Opening Statement
“I think for us as a football team, we need to concentrate on the details offensively, defensively, special team-wise. Offensively, we didn’t really get it done – one block away, lack of overall execution. Defensively there were 16 plays, I think, that we had a missed assignment on. Again I think James Madison played well, very efficient, they are well coached and they did what they need to do to win the football game.
“Now we are talking about East Carolina, a team that scored 100 points in the opening two ball games, averaged over 500 yards of total offense. [Dominique] Davis, who transferred from Boston College, is playing well at quarterback. They have dangerous receivers, and defensively, they have their secondary back and they have some speed guys at defensive end so it will certainly be another challenge for our football team.”
Mental errors on defense:
“The things that we have in places can be corrected, things like taking care of the details. We are a little bit young on defense but we need to grow up in a hurry here, and take care of the details.”
What went wrong? Did you get deflated after the long touchdown reception?
“The long touchdown on the little screen where we missed a couple tackles kind of changed the game around. I think that got them back in it, that got their momentum going but you know plays happen like that. When you give up that long of a play, we did up in the Boise game, and in this one and it was missed tackles. Those are the ones that kind of I think change the game around, they’re momentum plays, they’re plays that they don’t have to take a lot of snaps; in other words, to get the ball down the field that far on us you’d have to take a lot of snaps and a couple missed tackles, and I think that long play in the Boise game the long play in this game certainly affected both games.”
Nick Becton. Will he play against East Carolina?
“Yeah we talked about that, we need to get some of our backups in there in the offensive line. I think we got a little gassed and we played better in that first series then we did after that, and I think it’s just the fact we got to get some of our backups in there in the offensive line.”
On the injuries in the defensive front line and now at defensive tackle
“Depth is an issue. Whoever’s listed as second, that’s the people we need to step up here, that’s what we’re looking for here as far as our football team.”
What about Nick Acree? Or will anyone, maybe a freshman, get a bigger look?
“We pretty much have our depth chart established. Those second team guys that are on the depth chart that’s who is in the best position to step up and help this football team right now.”
How do you handle the psyche of the team?
“You know things change quickly in athletics and exactly a week ago today we’ve had two disappointments there’s no question, but you know if we were 2-0 what would be important right now is what we do now. And if we’re 0-2 what’s important is what do we do now, and you know we’re a good football team, we just haven’t played as well as we want to play. And obviously we want to play because the kids, they desperately want this thing and the coaches want it, we just got to keep grinding and play like a good football team and that’s what we’re working at.”
On 1995, starting 0-2 and bouncing back – can this football team do it?
“I think there’s great character on our football team; I think our leaders are excellent. I think the people that stand up and talk before our football team practice what they preach, they play hard, they give you everything they’ve got and so I think that’s what gives you hope. I’ve said all along that if you like seeing your guys on Monday after you’ve had a disappointment then you got the right quality of character and right kind of guys. And we look forward to seeing our team today and get started here on East Carolina.”
On Barquell Rivers coming back
“We’re waiting for it to happen, we’d sure like to see him back out there but that’s still a wait and see right now.”
Update on Chris Drager
“I saw him this morning and we haven’t had our staff meeting yet, but Chris was hoping that he’d be able to play this week but we’ll have to wait and see.”
With the lack of experience on defense, does that make the offensive struggles more frustrating because you have such high expectations for those guys this year?
“We’re not experienced, we’ve lost a couple guys as an offensive line from last year and from injuries this year. You know it’s a football team, offensively, like I said, we were just a block away a couple times, we’d turn the ball over a couple times in critical situations so we have to get that corrected. And defensively, like I mentioned, we had sixteen places where the play could have been better. You know it’s a team thing all the way and that’s how we approach it.”
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