What Major Applewhite had to say at Sun Belt Media Days

South Alabama head coach Major Applewhite made his appearance at Sun Belt Conference Media Days in New Orleans, a city he grew up an hour from. Applewhite overhauled portions of his coaching staff in the offseason, headlined by the addition of defensive coordinator Todd Orlando, with whom Applewhite worked at Houston. He was joined by offensive lineman Kenton Jerido and safety Jayvon Henderson.

Here is what he had to say.

On the players he brought

"Jayvon Henderson, senior defensive back from Georgia. Came to us through East Tennessee State. Got his degree in sport management. Tremendous young man, great leader. Very devoted to our football team. Most of these guys that you'll see here today, I don't want to speak for every coach, but most of these guys that are up here are upperclassmen representing their universities. And they've had several opportunities to go elsewhere and maybe make a little bit more money, but for several reasons, whether it's their playing time, their connection with their university, their degree plan, their purpose, their starting position, their coaches, they've decided to stay. So there's tremendous character in Jayvon and staying and working with Jason Washington, our secondary coach, Orlando, our defensive coordinator."

"Kenton Jerido has played every single position on our offensive line from center or from right guard all the way over right tackle all the way over to left tackle. He has a degree in criminal justice. He's getting ready to get his masters in sport management. Again, several opportunities to go elsewhere. The longest-tenured player in our program and just a tremendous representation of our program. So I wanted to bring guys that have not only produced on the field for us but have produced in the community and produced in the classroom. And these are two fine outstanding representatives for our university."

On the football team

"In terms of our football team, very excited about getting ready to go here. Three weeks from yesterday, we'll have our first practice. Our guys are working hard during the summer. This is that stage where everybody's getting bigger, faster, stronger. Everybody loves everybody. Everybody's record zero and zero. But I really feel good about a lot of things, but the two things that have really stood out to me is the connection of this football team. And their ability to attack the work. I believe people that are genuinely excited about where they are, they are where their feet are. They're happy to go to work. I don't feel like we have a lot of people looking over the fence wondering about other opportunities, but have their jaws set on this season."

On hiring Todd Orlando as defensive coordinator

"I think in the coaching profession number one, when looking for a coach, once — have somebody that has character, tremendous character, very competent in what they do, is a great communicator of that information to their players and can create a connection and develop trust with their players. And I know you mentioned Todd Orlando specifically but along that defensive side of the ball Tyson Kee, Chris Achuff also new on that side of the ball at the defensive line, the safety position. On the offensive side of the ball Tim Rattay, Bryant Ross as offensive line coach and Adam Mann as our tight end coach. So there's other new coaches, but all of those coaches are going to fall underneath that umbrella of — do they have character? Are they competent? Can they communicate? Can they develop connection with their players?"

"Todd helps me because there's familiarity. I've seen the work in person up close and personal at Houston. Worked with him on the other side of the ball. A tremendous amount of confidence not only in the production level, but the connection with the players and our defense playing with the intangibles, meaning the speed, the physicality that we want. Scheme is scheme. We're going to mix that up based on what we're seeing week to week. But all of those guys that have come in as new coaches bring that character, bring that competence at their position. They can connect, they can communicate with their players. But personally, it just makes me feel more comfortable because there's familiarity. And I've worked with Todd before and I've seen that defense up close and personal."

On Bishop Davenport's development

"The number one thing is just consistency of where your eyes are. He's worked hard at it. The development of Bishop has been mainly with his feet and his eyes. Making sure our eyes are where they need to be. We accelerate our eyes through our reads. There's times where we need to hold on to some things. And then along with that, some pocket presence. Tremendous athlete. Great character, understands what we're trying to do. Just working more with the eyes and the feet part of it. Can create plays with his feet. Accurate passer, but that's been more of the focus — where can we put our feet in position, where can we put our eyes in position, and then pocket presence, being able to stay in there a little longer or the other end of it, recognizing when I can get out of there quicker and use what God gave me."

On Louisiana Tech joining the Sun Belt

"Tremendous program. As a head coach, I'll be honest with you, I don't have a very strong opinion about who comes into our league and who leaves our league. That's not really my patch of grass to look after. I focus on our patch of grass in Mobile. At the same time, growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, watching Willie Roaf, watching Tim Rattay, our wide receiver coach, and all those guys that played there, I know that they're a great football program. They've had tremendous success in other sports as well. So I am glad that we can kind of get a little bit closer. And we've got a great institution that has tradition in all their sports in our league."

On regional rivalries

"Certainly feel that way in our league on the West side. I can't speak to the East. It's not my world. But you got Troy a couple hours away. You got Southern Miss an hour and a half away. You got [Louisiana] three hours away. You've got Monroe and Ruston now four or five, however you want to look at it. But half a tank of gas kind of philosophy. The western side of our league is all within a tank of gas. So we're going to all see each other a lot. We're going to play high school ball against each other a lot. We're going to have gone to some of the same junior colleges a lot. So there's going to be a lot of familiarity and I think that's great for the league. I think that's the way we started this game off where it made sense that you play people that are close to you because it's easier and it means more to those people in that area. And hopefully we'll start to migrate back to sanity and do that with all of our leagues."

