University of Houston Athletics
Press Conference: Game 5 vs. UConn
9/26/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
HOUSTON FOOTBALL WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES (PDF)
HOUSTON (4-0, 1-0 American) vs. UCONN (2-2, 0-1 American)
TDECU Stadium • Houston, Texas • Thursday, Sept. 29 | 7 p.m.
HOUSTON HEAD COACH Tom Herman
Opening Statement
"I'm proud of our defense. I have been all season. Those guys continue to show up each and every week. They really played well again on Saturday. I was proud of the strides that the offensive made. They played well. It wasn't that they were playing awful. In the Cincinnati game, we were shooting ourselves in the foot in critical situations. The offense did a much better job finding a rhythm and finishing drives.
Again, proud of the entire team this week. Obviously, took a kickoff return for the touchdown. We have to get better on our punting. The punt return team, I thought they were just average. Overall pretty good night, and now it's on to our fourth football game in 19 days. We got in about 2 a.m. on Sunday. We let the kids sleep in, but our coaches were here at 7 a.m. We practiced late Sunday night. We got off the field around 9:30 p.m., and our coaches were here till around 11:15 p.m. Then we were back up here at 6 a.m. It's been a long few days for our coaching staff."
On the LSU coaching situation and if he has had a change of heart regarding not wanting to go on radio shows anymore
"The change of heart is that it doesn't matter. Everyone knows now how I feel. I'm not changing the way that I feel. Maybe that came across a little wrong. I'm just changing how I go about expressing those feelings, because me ranting and raving about it is not going to change it. Irresponsible journalism is more and more prevalent today than it ever has been. It stinks, because it affects people's lives and livelihoods. There's no recourse and no repercussion.
I've been on record many times saying we all get it wrong. We are all wrong. Last time I checked, nobody has ever been right on everything they have done. But if you're wrong, just say "I was wrong." I have a lot of respect for people, especially journalists, that can admit that. But that doesn't seem to be the case in today's climate. Nobody is really held accountable for being wrong because of the age that we live in. Rather than me ranting and raving, I have to spend my energy focused on a lot more productive things, because I'm not going to change it. I don't know what will or if it ever will. It is the nature of today's collegiate and professional sports climate. We have to understand a lot of these guys so-called journalists are not."
On motivation for the UConn game
"We don't have much to talk about, but I do believe that our returning players on our team are better than they were last season. We don't see this game as a chance for redemption. This program has lost one football game since the beginning of December 2014, and we have had a lot of big games in that two-year time span. The only game we lost was to Connecticut, but we don't focus on it. There is a bit of internal sense of liability, of atonement, to right some of the wrongs that occurred."
On if "here we go again" crossed his mind after the LSU coaching news
"No, if I did that I'll be saying here we go again a lot. You guys like talking about things. It's your job. It's my job to make sure 18-22-year old's play really hard on gameday and execute well."
On being pleased with the team's focus
"Yeah it's easy to come out and have a letdown after a big win on the road. A lot of teams would not have come out without the energy, focus and passion our team did. We are only guaranteed a small amount of games. The fun for these guys is gameday."
On if he is working to find ways to get freshman QB/WR D'Eriq King the ball
"Yes and no. We have a lot of weapons offensively we can use, and he's definitely one of them. He had a great night against Texas State. He will continue to get the ball as long as he's productive and protects the ball. We're not going to go overboard either."
On being physical and keeping the guys fresh this week
"We had full pads on yesterday night. The only thing we have done was limit the time on the field. On a short week like this we eliminate some position work so we can get same amount of scout team work."
On junior running back Dillon Birden's path on this team
"I called his head coach from high school after the Cincinnati game and thanked him for the quality young man that Dillon is. I wanted him to know that it's been a pleasure to coach Dillion. He plays really hard in practice and is a natural athlete. He does everything right and he's rewarded with playing time."
On playing a "regular" home game
"Well it's Thursday night, so that definitely doesn't feel regular. As long as the weather cooperates it'll be a normal home game atmosphere. The place should be packed and rocking, especially with a national television audience. It feels like it's been a long time since we've had a home game."
On the growth of freshman defensive lineman Ed Oliver
"He's maturing. I wouldn't call him mature. He's maturing, and by that I mean he's had some trouble staying locked in for long periods of time. He's learned from some of the veterans and Coach (Oscar) Giles, who is an unbelievable coach and mentor for him. You can see him grow up each and every week. He's attacking his job in a much more professional manner than he did when he first got here."
On the amount of specialty players on the team
"D'Eriq King and Kyle Postma are no coincidence. We want to recruit athletic quarterbacks. Kyle was in the exact same position that D'Eriq is in now. Kyle was in the spot last year where we had to move him to wide receiver in training camp. He probably would've stayed there the whole season if Adam Schulz hadn't gotten injured. You don't ever want to move a guy and flip flop him around, but it's nice to have that ability.
