University of Houston Athletics
Press Conference: Interim HC Todd Orlando
11/29/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
HOUSTON FOOTBALL PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES (PDF)
INTERIM HEAD COACH Todd Orlando
Opening Statement
"First off, I know he is up there working, but I would like to thank Hunter Yurachek for giving me the responsibility to lead the team through the bowl game. Appreciative to the kids, I know everyone wants to talk about the team.
Obviously, Saturday was challenging, but we have come back. We gave them off Sunday, came back on Monday and had another team meeting with everybody present. Very appreciative to the captains, the juniors, the seniors who did a tremendous job of stabilizing our team. We still have a little bit of work to do with freshmen class. We will be monitoring them when it comes off the road, but they have done a very nice job. I'm looking forward to the challenge.
I will go through the staff changes. Obviously, there are quite a few. Myself, I will be the same role I had before in terms of defensive coordinator and obviously manage the game. Major Applewhite will be the offensive coordinator. Craig Naviar will take over the responsibilities of the defensive backs and do all the special teams. Roosevelt Maggitt will take over the defensive line. On the offensive side of the ball, James Casey will take over tight ends. Kennith Pope is still here. Darrel Wyatt is still at the receiver's position and C.J. Irvin will take over the offensive line. Dan Carrel will also help as part of the linebacker crew.
Lock and loaded, I know that is going to be a question for you guys, but we're moving forward. Our kids had a great lift this morning. The schedule was put together. We will practice on Thursday for the usual guys I see after practice, Friday also. On Saturday we're inviting all of our committed recruits and planning on having a great meal with them in the afternoon."
On where Orlando is at in career
"I think you reach a certain point in your career where there is a comfort level of everything that goes and with every in and out of the program. I believe I am at that point. The comfort level with the program itself and the ins and outs of offense, defense and special teams that go along with fundraising, the things that when I was younger in my early 30's that I didn't think a lot about. But now have been around the game and some very successful people, you get to learn a lot. If you're in a meeting and keep your eyes open and ears open, it's amazing what you can learn. So I did. I feel a comfort level going into it.
I just want to express this and put this out there; myself and Major Applewhite will interview for the job. It's important that we not exclude Major out of this process. I have the interim tag, and there is no animosity between myself and Major. We're here strictly to make sure that these kids are prepared to go win number 10."
On the last 72 hours
"A little bit chaos. I honestly like it -- to be busy and have to go around. Everyone in this office that knows me knows that I like to organize things, and I like to stay ahead of things almost to the point where I have three or four plans. That part I do like, giving people responsibilities.
The one thing I am proud of is that there are a lot of coaches who have moved forward. We have capable, young, youthful guys. I have seen them pick up their game in the office. It's been great to see. They're excited. They're on the road recruiting and doing the things they have to. I put a lot of pressure on our team itself and told them there is going to be times where you're going to have to step up. You've been trained by some of the best people in the country, and now it's time to show that training as we continue on the next couple of weeks. "
On communicating with the players
"On Saturday we met. We made sure that I talked to them, then we split up by position, and we talked. The upperclassmen have gone through it. We've had a couple of guys go through it three times. They understand it. My concern is for the young guys, the young guys who were a part of the H-Town Takeover, and them analyzing it and seeing it in their faces. I do feel comfortable that it is better after a couple of days. It goes back to our leadership. Our leadership has done a great job of explaining to those guys that this is how it works. This is the business part of what you want to get accomplished. I think it has gotten through their brain to say `I'm here for a purpose. What is my purpose?' Our purpose in the next three weeks is those 16 seniors. They understand that, and we're going to work our tails off to get them win number 10."
On maintaining the recruiting process and keeping commits
"That's the first thing we did. We sat down with the staff and I told them, `you're going to see every one of our commitments. I don't care if you have to stay at their school for five hours and stay in their house for four hours. It doesn't matter. There is nobody more important than those committed kids.' It's the stability part of it. I want to make sure they understand that we're business as usual. We're going to see some different faces in there. I'm not going to wear a grill, I'm not going to dance around, but I'm going to be me. With the things that were put in place here, there is testimony to that. [When] you win 22 games and only lose four, there is a reason for that. There is a plan in place, you're coming into this plan and we can be successful. It is a very talented group."
