MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (September 6, 2016) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, September 6, 2016, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening Statement
Okay, welcome everyone. I know you guys are going to have some questions on last weekend, which I’ll be happy to answer. Just moving forward to this week, and as far as what is ahead of us. The one thing that I mentioned this past week and I mentioned it in the press conference, but what an opening Saturday, just across the country. Wonderful game after wonderful game. We had a pretty good one in Morgantown with a good quality opponent, a great atmosphere. I want to give a shout out to our fan base for being there and being loud and it looking good. Just a wonderful Saturday for college football here in Morgantown, West Virginia, and I was obviously pleased with the way it turned out. You can say, well it got a little dicey there at the end, which we weren’t happy with, but I think our team started really well, but we just have to do a better job of finishing up both halves. Got a lot to work on. Excited about this weekend’s game. Should be about the same situation here. I hope everyone had a great time last week and is excited and anxious to be able to show up and cheer on the Mountaineers to try to get to 2-0.
Youngstown State is a good football team now. Everyone understands that just being in this part of the country what Youngstown has done. It’s a winning tradition. They’ve won four national championships. They’ve had lots and lots of good players and lots of wins. Their players walk by their national championship trophies and conference championship trophies every single day. They have really good players. They’re extremely sound. (Head Coach) Bo Pelini is widely regarded as one of the best defensive coaches in the country. He had an unbelievable winning percentage as head coach at Nebraska. I have all of the respect in the world for him looking at what his resume is and competing against him in the past. I know those guys are going to be well-coached. If you look back at the last four FBS teams that they’ve played; back in 2012 they beat Pitt; 2013 they played Michigan State really well; 2014 they came real close to beating Illinois, and last year they should have beat Pitt again. If that doesn’t grab your attention right there, then I don’t know what will. Last week alone, there’s three FCS teams that beat FBS teams, one of which was in our conference. Our players are going to understand this. I’m not expecting any kind of poor performance because of the difference in the division. We’re going to respect our opponent, prepare our tail off this week and get out there and hope to get a week better and move on to where we can get to 2-0.
Offensively, it’s going to be night and day from what you all saw last week where Missouri was spreading it and do it really, really, really fast. That’s not what Youngstown (State) does. They’re going to be in a lot of tight ends and full backs and huddle a lot and slow the thing down. They have good players. They’re big upfront. They’re experienced up front. They have a dynamic running back. This (senior tailback) (Jody) Webb kid, number 20, is fast and has made a ton of plays. I know he got hurt last week, but we’re anticipating that he’s going to be a go. Their quarterback is a different guy that they played last year. This (junior quarterback) (Ricky) Davis, number 12, is a really a good player. He’s been in the program for a couple years now and is a big kid that does a lot of good things. We have our work cut out for us. It’s a different type of offense then what our defense has seen over the last six weeks now, so I know they’re going to be up for the test to get out there and play.
Defensively, which is what coach Pelini’s expertise is, if you will. I’ll tell you just as sound as it gets. They have seven, eight returning starters. They have good players across the board. They have three safeties that have been there for several years, a couple of them are big-time transfer guys that look the part, play the part and are always in position and always making plays. He has two defensive ends that look great. One’s an All-American, this number 11, (senior defensive end) (Derek) Rivers kid is a nuisance. He’s always in the backfield. Reminds me of what we had to face last week, so they have a guy who can get there. They have a Nebraska transfer who looks great, the (senior defensive end) (Avery) Moss kid. He looks the part and gets back in the backfield as well. They’re very sound. They don’t give up a ton of big plays. If you look at all their stuff from last year, they don’t give up a ton of big plays. It will be another challenge for us. It will be a challenge for us to be able to block their ends, it will be a challenge for us to be able to get open and throw and catch and run the ball as well.
Special teams wise, one of the (Ron) Stoops (Jr.) brothers is their special team’s coordinator. If you look at the Youngstown tradition it seems like its Stoops and Pelini’s are the ones that are all around there, but they’re sound in what they do. The one thing that I look forward to from a special teams perspective is, is not really how the specialists perform, I was very pleased with how the specialists performed and had a really good idea that they were going to perform that way, it’s all the blocks and tackle that happen in space. We ended up playing about 55 guys last week. We’ll probably end up playing a couple of more this week to develop some competitions at some of those special team spots. Special teams is where that happens, so we need to get a little bit better at some of the blocking and some of the tacking and space. It will be a good opportunity to be able to do that.