With Brandon Wilson, kudos to the previous staff on recruiting him. He's a very versatile guy. He rushed for over 100 yards and two touchdowns in one of the biggest games in program history without ever playing college running back. At the skill positions we want versatility and athleticism. We want guys with explosiveness and change of direction. Top-end speed is very unimportant and overrated in football. Football is a game of change of direction. It's not a game of straight line sprinter speed. Otherwise, all the guys in the Olympics would be playing football too. It's a game of change of direction, hip mobility and hip explosion. Any time you have an opportunity to recruit and bring in guys like that, regardless of position, it helps.
On what he learned from last year's UConn game
"I don't think about it much personally. I wasn't going to go undefeated in my entire career. It's going to happen, and we learn from it. I learned that we were very stubborn offensively in terms of our approach and trying to lean on the inside run game while knowing that was the strength of their defense.
I learned that teams get tired. That game came on the heels of a three game stretch of Vanderbilt, Cincinnati and Memphis. Cincinnati and Memphis were hard fought down to the wire games that took a lot out of our football team. UConn was coming off a bye week, and they were at home. I learned we have to be very mindful of the state of the team week to week in terms of their mental and physical exhaustion levels and take every step necessary to make sure they're in peak mental and physical condition when the foot hits the ball on gameday."
On preparing for the unexpected
"This is a grind, because we're playing four games in 19 days on the heels of how hard our training camp was. I said yesterday in our team meeting, 'whatever you've got left, that's what we need this week.' We'll take a deep breath on Friday and Saturday and regroup. I say that, but then we play Navy the next week on the road. We'll take as deep of a breath as we can and try to get our bodies and our spirits back, but right now it's petal to the metal.
We'll sleep when we're dead. That's a bit how it feels right now. It goes back to maturity. We're working like professionals. We're a mature football team, and they understand that we can't control the schedule, we can't control the weather and we can't control who it is on the schedule and when they fall. What we can control is how we prepare and the effort and energy we put into our preparation each and every day. They respond well."
On whether anything stuck out after the UConn loss
"Always have your finger on the pulse of your team as far as its mental and physical state. Especially coming off of the three games we've had back-to-back-to-back. I'm much more aware and observant of those things."
On going 6-for-6 in the red zone against Texas State
"Our offensive line is playing better. We were not playing well the first few games, and you have to run the ball down there, because you've got more bodies in less space. It becomes difficult to throw the football, so you've got to run it. Our offensive line grew up a little bit on Saturday against Texas State in terms of the way we ran the football."
On injuries and younger players getting the chance to play
"Marcus Oliver earned his spot. Kameron Eloph played because Alex Fontana had an infection in his elbow after Cincinnati and spent a couple of days in the hospital. He was available in the game but hadn't practiced much, so we had to start Kameron Eloph. Mason Denley and Alex Fontana will certainly be in the next game. Mac Long got dinged up a little bit, so he's going to try to move around, but he will be limited even if he's available. The battle right now is between Marcus Oliver, Kam Eloph, Mason Denley and Alex Fontana for those two dark sports."
On attacking UConn's defense
"I know it is very difficult to run the football inside. Their two defensive tackles Folorunso Fatukasi and Mikal Myers are as good as any you would find in our league, and they are big.
A unique part of their defense in the 3-4, you do the math, there are three linemen and four linebackers. Every time you try to run the ball there are seven guys in or around the box. Then on first and second down when you try to throw it, they drop those heads out, now there are eight guys in coverage. It's a very unique scheme.
Obviously they've been very good on defense. We've got to get the ball into our playmakers' hands when they get out in space. We've got to pick our spots when and how we run the ball inside. We're not going to abandon that, because that is who we are. We are better up front now than we were at this game last year. We've got to make more of an effort to get the ball away from those big bodies inside."
On the similarities of UConn's defense to Oklahoma and Cincinnati
"Cincinnati's two defensive tackles dominated the inside run game. By the schematic structure of Oklahoma as well, we have learned some valuable lessons in terms of what's good and what is not, but also the offensive line has gained some experience and can generate some momentum on offense."
On missed extra points by kicker Ty Cummings
"I leave him alone. He knows much more about what he did wrong. On both of the field goals, he just hit them wrong. On the first one, he swiped at it to the left. On the second one, he hit it at the top and barely got it off the ground. We had a bad day. We have a tremendous amount of confidence in him. He also kicked a bunch that went in and kicked a field goal as well."
On the defense giving up only 42 points in four games
"Good. We've stopped the run and made teams one dimensional. If you can stop the run without adding players to the box, then you are going to make life difficult for the offenses, and we're doing that right now."
Houston Football student-athletes Tyler McCloskey and Cameron Malveaux also met with the media on Monday.
SENIOR DEFENSIVE END Cameron Malveaux
On getting another chance at UConn
"I look at it as another step towards our goal of getting to the conference championship."
On finding things to improve on after a blowout win
"We don't discredit wins, but that was not a win we're going to hold as a trophy."
On the pride the defense takes in stopping the run
"That's a big goal of ours every game. It's written big on the board in really big bold letters 'stop the run'."
