University of Houston Athletics
Coach Dimel's Press Conference Quotes
10/9/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 9, 2001
Houston, Texas - What is the status of quarterback Kelly Robertson's injury?
"We are not sure what his status is for the ball game this weekend. We are going to see where he is today at practice and take it from there. I haven't made any public statements about Kelly's injury yet, and I'm not going to do that at this point. We are taking it day-to-day at this point. We will address that later this week."
The morale of the team:
"Starting out at 0-4 is not an easy thing. You can sit and say that everything is going great and everyone is doing fine, but you are never fine or great at 0-4 and people must understand that. We are working hard and doing things the right way and our guys are responding to that. As far as mental make-up, the team continues to work hard. Right now we need to tighten down the hatches as far as discipline goes this week, we need to tighten the screws in every aspect of the program and respond because as we look at it, we are 0-4, but there is no one in the rest of the conference that is not able to be beaten. We are, along with everyone else in the Conference USA, trying to find an identity right now. Even the teams that lead the conference like Louisville, are trying to find an identity. If we take on the issues at the University of Houston and get our program where we need to be then we could go on a good run, but we need a win to be able to do that. That is what we are stressing right now."
Coach Dimel on defense:
"Defensively we just need to get a lot better. We need to start tackling better and creating more turnovers. We need to stop their run game and if we can do that we can earn our win this week."
"When things aren't going well defensively you get concerned and you don't want to attack and give up big plays, but when you are playing well defensively the ball is rolling well and you are willing to take more chances. That's is one of the things that I have to be aware of when calling the offense. I have to judge the offensive plays on the way the defense is performing. This year when I have taken a chance offensively the defense has not responded to that opportunity."
Coach Dimel on the penalty issue:
"We talked yesterday at practice about how we had taken steps back last weekend. I made the mistake of telling the team how far we had come with the penalties before the game. We didn't handle that well and we took a step back there. We have taken the step to discipline individual players who commit the fouls. We are going to get that taken care of quickly."
Question: "Is Nick Eddy going to be ready if needed?"
"Well, we hope so. He's going to have growing pains because it will be his first start, so the players around him have to pick up their effort and perform at a higher level. We have talented receivers, running backs and a solid offensive line. Our defense has to step and play like we expect them to play. If we win games this year it will be because our defense has stepped up and done their job."
"Whoever ends up being our starting quarterback for this ballgame, our players will rally behind him. Our players have produced against the good defenses that we have gone against this year."
Coach Dimel on offensive efficiency:
"We are not efficient offensively because we have a lot of yards and not enough points. Our running game just needs to continue to improve, because as our run game improves our efficiency will improve, our red-zone scoring will improve and we will score more points."
