University of Houston Athletics
Houston at Rice: Press Conference
8/27/2018 1:33:00 PM | Football
Monday, Aug. 27, 2018 • Houston
Carl Lewis Auditorium • Athletics/Alumni Center
HEAD COACH MAJOR APPLEWHITE
Opening Statement
"Good morning. I appreciate you being here."
On development
"It's week by week now as we face new opponents. We're always developing whether it's on the field, off the field or in the classroom. This Sunday, we took a hard turn toward Rice. As we started school last week, we started implementing some scout periods, but yesterday, we turned our focus solely towards Rice and everything that they present in all three phases of the game."
On no depth chart
"We've never released a depth chart prior to our first game. We've always released one going into our second game because we'd already played our first one. One thing we talk about with all of our players is that we don't really look at it in terms of starters. There are guys who play and there are guys who don't play.
"The amount you play is based on the trust that the staff and the players have in you, combined with your production level. It's very simple; if you want to play more, you need to create more trust and elevate your production levels. We don't get into the depth charts as much as we break it down like these are the guys that are going to play, and these are the guys that haven't produced or developed enough trust with their coaches or teammates to go out and play."
On expecting surprises for Ed Oliver
"Absolutely, he has every other season. I am looking forward to watching him play. You can tell what type of person he is on how competitive he is. You can see the fall camp schedule start to wear a little bit on him from the standpoint of 'I want play with someone else, coach.' It is time for him. It is his time on the year."
On Ed Oliver's mindset this season
"Yeah, we are all human. To some extent, those things seep into your minds, but he does an outstanding job just keeping it about ball. Just play with great effort and great intensity. Just keep it about the game."
On watching Rice footage to prepare
"It is confirmation on some things that you see. Whether it would be some Michigan defense, Stanford offense, or some special teams from Maryland, it is conformation from a lot of things you would think, but you need on game tape to verify."
On dependency of Stanford footage
"That is the difficulty of being able to going to look back and see three sides of the ball. Three different universities, same coordinators, but certain things work with Standard's players. They may not fit Rice or Maryland special teams, so you have to look and see what correlates at those universities.
Also, what ran at Rice are things that someone can hang your hat on. All coaches are going to adjust to their personnel but have to know the personality. After watching that offense at Stanford, there are a lot of similarities that you have been practicing. Some of the right things. You see some of the same things on the defensive side of the ball."
On focus
"Focus will not be an issue for our team. We're solely focused on Rice. That's the whole conversation. That's everything we're talking about. It's our first game. This is a rivalry game. This is a game we play for our city. We understand that this is our home town. If you're going to talk all of the H-Town takeover stuff, you better take over your town first. That's where our mind is, and that's what we're going to go do."
On redshirt
"We haven't ruled out anyone. We told all of the guys, if you're good enough, you're old enough. With this rule, it gives you the opportunity to play guys and get some experience. That's something that we have to adjust to weekly. In terms of after week one, these freshman have to play, how did they play, how did they contribute to us, where will they help us in terms of our depth and then you start to look at it in 'okay, we have three more with them' are they going to be somebody that we need to absolutely take the red shirt off now and that guy's going to play the next 11 regular-season games, or is this a guy we need to look at and say 'we need to pick and choose our spots with him. That will be evaluated weekly'."
On transfer rule
"Obviously, all the rules that were put forth should be in the interest of the student-athlete, and that gives that young person an opportunity to transfer. It's trying to eliminate the back channels that people use to find out who's transferring, so it's great that there's a portal that all the names go into."
"As soon as that young man or young lady says that they want to transfer, everybody knows at the same time. It's a good rule for the student-athlete. At the end of the day, it's still about transferring (from) a 4-year institution and going somewhere else. "
"There's a lot of factors that go into that decision for the student-athlete for them to make the right decision. Transferring is a very easy thing to do, but you have to live on the other side once you do it. I just wish that all student-athletes would think a little bit harder before they leave their institution."
On depth chart
"We want to play more than two corners. We want to play more than two inside backers in a 3-4. We want to play multiple guys. Same thing with our defensive line…we want to be able to rotate Payton Turner, Isaiah Chambers, and Aymiel Fleming and rotate guys up front. That's why we've taken that approach, and our players understand it. There are no starters."
On playing away game in town
"These type of rivalries, whether it's UCLA vs. USC, Houston vs. Rice, anything that's intercity is helpful. It's great for all the families to get to be there. It's great for all the alumni and fans, and it's great for the city itself. Even if you aren't an alumni of either of those schools, it's still great to be there because it's still your city. Obviously having the ability to have an away game in your city, you get to go to your home hotel and go through those same procedures that guys are used to. There's a lot of advantages to it, but No. 1 is getting to play in front of your friends and families. I expect there to be a ton of red. Early too. Not just at 11 a.m."
On the health of the team
"Just your typical bumps, bruises, bangs, and sprains here and there but everybody should be a full go. We'll see what happens. I'm not trying to set you up to something because there are things that happen during the week but, right now, we're a healthy ball club. We're ready to get back on the field tomorrow."
On the new roles at the kickoff return game
"Rule No.1 is taking care of the football. That means making good decisions and being able to get underneath the ball. We've been blessed to have guys here like Brandon Wilson for a couple of years. Last year John Leday had some good returns but we put the ball on the ground. Again, No.1 is the possession of the football and No.2 is great decisions. We've looked at different guys who have those skills, and we're going to work with those guys in terms of the rules and how we want to play that down. I feel very confident about the guys in the kickoff return game. They've done a great job, especially in the last two weeks."
On the offense's throwing technique and D'Eriq King's adaptation to it
"There's some different mechanics from a traditional drop-back team, RPO, putting the ball in the belly and then pulling it, out see some things down field. There's some ride-and-decide type of things that you have to do as a quarterback. There are some things that you have to pull out quickly and have a quick arm. D'Eriq has a strong but quick arm. He has adapted to the scheme very well, and Coach Kendal Briles has done a great job of understanding his strengths and weaknesses to try to showcase those."
