ADVERTISEMENT

WVU Release WVU Coach Dana Holgorsen Press Conference Quotes

Vernon

The Legend
Staff
May 29, 2001
172,650
263,318
718
Beyond The Sun
wvsports.com
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (October 2, 2018) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.


Opening Statement

I’m looking forward to this weekend. It’s another home game here, and it should be a good crowd. I know our students have been good, our fans have been great, so I have no reason to think that this weekend will be any different. We have the Gold Rush, so we’ll be in all gold, and we’ll be looking to get better. That’s what this is all about, just take what was good and what was bad from last week and try to build on it. We’re approaching midseason, so we have some things that we have to get accomplished if we want to continue to win.


And I know these questions are coming, but we have to line up, and we have to practice with as much effort and energy and excitement as we can. We have to practice that way on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I thought we did last week, and I couldn’t have been prouder with the way we approached the game, with the way we started fast, which that’s going to be important again this weekend based on an early kick. We did everything that we were supposed to; I couldn’t have been prouder of a team up until the beginning of the third quarter, where I just don’t feel like our effort and our energy and the excitement for playing the game was there. If you don’t play like that, then you’re going to get beat. I don’t care who you play, where you play, when you play, you’re going to get beat. It was pretty much the exact opposite of what happened out here the year before. We were down 17 in the third quarter and came back and won by double-digits. I remember Kliff (Kingsbury) saying this, once the momentum is gone, it’s tough to get back. And that’s what happened to us; we were up, and thankfully we did enough to be able to hold on. I was really proud of the way (redshirt junior cornerback) Keith (Washington Jr.) stepped up and made a play, and we won. So, there’s that.


Moving forward, you have to practice, and you have to play with effort, energy, excitement against everybody that you play. And if you don’t, then you’re going to get beat. So, there you go – we have stuff to work on. Here’s Tuesday, and our opponent is Kansas, and we have to approach this in a very business-like manner. I am incredibly looking forward to Saturday, because it’ll be a home game, Big 12 game, and an opportunity for us to work on things that we need to work on. They pose a lot of problems like everybody does. They have momentum from early-season wins. Coach (David) Beaty is going into his fourth year there, I believe, and I know him and know his staff well. We know what they’re going to do, and we have to play our tail off to get better.


Offensively, they’re going to play a couple of different quarterbacks, and we’re anticipating them playing a couple of different quarterbacks. (Carter) Stanley is the guy at this point, but (Peyton) Bender has been their guy as well. We have to be ready for the (Miles) Kendrick guy, too. No. 7, 8, 9, all three of them could take snaps. We’ll be ready for all of them. Their running back is a good, little player now, Pooka Williams. He’s leading the Big 12 in rushing. He has lightning quick speed, and he starts, he stops, he’s a dynamic player. So, they move him all over the place. It’s rare for a true freshman to have the production that he’s had at this point. He’s really a good player that we’re going to have to keep under wraps.


And then the (Steven) Sims kid, the receiver – they have a couple of receivers, No. 88, the (Jeremiah) Booker kid, caught a touchdown here recently and played against us last year – but Sims is the guy, No. 11, that has really given us problems over the last couple of years, he’s a really good player. He’s a senior and had a couple of touchdowns against us here. (Doug) Meacham is running the ball a little bit more than he has. They have some quarterback-run game, they have some different things, different personnel groupings – 10 personnel, they’ll get into 11, they’ll get into 30 and run the old trey package from when we were at Oklahoma State – and they’ll do a bunch of different things.


They’re doing a great job of protecting the football. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a team that has played three quarterbacks and hasn’t thrown a pick. He’s coaching them up as far as taking care of the ball. They’ve only had two fumbles on the year, so they’re doing a great job of protecting the football.


Defensively, Clint Bowen has been there a long time – you guys have heard me talk about him over the years. He’s been there forever, literally forever, and Kansas means a lot to him. He played there, and he’s been there for a long time. He’ll get his guys to play hard, and they have some guys that have made a bunch of plays for them in the past. The linebacker, No. 29, the (Joe) Dineen guy, makes a ton of tackles. He’s an all-conference player. Daniel Wise, the (defensive) tackle, it seems like he’s been there as long as I’ve been here. He’s a thick kid on the inside. They play a three-down front. They’ve changed their schemes up just a little bit, it’s more of a three-down front with a lot of different (defensive) linemen, much like what we do with our three and have a lot of different rotation going on. They’re a lot like what Texas Tech was, where they have that buck on the outside, No. 15, Kyron Johnson, he’s a good player, 6-1, 225. He’s more of a (defensive) end, outside linebacker guy than a (defensive) end, inside linebacker guy.


