Special Teams Coordinator Ed Foley
Pre-Fall Camp Press Conference
July 30, 2024
On Tristan Alvano’s injury:
“I watched him kick the other day, it was a rehab thing so I was watching from afar, just to see what it looked like and what his reaction was. I was more looking at it from an evaluation standpoint and he was fine. He’s kicking, he’s just not at the point where he’s going to kickoff right now in terms of that kind of push. As of right now, I’m not overly concerned. If you’re kicking year-round at the quantity that they're kicking, they wear out sometimes, sometimes they never do. He came out of the spring okay, and then he was kicking on his own and he came back in one day and he was like ‘this doesn’t feel right.’ It’s not a major thing right now that we’ve got to work through. The timing of it was actually good, obviously I’d like him to be kicking right now, but if he had come into the training room this week or next week or last week, it would be way more of a concern. It’s something we’ve been dealing with and working on since early June.”
On how having extra coaches this year will impact special teams:
“It’s a big help for me especially. I like to segment what we are doing. It really helps a lot in meetings as much as it does on the field. I was segmenting that anyway but you can imagine in this day and age with the attention that these kids have I’m trying to coach all 11 in a meeting or on the field and it just doesn’t work. So to be able to separate those guys and have guys that can coach. Garret (McGuire) for example, was taking the gunners over to another field and he was working specifically with the gunners, the wide guys on the punt team while I was working with the interior part of the unit. Now he can get help over there so we can get some young coaches over there. Rashaan Melvin was a gunner for me in Carolina. To have him over there to be able to coach those guys over there on the gunner field is invaluable experience and teaching that can go on now for us to coach that at a higher level. I’m just using that as an example and that example is across the board. So to have other guys that can coach those other positions specifically is really important. I’m going to try to operate this year as these rules come forward and as I’m learning more over the years I want to do it a little more like the offense and defense has done it transitioning from this punt team out there running against a scout punt return team to now individualized drill work and individualized positions you know we’re going to go through tomorrow and start with separation where one of the coaches who couldn’t coach before, Josh Martin is going to have the shield and G (Garret McGuire) will still have the gunners but will have help over there. And then I’ll have the interior with me and having guys like Josh and Jack (Potenza) to be able to help coach the interior. Now we can work in stations here, have the shield, have the gunners over here and they are all getting a high level of coaching. I’m really excited about that. I wanted to do more of that last year but you were restricted by the coaching thing. But now it’s going to be something that we can really take advantage of. I am excited about it, very excited about it.
On top returners:
“It’s too early for me to say but I can tell you that there are some young guys that have come around. This is kind of the development part of it, we saw some things in the spring and now we add some more stuff to it here in the preseason and see how they can react. What Jacory (Barney Jr.) did in the spring game was the real deal. That’s a really big time cut, that’s good vision, he’s got speed, he’s running down the field with enough speed. That’s exciting, but now day in and day out, how are the decisions? There’s a few guys that are in that situation. I can tell you also that IGC (Isaiah Garcia-Casteneda) really had a great spring for us and kind of emerged for us as a guy. He’s a guy that I could mention at this point in the punt return game, but there’s some other guys that are out there. But I feel really good about the return game. There’s some guys out there that have some experience, and there’s some guys that are young that have some good skills.”
On if Sam Koch has been around much now that his son’s on the team:
“I was able to talk to Sam before Kamdyn (Koch), it’s been good. He’s more of a guy that I can call just to say ‘this is what I’m seeing, what do you think.’ Him and the guys that have kicked and have punted at Nebraska have been a tremendous resource as sounding boards and guys that have been around and guys that can talk to them.”
On how much the weather and the wind has impacted the guys and how much Coach Rhule wants to go out and practice in the elements:
“The guys want to be in the stadium as much as possible, so to be working for a guy like Coach Rhule, he’s always been like ‘what do you need?’ So we go into the stadium even when we’re practicing over here so it allows us to get our work out there. Last year was great, we practiced every Wednesday night in the stadium, so we were getting some night work, and we were getting some stadium work built-in. I think it’s an advantage for us, knowing what the wind conditions are here, I’ve dealt with the wind probably to a greater extent than the other coaches just because of the kick game. To have the knowledge of what the stadium is about here, what the trends are with how the wind is, it’s going to help us moving forward coming up with a game plan to do the best we can with that.”
On Brian Buschini:
“Brian (Buschini) when we go look back at the practice film, as we look at how he has advanced, what he’s done with his body is striking. We’ve gone back and forth with the body weight, but the body weight isn’t really the issue, it’s really how he’s grown into this weightlifting. Corey (Campbell) has done a great job with him, the strength guys have done a great job with him. He’s really a different kind of body athlete than I was first here. So that’s the most striking thing is how he’s kind of trimmed down, but he’s more explosive. He’s stronger. That part of it has been really good. He’s a pro. He goes out there, even when I was on vacation over the course of July, I’m getting the clips and we’re having discussions about things that he’s working on. He’s at the point where we’re fine-tuning certain things that we’re going to try to do better this year. He’s been great to work with. I thought he had a good spring, I think he’s having a really good summer. I’m expecting him to have a really good year for us.”
On replacing Marco Ortiz:
“The great thing from losing Marco is having Camden (Witucki) as his backup and having those guys work together for the year and working under our system for a year. Marco had the preparation of being able to work and play as a college player at the University of Florida so he had some experience, Camden doesn’t have that game experience but now he has the experience of working for multiple years in the system here and then with us last year. I feel really good about Camden. He’s another guy that’s a pro. Marco comes back here and trains still so Marco is training here and they are getting work together beyond just what he is doing in the weight room. I feel really good about Camden, I really do. Camden has a different kind of skill set than Marco does. He is a little bit more compact. He has gained about 11 pounds since the beginning of this calendar year of good weight. He’s explosive and he can run. I’m not concerned about him not having game experience. I have seen him snap so many times and do so many things at such a high level I feel really good about him.”
On Foley’s family helping out:
“I got a son in equipment and I got a son in operations. I got my daughter who wants to come down here and work with the nutrition staff. I don’t know if they’re working or if they’re just coming to hang out. There’s work to be done. You’ll see my guys, my guys will be out there. A lot of the coaches' kids will be out there running around. It’s one of the great things again with Coach Rhule, he wants the kids around. He understands the time commitment on our end, and he allows our kids to be here, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve been together for so long.”