already here. He enrolled early. He's already going through workouts and class and the thing that you love about him is just his athleticism. He's long and lean, will come up and strike you. But he can really cover ground from the safety spot.

So that's a great addition. So the back seven for us, we wanted to add speed and we wanted to add athleticism back there. I think we accomplished that in this group.

When you flip back over to the offensive side of it, you look at the receivers that we brought in. We've got one from Cedar Hill who has great length and speed coming from a great program, got a lot of power to him. He's a guy that I really feel like has got a chance to have an unbelievable career here.

You add Jordan Brown from Stillwater, great job in the return game. Didn't get an opportunity to catch just a ton of balls this year. But has got great hands, came to camp, worked his tail off like a bunch of these guys did that we signed, but he's a guy whose upside is just out the roof. And then you look at Keenen Johnson from Alto. If you don't know where Alto is it's an hour and a half southeast of Dallas, if you know anything about east Texas, you've got straight athletes. We've got one from the To and it's delivered in a lot of different ways. So Keenen is going to be a great athlete a guy that played quarterback there but he'll play inside receiver and outside receiver for us, could play running back, we can do a lot of different things with him. He's a talented young man. Kind of quiet when he's off the field, but man he can light it up when the lights come on.

So we're excited about having Partial To here in Tulsa he's going to be a great addition. Tight end spot, Fitzwater, a kid out of Louisiana is a kid that will strike you. He's got great hands, runs great routes. He's going to be a great addition to what we're doing, and he's a guy that we needed from a depth standpoint with some of the things that happened to us last fall. That's an important position for us.

That doesn't get a lot of notoriety, but it is essential for us to have with what we do offensively. And then finishing it up with, last but not least, but was the first scholarship across the fax machine this morning. Gotta give him props for that, is Luke Skipper. Our quarterback in this class is a stud out of Forney, Texas. He's a long kid, has great ability to extend plays. He's got a great arm. He's very accurate about it, can throw it from sideline to the opposite number, can do all the things that we want to do. Got a great touch on the deep ball.

But he can do it with his feet as well. So a great dual-threat guy that obviously we'll know how to use within what we do offensively.

As an overall class, we addressed a lot of needs. I'm extremely excited about this class and what the future holds for it. A lot of people went into this, but I gotta thank our coaches.

They did a tremendous job. A lot of hours on the road, a lot of hours in the film room, a lot of hours on the phone but did a great job of locking these guys down and putting together a tremendous class.

And then you've got to thank their wives and kids for the amount of time they're away from them during this process. So my hat's off to them and excited that our staff is what it is and how close we are, and we've got a great staff that's going to continue to grow and build with these kids. With that, questions.

Q. On the O line you've got two guys that are 6'7" and a guy who is 350 and a guy who is 330. In your offensive system, you've used some of those really, really big linemen for years. Do you find that even at the high school level those kids know they can fit into the offensive system you've run, especially well, that you guys have utilized them?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Yeah, no doubt. That's kind of what we've hung our hat on. We get big, physical, athletic guys because within our run game, a lot of up-tempo style, spread styles of offense, they're more finessing the run game and we're not. We're going to run downhill, we're going to hit you in the mouth, we're going to come off the football.

And for you to be able to do that you need big guys. We ain't going to be little anymore, I can promise you that. So those guys are going to bring in an attitude and a physicality to our football team that we've been needing.

Q. When you try to get a program going in the right direction, in terms of recruiting, how helpful is it to have a first season that you've had this year?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Last year this time we were settling everything on hopes and dreams, and you're laying out a plan and you've got it, but there's no facts to really base it up on. You're basing facts off another place you were at.

So to be able to come in, go to a bowl game, and obviously you know all the credit goes to our players, but to be able to come in and to be able to go to a bowl game in the first year, you have some facts to build that up with.

You can talk about Keyarris Garrett being the national receiving leader. He had more yards than anybody in the nation. Not our conference. Not the state of Oklahoma. The whole nation. So there's facts to back up what we've been talking about. And so when you're out there selling it, you know, it's not just hopes and dreams.

