University of Houston Athletics
Press Conference: Houston vs. UNLV
9/16/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Houston Football returns home to host UNLV this Saturday, Sept. 20 at TDECU Stadium. The Cougars and Rebels are slated to kickoff at 7 p.m. on ESPN3 and KPRC 950 AM.
Houston Football Head Coach Tony Levine and selected student-athletes in junior defensive end Eric Eiland, senior receiver Daniel Spencer and junior defensive back Adrian McDonald met with the media on Tuesday during the weekly press conference.
Tony Levine PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
Opening statement
"Coming off last week's game - like I told our young men afterwards - there are a couple of emotions, one of them being disappointment. Going into the game, we expected to win, and obviously that did not happen. I was proud of our young men, and everyone in our program.
On the sideline, even though we fell behind by 23 points early on, no one panicked, and we ended up making some plays right before the half to get us back in the game. We had an opportunity with the football with a couple of minutes left in the game, and we had a chance to tie it, and we didn't get it done.
We can gain some confidence from that game for a number of reasons. We saw a great improvement in a number of individuals, in a number of areas. Going on the road to play against a top-25 team in a tough place we dug ourselves in a hole, but continued to fight back to climb out of it and make some plays. I think some guys showed some confidence individually, and some units did as well by the way they battled back and performed.
It's good to be back home. We've got another tough test this week, with UNLV coming to town. It's a team that went to a bowl game last year. It's a veteran program. Every team we face presents different challenges. This team is very athletic, and they play extremely hard offensively. They're balanced: rushing for about 150 yards a game and throwing about 250.
They've got a lot of talented young men from the state of Texas, and from Houston as well. Devante Davis, their senior receiver from North Shore is 6' 3" and 215 pounds. It seems like yesterday we had him at camp as a junior in high school, and now he's a senior in college and has had a tremendous career. I think he's one of the best receivers in the United States. He has great hands, tremendous ball skills, and great body control. He's very physical and strong. The comparison actually reminds me of Deontay (Greenberry) on video except Davis is a little bit heavier. They target him a lot in the games. He goes and makes plays with two hands, and sometimes with one hand. The vast majority of the time, Devante is coming down with the football.
They have a talented group of wide-outs, and they try to establish a run as well. Keith Whitely is another young man from the greater Houston area. He's younger than Devante, but has played for UNLV at running back, their punt returner and kickoff returner. Offensively, they've got some weapons; and defensively they're a veteran group: bigger than you typically see. Their defensive backs and corners are at 6-foot, very physical, great cover skills; and their front seven is a very active.
It'll be a great challenge. We're glad to be back home. As we continue to say, the game will be about us executing offensively, defensively and on special teams. When you look back, one more thing that sticks out from our game against BYU are the turnovers. Defensively, we created three big turnovers and did not turn it over on offense. The last two games were +7 in turnover margin. I think we're getting back on track, where we need to be in terms of taking the football away, making plays offensively and taking care of the football."
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Junior defensive end Eric Eiland
Junior defensive back Adrian McDonald
Senior receiver Daniel Spencer