That’s my introduction. I’ll turn it over to some questions.
On how special teams performed
Yeah. I don’t have any negatives, whatsoever. There’s a couple of communication issues that we have to get sorted out, just because (assistant coach (defense/special teams) coach (Mark) Scott and the other guys that communicate, the communication needs to exist. The only negative I saw with any of those guys was the first one should have been a pooch. Where (redshirt sophomore kicker/punter) Billy (Kinney) knocked it into the end zone that should have been more of a pooch kick. Other than, which he knocked the heck out of it, so were all happy about that, I thought he punted well. I thought our protection was good. (redshirt junior kicker) Mike Molina on kick offs was a little inconsistent, but he knocked the majority into the end zone. When he didn’t kick it in the end zone he only kicked it to about the 10, and that’s quite a bit of a difference, so we have to get a little bit more consistent with him. Field goals wise we were 4-4. We didn’t put him in any long field goal situations, which I thought was good but him knocking it through was good. Couldn’t be happier with the way all those guys performed. Kickoff return guys were good. (Redshirt junior wide receiver) Shelton (Gibson) popped too and was close to getting them both out. Then (sophomore wide receiver) Gary (Jennings) did a good job with fielding the punts. We have to block a little bit better and give him a little bit of help. Right now, he had no help. Overall, I was pretty happy with it.
On more looks from Youngstown State in terms of what they bring in the blitz
No, they don’t blitz a whole lot. Missouri could do it because those guys upfront were so damn good. Those four d-tackles that they rotated in there were all anywhere from 305-365. Those guys were a bit of a load and 91 (Missouri defensive tackle Charles Harris) was disruptive. Youngstown (State) I feel like, their two ends are pretty active. If they’re going to empty the box and keep their safeties deep, which is what they did against Duquesne, then we’re going to run the ball about 99 percent of the time. If they start getting those guys involved, they will bring a blitz off this edge or a blitz off this edge or they’ll bring safeties down this way (signals the center). We have to identify what they’re doing and we have to be able to attack it the appropriate way.
On if it’s hard to get the players focused for FCS teams
I disagree with that. Those guys are pretty good. They won like nine games the previous year. They’re extremely well coached, but I feel like we’ve handled it pretty good. If you just look back, for the exception of getting booed my second game here against Norfolk State at halftime, deservingly so, I think we were down 10-7. Then we came out in the second half and took care of business. Other than that, we’ve been motivated to play. We played a good JMU (James Madison) team over there that was really well-coached and played well and we did okay and you mentioned William and Mary. Liberty last year was a pretty good football team. That quarterback was the real deal. They moved the ball a good bit. Again, they’re scholarship players. Their depth is what usually gets them more than anything. It’s not the front line guys. It’s not the starters. Their starters aren’t going to be a whole lot different than our starters at a lot of the spots. Where FCS teams get in trouble is when the second teamers go in there over the course of the game. We have to be really, really, really on guard with that because our opportunities aren’t going to be great. They’re not going to come in here and do what Missouri did and try to run 100 plays and have 15-16 possessions. It’s what William and Mary did. It’s what JMU did. It’s what Liberty did. They’re going to limit how many snaps we can get by what they do offensively. They’re only defending about 50 snaps per game at Youngstown. We better take advantage of our opportunities. That’s why that JMU score was relatively close and that’s why that William and Mary score was relatively close as well
On redshirt senior offensive lineman Adam Pankey coming back
(Redshirt senior offensive lineman) Tony (Matteo) played great. He’ll start at left guard and (redshirt junior offensive lineman) (Kyle) Bosch played great, he’ll play at right guard. (Redshirt freshman offensive lineman) Colton (McKivitz), I thought came in and competed his tail off. We’ll rotate those guys. It’s good to have Pank (Adam Pankey) back. He’s pretty motivated and ready to play right now. He’ll do what he’s done in the past. He’s a guard. He can flip out to left tackle if we need him to, so it give us more depth to be able to do that. Don’t know what I’m going to do exactly. I would anticipate all of them playing about the same amount.