On keeping the program going
"It's the recruiting part of it and keeping this recruiting class in tact. It's just pounding away and having things like this where they can see we're capable of doing it at a certain level. The bowl game itself is going to be critical. It's going to be an evaluation, and we're all being evaluated: myself and Coach [Major] Applewhite. Every one of those kids is going to take a look at our program and ask if we have lost something because we lost a couple of people on staff. It's critical for us to perform. I told the kids if you want to help this program out, if you want to keep this brand the way it is right now, then you have got to practice your tail off and you've got to finish your final exams coming up next week. They've got to do an unbelievable job of finishing out strong, and whatever game they put us in, we've got to play extremely sharp and well. That will send a message out to all of those recruits."
On what it would mean to him to be named the permanent head coach
"I don't even think of it that way. I say this in all sincerity, and this is where I am a little bit old-school, because I have been asked that question before and everybody says `well it's got to be your motivation to want to do this,' but I don't even look at it closely. The people in this room who know me know all I want to do is make sure that we, myself with the organization, give them every opportunity to succeed. If it works out, great, if it doesn't, five or 10 years from now, I want guys like Tyler McCloskey or Greg Ward Jr., to say `that guy gave us everything he had.' That's it. I'm satisfied. You don't fool a locker room; a locker room doesn't lie. When you do that, I'm good with the result as long as these kids feel like this guy gave us an advantage, he made us ready and whatever happens in the game, I'm good with."
On preparing for the bowl game with staff changes
"We activated five guys to go out on the road recruiting. I was more concerned about the recruiting than I am about the football part. The part about myself is I'm under the rules of a head coach, and I can only go see the guy one time, so now there's a difficulty. I'm [also] dealing with media. So if we don't trigger five other guys on the road, we're out there with four guys, and that's insanity. The organization of recruiting is critical at this point. I don't worry about the football part of it. These guys are capable. They're young, they're eager and they're ready to go. When you have things in place like we do, the kids understand that they're going to have to pick it up a little bit too and do a great job of motivating each other. The football part is not a concern to me, but the recruiting part to make sure that with our competition -- the guys going after our recruits -- we have enough people out there to fend them off."
On the early reaction from the commitments
"They've been great. You have seen #Ban17ofBrothers on Twitter. I've hit them up personally; everyone has hit them up. It's been tremendous. They're on board. We're going to have them all up here on Saturday, and it's going to be fun. They're going to see what we're all about."
On the schedule leading up to the bowl game
"We have three schedules put together, and we get 15 opportunities. We probably won't use all of those, but we're ready to go. I don't know when [the bowl game] is, but we're ready to go. From doing this a long time, normally Sunday night be ready for the call or at least Monday morning. Whatever date they give us, we'll be ready for."
On balancing the veterans and young players' playing time
"The practices, at least the first three practices coming up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be fundamental. It will be our ones and ones and twos and twos, and I'm going to give them anywhere from nine to 10 horns, so five-minute periods. After that, the puppies are going to go out in their full pads and get after it. I want to see what we have for the future and see if there is somebody who may be able to help us get those guys. We'll do that three days in a row, give them Sunday and Monday off, because I believe we'll find out our destination then. I want to give our staff a chance to make a game plan, and then come back on Tuesday of next week and do a normal practice week of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We'll probably have another Thursday in there someplace, and then probably end up doing it again until we find out exactly when the date is."
On being a head coach versus having more hands-on control as a defensive coordinator
"I don't want to make this too much of `I'm the head coach' talk, but if I am the head coach, I will always have my hand in the defense. That's just natural. There are going to be people who obviously you're going to trust a lot more, guys who you've worked with. The CEO part of it is important, the managing part of it is important, but making sure if you have ideas [is important too]. At the end of the day, you're judged by wins and losses. I will always be a part of that room, and I will always have a chance to give ideas. I also know I wouldn't micromanage. There's one thing that can really make people stagnant and not want to work for you, which is always telling them what to do. I give my ideas and make sure they understood what I wanted, but it's their baby."
