Turner discusses challenges as new year approaches

On the morning of July 24, Head Coach Ron Turner and Quarterback Jake Medlock were in Dallas, Texas for the program’s first media day as a member of Conference USA.

 In their interview with Ron Thulin of the Fox Sports Network, the pair spoke on spring practice, the upcoming fall and some of the controversy that has occurred this offseason.

 “I had nine years as a college head coach and about 15 as an assistant,” Turner said on his experience. “College is where I really started what I enjoy doing. I am excited to be back in the college game working with these young guys and helping them develop.”

Turner and his staff have implemented the Pro-style offense in their time at FIU. Medlock is looking to take advantage of that move since he ran that offense dating back to his high school days.

“The transition to the new offense has been unbelievable. Working with coach (Turner) and his staff in bringing in the new offense has been an awesome experience. Learning all the new things including the drop backs and reads its just been amazing,” Medlock said. “In my high school we ran the pro-style offense and were under center, and it is basically the same style as what I ran before.”

 “The pro-style offense is what I know, what I am used to and what I believe in,” Turner said. “I think you can have a lot of success doing it. There was a time where the Spread was just coming out and not a lot of people knew how to defend it. It has now gone the other way. Everyone runs the spread and everyone knows how to defend it. Now you bring another style in with mixing in a good solid running game with the play action passing game giving us a vertical attack and a high percentage drop back game.”

 Turner is extremely confident in what the Pro-style approach can do for his offense. On the defensive side, though, Turner is looking at the defensive line to anchor his defense.

 “We have depth there. We have some young players, we have got some athletic players and that adds to the depth. We are a very inexperienced team all along the board, yet we have a pretty good mix all across the line,” Turner said. “We have Isame Faciane and Greg Hickman who are great players, and you have Giovanni Francois who has played quite a bit of football. Then you have some young, upcoming guys who can step in like Darrian Dyson who is a very exciting talent, so hopefully he can put it together.”

 Later on during the media craze, Medlock addressed the inexperience of his offense, which only includes three members of the offense line who saw playing time last year and an overall three letterman who started last year. Not to mention the recent loss of starting Runningback Kedrick Rhodes due to his arrest.

“We had to come together quickly, having only three offensive lineman with playing experience I needed to work with the younger guys saying,‘This is how we have to do it’ and going from there. They have bought into it and they are following us older guys,” Medlock said. “Then with the receivers like Glenn Coleman and Willis Wright showing the younger guys how to run their routes and teaching how to do the things they need to do to be successful.”

The team was picked last in Conference USA in part because of the lack of experience.

Turner wrapped up the media day by announcing what the foundation of the football program will be built on.

“The three things that we’ll be building this program on are accountability, real and mental toughness, and discipline.”

All quotes for this story were taken from the live stream on conferenceusa.com.