MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (November 29, 2016) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, November 29, 2016, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening Statement
Okay. I wanted to start today by congratulating (WVU Women’s Soccer Head Coach) Nikki Izzo-Brown and the women’s soccer team, wishing them luck moving forward in to the College Cup out in San Jose (California). Good luck to the gang there playing North Carolina. I think they’re leaving today is that right? Safe travels and the best of luck.
This is a fun week for Mountaineer football. If you rank them, I think they’re all fun, thanksgiving week is special and you’re always going to remember it, and it was awesome to be able to close that week last week with a win on the road. You’re always anticipating the first game, that’s the most anticipated week of the year, but the one that I probably like more than anything is, and this really isn’t just coach speak, is the last one, Senior Day. Especially if you’re in a situation where you can do some things that these seniors can really be proud of; us trying to get our 10th win, understanding that that has only happened eight times in the last 125 years of Mountaineer football, so if you can get into where your seniors are going out the right way, you try to get a win, it’s special for them, it means a lot to them, if you’re playing in that game and you have a chance to do something that is pretty special, that’s just an awesome way to close out the year. Excited about senior day this week. We have 21 seniors, we have 16 fifth-year seniors and 14 of these guys are starting, so 66 percent of the guys who are going through Senior Day are starting football players for us. You want to know why we’re getting close to winning 10 games that pretty much sums it up for you right there. Have a lot of guys who have been in the program for a long time. It means a lot to them. They were fortunate to be able to play with a group last year that it had meant a lot to them as well. A lot of fourth and fifth-year seniors last year who taught these guys how to do things the right way. Last year, those guys had a lot of adversity that they had to deal with, with how October went, injuries and all of that good stuff. This senior group this year, they learned a lot from that group, and they’ve taken what we built on last year and improved and got better, so really proud of those guys. This is going to be a great week to be able to send those guys out the right way.
As far as our opponent, Baylor is a dangerous football team. They’re tough bunch to go against. There is a reason why this game is being played on December 3. The last game when the Big 12 comes out with their schedule, there is a reason why West Virginia and Baylor were pitted together. I loved it because we had to go down there a year ago when it’s hot and they get to come up where when it’s cold, so I was excited about that matchup in December. (Baylor) They weren’t but nonetheless this has been a fun series with these guys, going back to the first game that we had in the Big 12, one that was both fun and nauseating for me. Everyone wants to talk about it because it was a 70-63 game. Two years ago we were the reason why they weren’t in the College Football Playoff. Our two games in Waco have not been great for the Mountaineers, so our guys are going to be fired up about playing this game because of who they’re playing not that they really need anymore motivation because this is really a lot about us and what we have to do to cap off the season the right way, position ourselves in a pretty good finish in the Big 12 and from a bowl perspective, get us into a really good bowl game as well. Baylor is the same as they have been. (BU Head Coach) Coach (Jim) Grobe’s going in there, he’s a tremendous football coach, and he’s a wonderful West Virginian who has a great history of getting guys to play well. Their offense looks the same, they’re still putting up a bunch of yards, now its not x-box type numbers that it has been in the past, but it’s still pretty dang good, we’re still talking about a Top-10 offense that is coming to town that their rushing attack is as good as there is. (BU senior running back) Shock Linwood and this (Bu sophomore running back) (Terence) Williams kid, the (BU freshman running back) (JaMycal) Hasty kid, all of those guys are great backs, and shoot they’re averaging right at 250 yards a game rushing. I think we rush the ball pretty good, well these guys are doing it better. They’re big up front and you have to cover their wideouts, because you’re looking at three or four NFL wideouts that are able to stretch the field and change the game at anytime, so without a doubt our toughest test of the year. They don’t have their (BU senior quarterback) Seth Russell, who I have a lot of respect for, I think he’s a great kid, he’s overcome a lot. It’s unfortunate that he got hurt a couple of weeks ago. I wish him the very best moving forward. They’ll just plug another guy in that’s another big athletic guy who can sling the thing all over the place. They are as good as they’ve been.
