Football: Coach Bill Stewart's Teleconference
November 09, 2008 03:19 PM | General
November 9, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Quotes from Head Coach Bill Stewart's teleconference held on Sunday afternoon:
Opening statements
My thoughts don’t change any from last night, I’m obviously proud of the way the Mountaineers battled. I really appreciate their efforts, we fought hard and just came up short at the end of the game.
I was a little frustrated that we got ourselves in that situation, not playing well early, that’s something we’re going to continue to address, but without overkill. We need to make hay early in the first couple of possessions.
I was pleased with the amount of plays we ran. We had 80 plays to their 53. I was pleased with time of possession, it wasn’t 35 minutes, it was only 31:15, but at least we were on the upper side.
But again, disappointed, 4-of-20 on third downs, however our defense did a great job, they were only 2-of-13 on their third downs. We won that, we didn’t win it by much, but still it’s frustrating on third down.
We look at Pat McAfee, and we’re frustrated that every ball is not bombed and the guy still averages 45 plus yards a punt and our punt team did a nice job of holding their great returners in check.
On the other hand, our kickoff team didn’t, their kickoff return did better. That’s something we’re going to have to continue to address.
We’re banged up a little bit, nothing very serious and again I compliment the fans. I thought our fans did a tremendous job. They supported us down the stretch. The team, staff and I are most appreciative. That was great to have.
On Mike Dent’s injury
Mike Dent practiced Tuesday and Wednesday and then Wednesday night his neck was pinched a little bit, it just didn’t feel good. We went in and just took a look at it, and they (medical staff) wanted to hold him in case there was swelling. It is in the hands of our medical staff, and they are just going to check it day-to-day and week-to-week.
It will be day-to-day and week-to-week, and they’ll check him again, but he was going down that sideline pretty good. I saw him on the film today, and I saw this big mammoth guy in a gray sweatshirt bouncing off our guys after we received the takeaway on the onside kick, and he was banging into Mortty Ivy and J.T. (Thomas) and I thought it looked like he could play.
On Bradley Starks’ play
He played well. I saw him blocking and trying to block. He was a big high school quarterback and Mr. Basketball down there in Division II in the state of Virginia. He was great athlete and was never really physical because he never had to be. That’s been what has held his progress back.
He made a couple of nice catches, and I was really glad to see that because he had it tough. He dropped a ball in the Villanova game and against Colorado and everyone thought we had written him off, but we haven’t. His shoulder has just been dinged up, that’s why, and he’s back and healthy. I don’t know how healthy he is, but he’s healthier and was cleared to play.
On Wes Lyons’ ankle
I hated it for Wes, we really needed Wes Lyons in that game. With his height and size, we really needed him and he just got that thing (ankle) tweaked, and I don’t know how bad it is. I’m going to talk to the medical people this afternoon and we’ll know a whole lot more tomorrow.
On ongoing problems
I try to tell the team, and I try to tell the people, this (Cincinnati) is probably the best defense we have played. They have 10 seniors, they played good. You need to give them credit, they came after us.
The opening kickoff made a difference, four guys had their hands on the guy, four guys, and two of them had him in their grasp, and they let him go. Four guys touched that kid and that’s not good, that’s on me and I’m changing some more people, so I’m getting more people in there. That’s going to be rectified.
The other thing is the third downs, we were 4-of-20, they were 2-of-13. We thought we had that problem solved, and we got better and better after Syracuse, after Marshall and at UConn. We were 8-of-16 one game and 8-of-13 the other, we were really rolling and back on top of the league.
We’ll continue to work on our third downs, we’ve had tremendous practices. We can’t drop the ball and when you run the ball, you need to block them and that’s what we ran into, we need to keep working harder at it.
On lack of consistency
It’s frustrating as a coach when you play against a great defense like Auburn and do well, and I thought UConn had a good defense and we did good at times. These guys last night were good, and I tried to tell people 300 yards is not enough to win a football game. I see the stats, but we need to do it more consistently, and we need to do it earlier. There are some things we need to get better at as a football program.
I thought Patrick (White) had some nice throws, and he missed a couple of reads. I thought the receivers caught some nice balls, but they dropped some balls. We were 20-of-38 passing, that’s not bad, but it’s not great either. That’s a little over 50 percent, and it needs to increase a bit. Pat’s been 71 percent completion, that’s what we’re used to, and we had three big drops and it normally doesn’t happen, but it did. Patrick White got dinged up and went back into that game and was tough, what a great character young man.
On how banged up Pat White is
He’s such a competitor and during the quarter change Dave (Kerns) was making sure his head was clear and he was saying, ‘I want up, I want up.’ I thought we were going to have a real wrestling match on our hands, he wanted up out of there.
He’s such a competitor, and he got hit in the ribs and had the wind knocked out of him. He was OK and a guy hit him in the legs, and I told him to watch himself because he has to protect himself. He just has to watch himself and make sure he protects himself, because you can’t baby him, because he doesn’t baby himself. He’ll do the best he can, get all the yards he can and slide or whatever.
On slow starts
The game started right off the get-go, and I think that was frustrating and I don’t know if we were pressing. They were moving and our offensive line hadn’t figured them out yet. We started figuring them out as the game went on, that’s when we pass blocked them better, ran the ball a little better. Early we weren’t making any hay. They played with great leverage.
I’m frustrated, but I don’t want to go into panic mode. We know what he have to do, go out there and stay on our blocks a little bit longer, run a little bit faster and catch balls that are thrown to us. We need to get into a rhythm, and it just happens. To get into a flow, once you get into a flow, we’re a pretty good offense. Until we get into a good rhythm, we’re just average.
On Will Johnson’s injury
Both he and Jarrett Brown are running with one full leg and about three-fourths on the other. Both are getting better, but they’re not up to par, and you can’t put a guy out there that is not up to snuff, because I don’t want to get a young man hurt because he can’t protect himself playing full speed. No. 1 he’ll hurt the team and No.2 he’ll receive injury and that’s not what we’re going to do.
