University of Houston Athletics
Press Conference: Game 11 vs. Louisville
11/14/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
HOUSTON FOOTBALL WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES (PDF)
RV/RV HOUSTON (8-2) vs. #3/3 LOUISVILLE (9-1)
TDECU Stadium • Houston, Texas • Thursday, Nov. 17 | 7 pm CT
HEAD COACH Tom Herman
Opening Statement
"I'm really excited for our senior class. I want to thank them first and foremost before I go any further. They are officially the winningest senior class in the long-storied history of the University of Houston Football program. There are a lot of championship teams, winning teams and tradition here. To have the most wins in a four-year span with multiple games remaining is quite an accomplishment.
I'm very excited about how we started the game against Tulane. We went three-and-out on offense, but we punted the ball, forced a fumble and jumped on it in the end zone. It was 7-0 just like that. Our defense was playing great and our offense found its rhythm. We scored 21 offensive points to go into halftime 28-10. The play right before halftime was frustrating. We spiked the football and did not have a whistle blown. Our players are taught that if there is a football on the ground and the whistle hasn't blown to jump on it. Greg [Ward Jr.] jumped on it and injured his shoulder, which forced us to play Kyle Postma. Kyle went in for the first couple series of the second half. He didn't play great, but we were playing great defense and flipping the field on them with our punt team, who was outstanding. Kyle went down with a broken arm; he broke his radius. He is in surgery as we speak right now to put a plate and some screws in. We are hoping to have him at least serviceable by the bowl game with some sort of cast or protective mechanism on the arm.
As it stands right now, Greg would be our starter. He is pretty banged up as he has been most of the year. He still gets treatment three times a day on his ankle that really slowed him down in the SMU game and in that stretch in October. He's a warrior. He's going to play and give his brothers everything he's got. D'Eriq [King] would be his backup right now.
Getting back to the game, I am really proud of our defense. Their last touchdown drive, I thought we let our foot off the gas a little bit there on defense. We made the game a lot closer than it needed to be. Offensively, not getting the whistle blown and knocking your quarterback out, then you knock the backup out and see the injured starter jog back in. Obviously, you see that we have an 18-point lead and a hurt quarterback. What are we going to do? We are probably going to run the football. That's not an excuse. We've got to find some better answers to run the football when we have to.
That is a phenomenal defense. Coach [Willie] Fritz has done a phenomenal job. No. 77 is a returning first-team all-conference defensive tackle. Their defensive line is just about as good as it gets in our conference. That made it for tough sledding when we would have liked to have done better offensively there in the third and fourth quarter certainly.
We are going to take the win considering the circumstances. I was proud of our ability to win the football game that way, which was to flip the field with our punt team and to play great defense.
We got a very well-deserved, well-earned No. 3 team in the country coming in Louisville. They are the No. 3 team in the country with arguably the best player in the country, and I think their offense gets a ton of credit, which is deserved. They are one, two or three in most offensive categories, and they have the likely Heisman trophy winner playing quarterback for them. One thing that might go a bit unnoticed is there defense is in the top 10 in a bunch of different categories. Through a 10-game season, that's a pretty good sample size. You know you're dealing with a top 10 defense and a top two or three offense in the country. We are going to have our hands full, but our guys like this kind of stage. They like the game. It's senior night. We've got a bunch of proud seniors that are going to go out and give our home fans everything that they've got."
On if Greg Ward Jr., ever recovered completely from the first shoulder injury
"No. He was getting constant maintenance treatment on [his shoulder] and ankle. [The shoulder] was relatively symptom free. There were times it would flare up on him, but he was certainly still feeling the effects of it from time to time."
On if Greg Ward Jr., will be healthy on Thursday
"I'll get him a thicker mouthpiece to bite down on when he throws."
