ADVERTISEMENT

WVU Release Dana Holgorsen Press Conference: 9-18

Keenan Cummings

Fact Based and Wonderful
Staff
Sep 16, 2007
106,870
223,455
678
38
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (September 18, 2018) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.


Opening Statement

Kansas State, Big 12 football, I’m excited about this this weekend. We’re expecting a big crowd; the Stripe the Stadium thing has been pretty successful here for the last three times that we’ve done it, so I’m looking forward to that. Obviously, Kansas State is always a fun game for us. It’s been pretty competitive, about as competitive as it could get the last four or five games, so I’m expecting this game to be no different than that.


They still have great continuity with their coaching staff. They have two new coordinators; one, Coach (Dana) Dimel left for UTEP to be a head coach. That’s very, very well-deserved; he’s done a wonderful job with that offense the last several years. And then, they had their defensive coordinator retire. But, when you really look at it, they’ve replaced them with guys that have been in their program, so they’re not doing anything really different. Coach (Bill) Snyder, from a continuity prospective, obviously it gets none better than this anywhere maybe in sports in general. The continuity that he brings with what he’s done at Kansas State and the coaches that work for him has been the same for a long time. There’s maybe a few new faces, a few younger faces, on that staff, who are going to bring their own little twists and all that, I get that. But just overall in general, they are the same that they’ve been. The backbone of that program has always been toughness and discipline and program pride and all that good stuff. I see the same stuff.


Offensively, what they’re doing, we know about the two quarterbacks, Skylar Thompson and the (Alex) Delton kid. We’ll be ready for both of them. They’ve kind of settled on Thompson from what I’ve seen last week, in particular. Really, they don’t do a ton different with either one of them that’s in there, so we’re going to prepare for these guys like we normally do and expect both of them to play. They have several running backs that they can go to as well. They’re going to play tight ends, going to play fullbacks, going to more than likely huddle up and control the ball like they always have – and they’re as good at it as anybody. But they’re getting better offensively, and they’ll continue to get better. I think their quarterback has a chance to be a good player. They have basically all of their offensive linemen back, so they have really good continuity up front. There’s a couple of receivers that look good to me. They have really good speed; the (Isaiah) Zuber kid, No. 7, has made some people look pretty silly here in the last few weeks, so he looks good.


Defensively, it’s pretty much like they always have. They’ve always been a four-down front, they’ve always done a great job with their technique up front as far as rushing the passer. Their linebackers make plays, their secondary is our biggest challenge yet, by far. They have a lot of good returning guys coming back, and what they’re doing in the backend, they’re multiple with what they do. There’s been times where this bunch has been nothing but play zone coverage. Back in the day, I’ve went against this group that has done nothing but man coverage. They do a good job of doing both and disguising things and being multiple.


Special teams have always been my biggest headache with these guys. Sean Snyder does a great job; they focus on it, it’s important to them. They use a lot of players. I’m glad they don’t have as many guys as they had last year from their kicker, to their punter, to their deep snapper, to those two return guys, who are doing pretty good stuff in the NFL right now. But the product is still the same. You’ve heard me a lot say it’s not always just about the specialists or the return guys, but there’s nine other people that are out there that are playing on those units. They cover hard, they use great technique, their schemes are really sound. They have new guys back there at punt returner and kick returner that look pretty similar to the ones that they’ve had, so we’re going to have to play well on special teams. As scary as they were last year, I thought we hung in there with them and didn’t give up any points. They had a couple of returns last year, but for the most part, we did OK. That has to be the same thing this week.


It’s a typical Bill Snyder-coached team; they’re going to keep getting better every week – they got better last week, and they’ll get better this week. But it should be a great atmosphere here in Morgantown, we’re certainly looking forward to it. I’m going to have to calm our guys down, probably, this week. We can’t go out there and play this game today. Just because we weren’t able to play last week doesn’t mean we can’t be overexcited, which we need to go out there, and we need to prepare today and tomorrow and just get ready to play for what I think will be a great day on Saturday.


On what the team worked on with the extra time last week

A little bit of both. You guys have heard me say plenty I don’t overdo an opponent. They give you one week because that’s about what it takes to get ready for an opponent. Last Tuesday at this time, I thought we were playing North Carolina State, and we were prepared to go outside for practice that afternoon. Then, 30 minutes later after I went through the whole scouting report, the game was canceled. So, Tuesday and Wednesday we pretty much just turned them back into camp practices and went against each other. You have to keep playing, you need timing, you need conditioning and just a whole bunch of things. If you want them to improve or if you want them to stay the same, you have to keep doing it. So, we did that on Tuesday and Wednesday and then practiced them over the weekend, which gave us a little bit of time to prepare. So, we got a little ahead on Kansas State as well.


