Football: Head Coach Bill Stewart Teleconference
October 12, 2008 03:26 PM | General
October 12, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Quotes from Head Coach Bill Stewart's teleconference held on Sunday afternoon.
On Saturday’s win over Syracuse
We’ve had the morning to review the Syracuse game. The players are watching film right now. We will watch film today, lift and run today; there will be no practice tonight. They will be off tomorrow for their classes and late labs, and we will begin preparation on Tuesday.
Looking at the football game, I want to compliment the Syracuse Orange. I thought their coaching staff did a tremendous job, and I thought their players played hard, and they gave a great effort. That was an excellent football game, and we are very fortunate and happy to come out of that with a win. I was very pleased with the way our football team kept their poise, played hard and stuck with the game at the end when we made some big plays.
We will go over individual efforts tonight in our meeting with the players but I was really pleased to see, at the end of the football game, Coach Mullen make a tremendous call with nine men in the box. We put motion in, we were in the ‘I’ formation, we worked the orbital motion around and took the corner out.
The blocks by Ryan Stanchek, Mike Dent, Greg Isdaner, Jake Figner and even backside Selvish Capers got the line. It was a tremendous call run, and it was blocked like it was manuscripted. Tyler Urban had a nice block and then Will Johnson sprung Noel at the point of attack. Noel did the rest, and he took it 92 yards which was great to see.
I thought Patrick McAfee had another tremendous day. He averaged 47 yards on the punt. We do a highlight film of the top 10 plays, and sometimes it goes over but we call it the Top 10 and he had three punts to down the ball at the two. He hit a 53-yarder with great coverage and he did a good job.
I also thought our defensive guys rushed very hard, and they did a nice job so I was pleased with that.
I am very frustrated about the penalties. I watched them and we had a couple guys make penalties but they were the guys we ran behind at the end. I was so proud that they hung in the ball game, and they kept their composure. It was frustrating for them to get those calls but that’s part of the game. I was pleased with our return game, and I think we did OK there.
Defensively, I thought our guys played with great passion, I was disappointed we let them out at the 2-yard line, and I was very disappointed we let them out from the 10-yard line as well; they changed field position on us. I thought our defense played tremendous football. They were good.
Offensively, the stats ended up looking ok, however, I’m frustrated about the penalties that kept us out of our rhythm. I was not very pleased with our time of possession, which was only 25 minutes. I was tickled that Jarrett Brown hung in there and he was not at full strength. He did an OK job, and he’ll get better and better. I thought Wes Lyons had some nice catches, one for a crucial first down. Jock Sanders did a nice job receiving the ball, but we just didn’t pitch and catch the way I wanted to do it. We’ll get that all worked on, go back to the drawing board and work hard trying to improve our passing game.
We played a lot of people and that was good to see. I was very pleased with the way our guys held up conditioning-wise. It was a happy locker room after the game and we’re 2-0 in the BIG EAST which we’re pleased with.
On fans ‘booing’ different play calls
We have the best fans in the country. They are passionate, and they want us to do so well. The things that the fans don’t see, they just see the end of the play. If we were out there all day throwing bubble screens, I would boo too, but we weren’t. We had three level floods on, we had triangle reads, short, long and deep coming over the middle, but we missed some stuff.
We tried to throw the ball deep to Alric Arnett, and we were setting it up but that little No. 10 game in, a youngster, and he got beat earlier but just when we threw the take off route to him, he passed up about 15 yards. Well, the play had already been called. I did not want an audible with Jarrett, I didn’t think he was comfortable at the time. and I let it ride. Our seniors will handle that.
The whole football team and this staff loves our fans. We’re not mad at our fans, but they were just frustrated when they saw the end result of the ball being in the flat. If Jarrett didn’t think the deep routes were open, he threw the ball down. He did what he thought was right.
On Jarrett Brown
He got nicked up last week and he had a sore thigh and a shoulder. We had one quarterback on the shelf. Jarrett played very hard, and he did a good job. After the game someone told me that he wasn’t very pleased with his performance. Jarrett is a competitor, and he was down on himself. It’s my job, Coach Mullen’s job and the rest of the team’s job to get him back up. Jarrett Brown was in a tough situation, and he led his team to a victory. The last time I looked, he was 2-0 as a starter.
