MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (September 4, 2018) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2018, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening Statement
Welcome to Youngstown State Week. I’m excited about this week, really. It should be a fun week for us to get back to work. I’m looking forward to today, getting back out there and practicing. We have a whole bunch of things that we can work on from the game here last weekend. You just have to keep improving; getting out there and practicing and improving is obviously going to be important each and every week – this week is no different.
First home games are always great. I wouldn’t have scripted it any better, honestly. You guys know my feelings on neutral-site games, and to be able to win that game is going to give us a whole lot of momentum. I thought the previous two that we lost gave us momentum moving forward, so being able to win one of those is going to give us a lot of momentum moving forward, and then, to be able to come back and open up at home here at Mountaineer Field. It’s a 6 o’clock game, I’m looking forward to that. That should be great for our fans; I would assume there’s going to be a lot of people there. I think there’s 12,000 student tickets that are already accounted for, so 6 o’clock game, night game, the weather should be great, Man Trip should be great, good crowd, good opponent, all the rest of it. It’s going to be fun for me to prepare this week to get ready to win.
Youngstown State, we know what we’re getting with these guys. We faced them two years ago; they gave us everything that we wanted two years ago. It was 14-14 at halftime. They came out and I think we went up 24-14, then they scored again. It was a challenge, and we know what their program is all about. In my opinion, they’re in the best FCS conference that exists with North Dakota State and UNI and South Dakota State and that group. That’s good football now, and it doesn’t stop with them. There’s about eight of them in there that are all really good. They have national championships, they’ve been playing good football there at Youngstown State for a long time.
Obviously, I have a lot of respect for Bo Pelini. He’s as good of a defensive coordinator that exists out there. We go way back; I faced him when I was at Oklahoma State and then a couple years ago as well. He said it best – they didn’t deserve to win last week. Anybody can beat anybody if you don’t respect the game, and if you don’t prepare to play. That’s what he said in his press conference, and as coaches, we all understand that. We can use that as motivation for us. It happens every week; we don’t even really have to talk about it anymore. FCS teams best FBS teams every single week, it happens. It’s going to happen this week. Our goal and our job is to make sure it doesn’t happen to us, so we’re going to take this very, very, very seriously and prepare just like we did last week. I think we have a veteran group of guys that like football that are looking forward just to the overall aspect of being able to prepare the right way and go out and be able to try to meet our goal, which is to win every and every week.
What they’re doing offensively is the same as what it was a couple of years ago. They have a transfer quarterback in (Montgomery) VanGorder, know the name. They have another guy that may or may not play due to an injury, we’ll see which one they come out with. They’re going to hand the ball off a good bit, it’s a lot like, probably, what we saw last week with Tennessee. They’re going to use fullbacks and tight ends and try to control the game a little bit. They handed it to their back, the (Tevin) McCaster kid, about 30 times last week; he’s a good, little player. They have some experienced guys up front and a couple of receiver that I thought were quality receivers. I don’t know how many touchdowns they had called back, but they had two or three of them called back from their receivers, so they have some good, little players, and we’re going to have to do a good job defensively in controlling that.
When you think of them, what stands out to me with where they were two years ago, their quarterback play was really good two years ago, and their defense was outstanding. I think five of those guys that we played against are all in the NFL right now, so they have quality players. What they do defensively is as sound as it gets. It’s not a whole lot different than what we’ve seen out of them in the past; they’re going to play a four-down front, and they are going to blitz you when they need to, and they’re going to try to funnel everything to their safeties. It’s the same stuff that they’ve been doing for a long time, and we have plenty of video to be able to figure out how to attack it.
Special teams, they don’t ignore it. It’s the same kicker, same punter as what we faced a couple years ago out here. They have one of the Stoops brothers that’s heading up the special teams aspect of it. They’re very sound with what they do, and it’ll be a good chance for us to continue to improve our stuff as well.