On if depth is an issue due to all the injuries
No, we’re still good with it right now. We’ve had some unfortunate injuries, which if you just sit there and focus on it and worry about it, then those injuries are probably going to continue to happen. You can’t do that. You have to get out there, and you have to play ball. Everyone’s dealing with it. You watch that game last night there were a couple of kids that got carted off the field in the first quarter. It’s just part of it that you have to deal with. There’s a couple of suspensions that happened as well and what I like about this team is, the next guy up mentality has been great. We lost a couple of guys with some suspensions and Matteo stepped in and played his tail of. Mike Molina went in and had an outstanding game, and (senior safety) Jeremy Tyler went in for (junior safety) Dravon (Askew-Henry) and played his best game he’s had since he’s been here. (Redshirt senior linebacker) Justin Arndt went in there, probably would have started anyway, without (junior linebacker) Xavier (Preston) out there, he goes out there and was the defensive player of the game. I couldn’t be happier with the way those guys have approached that. We’ve done a good job of building our roster to the point where we have a lot of capable bodies to be able to go out and play at a high level. That’s how you win. That needs to continue.
On scoring in the red zone
The famous red zone question. We averaged 3.7 yards a trip. They averaged 1.3. We won by 2.28. That’s why we won the game. Now with that said, that’s not going to be good enough, moving forward. Our goal is 50 percent touchdowns in the red zone, we were 20 percent. We scored just outside the red zone with (redshirt junior wide receiver) (Rushel) Shell’s thing of like 22 yards of something. That was close, but studying it, I studied it hard and I don’t regret any of the calls that we made. We have to execute better. There were two times where I was slow getting the call in that affected the execution of the play. I have to get the call in a little bit quicker, especially when we sub personnel, huddle up and we get the play call. Our sense of urgency needs to be a little higher right there, and we have to complete balls. We attempted four balls and didn’t complete any of them. Everyone says you have to grind it out and you have to run the ball. Well, we did that a good bit. If you get positive yards, that’s a positive play. When the field shrinks like this, the defense comes together and it’s hard to run the play. That’s why you have to get the quarterback involved with it a little bit because it creates extra gaps and you gain extra blockers. With that said, there’s going to be times where you have to throw the ball and that space is very tight, so we just didn’t do a very good job of that and we just need to improve. The good news from the head coach perspective is we did do a hell of a lot better than they did, which is the main reason why we won.
On senior quarterback Skyler Howard’s range of motion
It’s fine. He’s not limited at all. It’s painful. It was a non-contact thing. It’s just painful. There’s no cracked ribs or broken ribs. It’s just a little bit of a shift, which means it hurts to breathe, it hurts to sneeze, it hurts to run, and it hurts to walk to class and all that good stuff. Over time it’s going to go away, but it doesn’t limit anything. Kuddos to him for coming out there and playing through it. He knew that the team needed him. The backup quarterbacks didn’t do a great job and that’s on me. I have to get those guys ready to play. He’s the one with all the experience and knew his team needed him, so he came out and he played and gave us a chance to win.
On running the ball more
We hope we can do that every game. That’s our mentality. We ran the ball better than our opponent did this past game, which is one of our goals obviously. If that’s what they’re giving us then that’s what we need to do. If that’s not what they’re giving us then we need to be able to sit back there protect and throw and catch, which I thought we did a better job this past game than we have in a couple years probably.
On the balance between running the ball and throwing it
Again, depending on what the defense does. If you look at Arizona State, we threw the ball more than we ran the ball because of how crowded and how much they blitzed. It’s all defense. We want to dictate tempo and all of that stuff, but there’s going to be times where the defense is going to make the decisions on what you’re going to do offensively. Being able to do both is important. That’s what I mean about balance is not exactly what calls are being made or what the play distribution is or what the yardage distribution is. It’s defensive oriented, what they dictate you’re doing is what you have to do to be successful. If that means throw it 90 percent of the time then we need to be able to do that. If that means run it 90 percent of the time, then that’s what we’ll do.
