Kind of an out-of-nowhere press conference on Tuesday, Feb. 18. Been 13 days since late National Signing Day, Spring Practice ain’t starting for a little bit longer and President’s Day was Monday.

But it’s also Dowell’s first non-introductory press conference, aka his first one without a suit.

When I saw the video pop up on YouTube, I was shocked it was 33 minutes. Clark had a hook after only 10 minutes, which made for some uneventful pressers and unanswered questions. But this one, I have hopes for.

For those who don’t know, I covered Shawn Clark’s press conferences blow by blow on X/Twitter and later BlueSky. Now this is My First Dowell Regular Press Conference By Fisher Price, so might as well move it to My New Blog By Fisher Price. (words in parenthesis are my thought or notes)

BTW, this was NOT done AI. Good ol fashioned transcribing, which might change if many more of these pressers are half an hour.

• Interesting outfit for Dowell. Zip up hoodies with strings, white chest, black arms. I’m sure some people will demand that be on sale ASAP.
• Dowell says it’s been a busy six or eight weeks since his hiring. (I think it’s nine, close enough.
• Says his coaching staff are good men who happen to be good football coaches as well.
• Says portal players fit the criteria. “A lot of SEC kids.” Pleased with where roster upgrades are.
• Spring Game, April 12, Battle at the Rock. Be there. Wants fans and former players to show up. “guess we haven’t done a spring game in quite a while” (2019, 2014 and 2013 were the last three)
• Excited about Charlotte on FRIDAY, Aug. 30.
• Opening statement was roughly 76 seconds.
• David Ware of App State Mania asks about Associate Head Coach Clyde Christensen’s responsibilities. Dowell says he’s “very involved in the offense.” Go back to the NFL Combine in the old RCA Dome. Coaching mentor, not because of the HOF list of QB’s he’s coached, but because of him as a person.
• “The community of Boone is better because he is here,” Dowell says of Clyde. “Elite human being….probably the best NFL QB coach of the last 30 years.” He also leads coach Bible study every Wednesday morning.
• David Ware has heard the same about Clyde. (we better go undefeated now lol)
• Ware asks about DJ Smith and collaboration.
• Dowell says he conducted around 47 interviews for coaches. Three coaches had to be defended from NFL offers.
• Dowell says he knows DJ Smith from Drinkwitz. Interviewed DJ three or four times via Zoom. speaks highly of his Mizzou defenses.
• Says he had to keep DJ Smith hire quiet for a week due to Mizzou’s bowl game. Still was conducting interviews.
• After Smith got here, they collaborated on what he needed as Defensive Coordinator. They interviewed several people together. “To find not necessarily the best person but the right people to fit what we needed.
• Ware asks about crootin the portal, despite not having a full staff. Dowell says for first week, it felt like it was just him and support staff. Portal works so fast.
• Dowell’s first contracts were people he knew from the SEC.
• “A lot of nights of sleeping on my couch… a lot of mornings at 5 a.m. and a lot of going to bed at 1 a.m.” Not just crooting, but evaluating. Notes there is/was over 3,000 players in the portal, so there was so much tape.
• Dowell says his NFL background makes him want to watch all the tape, says not everyone does that. Wants to know where players came from, what coaches think, academic history, injury history, good people. Lots of phone calls.
• Dowell wanted to take his time with the staff. “I didn’t want to just hire my friends, I wanted to hire really good coaches.” Believes that’s what he did.
• Ware asks about Spring Game format. Dowell doesn’t want to speculate, kinda knows in his mind what he wants to do. Believes the product for entertainment, crootin and former players will be top notch. Hasn’t told the staff the format yet, so he doesn’t want to tell everyone before them. Leaning toward doing a draft for both teams.
• Winston-Salem Journal guy asks about criteria for not-friends staff. Dowell says No. 1 does it help winning. No. 2 is “Smart Tough Competitive,” which he says is now plastered all over the building. Wants problem solvers, low ego, high input.
• Says in the SEC, there was like 160 people in the building and they could just hire someone new to do something new. At App, people gotta multitask (ask former Gillin staffers about that). Ain’t got that money. Dowell wants to hire people that keeps problems off his desk. Wants great connectors.
