Florida introduced new offensive coordinator Kurt Roper officially to the media Monday. Roper was hired around Christmas time and finished out the bowl season with his former employer the Duke Blue Devils. He has a pedigree of putting players in the NFL and adapting an offensive system to the players he has available to him.
Why Florida?
- Roper said that UF is one of the mainstays in college football and that it has a great history with a lot of championships. They aren’t that far removed from a Sugar Bowl and there are a lot of good players on the field.
On a QB battle in the spring
- Roper said he doesn’t know yet and hasn’t thought about a quarterback battle yet. He thinks in 15 practices there’s a lot of time he’ll be able to use to learn about the team.
On quarterback Jeff Driskel
- He hasn’t watched much of Driskel yet. He says he wants to develop his opinions through meeting with guys who are handling things off and on the field the right way.
On expectations of success
I think as a football coach when you come to a place like Florida you understand what people expect,” Roper said. “Because you can look on the back of the wall here and see how many championships they’ve won in the SEC and national championships. So the expectations are obviously high, but that’s a good thing.”
On running practice the way he wants
- Roper said he’s going to get his offense prepared to play every practice. He says he’ll do whatever he needs to do to get the team ready to play.
On being in the press box to call plays
- Roper says he’s called plays for 10 years, all out of the press box and doesn’t thnk that will change now that he’s at Florida. He says he can yell through the telephone at players just as much as he can in person
On being concerned about speeding up the tempo for a team that isn’t used to it
- Roper isn’t worried. There is an adjustment period but over time he says the players learn to enjoy it. It’s particularly hard on the offensive linemen, the skill players actually enjoy it more than the traditional slow offense because they don’t have to run back and forth from their position to the huddle.
On Cutting the cord with his mentor Duke head coach David Cutcliffe
I thought it was a great opportunity for me and my family to come and just get associated with a great program,” Roper said. “I think this university is special. I think this football program is special. Everything that I knew about Coach Muschamp, competing against him and as a man is just another great opportunity to be associated with what I think is a heck of a football coach.”