Tony Levine Press Conference Vs. SMU
11/25/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
HOUSTON HEAD COACH Tony Levine
"Before we talk about our players of the game, I'm going to mention two individuals that were honored in the last week or so that I want to recognize:
Our senior defensive lineman and captain, Joey Mbu, has been invited to both the East-West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl; two of the most high-profile college all-star games. We're proud of Joey and that recognition. Kenneth Farrow was honored as the conference offensive player of the week for tying an all-time conference record of four rushing touchdowns in one game.
Our players of the game:
On offense we have two. Kenneth Farrow for his 21 carries, 116 yards and four rushing touchdowns, and true freshman receiver Steven Dunbar, in his first career start for us, with seven receptions resulting in first downs, and 150 yards. Defensively, defensive lineman Gavin Stansbury, who's doing a great job for us this season. He had seven tackles and two touchdown-saving tackles. He played with great effort all day.
Scout offensive player of the week was freshman offensive lineman Emerald Faletuipapai. On defense it was freshman linebacker Khari Dotson, and on special teams it was freshman receiver Elton Dyer.
When you look back at the game, we did some good things.
Starting off with offense: for the third time in our last four games, we did not turn the ball over. We had zero penalties offensively as well, which was outstanding. We won the toss and elected to take the football. We went down the field and scored a touchdown on our first possession, got the ball back and scored a touchdown again on our second possession. We scored a touchdown on our opening drive in the second half, and there were three occasions in the second half that Tulsa tied the game. On all three occasions, our offense got the ball back and answered those three game-tying touchdowns. So we did some good things offensively.
Defensively it was about turnovers. We were credited with three interceptions and three turnovers as a whole which all came in the fourth quarter. They were critical. Howard Wilson and Trevon Stewart had their third interceptions of the season, and Adrian McDonald with his fifth. All three interceptions were big plays for us. Individually, Efrem Oliphant had 16 tackles. Howard Wilson, who was an outside linebacker in high school but now plays corner, played nickel for us this week; a position he had not played, Howard stepped up. He has three interceptions this season, and had 15 tackles in this game as well. Others to recognize are Gavin Stansbury and some other young men on defense.
This is another unique week, in terms of our schedule. As I stand here today at 11:30 this morning, three days from now we will have already kicked off and be well into the first quarter. This week is going to fly by. We've got practice this afternoon for just about two hours, we come back tomorrow morning and have what is usually our typical Thursday practice in helmets, and Wednesday we get on a bus and head to Dallas. So, it's a quick week and we're going to cram our preparation into a couple days and look forward to the challenge of playing SMU at their place for their final home game and senior day on Friday morning."
On Steven Dunbar...
"It goes back to what we tell all of our freshmen. If you want to come in and play as a true freshman it will require two things on your part: to be mentally ready to play, and to be physically ready to play. The mental part of it is not just learning the schemes on offense, defense or special teams, but it also comes with the determination by our staff. Does this young man have the characteristics that he can sustain over the course of the entire season? The pace of the plays, the pace of the meetings, the intensity; everything increases at this level from the high school level and we've got to make a determination if they're ready mentally.
(Steven) is a young man that we determined was ready. You go through a season at this level and unfortunately you can count on some injuries along the way. Steven had played sparingly on offense, some games more than others, and has been playing for us on special teams. Of course we've gotten a little bit thin with Greg Ward moving to quarterback, the loss of Daniel Spencer, Demarcus Ayers getting banged up in a game a few weeks ago, and it gave Steven an opportunity to start for us, and what he did Saturday hasn't surprised anyone in our program, because of the way he's been handling meetings and practices throughout the season. Proud to see him have the success he has, it brings credibility to the effort he has put in all season."
On Steven Dunbar playing all four receiver positions...
"If we can do that we'd like to. We'd like to have every receiver learn every position, but that doesn't always happen. Sometimes in our daily staff meetings during practice in August, the position coach can tell how the newcomers and freshmen are learning and picking it up. Then when you go out to practice you can see the mistakes or lack thereof that they're making, and if they do make a mistake you can see if they learn from it or how quickly they learn from it.
Steven exhibited early in August the ability to learn our offense at a very fast rate, and that's when we initially started talking about if we could expand (his abilities). We spoon-fed him another position, then eased him into another position, and now we're standing at the end of November and he knows all four. When you combine that with the injuries we've had at the receiver position as a whole, it allows him to become a backup at the other three while he can continue to start for us at the 'Z' position."
On Greg Ward and the offense...
"It's natural for him now that he's started a handful of games for us. We know he will continue to improve. In the Tulsa game, we really saw that, not only with our naked eye during the game, but also on the video. We're really seeing him after he catches the snap, going through his progressions and appearing with his body language and demeanor to be very comfortable with 'here's what I'm looking at, there's my read, if it's taken away here's number two and three.' He looks very natural and comfortable doing it. Somebody told me he's third in the country in completion percentage. He's doing a great job taking care of the football and determining who to throw it to, and he's very accurate."
On what he tells the team since SMU has not won a game this year, the outlook...
"Any team in college football, the NFL, college basketball, or even Peewee hockey: any team can beat anybody on any given week. That's been proven here this season. Now you're looking at a program that, the last time we went up there, I vividly remember scoring over 70 points on us, and us turning the ball over nine times, and there are quite a few young men in our program that participated in that game. This is a rivalry. We recruited a number of young men that are in their program, and they recruited a number of young men that are in our program. We know them well. We both transitioned from our previous conference into the American Athletic Conference together.
I don't think much needs to be said about what we talk about in our weekly team meeting. We have a scheduled team meeting for this afternoon where we talk about our upcoming opponent and give the scouting report. This is one of those games that we throw the records out. Both teams will be ready to play, and that really goes without saying."
On the age(s) of the offense...
"As you look at our offense right now, having lost Daniel Spencer not even at the halfway point of the season and Markeith Ambles being our only senior receiver right now, the other young men that are playing a significant amount of time for us on the offensive side of the football would be Bryce Redman at center and Rowdy Harper at right guard. We said this last year, and will probably say this next year: we anticipate that the vast majority of our offense will return to us next season. Not to take anything away from Markeith, Bryce and Rowdy, but we signed five receivers in this freshman class and Steven Dunbar is the only one playing for us this season.
It seems like every week that I come up here after games that we've won, and our scout team player of the week is Elton Dyer who is a freshman receiver that we're redshirting. He's from South Houston High School, is 6'3" and is an outstanding athlete and student. Romello Brooker is 6'4", 215 or 220 pounds, a scout team player of the week. Isaiah Johnson has won that award as well. He was one of the fastest young men in Texas last year on hurdles, went to state multiple years out of Rudder (High School), 6'3" and 220 pounds. You don't look ahead, but I do think there's going to be great competition at the receiver position this spring. A young man we haven't talked about much is John Leday. We were talking about him coming into this season, and then he broke his foot, and it required surgery in August, and he missed the season. Another one who's just been cleared is Donald Gage who hasn't played this season.
Markeith is the only senior receiver, but we're playing a bunch of guys who are getting some great experience. With some of the names I just mentioned, you're going to be seeing some great competition this spring."
On the evolution of the running game throughout the season...
"Being able to run the football, regardless of the level you're talking about, takes pressure off of everybody. The quarterback, your defense, and it opens up the passing game. It helps everyone be successful. Since the first game, we've had the same five starting offensive linemen in the same five positions, and they've certainly improved from week one or two to this point in the season.
Kenneth Farrow and Ryan Jackson improved from week one and two to this point in the season. They're running extremely hard. You've seen Ryan Jackson throughout the course of the last five or six games making decisions to get up the field. We saw in this last game on the second run where he put his foot in the ground and saw daylight, got vertical and got up the field. We've got some explosive young men in the backfield, and have an offensive line that is playing extremely well together right now, and our receivers are blocking well on the perimeter.
It helps everything that you can run the football, and I've been here around this offense long enough to see both sides of this. I've seen a drop back and throw it 50-70 times and we scored nine passing touchdowns in a game a couple years ago, and that's great. But I've also seen a part of this program over the last seven years when your defense is jogging off the field because they stopped their offense, and by the time they sit down and get a drink you're calling for the punt team to get in the box, because you just threw three incomplete passes with only 19 seconds off the clock, and they've got to get back out there and play again.
Running the football has helped us and it's really helped us throughout the course of the last five or six games."
On Adrian McDonald...
"Well what's fun to see is the way Adrian's leadership has developed throughout the course of this season. He had a great spring and a great training camp back in August. A-Mac, of the six captains, was not voted one of them, but his performance speaks for itself. He's kind of a young man of few words at this point, but he is a leader for us. He loves to play the game of football, is very passionate about our program, and the way he practices is showing up in games.
I speak for myself and I think I can speak for other people who watch him play, whether it's on television or in the stands, it doesn't shock anybody when we get a turnover and guess what, it's number 16. Whether he's catching it, stripping it, scooping it or scoring, he's always around the football, and he's got somewhere around seven so far. He has five interceptions. It's like Efrem Oliphant. He gets double-digit tackles every week, and we're coming to expect that now. The same thing is true with A-Mac. We're coming to expect that throughout the course of a game, he's going to create a turnover."
Changing the schedule...
"It helps that we've been through this type of unique schedule at this point in the season. It helps that this last game was moved to 11 a.m., because it forced everyone in our program to wake up earlier and this week we play at 11, and the following week we play at 11. You take things like that for granted when you play 8 p.m. kickoffs and 7 p.m. kickoffs, then 6, then you're in the mid to late afternoon. Then you throw in an 11 a.m., kickoff and you don't realize until now that you're waking up a little after 6 a.m. to get on a bus and at 9 a.m. you're getting dropped off at TDECU Stadium or SMU's stadium. Having moved this last game up to 11 a.m. helped prepare us for the kick off time this week."
On the games on holidays...
"It's interesting. We talked about it again this morning as a staff and will talk with our student athletes about it this afternoon in our meeting. We're traveling and getting to our destination on a holiday. The destination we're headed to, there are a lot of family members and friends of our student athletes and everyone in our program, and then we have a quick turnaround with 11 a.m. kickoff. So, we've got to be careful that this doesn't feel like we're going to a bowl game. We're getting on busses, heading up to Dallas and having a team dinner Thursday evening. Any of our families and staff members who travel will be at the dinner with us, but at the end of the day, this is a business trip, and we have to be careful that it doesn't feel like a bowl celebration, because of the feel of the trip. When the alarm goes off at 6 a.m., Friday we'll realize 'wow, we've got a game in a couple hours.' So, we're gong to have extensive meetings and walkthroughs Thursday evening.
After the dinner I don't think it's going to feel like any sort of bowl trip because this week, playing on Friday, we've lost a day of practice, and in our program we've never said 'we'll run the same plays as we did a week or two ago. Our coaches have been up here day and night preparing for all three phases of this game. (They have been) looking at things that will help us be successful in this game. We need to make sure that our student athletes know the new plays, the new calls and schemes. A lot of that has to do with practice time, and we're losing a day of practice with the shorter week. We have to be sensitive of the fact that it's a holiday, and that there are going to be a lot of families there, but we also need to keep in mind that this is a business trip with a game to play Friday morning."