On the defense
"Training is great. Once we got Tyus Bowser and Matthew Adams back, the saying going around the building last week was 'the band is back together.' We feel like we're pretty much running on all cylinders right now. We did a great job stopping the run both weeks. Tulane was averaging around 220 yards rushing and we held them to 100. We have to correct it to a certain extent, because we're still not to where I'd like it. When you're up 18 points and by the way that you're playing run defense, you've told this team you're not going to run the football. What are they going to do? Take a knee? No, they're going to throw the football. We've got to do a better job in obvious passing situations by playing better pass defense. We've made some strides, but that last touchdown drive was not to our standard."
On the strategy for the scout team to prepare for Lamar Jackson
"I don't know that God has made one that I can even compare him to. It'll be Kyle Allen. These guys have played against Greg Ward Jr., all spring and fall camp. They know what it looks like when a guy breaks a pocket and scrambles around. Not that we're never able to touch Ward either, but corralling him is one thing and getting him to the ground is another. Lamar Jackson is special in that he can hurt you from the pocket just as much as he can with his feet. Kyle Allen will still play scout team quarterback, because we need the good reps at defending the pass as well."
On making the running game consistent
"It's been a bit like musical chairs with the starting lineup. The only guy to start all 10 games has been Josh Jones at left tackle. That's fairly uncommon in college football. The guys who aren't playing, like Mason Denley, Marcus Oliver and Alex Fontana, you see [them take] two steps forward and one step back. They take two steps forward, then get hurt and miss a game or two. There hasn't been any real positive trajectory that's consistent enough. This week will be a good test, because they realized how close they were on a lot of those against a really good defensive line.
The tailbacks have to help out too. We have to understand situational football a lot better. You can't be bouncing the thing outside and running sideways on third-and-one. You stick your face in whatever little crack you see and go get your team a first down. It's a combination of inexperience at tailback. You've got a guy back there who has only played a couple hundred snaps of college football and prior to that had spent two years not playing the game. That's a part of it. Just the inconsistency of the progression of the offensive line, particularly the interior, because of some shuffling in and out has been part of it. It's not for lack of want-to or defiance. It's not really a talent thing. Keenan Murphy is a really good defensive tackle, and we say all the time if offensive linemen were athletic enough to play defensive line, they'd be playing defensive line, because those guys are hard to find. We're doing our best to accelerate the growth process, but we understand we've got a ways to go. Even as coaches, we've got to do a better job of finding the one or two runs that we can handle versus multiple different things that these guys can do somewhat well. We're narrowing our focus in the run game this week, and that will hopefully bear some fruit on Thursday."
On playing a top ranked team
"There is extra anticipation and extra excitement knowing who's coming into town, there's no hiding from that. But, at the same time, it's business as usual. The way we prepare is not going to change. The way we go about our business minute-to-minute and day-by-day, from a preparation standpoint, is business as usual. I think our guys are excited to go against a top five team, such as Louisville. Credit Mack Rhoades [former UH AD] for that scheduling. Two number three teams in the country for non-conference games. Appreciate it, Mack."
On if the offensive line is prepared for the short week
"They have to be. Normally on a short week, we would've been in just shorts and helmets today. We were in shoulder pads yesterday, but I've got them out there in pads again today. For the offensive line, when you practice in shorts we can't get better. There's no surface area to grab and there's no real space to separate on pass rushes. It's not football. We need as much work in pads as we can get for the offensive line. We'll manage the reps of skill guys; we aren't going to beat them down. There was some conversation amongst the staff about what we'll wear to practice, because we have to be fresh. We played 70 or 80 snaps on Saturday and its only Monday, but today is a Wednesday practice. We're going to be in shorts and shoulder pads so at least the offensive line can get some work on hand placement, pass sets and other things. That's all we can do in a short week. We'll accelerate the film watching and walk throughs. Our guys are eager to get better. They're not down in the dumps at all. They're excited to get better and excited at having the challenge of facing Louisville."
On the importance of the defense playing with gap integrity against Lamar Jackson
"We've got to be really sound, especially when rushing the passer. On third-and-long we want to bring pressure and find exotic ways to do it. Sometimes guys get out of their gaps. Against nonathletic guys it won't hurt, sometimes it can even help. Against this guy, we've got to maintain rush lanes. It's like the game plan SMU had for us. We need to collapse the pocket. If he escapes, we need to make him escape outside the top of the pocket where now we can run to it. In the run game, we need to defend the zone read and the read option stuff that everybody is doing now. That part isn't much different than what other spread teams are doing."
