Football: Head Coach Bill Stewart Teleconference
October 26, 2008 05:27 PM | General
October 26, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Quotes from Head Coach Bill Stewart's teleconference held on Sunday afternoon.
West Virginia University Head Football Coach Bill Stewart
We’ve had a chance to review the film after going recruiting. Seven of the coaches left Friday morning and went to various places throughout the country recruiting, so that was a good lick for us to get out. It’s always pretty tough going in season, but that’s what you have to do. We had a very productive time out from what I’ve been able to get from the coaches. I’m glad we got a chance to get out there. Recruiting is going ok, and I’m very pleased about that.
I thought the game was certainly an exciting game, and I’m very proud of our football team. I thought our football team played with a great passion, very alert and I thought we were very much into the football game. We talked to them all week, really for 10-12 days, about poise under pressure. I was so afraid of intimidation tactics that have been used sometimes.
Out of league games, or games that you play the opponent just on a yearly basis, going to another conference, be it Marshall and the CUSA, Colorado in the BIG 12 or Auburn SEC, sometimes you can run into problems with intimidation. I just talked to the guys and the staff talked the guys. The seniors talked to the guys, and I want to compliment the senior class because they talked to the guys all week about holding our poise, doing things right and taking care of our business. There wasn’t a whole lot we could do about what they were going to bring to the table, but it was what we could bring.
We’re still going to use the motto this week –one at a time. It was an out of league game and it was a so-called ‘marquee’ game that everyone was so excited about, but it lost interest as the season progressed. We were still representing the BIG EAST. I wanted to do that, the staff wanted to do that and most importantly, our players wanted to do that in the finest fashion they could because we were representing the BIG EAST. It was a night game in Morgantown and those are special. We were greatly pleased.
It was a heck of a game. I really want to compliant the discipline of the Mountaineers. I was so proud of them. They disciplined themselves and we had one penalty, a push in the back, and I just couldn’t believe it. I walked over and told him that he can’t do that stuff but it was a freshman mistake. I will talk to the youngster today. This isn’t high school ball. The refs are paid, professional officials that are very competent at their job. There are seven of them out there, almost one for every player, so you have to be careful.
The score was good. I was tickled to finally get points on the board. We again put or defense in a bind with that one pick down on their side of the 50. I was tickled on how the guys fought back. I thought the 10th point was the most important point, that field goal. That to me was absolutely colossal-that drive. I was excited when that happened.
At halftime, we told the team that it was 86-20; that’s how much Auburn had outscored its opponents by the first half of its games. Then there was a 20-30 point swing against them in the second half. So I told them they just had to keep pounding them and keep blocking. They get the ball, we know that. We will take the wind and if the wind continues to do what its done, then we would kick this way, and we’d hold them. I wanted to take the wind in the third quarter because I was hoping that we wouldn’t need it in the fourth. I wanted to turn the game in the third quarter and that what my plan was. The defense went out and did a nice job. They got us out of trouble and the field goal was big early on in the third quarter. Then the pass from Pat White to Dorrell (Jalloh) was just tremendous. We caught them in man-coverage. Motion and movement was alive and well in Morgantown. We hit that and that was a big one. Noel then had a big run and the play by Dorrell in the fourth quarter was phenomenal.
We were trying to do was pressure and the extra guy in the box. Pat got hit in the teeth on Alric Arnett’s play but he didn’t get hit on Dorrell’s first touchdown but on the second. But coming back down in the fourth quarter, that was a crossing route, and we had to call a quick, shallow crossing route instead of a deeper crossing route like Alric’s because of the man coverage. We had to use quicker routes, because we had to push the ball down the field because the extra guy kept coming. We had to use quicker cross routes and that is what we hit Dorrell on. Pat tried it early but the guy tackled him, and this time he laid it out in front, and Dorrell took it. The rest was just Dorrell Jalloh’s effort and that broke the game open. That made it 27-17, and we didn’t look back from that point on.
