University of Houston Athletics
Press Conference: Game 9 vs. UCF
10/24/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
HOUSTON FOOTBALL WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES (PDF)
#NR/24 HOUSTON (6-2, 3-2 American) vs. UCF (4-3, 2-1 American)
TDECU Stadium • Houston, Texas • Saturday, Oct. 29 | 11 am CT
HOUSTON HEAD COACH Tom Herman
Opening Statement
"We got our butts kicked by a good team that's playing hard and playing fast. Credit to Coach Morris, his staff and his players for having his guys fresh, fast and physical. Momentum is an unbelievable thing in this game and we've got to do a much better job of teaching our players when momentum is on the other sideline how to get it back. The only way I know how to get it back, when momentum is on the other sideline, is to go out and do your job and do your job the way that you are trained for the love of the guy next to you with everything you've got and you've got a shot.
The mistakes that we made, the one thing that our guys are going to give you, give us, give the University of Houston is fanatical great effort. And I was asked after the game if the loss was embarrassing, not at all. I would be embarrassed if our team didn't play hard but our team played really, really hard. They didn't play well. They made some mistakes that are unbelievably uncharacteristic of the guys that made them. I really do sense it's a matter of we've got a lot of pleasures on this team and a lot of perfectionists on this team and a lot of guys that want to do right. When things start to go wrong, we tense up and get apprehensive and we start playing outside of ourselves and we lose focus. It's my job as the head coach to teach our team and to teach our coaches how to teach our team how to not let that happen again. That's my big focus this week and I think our kids are excited about that and excited about coming back home to a place where we are undefeated.
We talk about getting everybody's best shot. In our two years we've lost three games and all three of them the opposing teams fans have stormed the field. I don't know when the last time that happened for three consecutive loses for the University of Houston to have the opposing fans storm the field, but I told our guys that they should be proud of the level of respect that you command but understand that with that comes tremendous responsibility and a tremendous amount of effort required to maintain that respect. We are coming into our one game season in thirteen straight weeks of football, all down to this. Our one game season here to protect our stadium where we are undefeated in two years and got a one game season to get that winning feeling back in our program and then take a deep breathe. Then, hopefully, heal up, rest up, freshen up and get ready for the last final stretch, last quarter of the season."
On how to keep the team from getting vulnerable to other teams "smelling blood in the water"
"Confidence is big and I think again, one you have to teach them how to respond. It's not going to go your way every play of every game, doesn't matter how good you are. College football, it's hard to win and it's really hard to win them all. You look at Clemson and they were a missed field go away from losing to NC State. And then Ohio state, the list goes on and on. When you're at that level and people have that kind of motivation to beat you it's like I have told them before. We are everybody's Oklahoma and Florida State, or we were I don't know if we are now. We were. How hard and what you thought of going into those games is how hard and how much motivation teams have to play you and that's a good thing, that's really, really good. I think that's where the confidence piece has to come from is that the reason these loses hurt so bad is because you are really good and we've set a bar here ridiculously high and that bar has been set through literal blood, sweat and tears of two years of hard work and playing for the guy next to you and falling in love with your teammates and coaches. That won't change. What has to change is when teams hit us in the mouth we can't be surprised by that and we have to have the confidence to know we earned this and we asked for this."
On how hard it has been to find a rhythm with so many injuries across the board
"Really difficult, probably more than anybody realizes. I know probably everywhere in America offensive lineman get hurt. Here it's been a weird deal. Over the last two years it's been a freak ankle stinger or you name it, a knee. You try to say what can I do to prevent it? Well, what do you do to prevent a stinger for a guy who doesn't have a history of stinger? You don't do anything. It just happens. That's probably been the hardest part.
The tailback position has been admirably tried to be filled in. It was nice to see Duke (Catalon) out there. He was a little rusty, missed some cuts and some runs that I think even he would tell you he should have made. Definitely saw some explosive plays out of him too, which is something we are going to need here down the stretch, some consistency from that position.
Then for the first time all year our wide receivers didn't play real well. Had that been a pattern, I would be worried but I don't think anyone would say they played real well Saturday night. But that was the one group, those three guys played close to 600 snaps so we've challenged the young guys in that room that that's not fair that you guys aren't trusted enough to go in the ball game and that a Division I football team is playing three maybe four wide receivers, when you count D'Eriq King in there.
You know you are going to break down at some point, so we need those younger guys to step up. We need to find some consistency and rhythm, and protecting the football is the first part of that. Not only does it end drives it's just so deflating, it's just such a huge momentum deal when you turn the football over."
On how to implement deeper parts of the roster
"We have to up front certainly. Will Noble will be out this week with stinger issues. Alex Fontana will start at center for him with the left guard position being Mason Denley and Kameron Eloph and the right guard being Marcus Oliver and Mac Long. That's the area that concerns me the most, is the inexperience there up front. If you can't block people in this game, you can't do anything. You can't run it. You can't throw it. You can't do anything. How do you accelerate it? You pour every waking hour that you're not in class or in study hall into beating Central Florida for these guys. They've got to get as prepared as humanly possible."