And then their secondary, they are highly touted guys. The couple of Louisiana kids, Mike Lee, has been there a couple of years and is really a downhill player, and No. 1 (Bryce Torneden), another all-conference-type player. And then they have a couple of corners, who don’t have a ton of experience but are long and have talent. He has those guys playing well, and we’re going to have to ID what they are doing, and we’re going to have to be patient. They are playing more off than they have in the past, their playing more safeties and stuff that we do, drop eight stuff. It looks like their philosophy has changed a little bit on that, so we’re going to have to be patient and take what they’re giving us, which is going to be another big week for (redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier) to assess things and get us in some really good plays, whether its run, whether its pass.


Special teams, they’re solid. Their kicker has a strong leg, he’s made a 54-yarder. They have a different kickoff guy than the kicker. They changed coordinators, Kenny Perry is their guy now, but they’re doing a lot of the same stuff that they did when (Joe DeForest) was there for a couple of years. I’ve known Kenny for a long time – high school coach in Texas. He has taken over these units. The return game is something that we have to keep our eye on. We have to do a better job of covering kicks consistently, we have to do a better job of placing our punts consistently, and we can get better in all the different areas of special teams, so it’ll be a big week when it comes to that as well.


On his observations as the team nears the midway point of the season

That’s a vague question; you’re better than that. I don’t know. Because we missed the one game, I feel like we have things that we have to learn with this team. We’re one game away from the halfway point, but it doesn’t feel like it. We’ve played one-third of our games. I’m going to use that with our guys as far as this week is big from a we-have-to-get-out-there-and-improve-things-before-it’s-too-late-to-improve-on-things-type thing, which should motivate them here for this week, and I think it will. I think we’re all anxious to get out there and get the bad taste out of our mouth from the second half of last week. I think we’ll get out there and play well and improve, but there are a lot of unknowns at this point. We’re playing more people than we ever have – I think we played 56 guys last week. That’s a high number. Heck, that’s more than I traveled to Cincinnati my first year. So, we’re playing a lot of guys, and because we’re playing a lot of guys, there’s a lot of opportunities for guys to improve. I don’t care if it’s run game, if it’s pass game, if it’s offense, if it’s defense, if it’s any of the special teams’ areas that need to improve, we have to do a better job with penalties. There’s just a whole bunch of things that we need to do to improve on, and I can’t wait for Saturday to be able to do that.


On how much last week’s game is used as a motivational tool

It has been addressed, it’s already been addressed. I’m not going to keep harping on it. I don’t think it’s a reoccurring problem. It didn’t happen in the other three games, so I don’t think it’s a reoccurring problem. They know it; we came in here on Sunday, and we watched the video. All you have to do is watch the video. The first half, it looks really good. The second half, it looks like crap. So, they know, and we have to go out, and we have to do better. I expect us to have a good week of practice just like we did last week and then go in to the game and have the mentality that we better play well, we better play hard, we better be excited about it if we want to beat Kanas, period.


On the amount of passes Kansas has intercepted this season

How many of those came from Rutgers? They’ve played five games, they play a lot of people in the secondary, so they’ve defended a lot more passes than we have. What’s our interceptions at? We had three last week, I was proud of that. They’re doing a good job their pass defense. Again, like I said, it’s different than what Coach Bowen has done against us in the past. They’re dropping more people. The games they won, it forced Rutgers and Central Michigan to be in a lot of passing situations to where they were throwing a lot of balls into drop eight, which we know from going against (associate head coach – defensive coordinator/linebackers) (Tony) Gibby (Gibson) that it’s hard to do.


On Kansas’ depth at running back

That whole game last year got our attention. The young one is really good, so we have to do a better job against the run against these guys. We relaxed a little bit in the third quarter against Kansas last year, and we had to hang on. We played a really good fourth quarter and put them away. But that definitely has our attention from a defensive perspective. From a team perspective, it goes along the same lines of what I can use from last week – I don’t care who you play, where you play, when you play, it’s about how you play. If you don’t play your best with great effort and great energy and have a great week of practice, then you’re setting yourself up to get beat.


On if redshirt sophomore tight end/fullback Jovani Haskins was limited last week

He was limited from a practice perspective last week. He didn’t get cleared until, I think, Thursday, so that makes it hard to develop things for him to do. He’s good now, and he played a little bit – didn’t play a lot, just a little bit – just because of the practice aspect of it throughout the course of the week. (Redshirt senior tight end) (Trevon) Wesco had a really good week and is 100 percent healthy and played a lot and played well. We’ll have both of them 100 percent, which allows us to be able to practice things differently Tuesday and Wednesday.


On redshirt senior tight end Trevon Wesco’s performance at Texas Tech

He looked good. We can talk about everybody and it’s going to be the same thing – I thought he played really well in the first half and blocked well, and I think he blocked average in the second half but made that play, which makes us want to do more things with him, most certainly.


On the status of redshirt freshman running back Alec Sinkfield

Not yet, we’ll see how we does today.