Defensively, (BU Defensive Coordinator) Phil Bennett is still doing what he does, outstanding football coach, has just a ton of experience at this level. Defensively they’ve been developing players for eight years, so last year they had some really good players who moved on to the NFL or graduation, and they just plug in guys who have been redshirting. There’s a lot of redshirt freshmen, redshirt sophomores, same body builds, same body types, they just had to reload defensively and they’re playing well. You have to take their overall body of work and you have to look at it and you have to say what are they capable of? Our job is to prepare our guys for what we think they’re going to see, go out and practice, I think we’ll have a great week of practice and be as prepared to play this game as we have all year to finish things off the right way.
I do want to announce one thing, permanent team captains, because this is senior day these four guys will be available after I’m done and only these four guys. I couldn’t be more proud of these guys but permanent team captains for the year, Justin Arndt. His story is pretty remarkable, walk-on, Martinsburg, is one of our better football players, and he has played a lot over the last three years, really proud of him. (Redshirt senior offensive lineman) Tyler Orlosky, you don’t really need to mention what he’s accomplished throughout his four-year career, but he’s having an All-American type season and is really playing well. (Senior wide receiver) Daikiel Shorts (Jr.) is a guy who offensively just couldn’t really do what we do without him. He’s the backbone of what we do, he’s the hardest working kid I’ve ever seen, he’s the best practice player I’ve ever seen, he has injuries and you don’t know he has injuries because he goes out and he practices his butt off every single day. Then (redshirt senior defensive lineman) Noble Nwachukwu, is a fifth year senior who was not very highly recruited, came in, plays his tail off. He doesn’t say much, you guys know that but, he doesn’t have to, he just works hard every day. He’s overcome a lot. Shoot his father past away earlier in the year, and he didn’t miss a beat, played his best game that he did a couple days later. These guys are three fifth year seniors and Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) is a fourth year senior who’s a mid-term guy, so he’s basically a fifth-year senior, these guys are great Mountaineers. I’m proud of them. This senior group has a chance to do something that will be remembered for a long time, so they can talk about that, and then we’ll get to work and try to win the 10th.
On if seniors are easier to coach when they are recruited out of high school
I mean it probably means a little bit more to you. The first year I was here we won a lot of games and have a really pretty solid relationship with a lot of those guys who were seniors like Keith Tandy, Bruce Irvin and Najee Goode, those guys, so I don’t know about that but it’s fun to be able to look back on some of these seniors and talk about what the home visit was like, that’s neat, but from a coaching perspective I don’t know if I would totally buy into that. It probably makes it easier to overcome adversity but really proud of this group. It’s been fun watching those guys graduate high school, watching them graduate junior college and then come through and accomplish a lot, so really proud of them.
On what makes redshirt senior offensive linemen Tyler Orlosky an All-American player
Smart, just really smart. He understands things. I talk to him like a coach. He’ll come over on the sidelines, and me and him have a great relationship, and he’ll tell you he hates me and I’ll tell you I hate him, but truth of the matter is, we work together pretty dang good. We’ll be on the sidelines and he’ll say ‘I know’ and I won’t even have to say it because he knows what’s coming out of my mouth. Then he’ll say, ‘would you quit running the counter, run the inside zone’ and I go ‘yeah yeah yeah try blocking those guys, I call plays you block people’, but what he says matters because he’s so experienced and he studies film, he directs people and he knows how it’s supposed to look, and he’s a leader now, but the comfort of running the huddle and getting people together in a huddle and breaking that thing and getting up in the snap and all of that stuff that you really don’t have to worry about, he just makes sure it happens.
On the injuries at running back
Well at this point, who cares? Whoever goes in there is going to play good, so why does it really matter? I know we have four different backs here who have had 100-yard games, that should be five because (senior quarterback) Skyler (Howard) is basically a running back, and he’s just a couple yards shy from doing that and he’s done that in the past. Having four capable bodies plus Skyler, plus (redshirt junior tight end/ fullback) (Elijah Wellman) Eli makes our backfield healthy. Who is going to be the guy this week? I don’t know, it depends on how they practice and what happens when we put them out there. None of them are ruled out, none of them were ruled out last week. (Redshirt senior running back) (Rushel) Shell (III) looked terrible, so he didn’t even dress. (Freshman running back) Kennedy (McKoy) was hobbled, wasn’t comfortable with him. (Junior running back) (Justin) Crawford looked good on three plays and he gets hurt, comes out, so we put the fourth guy in and he runs for 166 yards, so at this point who cares. We’ll practice them and who ever feels good, expect them to play hard. You need more than one.
On the White brothers
(Redshirt junior wide receiver) Ka’Raun (White) is out, he broke a lower leg tibia or his fibula, I don’t know. It’s one that breaks and you have surgery and you cast it, and he’s out for six to eight weeks, so he’s done for the year. (Junior safety) Kyzir (White) has a hand that we’re hoping to wrap that up and club it up and see if he can play. He’s day-to-day, looks good for him. I’ve always told you I’ll tell you if people are out, out, out, out, he’s done for the year. He finally caught one, ran and scored, which was awesome too. He was having a good year but the good news is he’ll get healthy, come back and have a great spring and look to build on what his junior year was, which I thought was a pretty good junior year.
On freshman wide receiver Marcus Simms
Depends on how he practices today, so we have some other options as well. Marcus has had good days, he’s had bad days. He’s looked good at times, he’s disappeared at times. He needs to play more to have the kind of production he had on Saturday. He has to be out there and, and he has to take advantage of the times that he has to make a play, which he did. Need him to show that today and tomorrow, and we have some other guys who we’re going to put in there to develop some competition to see who the main guy is that we want to put out there.
On young quarterbacks
Good, (redshirt freshman quarterback) (Chris Chugunov) Chug’s I thought went in, threw the ball twice and I thought they came off his hand good. He’s been doing well. (Freshman quarterback) Cody Saunders does all our Thursday night football stuff, he has taken a ton of reps here this year on Thursday nights and live situations. He’s up to like 220 (pounds), he looks good and is playing well, so I’m anxious to see how he continues to develop. Then (redshirt sophomore quarterback) Will Grier I think is going to be a really good player, so we have three guys who we’ll rep all spring and obviously try to come up with one as soon as we possibly can to get the continuity together. We have some pretty good receivers coming back, pretty good running backs coming back, so try to figure out who that guy is, but I think all three of them deserve a shot to be able to progress. We’ll have four or five developmental practices and moving forward in December that we’ll look at all of them, so that will give us another look at where we think they are and what they have to do to improve.
On if redshirt sophomore quarterback Will Grier will be able to start at the beginning of next season
Don’t know but don’t worry about it. That’s what I’ve been told to say. I don’t know. It’s not my job. We have administrators who deal with this, so you’re asking the wrong guy.
On Baylor’s coaching staff
Don’t know because I’ve never been in that situation thankfully, not for me to worry about. This week, I don’t care who we play, it just happens to be them. I don’t care what they have going on, it’s not for me to worry about. My job is to worry about our guys and our 21 seniors and prepare them. Their body of work, that’s a good body of work, so that’s not going to change. We know who their personnel are, we know who their coaches are, we know what their schemes are, we know what time the game is, so we’re going to prepare to try to win that’s all I care about. That’s all our players are going to care about.
On how Daikiel Shorts Jr. has progressed since his freshman year
Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day that our two senior receivers are him and (redshirt senior wide receiver) (Devonte) Mathis. He and Mathis started four years ago game one against William & Mary. They were the inside receivers who started together, which explains them and three other or four other first year players were starting, which is why we sucked, but those two guys their learning curve was small. They knew what to do, they just weren’t very good at it. Daikiel has really developed his body and his mentality, he’s the toughest kid I’ve ever coached, and I mean it. He blocks his tail off, he’s unselfish and he cares and it means a lot. Those type of kids are really fun. He’s worked himself in too, we’ll see how he tests and all that stuff, but those guys, he’s worked himself into a guy who people know who he is and know where he is and they have to cover him. He’s improved, his knowledge of the game was there from the beginning but everything else has improved greatly over the last four years.
On redshirt sophomore kicker/punter Billy Kinney’s ankle
Who? What about him? Who said that? The announcers, the TV announcers? I don’t know who the hell those guys are.
