“The one thing I came out of the East Carolina game with is the fact that I’m really proud of how our team hung tough. The drive by our offense to get the go-ahead points, the way our defense played down the stretch and our best punt was our last punt. So there are a few things you take out of the game and realize that the goal right now for us is to improve as a football team and that’s what we’re going to work on this week.
On how you replace David Wang at the guard spot
I think we’ll work Michael Via there this week along with Courtney Prince and Matt Arkema, but we’ll probably put Via there at guard and go from there. We have those two other guys but the thing right now is to get Via there. You know, Via is knowledgeable, he’s been in the battles and he can play several positions for us.
On running the ball 50 times during the East Carolina game
It kind of came about as the game went along, I think you always have to be able to run the football; that’s just something the good teams are able to do. We had our moments throwing it and we had some breakdowns throwing it, but we need to continue to work on both running and throwing the football and do whatever the situation calls for. That’s going to be our objective.
On what you think Logan learned and took away from Saturday’s game
I think he learned about where the ball needs to go and when it needs to go. Anytime you’re playing quarterback and there’s so much going on and there’s just a learning curve there. We’ll go through it with Logan, but the thing I really believe is he’ll learn from this game he’s a smart guy he’ll be better each and every game. I give East Carolina credit, I thought they played tough and got to us a couple of times. In the end I think Logan will learn from this and I don’t have any doubt about that.
On continuing to look at the punter position
We’ll continue to look at it this week. Michael Branthover was bombing them last week in practice. He’s a little bit inconsistent so I’m going to continue to look at that I think competition continues for our kickers and we’ll keep looking at it this week. On how you feel about your nickel package this year I think Cris Hill played well Saturday, probably his best game since he’s been at Virginia Tech; he did several things that were very good. The captains awarded him defensive player of the game and probably should have. To see him play like that, I was pleased to see it. He’s an athletic guy, he’s fast, he’s tough and if he continues to play like that he can really help us. And Kyle Fuller got the coach’s defensive player of the game so that’s two guys that really came through when we needed them to come through.
On how pleased you were with holding down East Carolina’s offensive attack
I thought we played extremely well. The thing you have to do against East Carolina is be able to tackle those good athletes in the open field and for the most part we did a great job with that. They don’t mind throwing it for 3 yards but what they’re hoping is they’re going to gain another 10 and I thought we tackled well in the open field, which was critical for that ball game.
On Arkansas State and what sticks out about them
They’re athletic, have a lot of formations and they’re averaging 480 yards a game. The quarterback is hitting 74 percent of his passes and averaging 282 yards a game. Their defense is athletic and can really run. They’re not as big as some defenses we’ll see but these boys can really, really run. They’re just a good football team coming in here. They hammered Memphis; I’m telling you this is a good football team.
On the development of the defensive line
That’s big. The two freshmen tackles, Corey Marshall and Luther Maddy made improvements and Tyrel Wilson, Zack McCray, and Duan Perez-Means, our defensive ends, they play hard and you see them getting better, so I think we just need to continue in that direction.
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