On young coaches stepping up
"C.J. Irvin comes to play. He had a chance to be with Derek Warehime and I know our kids respect the heck out of him. Roosevelt Maggitt is working with the defensive line and our kids love him. He is so fired up and has gigantic smile from ear to ear every time I see him down the hallway with this extra responsibility. He has great people to lean on like Cameron Malveaux and B.J. Singleton, guys that can really help him though the process of motivating other people. That's usually what happens when you get younger guys in there, your vets always help you out. James Casey's body of work speaks for itself. If I'm Tyler McCloskey and I look at that guy, an NFL guy, has a dynamic personality and is a hardworking guy, they are going to listen to that guy.
Like I said before, I don't worry about that. I really don't. If these kids are trained like we think they are trained, we are going to be fine. Everybody is going to help. The thing I always look at is are we at a disadvantage in some other aspect. That's why we had to activate these guys and get them on the road. The football part those guys will be fine; they are all qualified. The cool thing about it is they are very youthful so it's going to be a lot of juice out there. They are out to try to impress myself and Major [Applewhite] and they are going to do a great job and I'm excited to watch them go to work."
On letting coaches know it's their time to shine
"They know. In this profession, you know. There's a lot of times that some of our younger coaches sit and wait for their opportunity. They are very talented, but there's like a pecking order that goes into it; what you can say and not over stepping your bounce, but when they are let loose it's really cool to watch people get creative and take ownership of their positions. That's what I see right now. That's what I'm excited about. That upstairs is very youthful and their excited."
On what it means to be chosen by Hunter Yurachek to be the face right now
"Obviously, appreciative to him. I hope the kids understand how much we are going to work for him. I really do. Maybe Hunter saw that, but you will have to ask him. I don't want to put words in his mouth. I know the journey that we have been on. This two-year journey has been incredible. Regardless of what happens through this whole thing, its our obligation to put the pedal down and give absolutely everything that we have for these kids and this brand. If you do this for a living, you make sure you make it better. That's really important to me. Hopefully those kids understand that that is what we are going to do. We are talking about a push for whatever it is, four weeks or five weeks whenever we line up to play. We are going to hammer it down and we are going to do this for these kids."
On the Memphis game injuries
"My point to Ed Oliver and even to Greg Ward Jr., is we will monitor their practice reps. Greg has to make sure he throws the football to keep his rhythm. I told Ed to get better. Get rested and get better because who ever we play I want the 100 percent Ed Oliver. I already know what he can do so there's no need to make him do 1,000 reps before this game. We know what Ed can do. What the time table is in terms of his recovery, I don't know. It's not a major deal. If we manage and rest him correctly, I expect for him to be full throttle come bowl game."
On Ed Oliver's tweet
"Its important. Sometimes you analyze things and you start to come up with conclusions. I told our kids to be very careful about social media, because sometimes something that you mean in a certain way gets perceived as something else. When Ed put that out there, I think that pretty much told everybody `this is my purpose.' He's been great. If there's one thing about that guy it's that he loves this place, he really does and since day one. He has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder to say `I'll carry us a little bit. We are okay. Challenge us and see what happens.' That's the real cool part about Ed."
On speculations on TV reports wearing on the team
"I can't say that to be honest with you. If you ask the kid maybe they will tell you something different, but I think I have a really good pulse of the team. One thing I can see in their eyes when I met with them on Monday was `we are good coach, give us a schedule.' That's really the sense that I got. With the younger guys, I'm not so sure about those guys so we will constantly monitor them. Those vets, finally said to themselves `we are good, give us a schedule and get us organized.' They had a great lift today and we will be able to get on the practice field on Thursday. I will be able to answer that question Thursday after practice. These kids have battled through a whole bunch of things this year and they have always responded. They have never let us down. They have always gone at it with a great attitude and like I told them, I don't expect that to change. Past behavior is future behavior. What they are doing right now leads me to believe that when we hit the practice field, we are going to be okay."