On Kansas State’s success in quarterback runs

Well, they block. That’s the most important aspect of offensive football is blocking. They do a good job with their technique; their schemes are sound. They don’t do anything different than what anybody else does from a quarterback run game prospective, they’re just not afraid to do it a lot. Even when I had Skyler Howard here, we did a lot of quarterback run game, but I was still a little bit leery of doing too much of it because I didn’t want to get to No. 2. They have the luxury of having two of them, so it looks to me like they’re sound with what they do, they do a good job up front. They’ll run that quarterback every play if they feel like it’s necessary. I guess that’s the reason of having more than one of them. It’s certainly not something we’re going to be doing.


On if Kansas State forces teams to play a different way

They just play hard. They’re well-coached – it’s everything people say about them is true. They’re well-coached, they play with great effort, they don’t make a whole lot of mistakes. This game has been fun. Really, the one we probably should have won was three years ago there. If you turn on Coach (Bill) Snyder’s press conference, he’s going to be saying they should have won the last two games that we’ve played. They’ve been back-and-forth, they’ve been close, closely contested games. They try to shorten the games; we’re not going to get a ton of possessions. It’s no different than what the first two games were like – we’re averaging 10 possessions a game on offense and defense – so it’s going to be a shorter game, which means lower-scoring games at times. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a bigger headache than what two years ago was. I don’t know how we won that game – I agree with him. I don’t know how we won the last two games. We turned it over way too many times; the turnovers have been critical; the field position has been critical. That’s what they do. Typically, they win the field position, typically, win the turnover battle, try to limit mistakes, shorten the game, and they believe they can win at the end. That’s what they do. And we’ve done that; we’ve been able to play that way, too, and we’ve won games like that. We played together last year. Our sideline was good. It was a challenging game, but our sideline was good. We didn’t play very well on offense, but defensively we played really well. But we played together as a team. If you look at the sudden change points, that’s what won it.


On if redshirt senior quarterback Will Grier has to stay patient against the Kansas State defense

Yeah, because they can do different things to you. They’re blitzing more and pressuring more and playing man coverage more than what I’ve seen. So, there’s going to be opportunities for big plays. That’s what we’ve seen on video, so I’m not expecting them to do anything different. I don’t think this will be a play-off-you team 100 percent of the time. They’re a little more aggressive than what we’ve seen, more like what Tennessee did. Tennessee was a little bit more aggressive. Youngstown State was way back. I don’t think the change with what they’ve put on video the last three games, I think they’re going to be aggressive, which is going to give us opportunities to make plays. Now, if they do – and Will has been great at identifying what they’re doing and getting us into the best plays – I think that will be critical here on Saturday.


On if he’s happy with how the team is taking to the new kickoff rules

I’ve been OK with it. We didn’t field the ball very well last week. If you look at what we did, the first one, I think (junior wide receiver) Marcus’ (Simms) decision was wrong. He caught it when his momentum was going backwards. He should’ve kneed it. He took off, and we got pinned inside the 20. That’s what I’m trying to prevent more than anything. When you can fair-catch it and take it on the 25, then you better not do anything to not have it on the 25. That will change from week to week, and there’s been a lot of talks, we’ve had a lot of talks in meetings on this. I wish this rule was in place last year because their kicker was spectacular at hanging that thing up to the 1-yard line. That’s hard to scheme. That guy was pretty special. So, it’s going to be week to week, where the kicks are, what their hangtime is, and how I feel we can scheme things up. I’ve been happy with it, Marcus has done a good job. I think we took a step back last week. He let that one fall in front of him, which put it on the 21-yard line. He had a zero-yard return because he misjudged it. So, the fourth attempts we had (junior running back Martell) Pettaway did well on one, Marcus did well on one, and we did poor on two. That’s not good enough. The first game, I was happy with it.


On if he plans to alter his kickoffs depending on the opponent

Well, we definitely did last year if you paid attention to it. We should have just onside kicked it every time. We squibbed it because I was not kicking it to No. 2, and No. 9 was scary, too. These guys that they have back there right now are potentially going to be in the same league, they just haven’t done it as much. I will make those decisions on where we kick it based on who we play. I’ve been very happy with (redshirt sophomore kicker) Evan (Staley) up until this point. I think his touchback rate is pretty high, and his kick placement has been pretty good as well.