I’m looking forward to the game. We’re celebrating the ’88 team – that brought back some memories thinking about that. I’ve met a lot of those guys, obviously, over the course of the last eight years coming back. That’s when I graduated high school, so I guess my 30th reunion is coming up. That in itself is disturbing to me. I remember wearing a West Virginia sweatshirt my senior year in high school, and it was because of that ’88 team. They were undefeated, and obviously Major Harris, Coach Don Nehlen and all of those guys I admired from afar. Here we are 30 years later with me behind this podium, and we’re celebrating the ’88 team this weekend as well. It should be another great weekend; last weekend was a great weekend to be a Mountaineer and a Mountaineer fan, and I expect nothing different this weekend.
On how much can be tweaked from game one to game two
I don’t know how else to really do it; I don’t know how many people truly change what they do from game one to game 12, really. There are only so many hours in a day and so many practice reps in a day. There are probably still some things out there – not even probably – there are things out there that we didn’t show. There are things out there that they probably didn’t show. Especially with the veteran group that we have, and these have already been talked about, but are some changes offensively, some changes defensively that we threw out there that are noticeable, and there are probably more up our sleeve that will come down the road. But that’s not going to be stuff that we install right now, that’s been stuff that’s been worked on all spring and all summer and all camp. When we feel like it’s appropriate to bring some of the new stuff out, then we will. I’m sure Youngstown and our futures are the same way.
On if he was happy with the number of players that saw the field against Tennessee
I was. That number will probably go up a little bit. The overall number of snaps, some of those guys were two snaps or three snaps. A lot of them were less than five because there was an unordinary amount of snaps on that game on Saturday – 61 offense, 63 defense, or vice versa – and relatively small amount of special teams snaps just because of how that game played out; it was a possession game. So as those snaps go up, which we all know they will, especially in the league that we’re in, whether that 58 goes up into the 60s or whether just the total number of plays on players 40 through 58 goes up, I would definitely think that’s going to happen. I was overall pleased with it; I need more snaps out of players 40 through 58 to be able to evaluate them a little better.
On his evaluation of the tight ends against Tennessee
It’s been something we’ve been working towards for quite some time. We kept it under wraps as much as we possibly could based on this first game. I think (redshirt sophomore) Jovani (Haskins) needs to play more. I thought he played pretty well, but he got like 11 snaps in on offense, I’d like to see that go up a little bit. (Redshirt senior Trevon) Wesco, the one catch he made over the middle really impressed me, I hadn’t seen a lot out of that. His blocking ability is what has impressed me more than anybody. He’s 275 pounds, and he can block about any defender that you put in front of him. I was happy with the way he played overall, and we’ll continue to get Jovani in. (Redshirt sophomore Logan) Thimons got in there a couple of times. We’ll keep experimenting with those guys on where they align and what we ask them to do.
On the state of the running back group
Good. I was disappointed (junior) Kennedy (McKoy) fumbled. We told him at halftime, I was like, ‘Are you ready to roll?’, and he said, ‘I’m ready.’ I said, ‘OK, you better get ready because you’re about to get the ball a good bit.’ He was good, he went out there and caught a touchdown pass on his first play. We put him back in there, and he was running hard. You can’t turn the ball over in that situation. (Junior Martell) Pettaway, I thought, played overall great, (redshirt freshman Alec) Sink (Sinkfield) looked explosive when we threw it to him, and I think (freshman) Leddie (Brown) is a powerful guy that’s going to keep getting better. So, all four of them have a role, and we’re going to need all four of them, that’s for sure.
On keeping the running backs fresh during games
That’s what I said to them. I said, ‘You should be the freshest player on the field. Go out there and prove it.’
On if any true freshmen still have opportunities to play
They all have an opportunity. That’s what I told them on Sunday. We dressed eight of them that didn’t play. There are a couple that aren’t going to play; we don’t need a couple of those (offensive) linemen, (defensive) linemen guys to play at this point. There are some other ones that that’s going to be up to them and how they practice and how they improve. Some are probably going to do a better job of that than others, but there are eight of them that dressed that didn’t play. We’ll see how they do this week, and we’ll probably dress all eight of them and if we feel like it’s warranted to play them, then we’ll go ahead and play them.