Opening Statement
Okay. I wanted to start today by congratulating (WVU Women’s Soccer Head Coach) Nikki Izzo-Brown and the women’s soccer team, wishing them luck moving forward in to the College Cup out in San Jose (California). Good luck to the gang there playing North Carolina. I think they’re leaving today is that right? Safe travels and the best of luck.
This is a fun week for Mountaineer football. If you rank them, I think they’re all fun, thanksgiving week is special and you’re always going to remember it, and it was awesome to be able to close that week last week with a win on the road. You’re always anticipating the first game, that’s the most anticipated week of the year, but the one that I probably like more than anything is, and this really isn’t just coach speak, is the last one, Senior Day. Especially if you’re in a situation where you can do some things that these seniors can really be proud of; us trying to get our 10th win, understanding that that has only happened eight times in the last 125 years of Mountaineer football, so if you can get into where your seniors are going out the right way, you try to get a win, it’s special for them, it means a lot to them, if you’re playing in that game and you have a chance to do something that is pretty special, that’s just an awesome way to close out the year. Excited about senior day this week. We have 21 seniors, we have 16 fifth-year seniors and 14 of these guys are starting, so 66 percent of the guys who are going through Senior Day are starting football players for us. You want to know why we’re getting close to winning 10 games that pretty much sums it up for you right there. Have a lot of guys who have been in the program for a long time. It means a lot to them. They were fortunate to be able to play with a group last year that it had meant a lot to them as well. A lot of fourth and fifth-year seniors last year who taught these guys how to do things the right way. Last year, those guys had a lot of adversity that they had to deal with, with how October went, injuries and all of that good stuff. This senior group this year, they learned a lot from that group, and they’ve taken what we built on last year and improved and got better, so really proud of those guys. This is going to be a great week to be able to send those guys out the right way.
As far as our opponent, Baylor is a dangerous football team. They’re tough bunch to go against. There is a reason why this game is being played on December 3. The last game when the Big 12 comes out with their schedule, there is a reason why West Virginia and Baylor were pitted together. I loved it because we had to go down there a year ago when it’s hot and they get to come up where when it’s cold, so I was excited about that matchup in December. (Baylor) They weren’t but nonetheless this has been a fun series with these guys, going back to the first game that we had in the Big 12, one that was both fun and nauseating for me. Everyone wants to talk about it because it was a 70-63 game. Two years ago we were the reason why they weren’t in the College Football Playoff. Our two games in Waco have not been great for the Mountaineers, so our guys are going to be fired up about playing this game because of who they’re playing not that they really need anymore motivation because this is really a lot about us and what we have to do to cap off the season the right way, position ourselves in a pretty good finish in the Big 12 and from a bowl perspective, get us into a really good bowl game as well. Baylor is the same as they have been. (BU Head Coach) Coach (Jim) Grobe’s going in there, he’s a tremendous football coach, and he’s a wonderful West Virginian who has a great history of getting guys to play well. Their offense looks the same, they’re still putting up a bunch of yards, now its not x-box type numbers that it has been in the past, but it’s still pretty dang good, we’re still talking about a Top-10 offense that is coming to town that their rushing attack is as good as there is. (BU senior running back) Shock Linwood and this (Bu sophomore running back) (Terence) Williams kid, the (BU freshman running back) (JaMycal) Hasty kid, all of those guys are great backs, and shoot they’re averaging right at 250 yards a game rushing. I think we rush the ball pretty good, well these guys are doing it better. They’re big up front and you have to cover their wideouts, because you’re looking at three or four NFL wideouts that are able to stretch the field and change the game at anytime, so without a doubt our toughest test of the year. They don’t have their (BU senior quarterback) Seth Russell, who I have a lot of respect for, I think he’s a great kid, he’s overcome a lot. It’s unfortunate that he got hurt a couple of weeks ago. I wish him the very best moving forward. They’ll just plug another guy in that’s another big athletic guy who can sling the thing all over the place. They are as good as they’ve been.
