AIR FORCE FOOTBALL COACHES Q AND A … With Ben Miller

COACHES Q AND A … With Ben Miller

This is part four of an ongoing Gazette series of interviews with Air Force’s position coaches. Today’s installment is beat writer Jake Schaller’s conversation with tight ends coach Ben Miller.

JS: Senior Sean Quintana (a converted receiver) looks like he put on some good weight but hasn’t lost speed. Where is he with his size right now?

BM: He’s light (about 6-foot-2, 215 pounds) for what we want as a typical tight end. But with the schemes we’re doing he’ll be able to hold up just fine on the line of scrimmage. With his limitations just physically with weight and height, he’s got to be a technician. He’s got to be perfect with his technique, and he’s shown a lot of improvement just the last week, even from the spring, since he’s played full-time tight end. So he’ll be fine. I’m not worried at all about him.

JS: When Travis Dekker got injured last preseason Quintana moonlighted some at tight end early in the season. Has that helped him, or is he still pretty new to the position?

BM: He’s still pretty new. He was about (190) when we moved him last year. So mentality-wise, he’s known since last January, probably, that this is what he’s going to do. So I think he’s better from that mental perspective.

JS: How about route running, is that his strength?

BM: Yeah, he’s a wide receiver running tight end routes, so he looks really good doing those things. And, like you said, he hasn’t lost a lot of quickness, so he looks really good in our passing game.

JS: He’s undersized, but is the flip-side of that coin that he maybe creates some mismatches against linebackers and safeties who will cover him?

BM: We hope so. How much we get into a drop-back passing game remains to be seen. But when we do get into those situations, when we need to be that team, he’ll definitely help us.

JS: Who’s behind Quintana? Junior Chaz Demerath is listed as the backup.

BM: Q and Chaz are pretty much the two right now that we’re looking at getting a lot of playing time. And a bunch of young guys – sophomores, even freshmen – have a chance to get in there. But Chaz is a young junior – I think he just turned 20. So he looks really good. He’s still learning and maturing, but physically he’s the prototypical tight end you want to have. Q’s got the mental approach that Chaz needs to get to probably a little more.

JS: I saw sophomore receiver Vincent Capra (6-6, 210) working with the tight ends.

BM: Yeah, we moved him over, developing some of those younger guys. They’re doing well, and we’re taking some of those big wide receivers and moved them to that spot. Because what we ask those guys to do on the perimeter in our zone (running) game, you don’t have to be Dekker. You don’t have to be 240, 250 (pounds). I think we can have a guy that’s 225, 230 and him be effective.