Q: Justin Blalock clearly fits a need and a body type Petrino is looking for, can you talk about that?
McKay: That is correct. We went into the offseason saying 'when you make a scheme change as dramatic as we were trying to make, we knew it would take some time to do.' But when you get the opportunity to take a guy that fits the bill like Blalock it does make life a little easier. He is a very big guy. He has been extremely durable. He has started 51 games in-a-row. He has played tackle, he has played guard. He scored a 37 on the Wunderlich, probably the highest at he combine. He is a real bright guy that can play multiple positions. He is an extremely large man. I think he did 40 reps on the bench and when you see him play you will see that. We were very interested in free agency to make a play for a guard. The guard we had targeted was the guard that Buffalo signed and was a University of Texas graduate. This worked out very well for us. We will bring him in and let him play left guard. We truly expect big things. We did what everybody tries to do with where we were with that pick. I think we were at 39 and we were trying to call and trade up to about pick 28. It is a very hectic time up there. As you know there is a value chart. You realize the value chart goes out the window when you see what teams are trading to get specific players they want. It was an interesting hour and a half.
Q: Were you trying to get up to 28 to get him?
McKay: Yes. We were trying to get to the bottom of the first round. We had a plan when we had to two's that we would get both Blalock and Houston. We were pretty sure we would get one of the two, but we were not positive. We were trying to trade in any combination to try and make that happen. With Houston we looked at him as a two for one player. We will move Jimmy Williams to safety. We will let him compete there. He started there at Virginia Tech in 2003. We will let him compete with S Chris Crocker. We knew that when we picked him. We knew when we changed the schemes this year and emphasized the man-to-man coverage and that is where Houston came into play. We traveled to Austin last week to work out Chris. We took QB D.J. Shockley and WR Adam Jennings with us just to see his off coverage skills and man-to-man skills. We felt very comfortable with him. I have seen him play live a couple of times. We spent a lot of time scouting him. We wanted to see some of the things we are going to ask him to do and how he would do it. We are very comfortable with picking him. He was one of the fastest guys at the combine. He is a very strong guy. He was the strongest defensive back in the draft if you just look at the lifting numbers. He is an excellent gunner on special teams. If you go back and look at the SEC Championship you will see some really good plays that he made on special teams. We liked that.
Q: How big was Blalock's ability to move in space?
McKay: Not as big as his overall girth and anchor ability. I think what Bobby has been emphasizing that he doesn't want the pocket to get collapsed around Michael. When we get to three and five-step drops he keeps emphasizing we can not allow the pocket to get pushed too much. Justin is a guy that will not get pushed a lot. That is important. It is just a bonus when you get a guy that big that can move in space. The main things we were focused on was strength and the power at the point of attack.
Q: Do you view all these picks as starters?
McKay: Yes. Yes we do.
Q: How do you feel about a rookie starting at corner?
McKay: We will wait and see. He will have to come in and compete. We signed Lewis Sanders in the offseason and we really like him. He did a great job in mini-camps. We have Jason Webster coming back from injury so we will have competition there. We did want to come out of this draft with a safety because we only have two and a bunch a guys competing there. He is a guy we targeted all along and we were confident he would fall to the bottom of the first or the top of the second even though he ran that fast. It would be because of the scheme he came out of. When you watch Houston play he played a lot of times with his back to the ball because he was asked to get in the guys face and attack and then trail. That is what he did and did it very effectively. We won't ask him to do as much of that.
Q: With him coming out of the same system as "Batman" Carroll does that concern you?
McKay: We had that discussion on numerous times. They are completely two different players. They play the game two different ways. What we are going to ask him to do will not be the same as what Carroll had to do. That is why we went to Austin. We wanted to see one more time for ourselves the movement skills. We came away very satisfied.
Q: Was the decision with Jimmy because the safety was not there?
McKay: If we would have taken a safety we would have left Jimmy at corner. We were in a position to where the one safety went ahead of us, so we took the defensive end. If we would not have taken the defensive end we would have taken him in the second round.
Q: Did you want to see how Houston dropped into zones?
McKay: Yes. We wanted to see his back peddle, see how he watches the ball in the air and how he plays the break. He has tremendous short area quickness, which is the number one trait you look for in a cover corner.
Q: Is there a thought you might be able to get one of the receivers?
McKay: It is definitely possible we might take one. There were certain things we needed to hit and we have been able to that. Now, we can get in a comfort zone and make sure we pay attention to best player available. Clearly, in this draft that could be a receiver. There are a lot of good receivers in this draft. I was surprised how late they went.
Q: Did you feel the other areas were bigger needs?
McKay: We wanted to get bigger. We wanted to make sure we could get somebody at left guard. We don't have anybody from last year and we are rebuilding the position. At left end, we lost our starter and at safety/corner we were looking for two players. It has kind of worked out for us. These guys are going to have to step in and help out, but it did work for our advantage. No question. Having the picks were we had them worked out pretty well.
