Football: Rodriguez Press Conference Quotes
September 02, 2003 03:17 PM | General
September 2, 2003
 Rodriguez |
What did you learn from watching the East Carolina/Cincinnati game?
“The only thing we are going on right now is the limited coverage that you saw on ESPN, in that you can see the front, but have a hard time seeing the secondary. It has been interesting in meetings yesterday and today. We are supposed to receive their film today around the start of practice. Tonight we will break the film down and getter a better idea of ECU’s schemes. They are in the same situation because they will receive our film around the same time. We concentrated yesterday more on making corrections from the Wisconsin game and today will be guided towards East Carolina.”
Did anything stick out from Coach Thompson’s team?
“From the limited views that we watched the game, we saw some pressure packages. They used some man coverage and a different type of 2-deep zone. They have done some in the past but not as much as we have seen. We’ve gone back and watched some Southern Miss film. We watched some film when Coach Thompson was at Arkansas. Right now we are comparing film from all three schools and see how they tie in.”
Is there any truth to the saying that ‘teams make the most improvements between the first and second games’?
“I guess that depends on how well they play game one. If you play poorly in game one, you hope you can make improvements in game two. I will say that you can find out a lot about your team. The first game you’re not sure how you’re going to do. After the first game there is a whole lot of coaching being done. You find out what your guys can do and see if they can take corrections. That is the biggest thing you’ll find in week one - who has improved individually from taking corrections from the first game. That is why I don’t panic if a guy doesn’t play, especially a new guy. As long as he is willing to make corrections and get better as the season goes along, we’ll be okay. You start to find that out in week two, week three and so on.”
Weather permitting; will you practice on the grass this week?
“Yes. I wanted to use the grass all week. Yesterday and today are out. I’m hoping we can go Thursday and get used to the grass. We will definitely practice on their field on Friday. It shouldn’t be that big of an issue. Everything is probably under water right now. Maybe we’ll bring our paddles and our boats.”
On pass coverage versus Wisconsin:
“I think our secondary did a pretty good job coverage-wise. We had a couple breakdowns in certain spots. We didn’t get the pressure that we have to get. They didn’t have 10 seconds to throw it but there were a few times it seemed like they did. When we have a three-man rush we have no pressure. We have to be creative and create pressure. I thought in our man coverage in particular, our secondary did a good job.”
On depth at running back:
“We thought Erick (Phillips) played pretty well. He only ran the ball a couple of times but he played well without the ball. We didn’t get (Jason) Colson in like we wanted to. We are going to get him in the games. He has earned that right. I think sometimes he gets a little nervous, just like I’m sure Erick did on Saturday. Kay-Jay (Harris) is getting better, too. He is starting to understand what we are trying to do. Those three will be ready to go. And then Hikee (Johnson) who can play both fullback and one-back for us, did some nice things on special teams. Moe Fofana played about 20 plays. He did okay but even Moe can play better and he knows that. Our backs are solid. I thought Quincy really ran hard and did a nice job. We are going to expect a lot out of that group.”