On if seeing 'stop the run' in bold letters on the board makes it stick in the defenses head
"It's repetition. It's already in our head. We already know our team's goal of playing great defense."
On preparing for Thursday night games on a short week
"The coaches do a really great job on keeping everything the same. After that game, we came back and had a padded practice the next day."
On what happens to offenses when you shut down the run and make them one dimensional
"It forces them to pass the ball more whenever you stop the run. It allows us to open up our playbook more and throw different things at them."
On remembering the feeling after the UConn loss last year
"It's not something you forget about. We were 10-0 and on a roll. Being crushed like that stayed with us, but we still had our conference championship goal ahead of us."
SENIOR TIGHT END Tyler McCloskey
On last year's UConn game
"We've talked about how as an offense they out prepared us. You can say what you want, we had guys hurt, but they out prepared and outplayed us. This week has been about how that will not happen again, and that we know how important every single rep is. It could have been one rep that got us beat. We have put more importance on making sure we don't have that, and they don't out prepare us."
On having a padded practice on Sunday
"We take great pride in being the best trained team in America. We have the best coaches, and we prepare the best. Nobody does what we do. That goes hand-in-hand on having a padded practice on a Sunday after a game. I don't think that many teams do that after a Thursday game. It's helpful to us in how we play, because we can be physical. You can't actually talk about playing physical when you don't do it in practice."
On if the games are starting to blend together because of the short weeks
"My body clock doesn't feel like it's Monday. It's Wednesday for us. That is the day the game fell on. Today is Wednesday, because that is the kind of practice that we would have on a Wednesday. For my body clock yesterday was Tuesday, because that's the type (of practice) we're going to have. That's just how we are in the week."
On if freshmen can adapt their body clock
"They really didn't have a choice or they would get run out. They've done a really good job following our lead. We've been showing them the way and hoping they can keep up."
On preparing for a chaotic schedule
"Anything compared to our camp is easy, so this is a cake walk right now. We're not up here at 5 a.m., until 10 p.m., so anything besides camp is easy."
On what this game means for quarterback Greg Ward Jr.,
"I'm sure he's excited to get back. He didn't get to play last year. To him it's just another football game. It's our senior year and there's probably not too much importance just because it's only the next game, and he only gets so many."
On the importance of the game because of last year's loss
"This is an important game, because we want to be conference champions, and that is our ultimate goal. This is the next step on that path. That's how we are looking at it. They out prepared us last year, so the most important thing to us this year is that they don't out prepare us again."
On the performances of the offensive line
"Those are some physical guys. They have probably the best offensive line coach in the country. Sometimes we think that he's crazy. He blacks out at practice and kind of loses his mind, but he gets them ready to play. They are fun to play next to and play behind. The communication that goes on within there is amazing. Those guys are smart, and they operate well."
On the offenses' improvement in the red zone
"It is huge. Our plan to win is to score and prevent touchdowns in the red zone. As an offense we focused all week on scoring points in the red zone. We don't kick field goals, we put it in the paint."
On freshman QB/WR D'Eriq King
"It is awesome to have another weapon that can spread the ball all around and make the defense account for one more guy. He's done a great job. He's stayed humble, and he works hard. He will come out to practice today and have his head down going hard every single rep."
On keeping external noise out
"A part of that is how we prepare. We don't really have time to listen to what's going on outside, because if you're worried about what's going on out there you're going to come in here and get your face kicked in. If you're reading your own press clippings at a padded practice on a Sunday, you're going to get ran out of the building. Probably the biggest part of how we keep our heads level is how we prepare."
On Head Coach Tom Herman addressing coaching vacancy rumors
"From a team standpoint, we think he's different. He's not in it for the money. He genuinely loves us; I know he does. He cares about us. He's not worried about how big his bank account is. He's building something special. It's more important to him that we are building something special here."
On coming off a blowout win
"You just have to be super critical of the film. There are a lot of things that I did wrong, and I'm sure there are other position groups that have done the same thing. You have to go into practice and make it a point to correct those mistakes."
On being more involved in the passing game
"It is nice to catch the ball. I've been working hard trying to get my hips more mobile to run some routes. I've always said that there's nothing more pleasing than throwing a big block. Throwing a big block and then seeing Duke [Catalon] and Greg [Ward Jr.] run by is the most pleasing thing to do."
On the home crowd
"It is awesome. I've been here for four years. I've been to games on Thursday nights where the fans weren't there when we weren't having the record that we have now. Coming into a packed house is so incredible and intimidating for the other team. They run out of the tunnel, and all they see is a sea of red. It's fun for us."
On scoring a touchdown against Oklahoma earlier this season
"That was great. I just had to do it for the team. I didn't really do much on that play. Greg (Ward Jr.) had a great throw, and the offensive line protected. It felt great to score and put us that much further ahead. When we talked about that game it wasn't that important. It had no real ramifications on us being conference champs or not. Anytime you get in the end zone it's fun."