On redshirt freshman defensive lineman Adam Shuler II
Great. I was really happy with him. I thought (redshirt senior defensive lineman) Christian Brown played the best upfront, probably the best he’s played since he’s been here. One guy that we had our eye on that we didn’t quite know was going to happen was Shuler, defensively. There were 30 guys that dressed out for the first time, so we were anxious to see how all those kids’ demeanors were, and some of them were better than the other. Shuler’s was great. He got out there and played fast, played physical and played with energy. He looked good. Play more. Do it again. Excited to watch him. (Redshirt freshman linebacker) David Long was another guy, defensively. He was a new guy who got out there and played with a lot of energy and was all over the field. Going to continue to get better and better.
On how to keep the focus of the team when you play an FCS opponent
Better figure out a way to do that every week. I don’t care who you play. Like I said, we’ll keep talking about all of these FCS upsets. We’ll address that every week as far as who we play. It doesn’t matter who you play. You better respect your opponent, prepare them the right way, and get out there and play your tail off. Some guys are probably going to have better games than others. You have to identify who those guys are and get them out there and play with them. I think we had fun. I think you saw us flying around, playing with energy and playing with effort. I think our guys had fun being out there. I know our guys were ready to play and know they were happy with the win, so let’s go do it again. Who cares who we play?
On bringing the physical element at wide receiver
It was hit and miss. I thought (redshirt junior wide receiver) Ka’Raun (White) did a good job blocking. I thought (senior wide receiver) Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) did a great job blocking. Other guys probably need to do a little bit better.
On completing the routine passes
Very much so. Anytime Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) has that kind of a game, the intermediate stuff is good. They were playing their safeties back. We took a couple of shots just because we got impatient. A couple of them resulted in a couple of pass interferences, which were beneficial for us. Two of them were interceptions, so there was some good and some bad. We don’t need to force that when that’s not there. Just keep attacking the intermediate stuff. We had some screens that we were able to get some completions and put it in play. We had some hitch routes and some stick routes that were good. More importantly is that 12-15 yard area that Daikiel did a great job of, and we need to get the outside guys a little bit more involved in that area as well.
On the confidence in the backup quarterbacks
Yeah. It was the first time (redshirt freshman quarterback) Chugs (Chris Chugunov) has been out there. That was a deal for him. (Redshirt sophomore quarterback/running back) William (Crest Jr.) has experience. He just can’t make that kind of mistake at that time in the game. I think what they both learned is they have to be ready. It hasn’t happened very much where we had to just shove them out there in that type of a game. Most of William’s stuff was all clean up stuff, and Chugs has never had to go out there. I think what they learned is, it really is true. You’re only a play away. They need to be more ready. They need to be on the sideline, engaged, ready to go with their helmets on, and if I said get in, they need to get in there and know exactly what I want. I think they learned, and I think they’ll get better because of that.
On sophomore wide receiver Jovon Durante’s first game inside
It was a okay. He had a chance to get about three passes that Skyler (Howard) just missed. He’s the type of guy where if we get him one of those balls, then he’s probably going to (zigzag) and then go, and that’s going to give him some confidence. We need to keep focusing on that and make it a little bit of a priority to get him the ball. He probably needs to go in for (senior wide receiver) Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) a little bit more. Daikiel probably played about 70 snaps and Jovon played about 30, roughly that, so we need to kind of even that out just a little bit which will give him more opportunities to make plays. I have a ton of confidence in Jovon. Those other guys made some plays, but he’s going to I can assure you.
On Skyler Howard in the run game
I think it depends on how he’s feeling. I didn’t run him up in between the tackles in the second half like I did in the first half. It limits us a little bit. You only do that when you really have to with quarterbacks. I like to do that with him early to get him going. That second play of the game looked great. I don’t know if anyone noticed (junior running back) Justin Crawford’s effort and the block that he threw. That’s the type of player Justin is. Doing that with Skyler gets him going. He’s been very successful and effective in the run game, and we’re going to make sure that that continues to happen, but we’re always going to try to protect that position as well. It’s the balance that you kind of have to figure out.
On playing true freshman
I’d be honest with you I don’t remember how many we played. We played four. That number will go up. You have a couple of receivers that will continue to get better and get ready, and you have a couple of linebacker, safety guys that will continue to get ready and get better. If that number was nine, and I had it written down last week and I lost that number, and we played four I would anticipate that number to go up this week.
On freshman offensive linebacker Josh Sills
He’s going to be up with us playing some ball now. He was our fifth tackle and a scout team guy last week. He’s our fourth tackle and we’ll see what happens.