On the status of redshirt junior offensive lineman Joe Brown

We’ll see how we does today.


On the play of the interior offensive line at Texas Tech

They have to play like they did in the first half. They blocked people in the first half. Tech tries to take the run away, and we had over 100 yards and averaged, I believe, 5.5 in the first half. And then we just decided we didn’t want to block anybody in the second half. So, we couldn’t run the ball at all, and we gave up sacks and pressures. All you have to do is watch the video, and we blocked people in the first half, and we did not block people in the second half. We are not nearly good enough to be able to line up and just go through the motions and block anybody.


On how junior wide receiver Marcus Simms has developed since last season

I just think maturity more than anything. He was young and pretty immature, and now he’s older. Pretty much every young guy that sits in these seats out here is immature. When you’re 18 and just coming in from high school, you think you have all the answer, and you don’t. It’s rare to have a guy like (freshman running back) Leddie Brown, who is playing, (freshman defensive lineman) Dante Stills. Those guys are doing a good job, but most of the time you have to develop, and you have to mature. Marcus needed that time. He’s always been a talented guy, but his practice habits changed, and he’s practicing well. (Redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier) has a lot of confidence in him, and that’s going to make us harder to defend when you have (senior wide receiver) David Sills (V) on one side and Marcus Simms on the other side. It’s going to make it harder to defend us. But you can tell that Will is gaining confidence in him as well, and it’s starting to go in that direction as much as he does the other direction.


On preparing at cornerback with the first-half suspension to redshirt junior cornerback Josh Norwood

We generally split first time, second team anyway. The first-team guy may get a few more throughout the course of the week, but we’ve been rotating those guys so much anyway. If you look at the corner production in the first three games, it was all about 50-50 between (sophomore) (Derrek) Pitts (Jr.) and Norwood and (redshirt junior) (Keith) Washington (Jr.) and (redshirt junior) (Hakeem) Bailey. It was about even with first team, second team. It’ll mean Norwood won’t line up with the first team, but it’s all the same stuff anyway. We’ll have to piece it together for a half, which we have enough depth to be able to do that, and then we’ll get him back in the second half, and he’ll probably hit that field pretty quickly, and he’ll be ready to roll. He loves to play football, so he will be ready to go play one third quarter, I can assure you.


On his thoughts of the targeting call on redshirt junior cornerback Josh Norwood at Texas Tech

You can’t launch. My coaching point to him is you can’t launch. It’s questionable whether it was truly head-to-head, but he launched, and it’s one of our main coaching points when you’re going to strike a guy. You can’t launch upward, and he did. He should have turned his eyes and made a play on the ball. I love his physical nature, but you can’t launch upwards toward the head, and if you do, whether you hit it or not, you’re going to get called for it.


On how to coach against the targeting rule

It’s tough, but we’ve made so much progress as a sport just in general. I think we’ve made a ton of progress, and players, for the most part, are 100 percent aware on the ins and outs of it. Where it really gets tricky is the changing of the levels with the ball carrier. That makes it really hard, but I think we’ve accomplished what we wanted to in the game. Obviously, guys are aware of it, and there’s less targeting calls. It’s overall good for the game – we have to protect guys as much as we can. That was a learning lesson for (redshirt junior cornerback) Josh (Norwoord).


On how redshirt junior cornerback Keith Washington Jr.’s role has evolved

Well, he’s a good kid. He just put his head down and played hard. There are guys that perform on game day better than they practice, there are guys that don’t. He’s one that performs better on game days than, from what we saw, in camp. Now why? I don’t know. He did get hurt in spring, so he didn’t play a whole lot in spring, and he just didn’t make the plays that we thought he should or could or whatever in camp, which that’s not unusual. You get into games, and you really find out who guys are, and when we got into games, he was on a bunch of special teams making plays left and right. Now, he’s a starting corner. That’s a good lesson for a lot of other guys, and I use this a lot, I use his example a lot when I talk to the team as far as knowing what your role is and understanding what your role is and accepting what your role is or doing something to change what your role is. Individual players, they have way more to do with that than we do as coaches. I’m really proud of Keith, he’s a great teammate, great kid. He just put his head down and played, and it didn’t take us long to figure out that that’s one of our better players.


On what climbing up the program’s all-time wins list means to him

I said this on the radio show to Tony (Caridi) last night. If Mike (Montoro) brings that up to me, I throw him out of my office. Now, I couldn’t throw Tony off the radio show last night, and I can’t throw you (John Antonik) out of the media room right now. But we would prefer to talk about the team aspect of everything. It’s an honor to be here, period, and I’m sure, at some point, we’ll look back at it and maybe throw a party about it or something like that, but right now, I do not care about that. I care about 5-0 and 3-0 in the Big 12, period.
 
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT