University of Houston Athletics
Press Conference Quotes Oct. 14, 2014
10/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
HOUSTON HEAD COACH Tony Levine
"As we do after a win, our players of the game from last week: on offense, quarterback Greg Ward; on defense, linebacker Efrem Oliphant, and on special teams, Earl Foster. Scout players of the week: on offense, freshman receiver Elton Dyer, on defense, senior walk-on Vincent Hall, who is doing a great job for us, he played kickoff cover in the game against Memphis and had a big time tackle in the second half, and on scout special teams, coming off an injury from last season, it's good to have him back, is senior defensive end Jon Witten.
Just to recap a little bit from last week, we are proud of our young men in our program, our staff and coaches. We went on the road against a team that was in first place in our conference; a very good team in Memphis. We started slow, but finished fast. A couple of things we had talked about going into the game that we felt like would be extremely important helped us win the football game.
Turnovers were one thing we talked about. We turned it over three times on offense, which is way too many. Defensively, we forced five turnovers on a Memphis team that, in their first five games had only turned it over five times total. Two of the five we forced within the last two minutes and 50 seconds of the game. So, we won the turnover battle.
Another thing we talked about was field position. Field position was hit or miss. They did a better job than we did on special teams in that game. Our kickoff return was not where it needed to be. It put us in some tough positions, offensively, but at the end of the game, we were punting from our own 28-yard line, and they have a very dangerous returner. Logan Piper had a 49-yard punt and Matthew Adams got down the field and tackled him at their own 28, which was a critical play at the end of this football game.
The third thing we talked about was penalties. Coming off of a game against UCF, we had been penalized 12 times with eight of those 12 penalties occurring prior to the snap or after the play ended, it was a major point of emphasis for us last week. In the Memphis game, we had three penalties: two holding calls and a block in the back on Lee Hightower's interception return. Pre-snap and post-play penalties against Memphis were zero.
I'm proud of the way our young men hung in there after being down 14 points. They came back, executed well in all three phases, and did enough to win the game.
Looking forward to Temple Friday night. Again, we've got another short week, and another talented, well-coached undefeated team in our conference coming to town. I was asked a question yesterday, in a conference call, to compare this year's Temple team to the one we played last year. I don't think it's a fair comparison for us, having played Temple in game two last season.
P.J. Walker, their quarterback, is a young man that a lot of coaches in our league have been talking about for a long time now. He ended up becoming the starter at Temple last year as a true freshman about halfway through the season. He's very dynamic, a dual-threat, can throw it, can run it, and is certainly doing a great job for them.
Defensively, Phil Snow is their coordinator. He's been doing it a long time. Does a great job. The young men now really understand and are very comfortable in the scheme they're running. Tyler Matakevich is as good of a defensive player as we will face all season. I want to say he led the NCAA in solo tackles last year as a sophomore. It's one of those things where you put the film on and if you don't know where the ball is, just find number eight for Temple and he will bring it to you. He's around it on every snap.
It will be a great challenge for us. I sound like a broken record in that we feel like we've got to do, on our end, the things we feel like we need to do to be successful and to win a football game. We will be out there tonight in full pads for two hours, tomorrow ends up being a Thursday for us, and we are three days away from kickoff.
On the injury front, it's been, I use the word devastating, for our program to see young men like Daniel Spencer and Derrick Mathews have their careers end the way they did this past week. Lee Hightower is a junior, he will have surgery tomorrow and be out for the rest of the year. As much as anything this past week, we feel awful for the young men. What they mean to us and what they have done here in our program off the field, and certainly on the field, they will be very much missed."
On sophomore quarterback Greg Ward's scrambling ability
"Going into last week's game in the limited roles we had him in prior to the Memphis game, in terms of if the protection breaks down or there's great coverage on the pass play, he sees a seam and thinks he can get us positive yardage, then yes he does have the green light.
When I talk about the added dimension he brings because of his escape ability and extending the play ability, makes him a dual threat quarterback. We had some explosive plays in the passing game against Memphis where he broke contain or started to scramble, and a defender left their receiver uncovered and Greg was able to throw it to him.
We had plays where he broke contain or he scrambles, they covered the receivers and he felt like he could run it and he did that effectively. I would like to say that was by design, but we like to say as a staff that some of our best run plays are going to be when we call a pass, and we decide to run the football. We know, and knew coming in, that he would bring that dimension to the quarterback position."
On the offense's timing with Greg Ward at quarterback
"When you talk about Greg Ward at quarterback, he was a receiver all spring, all summer, and then rejoined the quarterback meetings in the start of August. The more he plays, the more he is going to get comfortable with the wide outs, the more they are going to get comfortable with him, and that is true for the offensive line as well.