On the team’s run blocking
It was OK, just OK. I thought our pass protection was pretty good, I thought the run blocking was OK. Their front was good now, don’t kid yourself. They’re all four-, five-star guys; you guys talk about four- and five-star guys all the time. They had those guys; they were pretty good up front. They started to outnumber us, and I thought (redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier) did a good job of getting us into appropriate plays. It wasn’t anything great, but it was OK, and I think it’ll continue to get better.
On Tennessee’s man coverage on defense
I agree, which surprised me a little bit because it wasn’t what he was alluding to in his press conferences prior to the game. (Redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier) did a good job in the second half. The first half was just OK; we were trying to figure out what was going on. Well, we only had like 18 snaps in the first half, too, so we didn’t have a lot of snaps, and we didn’t have a lot of time to get going. We did a better job in the second half of identifying what they were doing and changing some pass plays to run plays and some run plays to pass plays, that sort of thing. I thought Will did a really good job of that in the second half, and it was incredibly efficient in moving the ball forward.
On how the linebackers have been affected by injuries
Well, injuries affect everything. We aren’t going to sit here and pout about it. It’s part of the game, and we’re prepared for any of our guys for that to happen to. It’s an unfortunate thing about the game, but it’s never going to go away. It’s what we always talk about – guys need to step up and go play. I think (redshirt junior) Shea Campbell did a nice job of going in there. The kid had never played college football before, and Shea went in there and did a good job. Guys like (redshirt freshman) Exree Loe and (freshman) Josh Chandler, who are freshmen, need to quit being freshmen and grow up and play ball. Guys like (junior) Adam Hensley and (redshirt sophomore) Zach Sandwisch, who have been here for three years now, need to produce. They need to earn their scholarship, and they need to produce. We still have (senior Quondarius) Qualls and (redshirt sophomore Brendan) Ferns, who are rehabbing their tails off, who are getting closer to being able to get out there and play football. So, it’s part of it, but that’s why we have 85 scholarships, and guys who are the next guy up need to step up and play, and I expect them to do that.
On the expected return dates of senior linebacker Quondarius Qualls and redshirt sophomore linebacker Brendan Ferns
I’ll let you know when we’re getting close, but we’re not there yet.
On figuring out the new kickoff return rules
I studied it a good bit. There has to be an internal clock on how high that ball is and where it’s located and what your return is. I’ve been talking to (junior wide receiver) Marcus (Simms) a lot, and I thought he did well on all three. I didn’t think he was going to run all the way across the field to catch that third one, but after seeing his second one when he caught it and got shot out of a cannon and was about a split-second away from being able to bust that thing, they adjusted their kick really quick. So, I think we’re going to have to get used to alternate kicks. We’re going to face some pretty dang good return guys, too, now, to where we’re going to have to start thinking about that stuff as well. I think it’s going to be good for the overall aspect of the game, the safety aspect of it. But you have to be smart about when you use it, and when you don’t.
On how hard it is for redshirt senior quarterback Will Grier to be able to make in-game adjustments
You heard me talking about Skyler (Howard) when it comes to this, too. It’s why the second year playing quarterback is always easier than the first year. The first year, you’re trying to figure everything out, trying to gain timing with receivers and understand the offense and play ball and all that stuff. The second year is always a lot easier, and really, this is the third year. He redshirted, you played, you played. Even Skyler redshirted, played, played. (Clint) Trickett’s first year was pretty bad, and the second year was a lot slower just in overall comfortability of just the overall offense in general. It slows things down, and when you look at things, you have answers to where year one, you look at things and you say, ‘I don’t like that, but I don’t know what else to call, so I snap the ball.’ It’s just experience more than anything.