• Dowell goes back to his college coach Houston Nutt saying college years are the best years of your life and wants the players to feel that (ain’t that the damn truth).
• Wants to be more than a football coach. Have their backs, lifelong relationships, academic-focused. Which is why he wants to call 10 people for each players. Says he’ll get eight good things and two bad things about everyone from 10 different people.
• Says he’s been around enough NFL coaches to know how to vet players (I kinda guess that was his point, said in a more wordy way).
• Journal guy asks about NFL touch coming to college football, mentions Chapel Hill (booooooooo! play us again!). What does that do for a program?
• Dowell says portal is like NFL free agency, High School free agency is like the NFL Draft. Differences are NFL has 53 players. South Carolina had 117 (I think App is at 118 right now). Then you add NIL, so the model is more similar to the NFL.
• Says the negotiations are something he doesn’t get frustrated with while more college-oriented coaches are mad about it. (and a key reason he was hired, IMO)
• Name drops Chris Johnson, Le’Veon Bell and Matt Hasselback, the last guy who he just talked to this morning. Negotiations are part of the process. Getting more similar to the pro game.
• Journal guy asks if you’re talking more money than athletics. Dowell says it’s part of the equation. Still want people who are about the right stuff, such as education, gameday atmosphere.
• “If someone just wants money, they’re probably not the best fit here, go chase that somewhere else.”
• Mentions winning, tradition as part of the equation. Says a wise person told him you want to pick people who are running toward something, not away from something.
• David Rogers (boooo!) says several assistants have NFL pedigree. Importance of that experience? Says a young person has the goal of playing in the NFL, so he has staff of people who either have coached or been there. Can relate to them. Mentions Clyde, Yurachek, Keith Jones. Those coaches can get players on phone with NFLers. All about relating and getting buy in.
• Doesn’t name him, but Dowell says his HS coach in Texas is the best coach he’s ever been around.
• Rogers mentions Belichick at Chapel Hill and how that changes things in college football (ugh). Dowell says it’s awesome for the game. Coached against him with Dolphine and Jets. Doesn’t know how it impacts App State or CFB, but says its better when people like him are involved in the game.
• Student reporter asks about incoming QBs and guys who are here. Dowell is happy with QB room and competition. Dowell doesn’t tip his hand, mentions all the QBs. Guys gotta show up and compete. Dowell says he recruited AJ Swann while at SCar. Says Kohl is talented. Billy Wiles is intelligent. Matt is talented. Excited about the incoming freshman. And Estep.
• Dowell says parents were telling him “wow, if you’re signing those guys, you must have NIL.” But says those guys were looking for opportunity. No starting job was guaranteed to anyone.
• App TV guy asks Dowell to describe his time at App so far. “Fulfilling, blessed, blown away daily….” Mentions “tragedy that happened here” (Jack Murphy), Helene and the resilience, passion. Says it’s not about him, it’s about the team.
• Dowell says he’s heard hurricane stories from players, talks about S&C Coach Greenhalgh carrying generators up hills. Says it’s amazing how community came together. Blown away daily by how people talk about this place. Hasselback mentioned again about the power of the App State brand.
• “It is a family. A lot of people talk about it. We have it.”
• App TV guy asks about players that stayed. (there were 79, so far) Mentions Mark Speir, who is staying on staff and can bridge to the new staff.
• Dowell said there were 54 roster players when he got there (!) and that people though App wouldn’t fill its scholarship allotment (which is 85 for FBS unless the House Settlement goes through). Says App is pretty dang close to filling the scholarship allotment. A lot of respect for the kids who stayed, like Shawn Collins.
• Met with all remaining players for first three days. Still in that process of getting to know players. “You gotta get digging rights on their hearts.” (I think that’s what he said) If you got that, you can coach them real well. Doesn’t happen overnight. Needs to build trust.