Defensively, (BU Defensive Coordinator) Phil Bennett is still doing what he does, outstanding football coach, has just a ton of experience at this level. Defensively they’ve been developing players for eight years, so last year they had some really good players who moved on to the NFL or graduation, and they just plug in guys who have been redshirting. There’s a lot of redshirt freshmen, redshirt sophomores, same body builds, same body types, they just had to reload defensively and they’re playing well. You have to take their overall body of work and you have to look at it and you have to say what are they capable of? Our job is to prepare our guys for what we think they’re going to see, go out and practice, I think we’ll have a great week of practice and be as prepared to play this game as we have all year to finish things off the right way.
I do want to announce one thing, permanent team captains, because this is senior day these four guys will be available after I’m done and only these four guys. I couldn’t be more proud of these guys but permanent team captains for the year, Justin Arndt. His story is pretty remarkable, walk-on, Martinsburg, is one of our better football players, and he has played a lot over the last three years, really proud of him. (Redshirt senior offensive lineman) Tyler Orlosky, you don’t really need to mention what he’s accomplished throughout his four-year career, but he’s having an All-American type season and is really playing well. (Senior wide receiver) Daikiel Shorts (Jr.) is a guy who offensively just couldn’t really do what we do without him. He’s the backbone of what we do, he’s the hardest working kid I’ve ever seen, he’s the best practice player I’ve ever seen, he has injuries and you don’t know he has injuries because he goes out and he practices his butt off every single day. Then (redshirt senior defensive lineman) Noble Nwachukwu, is a fifth year senior who was not very highly recruited, came in, plays his tail off. He doesn’t say much, you guys know that but, he doesn’t have to, he just works hard every day. He’s overcome a lot. Shoot his father past away earlier in the year, and he didn’t miss a beat, played his best game that he did a couple days later. These guys are three fifth year seniors and Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) is a fourth year senior who’s a mid-term guy, so he’s basically a fifth-year senior, these guys are great Mountaineers. I’m proud of them. This senior group has a chance to do something that will be remembered for a long time, so they can talk about that, and then we’ll get to work and try to win the 10th.
On if seniors are easier to coach when they are recruited out of high school
I mean it probably means a little bit more to you. The first year I was here we won a lot of games and have a really pretty solid relationship with a lot of those guys who were seniors like Keith Tandy, Bruce Irvin and Najee Goode, those guys, so I don’t know about that but it’s fun to be able to look back on some of these seniors and talk about what the home visit was like, that’s neat, but from a coaching perspective I don’t know if I would totally buy into that. It probably makes it easier to overcome adversity but really proud of this group. It’s been fun watching those guys graduate high school, watching them graduate junior college and then come through and accomplish a lot, so really proud of them.
On what makes redshirt senior offensive linemen Tyler Orlosky an All-American player
Smart, just really smart. He understands things. I talk to him like a coach. He’ll come over on the sidelines, and me and him have a great relationship, and he’ll tell you he hates me and I’ll tell you I hate him, but truth of the matter is, we work together pretty dang good. We’ll be on the sidelines and he’ll say ‘I know’ and I won’t even have to say it because he knows what’s coming out of my mouth. Then he’ll say, ‘would you quit running the counter, run the inside zone’ and I go ‘yeah yeah yeah try blocking those guys, I call plays you block people’, but what he says matters because he’s so experienced and he studies film, he directs people and he knows how it’s supposed to look, and he’s a leader now, but the comfort of running the huddle and getting people together in a huddle and breaking that thing and getting up in the snap and all of that stuff that you really don’t have to worry about, he just makes sure it happens.
On the injuries at running back
Well at this point, who cares? Whoever goes in there is going to play good, so why does it really matter? I know we have four different backs here who have had 100-yard games, that should be five because (senior quarterback) Skyler (Howard) is basically a running back, and he’s just a couple yards shy from doing that and he’s done that in the past. Having four capable bodies plus Skyler, plus (redshirt junior tight end/ fullback) (Elijah Wellman) Eli makes our backfield healthy. Who is going to be the guy this week? I don’t know, it depends on how they practice and what happens when we put them out there. None of them are ruled out, none of them were ruled out last week. (Redshirt senior running back) (Rushel) Shell (III) looked terrible, so he didn’t even dress. (Freshman running back) Kennedy (McKoy) was hobbled, wasn’t comfortable with him. (Junior running back) (Justin) Crawford looked good on three plays and he gets hurt, comes out, so we put the fourth guy in and he runs for 166 yards, so at this point who cares. We’ll practice them and who ever feels good, expect them to play hard. You need more than one.