There's still hopes and dreams out there that we want to accomplish. Obviously we brought these guys in here to go win conference championships, not just win six games.

So those things are still out there. But we've got some facts and plans that are backing up what we've been talking about and what we're leading to.

Q. Outside of the Xs and Os how much emphasis in your recruiting do you put on making sure guys can fit into kind of the culture here and the identity that you're wanting to build?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Well, we have a unique school. But the greatest thing about that is we got something that we can sell. I mean, we've got a private education that we can match up against anybody across the nation. Not just here.

And so we're going to sell those things that are there for us to sell. But you know as far as them making sure that they're going to fit in, we want them to be successful on and off the field. So as we get into the research part of it, you've got to look on both ends of that deal. And the guys that we're bringing in, they've been tremendous students as well as being tremendous athletes on the field. And the thing that we've talked about, we're looking for guys that are serious about being great football players, not good football players, but great football players and are serious about getting their education because we want to make sure when they leave here they're going to have their diploma in hand.

Q. Out of these guys that you recruited today, obviously redshirting could be one thing, but how much do you think some of these guys are just going to make that immediate impact considering some of the holes you had to replace?
COACH MONTGOMERY: I told every one of them when I sat down in their living rooms, you know, my goal is to redshirt every one of you. All right. But my job is to put the best 11 football players on the field at one time. And if you're one of those best 11, no matter if you're a freshman or a senior, you're the ones that are going to be playing.

That's what we do as a coaching staff. That's my job as the head coach to make sure those things happen. So some of these guys are going to have an opportunity to come in here and start and play right away.

Especially anytime you bring in a JC guy, you know, you bring in new -- you know, you're planning on him coming in here competing for the job and going and winning. I'm not going to give them anything. They'll have to earn it.

But that's the plan when you bring in a guy like that, has the experience to go win a job. Same thing with Deya. He's a giant -- he's 6'7" at least, he's 305 pounds, has great feet and can move. He's coming in here to help sustain what we've been doing up front and make it better.

So any of those guys across the board, freshman or not, if they're one of the top 11 guys they'll be on the field. We did it this year. Chris Minter played, started a few games, McKinley played, J.R. played, I mean there are several of those guys across the board that played.

Q. In years past sometimes and other staffs here, they've recruited hardest like in the tank-of-gas area of Tulsa. You guys obviously hit Texas hard, is that the long-term plan, and why have you decided --
COACH MONTGOMERY: We feel like we've got to extend our footprint. There's great players here in the city of Tulsa, especially. I mean, what is it, out of the last 18 years, the state champion has come out of this city, right, in the largest division. So there's great players here. We've gotta do a great job of recruiting this area and keeping kids home.

But we've got to be selective about that as well, and we've gotta do a great job of extending our brand and our footprint into Texas. We took 11 kids out of Texas this year. We took two out of Louisiana.

We're going to continue to keep recruiting Texas extremely hard just like we are in our home state here in Oklahoma. We're going to get off into Louisiana as well. So there's good players everywhere. We've got to go find them. We took one from California, one from Pennsylvania. I don't care where you're from. If you can play ball, we'll get you.

Q. With Rowdy being the first commit did he basically become a recruiting assistant for you guys, and how vital is that in the whole process?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I don't know that you can put a phrase or a number on it, because once you start getting those commitments, you know, they kind of come in bunches. So you get one, you get two, you get three, and then you'll have a little lull and all of a sudden somebody else jumps on and you get a couple right after that.

Obviously with Rowdy, he's been around our program now a long time. I mean, he's been up here as much as I've been up here. He's been part of this family and is going to continue to be.

But as far as helping us with other guys like Tiller and those other guys, he was instrumental in helping us secure some of those guys.

Q. Can we use the video of him committing at practice now?
COACH MONTGOMERY: You can. You can. And as a matter of fact we talked about that. He had his official visit this weekend. And we kind of talked about that and he's excited to see it come out. Hopefully you kept the cameras rolling because he got dog-piled pretty good there on the practice field. It's an exciting day, no doubt.