Opening Statement
Welcome to Youngstown State Week. I’m excited about this week, really. It should be a fun week for us to get back to work. I’m looking forward to today, getting back out there and practicing. We have a whole bunch of things that we can work on from the game here last weekend. You just have to keep improving; getting out there and practicing and improving is obviously going to be important each and every week – this week is no different.
First home games are always great. I wouldn’t have scripted it any better, honestly. You guys know my feelings on neutral-site games, and to be able to win that game is going to give us a whole lot of momentum. I thought the previous two that we lost gave us momentum moving forward, so being able to win one of those is going to give us a lot of momentum moving forward, and then, to be able to come back and open up at home here at Mountaineer Field. It’s a 6 o’clock game, I’m looking forward to that. That should be great for our fans; I would assume there’s going to be a lot of people there. I think there’s 12,000 student tickets that are already accounted for, so 6 o’clock game, night game, the weather should be great, Man Trip should be great, good crowd, good opponent, all the rest of it. It’s going to be fun for me to prepare this week to get ready to win.
Youngstown State, we know what we’re getting with these guys. We faced them two years ago; they gave us everything that we wanted two years ago. It was 14-14 at halftime. They came out and I think we went up 24-14, then they scored again. It was a challenge, and we know what their program is all about. In my opinion, they’re in the best FCS conference that exists with North Dakota State and UNI and South Dakota State and that group. That’s good football now, and it doesn’t stop with them. There’s about eight of them in there that are all really good. They have national championships, they’ve been playing good football there at Youngstown State for a long time.
Obviously, I have a lot of respect for Bo Pelini. He’s as good of a defensive coordinator that exists out there. We go way back; I faced him when I was at Oklahoma State and then a couple years ago as well. He said it best – they didn’t deserve to win last week. Anybody can beat anybody if you don’t respect the game, and if you don’t prepare to play. That’s what he said in his press conference, and as coaches, we all understand that. We can use that as motivation for us. It happens every week; we don’t even really have to talk about it anymore. FCS teams best FBS teams every single week, it happens. It’s going to happen this week. Our goal and our job is to make sure it doesn’t happen to us, so we’re going to take this very, very, very seriously and prepare just like we did last week. I think we have a veteran group of guys that like football that are looking forward just to the overall aspect of being able to prepare the right way and go out and be able to try to meet our goal, which is to win every and every week.
What they’re doing offensively is the same as what it was a couple of years ago. They have a transfer quarterback in (Montgomery) VanGorder, know the name. They have another guy that may or may not play due to an injury, we’ll see which one they come out with. They’re going to hand the ball off a good bit, it’s a lot like, probably, what we saw last week with Tennessee. They’re going to use fullbacks and tight ends and try to control the game a little bit. They handed it to their back, the (Tevin) McCaster kid, about 30 times last week; he’s a good, little player. They have some experienced guys up front and a couple of receiver that I thought were quality receivers. I don’t know how many touchdowns they had called back, but they had two or three of them called back from their receivers, so they have some good, little players, and we’re going to have to do a good job defensively in controlling that.
When you think of them, what stands out to me with where they were two years ago, their quarterback play was really good two years ago, and their defense was outstanding. I think five of those guys that we played against are all in the NFL right now, so they have quality players. What they do defensively is as sound as it gets. It’s not a whole lot different than what we’ve seen out of them in the past; they’re going to play a four-down front, and they are going to blitz you when they need to, and they’re going to try to funnel everything to their safeties. It’s the same stuff that they’ve been doing for a long time, and we have plenty of video to be able to figure out how to attack it.
Special teams, they don’t ignore it. It’s the same kicker, same punter as what we faced a couple years ago out here. They have one of the Stoops brothers that’s heading up the special teams aspect of it. They’re very sound with what they do, and it’ll be a good chance for us to continue to improve our stuff as well.