Opening Statement
Okay, welcome everyone. I know you guys are going to have some questions on last weekend, which I’ll be happy to answer. Just moving forward to this week, and as far as what is ahead of us. The one thing that I mentioned this past week and I mentioned it in the press conference, but what an opening Saturday, just across the country. Wonderful game after wonderful game. We had a pretty good one in Morgantown with a good quality opponent, a great atmosphere. I want to give a shout out to our fan base for being there and being loud and it looking good. Just a wonderful Saturday for college football here in Morgantown, West Virginia, and I was obviously pleased with the way it turned out. You can say, well it got a little dicey there at the end, which we weren’t happy with, but I think our team started really well, but we just have to do a better job of finishing up both halves. Got a lot to work on. Excited about this weekend’s game. Should be about the same situation here. I hope everyone had a great time last week and is excited and anxious to be able to show up and cheer on the Mountaineers to try to get to 2-0.
Youngstown State is a good football team now. Everyone understands that just being in this part of the country what Youngstown has done. It’s a winning tradition. They’ve won four national championships. They’ve had lots and lots of good players and lots of wins. Their players walk by their national championship trophies and conference championship trophies every single day. They have really good players. They’re extremely sound. (Head Coach) Bo Pelini is widely regarded as one of the best defensive coaches in the country. He had an unbelievable winning percentage as head coach at Nebraska. I have all of the respect in the world for him looking at what his resume is and competing against him in the past. I know those guys are going to be well-coached. If you look back at the last four FBS teams that they’ve played; back in 2012 they beat Pitt; 2013 they played Michigan State really well; 2014 they came real close to beating Illinois, and last year they should have beat Pitt again. If that doesn’t grab your attention right there, then I don’t know what will. Last week alone, there’s three FCS teams that beat FBS teams, one of which was in our conference. Our players are going to understand this. I’m not expecting any kind of poor performance because of the difference in the division. We’re going to respect our opponent, prepare our tail off this week and get out there and hope to get a week better and move on to where we can get to 2-0.
Offensively, it’s going to be night and day from what you all saw last week where Missouri was spreading it and do it really, really, really fast. That’s not what Youngstown (State) does. They’re going to be in a lot of tight ends and full backs and huddle a lot and slow the thing down. They have good players. They’re big upfront. They’re experienced up front. They have a dynamic running back. This (senior tailback) (Jody) Webb kid, number 20, is fast and has made a ton of plays. I know he got hurt last week, but we’re anticipating that he’s going to be a go. Their quarterback is a different guy that they played last year. This (junior quarterback) (Ricky) Davis, number 12, is a really a good player. He’s been in the program for a couple years now and is a big kid that does a lot of good things. We have our work cut out for us. It’s a different type of offense then what our defense has seen over the last six weeks now, so I know they’re going to be up for the test to get out there and play.
Defensively, which is what coach Pelini’s expertise is, if you will. I’ll tell you just as sound as it gets. They have seven, eight returning starters. They have good players across the board. They have three safeties that have been there for several years, a couple of them are big-time transfer guys that look the part, play the part and are always in position and always making plays. He has two defensive ends that look great. One’s an All-American, this number 11, (senior defensive end) (Derek) Rivers kid is a nuisance. He’s always in the backfield. Reminds me of what we had to face last week, so they have a guy who can get there. They have a Nebraska transfer who looks great, the (senior defensive end) (Avery) Moss kid. He looks the part and gets back in the backfield as well. They’re very sound. They don’t give up a ton of big plays. If you look at all their stuff from last year, they don’t give up a ton of big plays. It will be another challenge for us. It will be a challenge for us to be able to block their ends, it will be a challenge for us to be able to get open and throw and catch and run the ball as well.
Special teams wise, one of the (Ron) Stoops (Jr.) brothers is their special team’s coordinator. If you look at the Youngstown tradition it seems like its Stoops and Pelini’s are the ones that are all around there, but they’re sound in what they do. The one thing that I look forward to from a special teams perspective is, is not really how the specialists perform, I was very pleased with how the specialists performed and had a really good idea that they were going to perform that way, it’s all the blocks and tackle that happen in space. We ended up playing about 55 guys last week. We’ll probably end up playing a couple of more this week to develop some competitions at some of those special team spots. Special teams is where that happens, so we need to get a little bit better at some of the blocking and some of the tacking and space. It will be a good opportunity to be able to do that.