Q. First recruiting class you had the year of work put into it. Is there a special place now for this recruiting class because of that?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Sure is. That first class is always going to have a special place in your heart. We had to do it in ten days. I think we got some tremendous players. Some of those guys got redshirted that you're going to get a chance to really see what they can do next year, but this class is that one that you've had a full year that you've really developed a full relationship with before signing day.

So many of those kids last year, you had a relationship but it was still pretty new to everybody. And so you continued to keep growing that as they've gotten here.

But with this class, you know, brothers and sisters and grandmas and grannies and grandpas and everybody. And so that's what makes it special when you start talking about this class.

Q. You said your goal is to redshirt everybody. Are there two or three guys you could see being difference makers really early on?
COACH MONTGOMERY: I think I've got a whole class of them, to be real honest. To narrow it down to two or three, really, that's going to come after they get here and there's always that adjustment. Any step that you take from junior high to freshman football to varsity football to college to NFL there's an adjustment period. And some guys move through it a lot faster than others.

Obviously, when they get up here in the summer, you'll see that adjustment start taking place. You saw it with Manny and Clay, both of those are already here and working out. You know, that first week, if you talk to them they'll probably tell you I thought I was going to die.

And then it's getting easier and easier for them, because they're getting more adapted to it. But there's a change. There's a difference. So each kid as you start going through it will have its own period of adjustment in there and then how quickly they adapt to it will determine how quick we can start putting them on the field.

Q. You mentioned your coaches, how hard they work. I think the public probably doesn't necessarily know exactly how much work it is for coaching staffs out on the road recruiting. Do you have any epic stories from this recruiting cycle, a coach who just wouldn't take no for an answer from a kid?
COACH MONTGOMERY: I mean, there's a bunch of them. Guys just, as things are flipping and moving and changing, and you got guys coming in trying to pick other guys off and you're trying to hold onto them. I mean, everybody on that sheet, just about, you were in a battle for at some point in time.

So you know the amount of time, what people don't understand, it's not a nine-to-five deal. And it ain't a five-day-a-week deal. From the time the bowl game ended, they got a little bit of a break right there to go celebrate Christmas and New Year's with their families, and ever since then we've been blowing and going, and it's seven days a week.

You recruit Monday through Friday. You get in here. You have official visits coming. So you've got official visit Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sunday you leave back out again. Pack your bag. Hopefully you washed your clothes, throw them back in the bag, and then you're back on a plane or back in a car and you're hitting the road getting ready for it again on Monday.

So it never stops. You don't sleep. You don't eat well, except on the weekends during official visits. And then you're in homes and schools and you're working on this class, but also trying to find 2017, getting your hot list ready for them. So it's a fast and furious pace right now.

Q. How is 2017 looking?
COACH MONTGOMERY: It's looking good. We've got a great list of guys. You know, we're getting there. You saw -- I had guys this morning, as the fax machine is going off, they're in there watching tape on 2017 guys getting ready to start throwing out offers and doing things we need to do to get that class up and running.

Q. You said you don't eat well, did you have a best meal on some of those in-home visits?
COACH MONTGOMERY: You know I can't say that because I'll get some granny mad at me because I didn't say it right. But we ate well. But more than anything, as you go into a kid's house and you're in their environment and to get to see the families come out and just really -- it's a magical time of year for these guys.

This is the biggest decision they've ever made in their life at this point. You're talking about the next four or five years, but also you're talking about what a degree and those things as you leave that university, it's going to carry you the rest of your life.

So this is a decision that's going to carry with them for the next 20 to 30 years. And so you've got mommas that have been driving their son to Pop Warner games since he was six. How many loads of laundry has she done and tanks of gas? And how many different shirts has she gone through that she has blinged up to support and holler and yell and ring a cow bell at their school, I mean, all of those different things they've got to go through leading up to this moment for the opportunity to go continue playing at a prestigious university like ours.

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