Noel, God bless him, and everyone said what a great night he had running, but he was 5 for 5 on his blocks. I can’t tell you how much that impresses me, the staff and his teammates for a little guy of his size to step up and hit that SEC linebacker right in the chin. He got knocked to his knees a couple times, but he hit them right in their chin. He stepped up.
You have to understand the type of defense we went up against. They were big, strong, fast, burley and rough people. That’s why we went with that just to try to get the off balance and jumping to show their hands.
On the crowd
Our crowd was tenacious, rowdy, and enthusiastic, and our crowd was awesome. The first two turnovers I never hear a word, because I was too busy coaching, but looking back, one of the guys after the game said ‘hey coach, they never left you. They never left your team after those turnovers’. They responded on many third downs and many turning points in that game. I really want to thank our crowd, because they were Mountaineers cheering from their heart.
On injuries
We’re in good shape, and we’re in better shape now. Scooter Berry is fine, had an MRI and has a clean bill of health. Pat White is fine. Jarrett Brown was a little rusty early but in the second half of the game, he kept working and was ready to go.
My respect for Coach Rhodes is very complimentary. He is a fine defensive coordinator. If somebody doesn’t know it, they can just look back to the Pitt game last year. So I thought, same guy, same scenario, same scheme, I wanted to do some ‘check with me’. We did ‘check with me’ and tried to get Auburn to show their hand. So we gave a leg kick, and we changed our indicator. So we had them coming down on a leg kick and then we ran some plays. Our speed and our conditioning were excellent. We have never been out-conditioned this year. Mike Joseph has these guys in tremendous shape. We went into the two minute hurry up and Pat was getting the guys clicking and we were calling things, running the zone and that’s when Noel started busting those zones. Even little Mark Rodgers came in and Jock Sanders came in and busted some. We went to a check with me, hurry up-no huddle-just to give Auburn a different look to keep them on their heels, and we threw the ball more.
On Connecticut
UConn plays the corner coverage. Randy was a good quarterback. They know how to attack us. Last year, we just busted the zone open on them a bunch of times. Tomorrow morning, we’ll devour their film. Then we go over the cut ups but the big thing is that we have to do what we do best.
BIG EAST League
I call this league the black and blue league – I call it the bruise league - because we pound each other. Last year’s league champs were 5-2; UConn and West Virgina. We’ve only won this thing with a record of 7-0 twice. This league is rough and tough, and I watched those scores yesterday. Who would have thought?
But I’m going to tell our team this; we beat a pretty good team that were co-champs with us last year 66-21. We also beat a pretty good ECU team 48-7. If I remember correctly, in the second game of the season, we went to Greenville and got thumped 24-3. Our people better get that in their head. They celebrated Thursday night, Friday and they enjoyed it a little bit yesterday but our Mountaineers better crank our engine. If you saw the fourth quarter of UConn, wow, I saw a defense get after people yesterday and that was impressive.
On momentum
In my heart and my mind, we are getting better as a football team. I thought we played better, we tackled better, we ran better, and our special teams got better so I see momentum gaining every week, and I hope we can build on momentum for this stretch run. But if you start on that stuff, these young men start seeing down the road. We have to go one game at a time. We have to know that we have to go to UConn and play Connecticut and play our best game of the year. Every week someone gives us their best shot. We better be ready. I’m hoping that it will carry us but we have to go one game at a time. Game No. 8 is coming up, and that’s all we have to do.
Only unbeaten team in BIG EAST
If you told me before yesterday that USF or Pitt would not win, I wouldn’t have believed it. That goes to show you in college football, how the emotions of the young people play such a huge part in the game today. I wish it was all blocking and tackling, because I know what we can do there. It’s this other stuff, but we’ll see. We’ll stay the course, take care of our business and show up to play better next week then we did this week.
As I indicated, we’ve done some of that in each game, but we just haven’t done a bunch. The reason we did it this week was because we changed our signal. We tried to get Auburn to show their hand. We knew it would be some kind of man coverage. What we had to do. Motion and movement can only be your asset when it’s at your pace. We didn’t run Pat. We had to take pressure off of him, but I’ll tell you that he has to be ready to run down the stretch; it’s BIG EAST football now.
