I had a chance to spend a few minutes with Coach Germano at the team's Media Day prior to the preseason camp. Here is the transcript of that interview.

Q: How many scholarships do you expect to have for this year’s recruiting class?

A: We’re thinking it’s somewhere around 18 based on the fact that we have 18 seniors. But things change. If a guy decides to leave the program or you lose a guy that has scholarship eligibility left. For whatever reason, those numbers always tend to get skewed. Last year we started with 11 in the Spring and signed 20.

Q: Can you estimate about how many offers you have out right now?

A: We’re probably up over 70. We’re probably in the best shape in my six years of where we need to be at this time of year in terms of the number of kids we’ve offered and the number of kids we’ve identified and that so-called recruiting board and the guys doing the job indentifying the lists. If you do the work in June and May and April, then your Summer and Fall is a lot easier. If you’ve got too many kids it’s hard sometimes when you’re trying to make a few feel special in the whole recruiting process. We’re in really great shape in terms of that. In terms of who we’ve identified and who we like. This is the most number of kids we’ve had offers out to right now then probably we’ve ever had. That could be good and that could be bad. A kid doesn’t perform quite the same way he did as a junior and then you run into some troubles. But most of the kids that we’ve identified have been identified by other people as well and we’re not the only offer.

Q: Any position groups that you’re making a priority?

A: Looking at the four senior linebackers might be a situation there for sure. The O-line with a couple of graduations and a couple of kids beat up there might be a chance to sign four, five, six offensive lineman. That might be huge group but that naturally is because it’s already a big group. Linebackers seem to be a big deal because of the four seniors and we only brought one freshman in last year. The quarterback, this is a quarterback conference. If you have an upper-echelon quarterback you have a great chance at making a run at the MAC Championship. I’m hoping that the corps of quarterbacks that we have can do that. But we’re really looking for that special kid. We really want to sign one, maybe two.

Q: As I had it, you had 10 or 11 offers to quarterbacks. You had Chris Smith , Lalich, one that committed to Connecticut.

A: One went to Virginia, one committed to Marshall, one committed to Connecticut. There’s a nice, if you want to call it, next pool of kids out there that we like. That’s an important position. Not to signal that out but we didn’t sign one because we were saving one for Brad (Bower). We hope Brad with two years left being a Big 10 kid can be the guy to eventually take over for Austen. If it isn’t this year it’s next year and I’ll leave that up to what happens in the Fall camp. Corners would be another one. We feel pretty good about the tight end, pretty good about the safety, pretty good at D-line. Not that we won’t sign any there but we’re short on a few corners. So I’d say corners, O-line, linebackers, off the top of my head. And quarterback. Even though we have enough scholarships to hand out at least one to all positions.

Q: Under Coach Solich it seems like you’re recruiting more in Pennsylvania. With the change in staffs, were there any changes in geographies you’re recruiting?

A: A little bit. We’ve always been in PA. The only change this year in Western PA is we put two coaches there instead of one. Pittsburgh had 47 Division 1 scholarship football players last year. Coach Pelini was the only one in Pittsburgh. Now I have part of Pittsburgh for myself. We divided the city North and South. But we’ve always had a presence there. We’ve got seven coaches in Ohio, that hasn’t changed. Every county is covered, that hasn’t changed. The change in Atlanta was we only put one in Atlanta where we had two. We started in Florida when I first got here and we pulled out. Now we got two in Florida. We’ve got a Central Florida and a South Florida. So last year we had one now we’ve got two. Before that, we had none. We just said, ”you know what let’s move up North to Atlanta.” Concentrate on Atlanta more. Put two in there. That was the philosophy of the previous staff. We shifted it. We kept one in Atlanta and put two in Florida. We are also going to try to back into North Carolina, Virginia and DC. Which we’ve sort of had a presence but now maybe more of a presence. Stafford Gatling is a North Carolina kid. Once you start getting a kid from an area you go back and cultivate and start throwing his name around.

Q: You mentioned earlier that you were offering players earlier and you already have one commit.

A: And a lot closer to being at four or five rather quickly.

Q: Last year it seemed as though a lot of the recruiting came late.

A: Normally at Christmas time in my five previous recruiting seasons here we normally have half the class left to go. So if you got 18 to give and you’re sitting at 9-11 verbals come Christmas, well, anything above that would be extremely joyous. Normally we’re not in a position as a mid-major to say we can shut it down in January. January is very important to us.

Q: Do you think the recruiting challenge here is more or less than what Coach Solich expected?

A; Do you know what Coach Solich has brought to the table? We’re on better kids. We have more connections through his staff and we’re getting more tips about kids that might be transferring. Or tips about this high school kid here, here and here. It’s a well-connected staff. His name and his presence have allowed us to recruit a better kid. On top of that, you’re right, Nebraska had a bunch of wins and a bunch of National Championships. What this programs needs more than anything is W’s. It needs W’s. You start looking at our schedule. OK, we’re playing Rutgers. We’re playing Missouri. You get sick and tired of playing money games. You want W’s. W’s are gonna help our program. We’re gonna recruit a better kid. We’re already on some. We can get some better ones and it’s going to allow us to get some more.

Q: This year you had a camp in Cleveland, was that new?

A: Somewhat. And Youngstown. We had them on back-to-back nights. It’s not a new concept. We loved it. As long as the NCAA continues to allow it, I see us continuing it. Now maybe next year it will be Cleveland and Cincinnati. Maybe it’s Cleveland and Columbus. We had more kids in Cleveland than our camp here. It was great. So we had a chance to evaluate, between the three camps, over 400 kids. That’s what it’s all about.

Q: What is the best way to evaluate a recruit, a combine/camp or game film?

A: It’s a combination of both. You can have great combine kids that don’t understand football or are not physical. You can have a guy that benches 400 pounds but doesn’t play physical. So you’re looking for the combination of both. You see great film on a kid and like his instincts and the way he runs around. Then you see him in a camp, that just confirms it. You want confirmed camp times. Not the kid telling you or sometimes not the coach telling you. It’s like “OK he went to the Nike camp and ran a confirmed 4.4.” You feel good about that being somewhat accurate. And then you see him catch the ball and make cuts and all that and you confirm what you saw on film. It’s more of a confirmation process than anything. Liked him on film, want to see him in camp. You see him in camp and he’s a baller now you feel good about saying he’s an offer kid. So you need both. You really do need both.

Q: Any schools that you bump into regularly on the recruiting trail?

A: Akron signed four kids out of Ohio this year, they went to Florida this year. Up North, it’s always been Bowling Green and Miami. They are two of the better teams in the Mid-American Conference as far as the state goes. Akron did better in Florida because they were on TV and won the MAC. I think as you win and get more exposure and you’re playing in a Bowl game, you might start to recruit some other places. We still go to Nebraska because of the ties there. We try to do a little bit in Texas but not real committed to it because it’s almost too much. The more we get on TV and the more we get the wins, you can recruit in some other areas. Although I think we’re in the right areas right now. Western PA, Ohio. It’s great football. I still would like to sign half the kids out of Ohio. You got 18 scholarships and you get nine from Ohio, I’d fell pretty good about it. You just have to be smart about where you go out of state where you get a chance to get a quality kid out of state.