On what you've noticed from UCF and Coach Frost
"Obviously you go from zero wins to three wins in four games, that's pretty good. Just playing better on all sides of the ball. The defense brought a guy from Oregon over and so they are playing a 3-4 defense. They are very sound in what they do. They are going to overload the run. There's some similarities to Oklahoma in terms of they are going to overload the run with seven people, but still if they see pass on first and second down they are going to drop seven or eight into coverage knowing their three inside guys aren't great inside pass rushers on first and second down. They are going to play the pass on first and second down by dropping guys into coverage but then come pack the box with their outside linebackers. Really good scheme, (Frost) has his guys playing really hard.
Then obviously on offense, light years different from where they have been. You see speed everywhere from the quarterback to the running back, a bunch of running backs. They've got little number nine, Adiran Killins -- 5'8, 155 (pounds). I'm going to check his equipment and see if he doesn't have a turbo charger or something hiding underneath his shoulder pads. He's got those guys playing great in that system, very similar to Oregon. They are going to run to set up the play-action pass and they are going to want to run it and have a lot of misdirection with motions and all that. So yeah, he's done a really, really good job in a short amount of time."
On adjustments for the defensive line to be more productive
"I think the adjustments are, one on first and second down. We are very similar to UCF. Our defensive line is not really built to rush the passer. With the three down lineman playing right on top of the offensive lineman, its not really designed to do that on first and second down. Then on third down, we give our pressure by subbing in people and blitzing from all sorts of different places. Credit to them, I'm sure over the bye week they studied those tendencies and did a good job of sliding their offensive line into the blitz so people weren't running free at the quarterback. A lot of times on third down guys are just scot free at the quarterback, because Coach Orlando has done such a great job of scheming up the protections. I think we are going to take a long hard look at our self-scout and where those pressures are coming from and when they get there. Then on third down, I think we got to just line up and rush the passer with some pass rush defensive lineman and still be able to play coverage behind it."
On Ed Oliver being active around the edge of the line
"He's been doing that more in the middle than on the edge. That was a new wrinkle we had going into this week. It didn't work out really well."
On team being possibly being worn down after tough camp
"I don't know. It is on my list of things to evaluate from the offseason. When the bye week comes so late in the year, what do you do to prevent this from happening? It is my job as a head coach to figure that out. It doesn't do me any good now to think about it. It is certainly on my list of things to look over for this offseason. It is hard to be who we are without training the way that we train. Did that catch up to us this week? Maybe that was the case. Us having or not having a bye week doesn't matter. The win and loss column doesn't care. It is our job to persevere through any adversity. It is my job as the leader of this organization to make sure that we can do that. If that means some minor adjustments during preseason camp or early in the season knowing what's ahead, that is something I will look at. Someone has asked me about playing five games in the month of September. We are one of only nineteen teams that have not had a bye week yet and the only one of those teams that has played four games in 19 days. That is something that is a given. We cannot change it, so we have to learn how to adapt and overcome. I stated that I was not worried about the games in September, but the residuals in October. I was right in my foreseeing of that but wrong in how to deal with it. We had a plan. We knew it was coming. We obviously didn't respond well. This week will be a good test of that. Our guys are doing everything from taking Epsom salt baths to doing cryo-therapy. We are trying to do anything and everything possible to be as fresh as we can be when we jog out of that tunnel at 11 a.m. on Saturday."
On taking the blame for the loss
"I'm the head football coach. The buck stops here. I'm never going to point fingers and I'm never going to point anyone out other than myself. What you see on the field on Saturday is a reflection of me. From plays that are called, the execution of those plays, level of intensity, the strength of our football team, anything is a reflection of me. That is my job. I take a tremendous amount of personal accountability for that. With that comes a very sleepless night on Saturday. I don't even know if I slept. We were up here at 10 in the morning on Sunday for a long staff meeting to educate our staff on the notes I had taken and my thoughts throughout the night. We had a really good team meeting yesterday. I was up here earlier than I normally would be on a Monday. I sprang right up. There was a lot of eagerness inside of me to get back to work and put all of the different things that I have written down into action. The best medicine when you lose is to go back to work. For me, turning the page was not difficult at all. We spent the entirety of yesterday laying the foundation for how we are going to get better and how we are going to prepare for our one game season against UCF."
On how team will come out on Saturday
"I don't know if how they come out will say anything. How they finish will say more and how they respond throughout the course of the game. If we go three-and-out on offense in the first series, there isn't a thought of complete failure. There is still a whole four quarters of football to play. It will be more of how we respond to adversity and how we finish the game rather than how the first couple of drives look."
On narrowing down the key problems in the game
"What it came down to after going through bundles of notes is, `where did I screw up?' After the Navy game was I focused too much on the big picture? Our guys were devastated after losing to Navy. I wanted to give them hope. I wanted to tell them if Navy does this or if Navy loses once, there might happen to be a three-way tie in the West. Oh, by the way we have a top five team in Louisville coming into town in a few weeks. I just kept asking myself, `what does that say right up there, Tom?' It says 1-0. We don't talk about the big picture in here. We never should have, to be honest. It added pressure on our guys to throw that out at them and see the immense magnitude of every game. It's my fault. We've done such a good job in the last few months of going 1-0 every second of every day and 1-0 every week of the season. Had I had to do that over again, I would have never talked about the big picture. If you win football games, the big picture takes care of itself. I'm looking forward to us getting back to our roots, so to speak, and getting back to being 1-0. There were a lot of other things in there, but the biggest point to drive home is don't worry about the big picture. Don't worry about anything other than our one game season against University of Central Florida."