• Says other schools came after Greenhalgh. Says his plan wasn’t to keep Greenhalgh, but players kept vouching for him. Dowell says he wasn’t convinced and didn’t want to keep the players’ buddy, but they kept saying he was accountable (this is incredible to listen to)
• Dowell asked Greenhalgh to meet him 8 a.m. the next day, who showed up in a suit. And they met. “I didn’t want to hire the players’ buddy.” Says Greenhalgh helped the players through a rough year (death of Jack Murphy, hurricane) and those two went through the program A to Z. At the end, “it was a no brainer to keep him.” Dowell says Greenhalgh “had digging rights on those kids’ hearts” and be real and transparent to them.
• (goddamn, that’s one of the most incredible stories I’ve heard in an App State press conference)
• Dowell is in the QB meetings, says the offense and defense lift at different times so he can be in meetings for both sides of the ball. He’s also in all special teams meetings. Says it’s not to overreach on his assistants, but to know his players.
• Dowell’s standing here to lead and coach. “It wasn’t to do press conferences, I can promise you that.” Says he hopes to impact at least one person’s life doing this.
• Question about plans going into Spring Game and what the team has to do. Dowell says they’re doing an eight-block week training cycle before Spring Football.
• March 6 is first day of Spring Football. Says he wanted four weeks with just S&C and coaches out crootin.
• “We’re going to make it into every North Carolina school at least once in the calendar year.” Wants to be a development program from high school kids (mentioned this in his intro presser).
• Now, coaches are back in the office, can implement schemes on the field, meet with players. Team still working out four times a week and now they’re running more, which they didn’t do the first four weeks.
• Says Spring Practice being pushed back is advantageous for the weather and for the Spring Game in April. Wants to have one Spring Practice before Spring Break (March 10-14 this year) to get rid of anxieties. Says Nick Saban did that. Then after Spring Break, it’s 14 more practices.
• Dowell wants to give new guys a taste of an App State gameday, hence the Spring Game, Battle at the Rock.
• Dowell does not have Instagram.
• Journal guy mentions variety of portal players. How do you discern players who are running towards something here and not running away from something. (oooo, that’s a good one) Dowell says it’s about asking hard questions and what players are looking for. You can tell if players are wanting “the bag.” (Dowell did the finger quotes saying that)
• If you’re clear up front, we’ll know what you’re about. Brags about hit rate for official visits. Says it can be a battle getting kids from Charlotte up the mountain, but once they’re on the mountain, they see what it’s all about.
• Goes back to NFL Combine interviews, finding out their “why” and if they can suffer and do not-fun things to succeed. But in the end, celebrating in the locker room after a win is the best feeling.
• Players gotta respect the people who walked before them.
• 30 minutes in, Matt Present with the first in-house question so the video team can create clips. Present asks what implementing scheme in all three phases is like. Dowell goes back to SCar, saying he had five different offenses there. Offense before Spencer Rattler, then molded it to fit Rattler, then fitting Xavier Legette. Then going through spring with new freshman QB (LaNorris Sellers) and that same playbook. Then in summer, “when everyone was gone,” which Dowell says is when your best work sometimes happens, he looked at spring film, saw what the offense was good at, and made new playbook.
• Says he’s intrigued by NFL coaches as they know such a volume of football, using giant playbooks and narrowing it down to what fits your players.
• This spring, he’ll install the offense, DJ Smith will install the defense and Jeff Crosby will install special teams. Figure out what guys do well, know terminology and morph it.

FIN

Gotta say, that was something. I feel a little bit smarter listening to that. Dowell has a plan. I’m guessing the offense will be a work in progress, especially not knowing who the QB1 is. But it seems that Dowell wants to make that decision sooner than later.

DJ Smith has previously said he wants to install a four-man front, which is a break from the 3-4 Base that App State has used since 2010ish (but went full send on it in 2013 with Nate Woody).

I think I’ll be in Boone on April 12.