This is the second part of my interview with new Louisville offensive coordinator Mike Sanford. You can read Part I here.

I know you're still learning the personnel, but running back looks like one of your main strengths with Victor Anderson, Darius Ashley and Bilal Powell. Are there ways you can utilize all three of those guys and their different talents in your offense?


Mike Sanford: That's really a good question and something we've got to look at. That goes back to the whole thing about utilizing our personnel. You know, Dan Mullen was at Florida, and when he got to Mississippi State, they had more backs and less receivers, so they ended up doing a lot of two-back stuff. And when we have enough variety of personnel groups that we're going to have to utilize the best players we have. And if two or three or four running backs are the best players in our offense, we're going to play more backs in the offense. You can still run your spread offense but just do it with two backs.

I would assume you'd prefer to have one main quarterback, and not shuffle between two guys there?

MS: Ideally I'd like to have one quarterback, one guy, but I have been involved with using two quarterbacks. So we'll see how that all comes together. We probably won't know that -- we'll have an idea after spring, but we probably won't know until a little while into training camp.

What about the offensive linemen? Are you asking them to drop weight to run the spread?

MS: Just in general as a football team, coach Strong has made a big emphasis in the offseason on lifting, on trimming guys down and getting them stronger with less body fat. So that applies to our offensive line. We've got some guys who have already lost weight and trimmed up. We want guys on the offensive line to be physical, to be strong and quick and be athletic and be in good shape. So yes, there are some adjustments to be made.

Will you be a high-tempo offense or even no-huddle?

MS: We are got to evaluate that and what's best for us. We have the capability of being in a variety of different tempos. We can be no-huddle or we can be huddled. We're going to see what's best for us. We're definitely going to start off the spring huddling. I think it's a lot to put in a new offense plus no huddling right away. So that's something that will come with time.

Just how important is this spring in terms of getting things installed right away?

MS: I think there's a fine line there between saturating them and having them know a lot and learn a lot and be exposed to a lot but not be able to execute it very well. And on the other hand, maybe do a little bit less and be better at executing it. And I think that will be more of the direction we're going to go. I think to them, we're going to put a lot in. But at the same time from a coaching viewpoint, we want to be able to execute. We want to be able to be good at what we do and if you put too many things in, you won't be good at anything.

How much do you know about Big East defenses, and when does the work begin of really studying them?

MS: I would say it's a combination of before spring, during spring and a lot in the month of May and June. We're going to be looking at lot of stuff on defense in those months. Obviously there are a couple of new staffs in this league. We have some exposure to Cincinnati because Florida played them in the bowl game, and one coach on our offensive staff -- Kenny Carter -- was there, so he has a lot of familiarity with what Cincinnati did. But we're going to really study that, and it will be a big thing.

Do you get the sense the players are excited when you bring up things like running an offense like Florida's?

MS: I do. I think there's some nervousness, that's the first thing because it's unfamiliar for them. But there's also some excitement. And we look forward to continuing that excitement with them.

This program was at the top, and then it dipped down the last couple of years. Do you feel like you guys can bring it back?

MS: I really do. I see this as being a program that can return. I think this conference is an excellent conference, but it's a conference that has had a variety of different teams rise to the top in recent years. So the way we look at it is, why not us?