University of Houston Athletics
Weekly Football Press Luncheon
10/26/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 26, 2004
On the game against TCU and the upcoming game this weekend against Tulane
"On the (Tulane) Green Wave...We're excited about them coming into town, excited to be home and looking forward to playing at Robertson Stadium and having a chance to get back out on the field and create some momentum, some positive self-esteem and some confidence for our football team. If you can't win conference championships or go to a bowl game, what you try to do is salvage your personal and professional development, which is what we're after right now. We're going to finish strong, we're going to finish with pride and we're going to finish with effort and with a positive attitude. And we will finish."
Going into these last few games, do you start thinking about next year?
"I really don't, because I don't think it's fair to the seniors that we do have. To me, I may look at it differently, but we're not in a hopeless situation. It's not a deal where you throw everything out and start anew. We're a good football team, and we're trying to find the opportunity to prove we're a good football team. Our job is to win now, and then worry about next year next year. We're going to continue doing what we've been doing, and hopefully do it a little better.
What did Tulane do offensively last week that they hadn't done previously?
"I'll tell you what they did - they executed, and they executed very well and made some big plays at opportune times. Of course, any time you score 59 points, you're kind of clicking. They were really hot. They played at home for homecoming, and really got after it. Both offenses were on, but Tulane just brought down the field to score at the very end. They just made the plays when they had to and it was a big win for them."
How do you guys get any offensive rhythm going with the injuries and influx of different players at different positions?
"The good thing is that we do have quality people up and down through our system offensively who can get in there and play. That's a good part. The rhythm thing is a little bit of a concern because players get used to each other and they understand things as a season goes along, so it takes a while for that to get in sync. We have guys that we have a lot of confidence in, and they get out there, and other guys will pick up slack where other guys are not able to play."
Is there anything you can look at or can point to as to why you have had such a slow start offensively this year, and what you can do to pick it up in the rest of the season?
"We go into the game with an idea of what we want to run early in the game to feel out what the defenses are doing and how they are going to respond to us. And why we're starting slow, I don't know. I can tell you why we started slow the other night (at TCU, because out first three drives we had mistakes that we made on the offensive side of the ball that we should not have made. And those kept us from continuing drives. We stopped ourselves. That's what you can't do and that's what we did. That's a little bit discouraging. But we hadn't really been doing that, going back to the Southern Miss game. I can't even remember that far back...it seems like it was 14-7, we were driving down and we have a second-and-one on about their 4o-yard line, and end up with a fourth-and-five. That is inexcusable. I take that as my fault. We got a little bit stubborn, where we thought we were just going to pound them off the ball, and here we are come and stop us, and guess what - they stopped us.
"I think when you play pretty good people, there is a chance that there's a feeling-out process involved, and I think that as the game goes along, our players understand what we're doing, we understand what we're doing as an offensive staff, and maybe we're able to correct things as it goes along. We'd love to up 28-0 and pound the ball, but we haven't had that luck yet."