On the defense still having some plays and looks that have not been seen
"We talked about that today. Each week as a defense you want to show, and again it shows up on third down probably more than anywhere, but you want to show them different pressures or else good offensive line coaches and good offensive coordinators are spending the entire week saying, 'Okay, here are their favorite three blitzes on third down. How are we going to block them in our protections?' And you walk through them and go over them over and over again. And so, if you can show them something every Saturday, especially on third down, or Thursday on third down that they have not walked through a thousand times that week in practice and repped a thousand times that week in practice, then you've got a much higher likelihood of hitting home."
On the production of the Louisville defense
"[Devonte] Fields is a freak athlete. They list themselves as a 3-4, but they are in 4-3 spacing a lot of the time. He has got his hand on the ground, so he has got the size to be able to play defensive end but the athleticism to play outside linebacker in a 3-4 and drop into space and cover people. He is a tremendous athlete and the two inside guys and then on the other side you got [James] Hearns at outside linebacker as well, that's their leading sack guy too.
They do a really good job of mixing in 3-4 fronts and 4-3 fronts. Sometimes they'll have their hand on the ground and then sometimes their hand will be up and they'll either be rushing the passer from a two-point stance, dropping into coverage or twisting around to try and stop the run. Todd Grantham does an excellent job at mixing the looks, and I think what you have to do as an offense then is to try and simplify them so you can practice very few plays versus multiple looks. Where if you try to run 50 different plays, then you are not going to rep it against certain looks and if that look were to show up and you hadn't repped it in practice, it would certainly come back to bite you on Thursday night."
On addressing the adversity the team faced earlier in the season
"Yeah, the only issue was that we were pressing when faced with adversity. I mean the issues were good problems to have. As I said before, we don't have defiant guys. We don't have a divided locker room. We don't have guys that are unwilling to work. We had a bunch of guys who thought the best way to handle adversity was to go outside of themselves and to try and do things; you know press. I think we've conquered that and we've learned to trust our training, and we've learned that faced with adversity, the only thing that you need to do is exactly what you're coaches told you, as hard as you can do it, and usually when you do that, good things happen."
On how impactful the UCF halftime response was
"The response of UCF, I don't know if it was halftime or not, but the way that we responded in the second half certainly was a turning point for our season, because it validated what we as coaches were telling them. It gave us confidence going into the bye week that now really in the bye week all we have to do is get rested and healthy. We didn't have to play psychologists for two weeks and convince our team that this is the right way to handle adversity. They went out and did it the way we teach them to do it and we were able to have a great comeback win. I think then you spend two weeks of the bye week reinforcing that with confidence as well as getting healthy and fresh. Yeah, that was a definite turning point for sure."
On the development of Lamar Jackson this year and takeaway from last year's game
"He is night and day a different player. I recruited Lamar out of high school. You knew he had star potential written all over him. He is a tremendous athlete and a really underrated thrower of the football. Last year, we caught him Week 2 in his second start. He had some deer in the headlights maybe a little bit, turned the ball over and got benched towards the end of the game. But, I also think the offensive staff and Coach [Bobby] Petrino have done an excellent job of transforming that offense and maybe stepping outside of their comfort zone a little bit and doing some things that are tailor made for him and his style of play. Rather than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, we've got this square peg lets make our hole square too. I think that's the mark of any good offensive coach, is to say what is our personnel good at and now lets tailor the offensive around what they are good at and they have certainly done that."
Houston Football student-athletes Chance Allen and Brandon Wilson also met with the media on Monday.
SENIOR CORNERBACK Brandon Wilson
On opportunity to face a team that's highly ranked
"It's a great opportunity. It's a big game, but we're confident. We're 5-0 against ranked teams so I'm not really worried."
On chance to get back in the national spotlight with a win
"Our goal is to go 1-0 this week. They're a good team, but that's still our goal."
On thoughts after seeing Lamar Jackson on film
"He's a great athlete."
