Shaw post-practice: Heat, defense wins, focus on "core" schemes

How was today?"

"Hot. I challenged the guys a couple days ago that we have a heat wave that we typically don't have but game one in the afternoon in our stadium -- which we haven't had that in a while -- is going to be hot. We might have a warm night in LA but we know we're going to have a warm day at Central Florida.

"This is a rare opportunity for us for a couple days of practice to have 90-plus degree weather and fight through it. Guys did a good job of that.

"As far as the actual football goes, defensively the last couple days have been really, really good. They've taken advantage of a couple young guys on the offensive line, but regardless I love where we are on the defensive side. Guys are flying around, guys are playing with a lot of confidence. Now it's up to the offense to stem that tide a little bit and start to fight back."

At the end of practice there was a cheer from the defense and the offense did some pushups. What was that about?

"Every training camp, one day we do short yardage and goal line and we keep score. Typically it's tilted toward the offense because you only have to get a yard to win, but the defense won. It's always a good sign when the defense's back is against the wall, and the odds are against them, and they still come out with a victory. They were excited about that, so they got rewarded and offense got punished for losing."

What have you seen from Simi Fehoko in camp and what do you see his role to be?

"Simi has come into camp and done what we knew he could do. He's a big receiver. He's got great hands, great speed, has really developed as a route runner ... coming back from his mission. He got a little banged up the other day so he didn't practice today, but ... what I'm excited about is he has really worked in there with Connor Wedington and Michael Wilson to really bolster that receiving group. We don't have a lot of experience there, but at the same time we have some talent in that group."

You and several of your coaches have talked about paring down what you're asking guys to do on offense and defense and focus on what you guys are good at. Obviously there's only so much you can elaborate on that, but is there anything you can share about what that process looks like for the guys in camp and what you hope that accomplishes?

"I think it's important for us to know, important for our players to know, what our core is. We have to fight my longevity here and all the things we've done, all the things we can reach back and call up in our playbook. That's not what's important. What's important is what are our guys good at and what are we committing to?

"As long as our guys know what we're committing to and we know what our core is, we'll always have plays off of that core but I want to get good at our core. Our base defenses, our base offenses, our base special team calls, we have to be really, really good at those and have things off of those.

"I wanted to make sure the coaches went back and shaved off the all extras. Shave off all the things that are one-time calls, two-time calls, and really focus on what we want to be good at. Off of that let's make sure we have enough so our guys don't feel like we only have a couple things.

"Talking schematically -- fronts, blitzes, coverages, run game, pass game -- things we want to hang our hat on and do well. Know that we have different schemes off of those main schemes, but really focus on those main schemes.

"I told our offensive staff earlier I'm Ok with building a tendency, that means you're good at something. If you're good at something you do it well and then you break your tendencies when you want to break your tendencies. That's what I want to make sure we're doing."