That’s my introduction. I’ll turn it over to some questions.
On how special teams performed
Yeah. I don’t have any negatives, whatsoever. There’s a couple of communication issues that we have to get sorted out, just because (assistant coach (defense/special teams) coach (Mark) Scott and the other guys that communicate, the communication needs to exist. The only negative I saw with any of those guys was the first one should have been a pooch. Where (redshirt sophomore kicker/punter) Billy (Kinney) knocked it into the end zone that should have been more of a pooch kick. Other than, which he knocked the heck out of it, so were all happy about that, I thought he punted well. I thought our protection was good. (redshirt junior kicker) Mike Molina on kick offs was a little inconsistent, but he knocked the majority into the end zone. When he didn’t kick it in the end zone he only kicked it to about the 10, and that’s quite a bit of a difference, so we have to get a little bit more consistent with him. Field goals wise we were 4-4. We didn’t put him in any long field goal situations, which I thought was good but him knocking it through was good. Couldn’t be happier with the way all those guys performed. Kickoff return guys were good. (Redshirt junior wide receiver) Shelton (Gibson) popped too and was close to getting them both out. Then (sophomore wide receiver) Gary (Jennings) did a good job with fielding the punts. We have to block a little bit better and give him a little bit of help. Right now, he had no help. Overall, I was pretty happy with it.
On more looks from Youngstown State in terms of what they bring in the blitz
No, they don’t blitz a whole lot. Missouri could do it because those guys upfront were so damn good. Those four d-tackles that they rotated in there were all anywhere from 305-365. Those guys were a bit of a load and 91 (Missouri defensive tackle Charles Harris) was disruptive. Youngstown (State) I feel like, their two ends are pretty active. If they’re going to empty the box and keep their safeties deep, which is what they did against Duquesne, then we’re going to run the ball about 99 percent of the time. If they start getting those guys involved, they will bring a blitz off this edge or a blitz off this edge or they’ll bring safeties down this way (signals the center). We have to identify what they’re doing and we have to be able to attack it the appropriate way.
On if it’s hard to get the players focused for FCS teams
I disagree with that. Those guys are pretty good. They won like nine games the previous year. They’re extremely well coached, but I feel like we’ve handled it pretty good. If you just look back, for the exception of getting booed my second game here against Norfolk State at halftime, deservingly so, I think we were down 10-7. Then we came out in the second half and took care of business. Other than that, we’ve been motivated to play. We played a good JMU (James Madison) team over there that was really well-coached and played well and we did okay and you mentioned William and Mary. Liberty last year was a pretty good football team. That quarterback was the real deal. They moved the ball a good bit. Again, they’re scholarship players. Their depth is what usually gets them more than anything. It’s not the front line guys. It’s not the starters. Their starters aren’t going to be a whole lot different than our starters at a lot of the spots. Where FCS teams get in trouble is when the second teamers go in there over the course of the game. We have to be really, really, really on guard with that because our opportunities aren’t going to be great. They’re not going to come in here and do what Missouri did and try to run 100 plays and have 15-16 possessions. It’s what William and Mary did. It’s what JMU did. It’s what Liberty did. They’re going to limit how many snaps we can get by what they do offensively. They’re only defending about 50 snaps per game at Youngstown. We better take advantage of our opportunities. That’s why that JMU score was relatively close and that’s why that William and Mary score was relatively close as well
On redshirt senior offensive lineman Adam Pankey coming back
(Redshirt senior offensive lineman) Tony (Matteo) played great. He’ll start at left guard and (redshirt junior offensive lineman) (Kyle) Bosch played great, he’ll play at right guard. (Redshirt freshman offensive lineman) Colton (McKivitz), I thought came in and competed his tail off. We’ll rotate those guys. It’s good to have Pank (Adam Pankey) back. He’s pretty motivated and ready to play right now. He’ll do what he’s done in the past. He’s a guard. He can flip out to left tackle if we need him to, so it give us more depth to be able to do that. Don’t know what I’m going to do exactly. I would anticipate all of them playing about the same amount.
