Syracuse coach Greg Robinson quotes

Published 2:46 pm Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Tuesday was the day for teleconferences with Syracuse coach Greg Robinson, as well as with Pac-10 coaches. No big news came from the Robinson part, but here are a few of his comments.

On Jake Locker:

“He’s a very good athlete. First of all, we’re not just going against Jake Locker. You defend their offense. Now he’s part of their offense and he has certain capabilities. He’s an athletic guy. I suspect just like last year when they ran [Isaiah] Stanback quite a bit with the ball that they might be looking to do that with him as well. We’ve studied the way that they performed with Stanback and that’s a lot of our information for us. And then, he’s a big strong-armed guy, and I know he was a very successful high school quarterback, and I know he was an outstanding baseball player from everything I understand and is truly a fine athlete. Those things are important to know when you’re setting things up.”

Like Washington, Syracuse will also start a young quarterback in sophomore Andrew Robinson. Unlike Locker, Robinson did not redshirt last season, but attempted only eight passes.

Here’s Greg Robinson’s take on his quarterback’s leadership qualities:

“Since the day he got here, he’s had nice presence about himself where he’s not a pushy guy, but he’s got a nice confidence about him. He’s very intent about his attention to detail. From the get go his teammates have sensed that he has some real fine qualities about him, especially if you’re thinking about a quarterback. He’s very intelligent and he’s worked very hard. I think that being a leader, your actions speak so loudly that we can hardly hear you talk, and I think it’s his actions that have propelled him into a role of leadership. I always say I don’t that think he demands respect, he commands respect, and there’s a difference. We really like Andrew and he’s going into his first real ballgame where he’s the guy.”

As for the Pac-10 coaches, most of the discussion there was related to teams the Huskies won’t see for a while, so, to be completely honest with you, I was only taking partial notes.

Arizona State coach Dennis Erickson did weigh in on playing at the Carrier Dome. Erickson coached there during his tenure at Miami.

“It’s really interesting,” he said. “I’ve been in there a couple of times with Miami. We had to play our rear ends off both times. It’s a hard place to play, it’s really noisy … it’s extremely hot in there, and those fans are interesting. It will be a difficult place to play for Washington.”

I’ll check back in later this afternoon when we hear from Tyrone Willingham.