On the final play of the first half in last year’s Kansas State game

I thought (redshirt senior quarterback Will Grier) did the same thing against Tennessee – there was just about five more seconds left on the clock. It was not good. He made a great play. We capitalized – you could say it’s why we won the game – but we capitalized on one of their mistakes. I said, ‘Give me 10 yards, and let’s kick a field goal.’ And he got with the ball and was running around, and he looked at the clock and it was zero, and he made a play. I said if he ever does it again, then he’s going to be in trouble. I think against Tennessee, it was the same thing. He did the same thing – he rolled around, and he looked up at the clock and there was about six seconds left, so he knew he was good, so he ran out of bounds. Progress. He’s aware of that, and he was aware of them both. He just got caught. Those guys play good defense; he got caught with the ball and made the most of it on both of them, honestly.


On how conference games affect preparation and how they are played

I don’t think it’s anything that we say or do, I just think it’s the natural reaction of being in a conference situation. The nonconference games are pretty important, too, and we all sat here for that first one talking about how big the neutral-site situations are, those are awesome. And you say Youngstown’s not very important, well, try losing that thing – you’ll figure out how important that game is. I just think players embrace their conference, and I guarantee our players did the same thing I did on Saturday, which was watch all the Big 12 games. It’s a lot easier going into year seven than it was going into year one, just based on everybody in our locker room was recruited to be in our conference, has been in these conference games and there’s no unknowns. So, it means a lot more to them.


On if he scouts games he watches or just takes it in as a fan

A little of both. You can get irritated trying to scout it on TV because you just can’t see everything. I probably do it a little bit more as a fan. Now, there’s been times where we watched the video as a coach, and we’ll still go back and look at the TV copy because you can get information off a TV copy that you don’t get off a sideline, end zone copy. There’s value in both. From a schematic point of view, it’s probably more sideline, end zone. From a knowing-who-their-people-are, personnel-wise, the TV copy is pretty beneficial.


On the contrast in styles between West Virginia and Kansas State

I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference, honestly. Everybody wants to compare the new-school, old-school way of this game with Kansas State and West Virginia. There’s a lot of similarities that I see. They’ve been on the forefront of a lot of scheme things offensively, defensively, and especially special teams-wise. I’ve copied a lot of their stuff. Now, the one drastic difference from what you’re seeing is quarterback run game versus more passing, but their pass plays are clearly up to date, and they do a great job of it. If you look back at us two years ago, we were really, really, really similar with what we did offensively and what they do. There’s some similarities now with what their doing defensively and what we’re doing defensively, there’s some cross over there as well. I like to think we play with great effort and we’re coached up pretty well, and we have some toughness to us. We have a lot of program pride around here, so there’s a lot of noncoaching aspects of what I’ve tried to do at this program based on what he’s done with his program for decades and decades.


On matching players with schemes

Good coaches adapt to what their personnel is. I’ve seen them adapt to what their personnel is. You’ve seen us adapt to what our personnel is – the quarterback is the easy one to point to. But how you are up front, what kind of receivers you have, what your (defensive) line is like, what your corners are like, being able to adapt and adjust how you coach any side of the ball any side of the ball based on what your personnel is and where your strength and weaknesses are is the No. 1 thing as a coach. He may have invented it way back when.


On how Mississippi State was able to run the ball so well on Kansas State

Mississippi State is a good football team. I heard they were a good football team, but this is the first time that we’ve had a crossover game in a long time. I can’t remember the last time. So, we studied that one. Mississippi State’s personnel is pretty good; they have dudes up front that can block you, they have a couple of backs that can hit the hole, that quarterback keeps you honest in the run game. They’re a pretty physical outfit. They schemed them up, and they blocked well, and they played well. Mississippi State matched them on special teams, and defensively, they have guys that can run around. Their (defensive) line is extremely big and extremely physical. That looked like a good team to me.


On how Kansas State’s defense is different than in previous years

Well, they’re not overly complicated with what they do. It comes back to just the technique of blocking and tackling when you get right down to it. Special teams uses both of them, offense uses blocking, and defense uses tackling. They’re just technically really good; they’re tough, and they’re really good. They don’t try to get overly crazy with what they do defensively; they’re going to be sound, they’re going to play their tail off, they’re going to get off blocks, and they’re going to be sure tacklers. Their secondary is really talented, that’s why I think they’re playing more man coverage than what they’ve done in the past based on their personnel back there allows them to do it. They have some good players. It’s just technique more than anything. Take schemes out of it; technique is where I look at it. It’s pretty good.


On making WVU go the length of the field and force it to run a lot of plays

That’s more what they used to do, more zone coverage, playing off, quarters, back up, keep it in front, rally to the ball, be sure tacklers. I don’t see them doing that right now. We went into that Tennessee game not knowing what they were going to do. Are they going to back up and keep it in front or are they going to take some chances and blitz and play man? That’s what they did. That can get up big plays.
 
ADVERTISEMENT