On if depth is an issue due to all the injuries
No, we’re still good with it right now. We’ve had some unfortunate injuries, which if you just sit there and focus on it and worry about it, then those injuries are probably going to continue to happen. You can’t do that. You have to get out there, and you have to play ball. Everyone’s dealing with it. You watch that game last night there were a couple of kids that got carted off the field in the first quarter. It’s just part of it that you have to deal with. There’s a couple of suspensions that happened as well and what I like about this team is, the next guy up mentality has been great. We lost a couple of guys with some suspensions and Matteo stepped in and played his tail of. Mike Molina went in and had an outstanding game, and (senior safety) Jeremy Tyler went in for (junior safety) Dravon (Askew-Henry) and played his best game he’s had since he’s been here. (Redshirt senior linebacker) Justin Arndt went in there, probably would have started anyway, without (junior linebacker) Xavier (Preston) out there, he goes out there and was the defensive player of the game. I couldn’t be happier with the way those guys have approached that. We’ve done a good job of building our roster to the point where we have a lot of capable bodies to be able to go out and play at a high level. That’s how you win. That needs to continue.
On scoring in the red zone
The famous red zone question. We averaged 3.7 yards a trip. They averaged 1.3. We won by 2.28. That’s why we won the game. Now with that said, that’s not going to be good enough, moving forward. Our goal is 50 percent touchdowns in the red zone, we were 20 percent. We scored just outside the red zone with (redshirt junior wide receiver) (Rushel) Shell’s thing of like 22 yards of something. That was close, but studying it, I studied it hard and I don’t regret any of the calls that we made. We have to execute better. There were two times where I was slow getting the call in that affected the execution of the play. I have to get the call in a little bit quicker, especially when we sub personnel, huddle up and we get the play call. Our sense of urgency needs to be a little higher right there, and we have to complete balls. We attempted four balls and didn’t complete any of them. Everyone says you have to grind it out and you have to run the ball. Well, we did that a good bit. If you get positive yards, that’s a positive play. When the field shrinks like this, the defense comes together and it’s hard to run the play. That’s why you have to get the quarterback involved with it a little bit because it creates extra gaps and you gain extra blockers. With that said, there’s going to be times where you have to throw the ball and that space is very tight, so we just didn’t do a very good job of that and we just need to improve. The good news from the head coach perspective is we did do a hell of a lot better than they did, which is the main reason why we won.
On senior quarterback Skyler Howard’s range of motion
It’s fine. He’s not limited at all. It’s painful. It was a non-contact thing. It’s just painful. There’s no cracked ribs or broken ribs. It’s just a little bit of a shift, which means it hurts to breathe, it hurts to sneeze, it hurts to run, and it hurts to walk to class and all that good stuff. Over time it’s going to go away, but it doesn’t limit anything. Kuddos to him for coming out there and playing through it. He knew that the team needed him. The backup quarterbacks didn’t do a great job and that’s on me. I have to get those guys ready to play. He’s the one with all the experience and knew his team needed him, so he came out and he played and gave us a chance to win.
On running the ball more
We hope we can do that every game. That’s our mentality. We ran the ball better than our opponent did this past game, which is one of our goals obviously. If that’s what they’re giving us then that’s what we need to do. If that’s not what they’re giving us then we need to be able to sit back there protect and throw and catch, which I thought we did a better job this past game than we have in a couple years probably.
On the balance between running the ball and throwing it
Again, depending on what the defense does. If you look at Arizona State, we threw the ball more than we ran the ball because of how crowded and how much they blitzed. It’s all defense. We want to dictate tempo and all of that stuff, but there’s going to be times where the defense is going to make the decisions on what you’re going to do offensively. Being able to do both is important. That’s what I mean about balance is not exactly what calls are being made or what the play distribution is or what the yardage distribution is. It’s defensive oriented, what they dictate you’re doing is what you have to do to be successful. If that means throw it 90 percent of the time then we need to be able to do that. If that means run it 90 percent of the time, then that’s what we’ll do.
