On the offensive line: "It's been a good with [Stefen] Wisniewksi. He came back and practiced full-term this week, so that's been very good for us. He'll definitely be in the mix. Him and Alex [Parsons] are competing for the starting spot right now, but they'll both be up for the game to help us inside. We're going to evaluate at the end of the week how practice is going to decide who is the starting center per se. The other one will be the backup guard, center rotation guy."
On Wisniewski and Parsons getting work at guard: "Yeah and center, both, exactly. Once you get in season mode, we'll suit up seven and then we have to have the swing guy inside and swing tackle on the outside."
On Parsons: "I can compare what I saw on tape last year in practice – we had all the practice tape here – and to watch what I've seen here. I've seen progress in his technique. He's done a fine job in improving his pass blocking skills. That's usually the struggle for a young lineman. And then he's done a good job with the command of what we call, 'spotting our line,' because of what we do in the zone-run game, the center has a lot of responsibility of targeting us to the right linebacker alignments and he's done a fine job with that."
On Parsons' weight loss as a reason for his improvement: "I think so and a lot of it is when he's on the back side of a runner. We're trying to reach outside, he's got to try to reach a three technique. We're trying to run the ball, he's got to reach a three technique. No shade to his side, that's awfully hard to do. The lighter you are, it makes it a little bit easier to get the leverage."
On Philip Wheeler: "It's definitely different because I was in Houston the last two years so I've seen Wheeler for four games in the last two years and this does, from the other side, the scheme they're running on defense gets him to do some of his abilities maybe even more because he is a fast, quick linebacker that can cause havoc in the backfield when he blitzes."