I’m looking forward to the game. We’re celebrating the ’88 team – that brought back some memories thinking about that. I’ve met a lot of those guys, obviously, over the course of the last eight years coming back. That’s when I graduated high school, so I guess my 30th reunion is coming up. That in itself is disturbing to me. I remember wearing a West Virginia sweatshirt my senior year in high school, and it was because of that ’88 team. They were undefeated, and obviously Major Harris, Coach Don Nehlen and all of those guys I admired from afar. Here we are 30 years later with me behind this podium, and we’re celebrating the ’88 team this weekend as well. It should be another great weekend; last weekend was a great weekend to be a Mountaineer and a Mountaineer fan, and I expect nothing different this weekend.
On how much can be tweaked from game one to game two
I don’t know how else to really do it; I don’t know how many people truly change what they do from game one to game 12, really. There are only so many hours in a day and so many practice reps in a day. There are probably still some things out there – not even probably – there are things out there that we didn’t show. There are things out there that they probably didn’t show. Especially with the veteran group that we have, and these have already been talked about, but are some changes offensively, some changes defensively that we threw out there that are noticeable, and there are probably more up our sleeve that will come down the road. But that’s not going to be stuff that we install right now, that’s been stuff that’s been worked on all spring and all summer and all camp. When we feel like it’s appropriate to bring some of the new stuff out, then we will. I’m sure Youngstown and our futures are the same way.
On if he was happy with the number of players that saw the field against Tennessee
I was. That number will probably go up a little bit. The overall number of snaps, some of those guys were two snaps or three snaps. A lot of them were less than five because there was an unordinary amount of snaps on that game on Saturday – 61 offense, 63 defense, or vice versa – and relatively small amount of special teams snaps just because of how that game played out; it was a possession game. So as those snaps go up, which we all know they will, especially in the league that we’re in, whether that 58 goes up into the 60s or whether just the total number of plays on players 40 through 58 goes up, I would definitely think that’s going to happen. I was overall pleased with it; I need more snaps out of players 40 through 58 to be able to evaluate them a little better.
On his evaluation of the tight ends against Tennessee
It’s been something we’ve been working towards for quite some time. We kept it under wraps as much as we possibly could based on this first game. I think (redshirt sophomore) Jovani (Haskins) needs to play more. I thought he played pretty well, but he got like 11 snaps in on offense, I’d like to see that go up a little bit. (Redshirt senior Trevon) Wesco, the one catch he made over the middle really impressed me, I hadn’t seen a lot out of that. His blocking ability is what has impressed me more than anybody. He’s 275 pounds, and he can block about any defender that you put in front of him. I was happy with the way he played overall, and we’ll continue to get Jovani in. (Redshirt sophomore Logan) Thimons got in there a couple of times. We’ll keep experimenting with those guys on where they align and what we ask them to do.
On the state of the running back group
Good. I was disappointed (junior) Kennedy (McKoy) fumbled. We told him at halftime, I was like, ‘Are you ready to roll?’, and he said, ‘I’m ready.’ I said, ‘OK, you better get ready because you’re about to get the ball a good bit.’ He was good, he went out there and caught a touchdown pass on his first play. We put him back in there, and he was running hard. You can’t turn the ball over in that situation. (Junior Martell) Pettaway, I thought, played overall great, (redshirt freshman Alec) Sink (Sinkfield) looked explosive when we threw it to him, and I think (freshman) Leddie (Brown) is a powerful guy that’s going to keep getting better. So, all four of them have a role, and we’re going to need all four of them, that’s for sure.
On keeping the running backs fresh during games
That’s what I said to them. I said, ‘You should be the freshest player on the field. Go out there and prove it.’
On if any true freshmen still have opportunities to play
They all have an opportunity. That’s what I told them on Sunday. We dressed eight of them that didn’t play. There are a couple that aren’t going to play; we don’t need a couple of those (offensive) linemen, (defensive) linemen guys to play at this point. There are some other ones that that’s going to be up to them and how they practice and how they improve. Some are probably going to do a better job of that than others, but there are eight of them that dressed that didn’t play. We’ll see how they do this week, and we’ll probably dress all eight of them and if we feel like it’s warranted to play them, then we’ll go ahead and play them.