On redshirt freshman defensive lineman Adam Shuler II
Great. I was really happy with him. I thought (redshirt senior defensive lineman) Christian Brown played the best upfront, probably the best he’s played since he’s been here. One guy that we had our eye on that we didn’t quite know was going to happen was Shuler, defensively. There were 30 guys that dressed out for the first time, so we were anxious to see how all those kids’ demeanors were, and some of them were better than the other. Shuler’s was great. He got out there and played fast, played physical and played with energy. He looked good. Play more. Do it again. Excited to watch him. (Redshirt freshman linebacker) David Long was another guy, defensively. He was a new guy who got out there and played with a lot of energy and was all over the field. Going to continue to get better and better.
On how to keep the focus of the team when you play an FCS opponent
Better figure out a way to do that every week. I don’t care who you play. Like I said, we’ll keep talking about all of these FCS upsets. We’ll address that every week as far as who we play. It doesn’t matter who you play. You better respect your opponent, prepare them the right way, and get out there and play your tail off. Some guys are probably going to have better games than others. You have to identify who those guys are and get them out there and play with them. I think we had fun. I think you saw us flying around, playing with energy and playing with effort. I think our guys had fun being out there. I know our guys were ready to play and know they were happy with the win, so let’s go do it again. Who cares who we play?
On bringing the physical element at wide receiver
It was hit and miss. I thought (redshirt junior wide receiver) Ka’Raun (White) did a good job blocking. I thought (senior wide receiver) Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) did a great job blocking. Other guys probably need to do a little bit better.
On completing the routine passes
Very much so. Anytime Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) has that kind of a game, the intermediate stuff is good. They were playing their safeties back. We took a couple of shots just because we got impatient. A couple of them resulted in a couple of pass interferences, which were beneficial for us. Two of them were interceptions, so there was some good and some bad. We don’t need to force that when that’s not there. Just keep attacking the intermediate stuff. We had some screens that we were able to get some completions and put it in play. We had some hitch routes and some stick routes that were good. More importantly is that 12-15 yard area that Daikiel did a great job of, and we need to get the outside guys a little bit more involved in that area as well.
On the confidence in the backup quarterbacks
Yeah. It was the first time (redshirt freshman quarterback) Chugs (Chris Chugunov) has been out there. That was a deal for him. (Redshirt sophomore quarterback/running back) William (Crest Jr.) has experience. He just can’t make that kind of mistake at that time in the game. I think what they both learned is they have to be ready. It hasn’t happened very much where we had to just shove them out there in that type of a game. Most of William’s stuff was all clean up stuff, and Chugs has never had to go out there. I think what they learned is, it really is true. You’re only a play away. They need to be more ready. They need to be on the sideline, engaged, ready to go with their helmets on, and if I said get in, they need to get in there and know exactly what I want. I think they learned, and I think they’ll get better because of that.
On sophomore wide receiver Jovon Durante’s first game inside
It was a okay. He had a chance to get about three passes that Skyler (Howard) just missed. He’s the type of guy where if we get him one of those balls, then he’s probably going to (zigzag) and then go, and that’s going to give him some confidence. We need to keep focusing on that and make it a little bit of a priority to get him the ball. He probably needs to go in for (senior wide receiver) Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) a little bit more. Daikiel probably played about 70 snaps and Jovon played about 30, roughly that, so we need to kind of even that out just a little bit which will give him more opportunities to make plays. I have a ton of confidence in Jovon. Those other guys made some plays, but he’s going to I can assure you.
On Skyler Howard in the run game
I think it depends on how he’s feeling. I didn’t run him up in between the tackles in the second half like I did in the first half. It limits us a little bit. You only do that when you really have to with quarterbacks. I like to do that with him early to get him going. That second play of the game looked great. I don’t know if anyone noticed (junior running back) Justin Crawford’s effort and the block that he threw. That’s the type of player Justin is. Doing that with Skyler gets him going. He’s been very successful and effective in the run game, and we’re going to make sure that that continues to happen, but we’re always going to try to protect that position as well. It’s the balance that you kind of have to figure out.
On playing true freshman
I’d be honest with you I don’t remember how many we played. We played four. That number will go up. You have a couple of receivers that will continue to get better and get ready, and you have a couple of linebacker, safety guys that will continue to get ready and get better. If that number was nine, and I had it written down last week and I lost that number, and we played four I would anticipate that number to go up this week.
On freshman offensive linebacker Josh Sills
He’s going to be up with us playing some ball now. He was our fifth tackle and a scout team guy last week. He’s our fourth tackle and we’ll see what happens.