On injuries in practice versus in games
"We don't have a lot in practice. The ones we see in practices more than in games is concussions, because your helmets are getting hit hundreds of times in practice, but only 60-80 times in a game. A lot of injuries have been in games. Marcus Oliver's was in a game, Cameron Doubenmier's concussion, Isaiah Johnson's concussion, Duke Catalon's concussion, Ty Cummings' ankle, Matt Adam's shoulder and Jerard Carter and Will Noble's stingers were all in games."
On whether or not Duke Catalon was in bounds
"I haven't watched the TV copy, nor will I. From the coach's copy we watched, it looked like he stayed in bounds. It is my understanding that the officials on the field don't control whether those are reviewed or not. Now our conference is doing something with ESPN where there is a four-second delay and there is a command center for replay. Part of our tight red zone package is we're going to line up, go really fast and run the football. A lot of things went wrong Saturday night, a lot of them our own fault, but what do you do? Do I tell Major Applewhite, `no wait, let's see if they review it,' or `go with what you're normally really good at in the red zone,' which is going fast? That was a tough one. Prior to the game, the referee told me that if they think it's questionable on the field to be reviewed, they'll try to slow down the tempo knowing that the four-second delay exists. I said, `hey guys, I thought you were going to slow it down.' They felt like they did and that lining up everybody and getting everyone into position was well into that four-second window."
On the benefit of slowing down
"The first two downs were great play calls. We get the ball on the four and make two and a half on the first play, so we line up and run the same one again. The hole that was there wasn't hit. It's third down and two from the two-yard line, and it's my fault because I told Major Applewhite to remember your check for this play, and I didn't do a great job communicating exactly what I was talking about. Applewhite thought he was giving me what I wanted. It wasn't quite what I was recommending to him."
Houston Football student-athlete Steven Dunbar also met with the media on Monday.
JUNIOR WIDE RECEIVER Steven Dunbar
On how veteran receivers can help the young receivers grow up
"We have to hold them accountable for knowing what they need to do, where they need to be and for the effort they give. We have to make sure they know the standard and can be trusted. We also have to give them an example of what it means to be trusted, which means to go out there and play hard. As leaders, I believe that's what we're supposed to do."
On what he would like to see from young guys
"Just to grow up and take it serious. They need to realize that a lot of your preparation is on you. You have to put in the time and effort to know what to do, know the plays and hold yourself to the standard of playing hard."
On dialogue of team after second loss
"It hurts because we put in a lot of time and effort. We realize that we just didn't play well. The conversation is always about the things we did wrong and the things we fell short on that are fixable. We just need to stay positive and make sure when we go out to practice we stay focused and work with a purpose."
On turning the page and challenge of moving on
"It's hard. We're not used to losing at all. It sucks. When you play this game, you can't let one loss beat you twice. The next day you have to let it go and reevaluate, see what you can do internally as a team better."
On team's injuries
"We have some injuries. It's football. You're going to have those. It's midway into the season, so just have to deal with them."
On reasons for lack of hype and energy as compared to early season games
"I definitely feel that. It's that swagger that we normally play with that hasn't been there in my eyes either. It can be a combination of a lot of things. It's easy to be hype when you're having success. When you hit adversity, it's harder to get as hype. As a team, we have to respond better when adversity strikes to keep that same energy."
On how to continue to play hard without focusing on potential injuries
"I don't focus on that. You just put focus on what your job is and what you have to do. Just deal with the cause dealt to you. Whether it's somebody else being injured or you being injured, next man has to step up and do their job."
On feeling 13 weeks with no significant time off
"I definitely feel it. You just have to make sure to maintain your body and make sure you're getting treatment. I maintain my body to make sure I can play on my highest level."
On challenge of offense getting in the rhythm while missing key guys
"It is tough, especially at the offensive line position where there's a lot of different combinations that have to go in there and try to execute. It's difficult to get in the rhythm, but at the same time everybody practices the same plays. We have to do what we have to do to play better."
On if games being on road without much rest make playing any more difficult
"Anytime you get off your routine and go somewhere else and play, you have to have a level of maturity. It's hard to stay consistent when your routine is changed. Going on the road has been something we've struggled with."
On mental difficulty of walking to the tunnel after a loss with fans on field celebrating
"I hate losing so much. Those walks hurt. It's hard to swallow knowing that you put in so much time and come out with a loss. It's all learning experiences. Even with losses you get better."
On Herman mentioning getting back to basics and whether focusing on going 1-0 will help team make it through to the bye week
"That's important. For a second we started looking at things from a bigger picture. From day one, that wasn't originally what we do. Now we're bringing it back down to what we're built on, just going one week and one day at a time. Taking it from a big picture and bringing it down to something small. I think that's going to help us out."