On the White brothers
(Redshirt junior wide receiver) Ka’Raun (White) is out, he broke a lower leg tibia or his fibula, I don’t know. It’s one that breaks and you have surgery and you cast it, and he’s out for six to eight weeks, so he’s done for the year. (Junior safety) Kyzir (White) has a hand that we’re hoping to wrap that up and club it up and see if he can play. He’s day-to-day, looks good for him. I’ve always told you I’ll tell you if people are out, out, out, out, he’s done for the year. He finally caught one, ran and scored, which was awesome too. He was having a good year but the good news is he’ll get healthy, come back and have a great spring and look to build on what his junior year was, which I thought was a pretty good junior year.
On freshman wide receiver Marcus Simms
Depends on how he practices today, so we have some other options as well. Marcus has had good days, he’s had bad days. He’s looked good at times, he’s disappeared at times. He needs to play more to have the kind of production he had on Saturday. He has to be out there and, and he has to take advantage of the times that he has to make a play, which he did. Need him to show that today and tomorrow, and we have some other guys who we’re going to put in there to develop some competition to see who the main guy is that we want to put out there.
On young quarterbacks
Good, (redshirt freshman quarterback) (Chris Chugunov) Chug’s I thought went in, threw the ball twice and I thought they came off his hand good. He’s been doing well. (Freshman quarterback) Cody Saunders does all our Thursday night football stuff, he has taken a ton of reps here this year on Thursday nights and live situations. He’s up to like 220 (pounds), he looks good and is playing well, so I’m anxious to see how he continues to develop. Then (redshirt sophomore quarterback) Will Grier I think is going to be a really good player, so we have three guys who we’ll rep all spring and obviously try to come up with one as soon as we possibly can to get the continuity together. We have some pretty good receivers coming back, pretty good running backs coming back, so try to figure out who that guy is, but I think all three of them deserve a shot to be able to progress. We’ll have four or five developmental practices and moving forward in December that we’ll look at all of them, so that will give us another look at where we think they are and what they have to do to improve.
On if redshirt sophomore quarterback Will Grier will be able to start at the beginning of next season
Don’t know but don’t worry about it. That’s what I’ve been told to say. I don’t know. It’s not my job. We have administrators who deal with this, so you’re asking the wrong guy.
On Baylor’s coaching staff
Don’t know because I’ve never been in that situation thankfully, not for me to worry about. This week, I don’t care who we play, it just happens to be them. I don’t care what they have going on, it’s not for me to worry about. My job is to worry about our guys and our 21 seniors and prepare them. Their body of work, that’s a good body of work, so that’s not going to change. We know who their personnel are, we know who their coaches are, we know what their schemes are, we know what time the game is, so we’re going to prepare to try to win that’s all I care about. That’s all our players are going to care about.
On how Daikiel Shorts Jr. has progressed since his freshman year
Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day that our two senior receivers are him and (redshirt senior wide receiver) (Devonte) Mathis. He and Mathis started four years ago game one against William & Mary. They were the inside receivers who started together, which explains them and three other or four other first year players were starting, which is why we sucked, but those two guys their learning curve was small. They knew what to do, they just weren’t very good at it. Daikiel has really developed his body and his mentality, he’s the toughest kid I’ve ever coached, and I mean it. He blocks his tail off, he’s unselfish and he cares and it means a lot. Those type of kids are really fun. He’s worked himself in too, we’ll see how he tests and all that stuff, but those guys, he’s worked himself into a guy who people know who he is and know where he is and they have to cover him. He’s improved, his knowledge of the game was there from the beginning but everything else has improved greatly over the last four years.
On redshirt sophomore kicker/punter Billy Kinney’s ankle
Who? What about him? Who said that? The announcers, the TV announcers? I don’t know who the hell those guys are.