On the team’s run blocking
It was OK, just OK. I thought our pass protection was pretty good, I thought the run blocking was OK. Their front was good now, don’t kid yourself. They’re all four-, five-star guys; you guys talk about four- and five-star guys all the time. They had those guys; they were pretty good up front. They started to outnumber us, and I thought (redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier) did a good job of getting us into appropriate plays. It wasn’t anything great, but it was OK, and I think it’ll continue to get better.
On Tennessee’s man coverage on defense
I agree, which surprised me a little bit because it wasn’t what he was alluding to in his press conferences prior to the game. (Redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier) did a good job in the second half. The first half was just OK; we were trying to figure out what was going on. Well, we only had like 18 snaps in the first half, too, so we didn’t have a lot of snaps, and we didn’t have a lot of time to get going. We did a better job in the second half of identifying what they were doing and changing some pass plays to run plays and some run plays to pass plays, that sort of thing. I thought Will did a really good job of that in the second half, and it was incredibly efficient in moving the ball forward.
On how the linebackers have been affected by injuries
Well, injuries affect everything. We aren’t going to sit here and pout about it. It’s part of the game, and we’re prepared for any of our guys for that to happen to. It’s an unfortunate thing about the game, but it’s never going to go away. It’s what we always talk about – guys need to step up and go play. I think (redshirt junior) Shea Campbell did a nice job of going in there. The kid had never played college football before, and Shea went in there and did a good job. Guys like (redshirt freshman) Exree Loe and (freshman) Josh Chandler, who are freshmen, need to quit being freshmen and grow up and play ball. Guys like (junior) Adam Hensley and (redshirt sophomore) Zach Sandwisch, who have been here for three years now, need to produce. They need to earn their scholarship, and they need to produce. We still have (senior Quondarius) Qualls and (redshirt sophomore Brendan) Ferns, who are rehabbing their tails off, who are getting closer to being able to get out there and play football. So, it’s part of it, but that’s why we have 85 scholarships, and guys who are the next guy up need to step up and play, and I expect them to do that.
On the expected return dates of senior linebacker Quondarius Qualls and redshirt sophomore linebacker Brendan Ferns
I’ll let you know when we’re getting close, but we’re not there yet.
On figuring out the new kickoff return rules
I studied it a good bit. There has to be an internal clock on how high that ball is and where it’s located and what your return is. I’ve been talking to (junior wide receiver) Marcus (Simms) a lot, and I thought he did well on all three. I didn’t think he was going to run all the way across the field to catch that third one, but after seeing his second one when he caught it and got shot out of a cannon and was about a split-second away from being able to bust that thing, they adjusted their kick really quick. So, I think we’re going to have to get used to alternate kicks. We’re going to face some pretty dang good return guys, too, now, to where we’re going to have to start thinking about that stuff as well. I think it’s going to be good for the overall aspect of the game, the safety aspect of it. But you have to be smart about when you use it, and when you don’t.
On how hard it is for redshirt senior quarterback Will Grier to be able to make in-game adjustments
You heard me talking about Skyler (Howard) when it comes to this, too. It’s why the second year playing quarterback is always easier than the first year. The first year, you’re trying to figure everything out, trying to gain timing with receivers and understand the offense and play ball and all that stuff. The second year is always a lot easier, and really, this is the third year. He redshirted, you played, you played. Even Skyler redshirted, played, played. (Clint) Trickett’s first year was pretty bad, and the second year was a lot slower just in overall comfortability of just the overall offense in general. It slows things down, and when you look at things, you have answers to where year one, you look at things and you say, ‘I don’t like that, but I don’t know what else to call, so I snap the ball.’ It’s just experience more than anything.