"That's what's awesome about watching these guys — their parents get to be outside the locker room after the games. And you got some of these kids from the Southeast going and playing games in California and the parents can't go to the games unless you're at a Power Four school where you can pay for your parents to go out there now. But some of these schools, they can't pay for their parents to go see them play."

On what has to change to win more games

"Got to take care of the ball better. We've got to take the ball off of people more and we've got to be more aggressive on offense. From a passing game standpoint, to be more explosive. Those are the two or three things. Taking — getting more takeaways, taking care of the ball better, and then being more aggressive in the early part of our game. Too many times we were clawing back, and we need to come out of the gate faster."

On Tim Rattay

"Tim has got a lot of things that he can do for us and I want to talk about all our assistants because they all have tremendous things that they're bringing to the table. I know you asked specifically about Tim, but his experience of playing quarterback in college, playing quarterback in the National Football League, being in different places in the NFL, being at different places in college football. He can bring different things. He's working with our wide receivers. He's worked with wide receivers before. He's also worked with quarterbacks and the passing game in general. So yes, he's going to be able to recruit. We've already got several commitments at wide receiver that are really good players and I'm very excited about. But the schematics of the passing game, another set of eyes for me that if I need to bounce something off of — hey Tim, I'm not sure about this right here with this quarterback. What do you see? Having another guy that you can bounce things off of has been a tremendous asset for our offense. Having a guy who has a lot of things that he can pull from. And we've got some things that we feel comfortable with and that we've been good at over the years, but we've got some things where we need to grow and we need to get some new ideas and have some fresh ideas in there as well."

On the NCAA transfer rule

"I'll be honest with you, I focus on winning games. I am so sick and tired of trying to figure out what people are going to do with rules of college football. I focus on these guys, what our practice schedule looks like. Are the scripts right? Have they moved the end zones? Are we still at 100 yards? Okay. I've let other people handle that. Of course, I would like for people to not be able to transfer and have ironclad contracts like the NFL, but when those people figure out what they need to figure out, let me know. But right now, we're just going to focus on our first game against Southeastern."

On Tuesday and Thursday night games

"100 percent. I would play every one of our games on a Tuesday and Thursday if we could just to get the exposure that we need for our program and our university and for our league. I think it means a lot to these guys when they know they're the only show on the tube. I know our guys were even fired up last year to go to Atlanta on a Thursday night and play Georgia State even though neither one of our teams are playing the way they wanted to that year. You're excited. When you see that crew from ESPN roll in, it's — it means more and it's exciting for our guys to have those kind of games. And so, we'll be excited to play on Thursday night in Jonesboro and Tuesday night up in Huntington."

Kenton Jerido on playing every position on the offensive line

"It's more of just being reliable and having my coach be able to trust me to go out and try new things. I'm a guard and center, so I'm used to that. But then we had our left tackle go down against Lafayette during warm-ups, and coach was like, 'Hey, you want to try it?' So, I was like, 'Might as well see what I can do.' And it's just so on. So on. I'm just — you got to build value for yourself. So that's what I was doing. And then for my teammates to be able to look — to see somebody else play something that they don't usually play and then succeed at it, like as a leadership standpoint, you like, 'All right, I can listen to him. He know what he really talking about. He been there. He done that before.'"

Kenton Jerido on his relationship with Applewhite

"For me it was kind of easy because Applewhite was recruiting me out of high school. So me and Applewhite been in touch for a very long time and that's also kind of the reason why I stayed because he's familiar with me and I'm familiar of how he coach. And so when he — I wanted him to get the head coaching job when Kane left. Because who else was going to get it? Like, that's who I wanted to be my head coach."

Jayvon Henderson on choosing South Alabama

"For me coming in as my first year at South Alabama last year, I feel like when I first got here and met Coach Applewhite, with the hospitality that he gave me and everything on my visit, from like all my other visits it was different. Mobile really felt like home when I came here. So when I had met Coach Applewhite I already knew this was a spot for me."

"One thing I can say about Coach Applewhite is he ain't going to sugarcoat it. He going to tell you how it is and as a player that's what you want to hear. You don't want all the outside noise. You just want exactly what it is and what he want you to do."

Jayvon Henderson on Todd Orlando

"Coach Orlando, he's been a really good coach for us coming in with — as a guy that has had a lot of experience being a defensive coordinator coming from, like you said, Houston, South Florida, and having a lot of success. So, as a defense, we really trust him."

Kenton Jerido on what has to happen this season

"Last season is last season. The way college football is now, you got a whole new set of players coming in. And so this year, our main focus is to stay focused. And the main thing is the main thing. On offense, we going to start fast and we going to stay fast."

Jayvon Henderson on what has to happen this season

"Defense, we always stressed on being multiple to the ball and never flinching when things go wrong. So that's I would say our biggest move from last year to this year."

Kenton Jerido on regional rivalries and fan travel

"It means a lot because having your fans coming to your away games — like sometimes they won't be there and it's not a lot of energy. But like when you have your fans and you have that support system behind you, I feel like it makes us feel way much better and it makes us play better."