bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie head volleyball coach Mike Jordan during the 2008 season. In this interview Coach Jordan talks about transfer Erin Birmingham, this weekend's spring tournament in Tucson and how the rules changes will affect his team's 6-2 system.
bleedCrimson.net: Can you talk about Erin Birmingham the transfer you signed out of Georgia Tech?
Mike Jordan: We're excited to have her. Erin's a fantastic athlete and probably a better person. She's six feet tall, a very good jumper. She's quick. In our system, offensively the quickness thing is a big deal. Her ability to get up and attack in transition is really important. I think she'll be very good at it. As a blocker because of her quickness and jumping ability, she'll be great at closing the block. She'll probably be one of the better closing middles we've had here ever. She might turn out to be the best with some work.
She's a great player, great student and I think is going to fit nicely in the spot vacated by Kim Oguh.
bc.net: As far as comparing her to a player you've had before, who would most closely resemble?
MJ: If you remember when Alice Borden played middle for us her first couple of years, Alice played the outside as a junior and senior but as a freshman and sophomore she was a middle. I think physically they're pretty comparable. They're both long and lean and quick. Alice was an exceptional blocker as a middle and was becoming a very good attacker.
bc.net: This weekend you've got the spring tournament out in Tucson, what are you looking for out of your girls this weekend?
MJ: The format's going to change a little bit, ASU and NAU dropped out so we're basically going to play two best of five matches against Arizona. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Really, I think we've got enough returners where we should be competitive. We shouldn't have a lot of system problems or system breakdowns because we don't really have anybody playing in new positions. I would expect us to be solid from that standpoint.
I think it's important that Whitney Woods establish herself offensively. Whitney was able to join us late in the season after the shoulder surgery. We could only set her a limited number of times, so we're going to give her a big offensive workload and see how she does.
I'm really looking for improvement from our setters. They need to be better than they were in the fall. I expect they will be, we've worked hard and they're a little bit more mature than they were before. I think we've got a good shot at playing pretty well.
bc.net: Since the last time we talked the rules committee approved the changes. What are you looking for out of this weekend and how are those changes, specifically the substitution limit, going to affect your 6-2 system?
MJ: We're gonna play to 25 in all the games and we're going to count the subs and see how it affects the game. I'm not sure right now. I'm not happy with the 25 point thing basically because I think it takes playing opportunities away from players. You shorten the game and you limit substitutions along with that, in the past I've been able to get players in games late, say we've got a nice comfortable lead I can put young players in. I can't do that now. Or I don't think I'm going to be able to do that as often and that bothers me a great deal. How it plays out in terms of strategy and things like that, I think it's going to limit a coach's impact on particular games. I think teams are going to start more often in their better rotations so they can get those rotations in the front row more often. It'll lessen the number of times you start with matchups.