On importance of discipline from a defensive standpoint
"It's big. What we are trying to do is keep him in the pocket and get him to throw the ball."
On kickoff return last year at Louisville
"I didn't know I was four yards in the end zone. I just took it to the house."
On if last year's game at Louisville can help against Lamar Jackson
"Like Coach Herman said, we caught him in his second start. Now he's a top ranked Heisman candidate. He's a great athlete, so we're going to go after him."
On what stands out about Lamar Jackson
"It's a lot of things. He can run the ball and throw the ball. He's a great athlete."
On meaning of game for seniors
"A lot of emotions are going to be going through our mind. It's the last home game for the seniors, and we're going to go out with a bang."
On opportunity to play a Heisman frontrunner in Lamar Jackson
"It's going to be a great game, but, like I said, we're just focusing on going 1-0."
SENIOR WIDE RECEIVER Chance Allen
On what makes Louisville's defense stand out
"Louisville has a lot of defensive backs that are scrappy and that like to get the ball. They play a lot with their hands and are very physical. I think Louisville is great as a whole, and I'm looking forward to this Thursday."
On playing the No. 3 team in the country
"It's exciting. Houston is known for playing well against Power Five teams. It's going to be fun. I can't wait."
On if there is "swagger" playing a ranked team while under Coach Tom Herman
"Definitely swagger. We are going to play this game with a chip on our shoulder. We are going to come out to play and continue to compete like we do against every team we play."
On how special it is to play the last home game against a ranked team on national TV
"It's very exciting. I am very blessed to have this opportunity, definitely against Louisville. Thursday night in my hometown … I can't wait."
On seeing Greg Ward Jr., leave the game and Kyle Postma's injury
"In this program, it's a 'next man up' mentality. After seeing Greg go down, I didn't have one doubt in my mind that Postma wasn't going to be ready. When Postma got hurt, I thought we were going to have to burn my man [Bowman Sells]'s redshirt year.
I have faith in freshman D'Eriq King. He was a great quarterback in high school. I think he's going to be great at this level. Like I said, this program is next-man up. We are just going to continue to play."
On how Greg Ward Jr., has battled through injuries
"He's a tough guy. It shows that he has a lot of heart and he is a competitor. He is a guy that you would want on your team, especially as a leader. Greg has been doing a tremendous job."
On what it would mean if they got the upset
"It would mean a lot to this program. The way the season has been going, it hasn't been going as planned and as we thought it should be, but we have to just look forward to playing this week. It's going to be a great game. Coach [Herman] said we are playing a one-season game. This is our Super Bowl."
On if the team is having fun again
"Like I said, I think the team is getting our swagger back. We are getting our confidence back and just building off UCF. Everyone is saying we are starting to look like the old Houston Cougars. We are just going out there competing, having fun and just trying to get the wins back."
On how to make the game easier for Greg Ward Jr.,
"Our [offensive] line has to get better at protecting him in the pocket, receivers have to get open faster and our running backs need to run the ball hard. We just have to play as a team, help him as much as we can and go out there and have fun."
On if the team is ready for a Thursday game
"We played UConn on a short week. We came out there with some juice and energy. I'm looking forward to going back to that and having fun. I think we will be fresh this week. They are taking it pretty light on our legs so we will be ready to go."
On how people underestimate Greg Ward Jr.'s, toughness
"People look at him and say he's a little guy and that he's not tall enough to play the position. The guy shows a lot of heart. He's very passionate about the game, his craft and work. I love him. That's the kind of guy we want on our team."
On how it would be to watch two dual-threat quarterbacks play against each other
"I always tell Greg that he should be the one up there holding the Heisman Trophy ever since I got here. I think it's going to be nice to see him and Lamar [Jackson] face off. It's a battle. It will be nice to see."
On how it felt being in the end zone on Saturday
"I haven't been there all season. I'm not going to lie to you, I was fortunate to get one this week. I told Greg, 'I have to get in the end zone at home.' Especially going into this Thursday night game, I hope to get into the end zone again. I just pray and hope that it happens."
