Football: Rodriguez Press Conference
October 28, 2003 03:11 PM | General
October 28, 2003
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| Rodriguez |
On Central Florida:
“We actually had some film on them last week. The coaches who weren’t out recruiting took a preliminary look. We then saw some film of them against Central Michigan. They are very athletic. I think there were some games they felt they should have won, or could have won. We don’t want them to hit their stride against us.”
Do you like having 1 p.m. starts?
“Noon is kind of nice. Some of the fans might prefer the afternoon. I like when the game is over and you can go home at 6 or 7 o’clock and spend two-three hours with your wife and kids. You can relax for a little bit. Those couple of hours on Saturday night are kind of nice – especially when you win.”
Has Kay-Jay Harris helped get the running game back on track?
“I think Kay-Jay has done a nice job and he is feeling more comfortable with his reads and the run game. The biggest reason though is our backs have been running hard. Up front we are getting a little more settled and staying healthy. Keeping guys healthy allows you to maintain a consistency level. We’ve had an injury a week while we’re trying to get guys settled.”
Is Jeremy Hines the clear number one at center?
“Yeah, right now he is. He has played well enough in the latter part of the Rutgers game and the Virginia Tech game to earn the starting center position.”
Can you compare Ryan Schneider to anybody?
“Kind of like (Gino) Guidugli as I think some of you mentioned Cincinnati. He is a fifth-year guy who has been in big ball games. He threw for 400 plus yards against Syracuse, 300 plus against Penn State. He has been in big stadiums and is not a guy to get flustered. The whole key to their offense has been centered around them.”
Any concern on your guys not having the same emotional level as they did last time out?
“Yes. We have talked about that at length. We wish they would have that same emotional level all of the time. Now it becomes expected because we’ve seen it. It’s helped because they’ve had a couple of days to get that game behind us. Again, we talked at length that we still sit at 3-4. This is a huge game because it gets us back to .500. It’s not good, but its better than where we were a month ago. Our guys are excited again to play in front of the home fans and just play football.”