You look at the UCF game, and we had a holding call or two on our offensive line where he started to leave the pocket and they weren't necessarily used to that. The more he plays; the more comfortable his ten teammates around him are going to be."
On half-time defensive adjustments at Memphis
"Our field position was better, which helped us defensively. We settled down a little bit and tackled well. It's something we talked about at halftime, in that Memphis got a touchdown a couple of minutes before half to break the fourteen-fourteen tie and give themselves momentum and a seven point lead.
We felt confident to where we had taken some pretty good shots from them at that point offensively, and we just had to settle down and play; tweak a few things.
At that point, we had some new starters in the game, Elandon Roberts playing middle linebacker at that point, Matthew Adams got some playing time at that point because of the loss of Derrick Mathews. Just to settle our guys down and keep the ball in front of us, not give up the big play. Our guys did an excellent job forcing the turnovers they did in the second half."
On wide receiver depth
"Concern is not a word I use often, and I'm not going to use it answering this question. We have lost some depth at receiver. You go back to last spring, and Donald Gage was a young man we were counting on playing for us this year. He suffered a leg injury going into training camp, John Leday was a redshirt freshman that we were thinking was going to start for us at one of our receiver positions. He suffered a foot injury and is out for the season.
Now, moving Greg to quarterback, you lose a receiver there and then the injury to Daniel Spencer. We felt like we had a lot of depth going into the season. We still have depth. We still have talent there. I'd like to stand up here next week and not talk about losing another receiver to an injury, and going into this season, we felt we could rotate some guys and keep them fresh.
What you are seeing right now, is guys like Markeith Ambles and Demarcus Ayers that either last year or earlier in the season were playing 30 or 40 snaps, and rotating, are now playing 70-75 snaps a game. It takes its toll over the course of the season. We feel good about the depth we had at this point at receiver."
On playing during a short week
"Well, losing a day is probably more significant than people think. You have to watch the film of the game you just participated in. As coaches, you like to show it to your student athletes to make corrections and show them things they did well, then you have to start working on your next opponent.
Losing that day is probably more significant than people think, especially at this time of the year. Last year, we had some short weeks, one in particular at the end of this month playing on Halloween on a Thursday.
From the Memphis game, there's still video we needed to show our young men to make corrections and show them what they did well, and then move on to Temple. Both programs are doing it, and it packs everything together and maybe makes you focus a little bit more. There certainly are challenges to losing that day of preparation."
On the program getting exposure playing on Friday night
"It absolutely does. Again there are negatives of losing that day. To have two or three games on national TV is a good tradeoff for our program. Certainly we are glad to be at home this game. Had we been given the choice to be one of two or three games nationally televised, we would have played Sunday night."
On what's said to the team about starting fast
"I promise you Friday night we would like to score first, and I promise you temple would like to score first. I know just because I'm good at math, either temple or us will score first Friday night. So that came with getting off to a fast start. What you have to be careful of in my opinion is standing up to your student-athletes and saying, "To win this game we've got to get off to a fast start."
We talked about it as a staff last week going in to Memphis to try to get off to a fast start. We also talked about it going into UCF. Then we come out, and on one of the first plays on offense, we throw an interception in scoring field position for Memphis. I would be concerned that young men on the sidelines would say "coach we have to get off to a fast start to beat these guys and were down 14-0 so there goes this game." We certainly want to execute the offense early in the game and earlier than we have been. We want to stop them early in the game on defense.
Look at temple and what they're doing so far this season. They start fast. They've scored 56 points in the first quarter in their first five games. They've only given up 17 points in the first quarter of their first five games. They are a team that has started fast. I did appreciate how our young men battled back and scored 28 points to offset what Memphis did after they scored their first 14 points. It's something we talk about as a staff when we try to script offensively and anticipate defense. We would like nothing more but to start fast Friday night.
On good getting good field position and putting pressure on opposing field position
"They have a dynamic punt return and use a couple of guys back there and actually ran a punt back for a touchdown with punt safe with their defense on the field in one of their first games. It's something we've already talked to our young men about and the importance of kickoff and punt coverage this week. We have to do a better job getting our return game going and this would be the week to do that. They are very fast on their kickoff cover unit and it'll be a challenge for us, but it is something we have to improve on. We took steps from the previous two or three games, but we took a step backwards against Memphis on our return game.
On if he has been keying on Temple's good red zone defense
"Absolutely. To me that is situational football. When you get down there you need to score points. First and foremost not turning over when you get down there close. We got down there close and got backed up on a couple of negative plays and we missed a field goal we were accustomed to making. Offensively we've got to get down there and score. We got to first and goal at the five and we had miscommunication at first and goal and lost four yards. We can't go backwards once we get that close to the goal line."
