Press Conference: ODU football coach Bobby Wilder

Opening Statement: We are coming off a hard fought 52- 38 loss at ECU, a game that was exciting from start to finish where we trailed 35-31 entering the fourth quarter. I felt like we were in a great position to win this game, our kids competed hard throughout the entire game and I was very proud of that. We had 22 busses accompany us to ECU and I heard somebody there commented on how that was the most busses they had ever had show up. Previously the most was 10 and that was when they were playing NC State.

We had so many students that there were moments in that game that I felt it was a home game, with the roughly 5,000 ODU fans there you could hear the ODU chants coming from the crowd and it was very inspiring to myself and our players. It was a lot of fun to be a part of that, I just wish that we could have given everybody apart of that a win but a special thanks to everyone especially our 12th Monarchs.  If this is how we’re going to travel in the future then this is going to get really entertaining.

In terms of the game it really came down to far too many mistakes on ODU’s part to beat the best pre-season team in Conference USA. Some key turning points were the last play of the first half where we were leading 17-14, it felt like we were really going to go into the half with the lead or at least force a field goal. Shane Carden scrambled out of the pocket and we were about to sack him when both of our defensive backs came out of coverage, so we gave up that touchdown and that put us down 21-17. The first drive of the second half we missed a pick up on a blitz, Taylor tried to scramble but we got the ball knocked away, making it a 14 point swing. We were down 28-17, the remainder of the game we just kept chasing points.

Also in this game we had 20 players play their first snap of college football. We had 12 of those on defense, seven on offense, and then two of our specialist. While not an excuse, it was just that ECU was the better team. I’m really excited that those 20 guys got that experience and that experience should lead to improvement. We as the coaches will help shape them from week one to week two, because there is such newness to that, you as a player don’t even know what you’re going to do. For the most part those 20 new guys had some great learning experiences in that game and that should help us gain confidence as a football team.

Starting with special teams I felt our kicker was excellent, he had six touchbacks in this game.  Our new punter, Jake Walsh, was solid, he averaged 43 yards a punt. We had a couple minor things that were experience issues, but those are easy fixes.

Defensively, we played 28 guys. That was part of the plan from the beginning, to play a lot of guys to gain some of that experience.

The biggest thing that happened in this game was, number one, guys just didn’t trust their keys on defense. Not everybody was in tuned with our “do your 1/11” philosophy on defense. Guys were so excited to make every play that we were just out of position too much. I said going into this that we would need a bend and not break mentality and we broke in the red zone, they recovered the fumble for a touchdown and that was a critical play in the game. That touchdown took a lot out of us and really brought our inexperience out in the second half. We didn’t play with the level of discipline that we needed to.

One area that I was very pleased with was our run defense, they had 22 rushing attempts in this game for a total of 34 yards. We had excellent run fits. Our pass defense was poor, but we will improve that and work on our rush lanes this week. In the area in the middle of the field where the linebackers and the safeties need to be coming up they rushed by and that’s an area that we can fix.

Offensively, I thought we had a very good performance. It wasn’t a great one because we had a turnover that lead to a touchdown.  We played 19 guys in this game, seven of them who had never played a snap before. I thought the quarterback was on key and I think this is one of the best games that he’s played, even against probably the best team we’ve ever played and the fact he was 38 for 51 for 338 yards, 3 touchdowns with no interceptions he rushed the ball 11 times for 52 yards and a touchdown. That counted for 390 yards of offense against a good football game on the road. Our offensive line was really good in this game. ECU came for us at every angle in this game. Both of our tackles were really solid in this football game.  Wide receivers, running backs were really good. We had a few sensational catches. Jakwail Bailey’s one-handed catch that gave us our lead was really impressive. We were very good in the red zone, we only had one opportunity where we didn’t score a touchdown, we were 5 for 6 in the red zone.

Running the ball we were efficient. We had 23 carries for 90 yards. The plan this game was to throw the ball, we called 68 pass plays in the game.

Looking at this week’s opponent in Maryland, they’re 1-0 coming off a 43-10 win against Florida International. Our big challenge this week is going to be containing a very explosive offense. They have some quality athletes and their quarterback was 20 for 23 for 281 yards and three touchdowns and he had 11 carries for a 105 yards and 2 more touchdowns. They’re very good at receiver and running back their tight ends are solid. Defensively, they are very impressive. What really jumped out at me was that they held Florida International at 4 for 17 on 3^rd down. That’s impressive. Their special teams are solid as well. They’re a good operation all the way around. They were picked to finish 3^rd in their division behind Florida state and Clemson. We’re going to have to be good in all three phases. We’re going to have to create some opportunities to win this game.

 

Questions

“Do you anticipate playing as many guys on defense again this week?”

-I do. We’re going to have to get a lot of guys to play in this game. Maryland is going to be up tempo. Much like ECU and we’re going to have to get a lot of guys to play against those up tempo teams.

“In regards to the amount of men you’re playing how much is due to playing up-tempo teams and how much is due to wanting to give them that experience?”

 

-It’s a little bit of both. We’re trying to develop some depth, some unity there and we’re also trying to find out who our best players are.

“Any way to tell when you will start playing for unity and continuity?”

 

-Not yet because I want to see some guys step forward and gain experience. I think we’ll see some tremendous growth from the first week to the second week. The guys are very determined to have a very productive week this week.

“Any newcomers that surprised you?”

–        No one surprised me because I knew that they were all going into that game wanting to win that game. I will say that Jevon Neal played 59 snaps and that’s a lot and he played well. He did a very good job not giving up big plays. He did well for his first college snaps. Rob Thompson, a freshman, played 18 snaps and did well for the first time. Richie Staton played 26 snaps in this game and boy is he good. He had a hit on Cooper that I could feel from the sideline. There is a lot of potential and lot of improvement. Chris Smith, a transfer, played well. He played 41 snaps which is a lot of football to play at the defensive tackle position. Scott Wiggins, a young guy, played 32 snaps and did well. On offense, Conner Mewbourne played great as a redshirt freshman. Melvin Vaughn, has to get used to the speed of the game, but he had an awesome tackle on kickoff. Zach Pascal, another red shirt freshman, he was solid in that game. I thought Cam Boyd was solid as well. There was a lot of good experience that was gained by these young boys.

 

“Did you prove you were FBS ready in this game?”

-I feel like we did. I’ve made the statement that in all 12 games we should be in a position to win in the 4^th quarter. The ultimate goal was to beat ECU and obviously we didn’t. But we played football all the way through the 4^th quarter. So I feel like we made a statement that we can play at that level. We wanted to make the statement that we can play at that level in Conference USA. ECU is the best in the league and I feel like we played toe to toe with them.

 

“Do you need more from the running game?”

-That’s going to come with time. In this game we felt like we really needed to throw the ball to push the tempo. We were really just trying to get them to run out of gas, not giving them the opportunity to sub much, to slow down the pass rush. I feel like we had some good runs at times, but that was part of our game plan was to do a lot of throwing.

 

“Did you have fun?”

-Oh my gosh that was fun! That was as much fun as I’ve ever had in coaching in 26 years. Great environment and great place to be.