Football: Coach Bill Stewart quotes
September 12, 2010 04:16 PM | General
September 12, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W. Va. (Sept. 12, 2010) – Quotes from West Virginia University football Coach Bill Stewart’s Sunday afternoon teleconference.
Opening Statements
The Marshall game is in the books; that was Game two, it’s over and we’ve evaluated the film. Game three against the University of Maryland is coming on the horizon, and we’ve not played them for a couple of years, so it’s good to get them back on the schedule. The last time I believe was 2007 when our seniors were freshmen over there. It’s always been a good rivalry, and we anticipate the same thing. Today we’re devoting the entire day to getting ready for Maryland, watching the film and getting ready to prepare. We’ll practice today after watching the film, and we’re going to lift, and then we’ll be off tomorrow so the young men here at West Virginia can attend labs and late classes. We’ll hit the practice field on Tuesday.
On Grading the Offensive Line
They’ve been graded and we’ve watched the film, and they played particularly well there at the end. They played a very athletic and hard game against Marshall. Those grades are private and that stays within the family. I was really pleased with the way they blocked down the stretch. I thought they did a real nice job.
On the Leadership of Geno Smith
I thought he did a great job, he carried the football team, he threw the ball to Tavon Austin, he threw the ball to Will Johnson, and he threw the ball to Stedman Bailey. He spread the wealth and that’s what we preached to the people, and I was really pleased with the way Geno distributed the ball to five different people on the last two drives.
I thought he was methodically in tune with what we were thinking and how we were getting defended. As I said after the game, there were no incomplete passes, there were no time outs so they could regroup and blitz us. It’s very hard to blitz when people are running all over the place offensively and you don’t know what the formation is. You start calling blitzes then that means you better tackle them in space. If they were going to blitz us, Geno just took what they gave him, and he hit underneath routes, he hit outside routes, he hit whole routes. He spread the field, and he made Marshall defend 52 plus yards wide, and I thought that was excellent.
On Using Pure Emotion as a Motivator
Had we lost the game, it’s not the end of the world. We play every game to win. I think that if you coach emotional like that and you put all your eggs in one basket for a game and you lose that game, what do you say to your team then? I’m not going to be one of these guys that says ‘It’s our Super Bowl, and it’s a chance to make history, and we’ve got to do this and we’ve got to do that.’
You start that ‘got to’ stuff you’re in trouble, and that’s why that was game two and this week is game three. The drives at the end were very powerful and the way our defense played at the end was very powerful , and the way our special teams covered after we scored that first 96-yard, the way our defense and offense covered, and then got back in it was a total team effort. All that elation that you talked about became truthful and became very meaningful, but I’m never going to put all our eggs in one basket unless it’s the last game of the year, and we have nothing left, because you don’t want to lose your guys for the next week.
On the Sensationalism of College Football
I remember in 2007, we went down and got beat at South Florida and yet we came back with a chance to beat Pitt and were a 28-point favorite to beat them and play for the national championship. Now low and behold who’d have thought that night in South Florida we’d even have a chance to get back into the Top 10 let alone the top two? Heck, I know my friends in Virginia Tech will come back and have a good year because I know what kind of men they are and what kind of players those kids are down there. These people wrote Kansas off, they got beat, but they just turned around and beat the 15th-ranked team in the country. I know you guys and gals do not like when I call this sensationalism. I don’t know how to say it any plainer. This IT, fast-paced internet world sensationalism is just for selling stories, I guess. We’ve got a long haul to go, we’ve got 10 more games and hopefully if we play well in these final 10 we’ll get 11 games and that will give us 13 on the year, and that’s my approach and I’m not changing.
On Being Satisfied with Game Performance
I’m never satisfied, never. I am a perfectionist, our players are perfectionists. We want to finish drives. We had that ball a long time down there and didn’t get any points. We had a field goal blocked. I was very frustrated about that, I’m as human as anyone else, and I want to win. That’s why I do this. I love competition and I want to win every game I coach but its hard to do that. But because I don’t run around like a crazy man or make bold statements or what have you, I have a way to coach my team and I’m very frustrated that we didn’t play well early on either side of the ball. You can ask why that is, but that’s the stuff we have to figure out, and we’re going to get with our players. Why do those upsets occur? Well, maybe that other team wanted it more than you at the time. There were three major upsets this weekend that I saw, and two of them were by I-AA teams over pretty good football teams, one from the Big Ten, and one from the ACC. It happens.
On Preparing for the Maryland Game
Maryland is Maryland. They are tough, they’ve got speed, and they’re ACC. They had a bad year last year. These guys have won, and they had our number there for awhile. When Scotty was over there they beat us three times in a two-year span, I mean this is going to be a heck of a football game and each and every year since 1980 it’s been like that for the last 30 years. So this is going to be big. You talk about their quarterbacks, how about those two running backs? They’re hitting on all cylinders, and they came out against Navy and it was bang, bang, bang, touchdown, touchdown, before Navy could blink. They got some breaks in the red zone, and then they came back and stopped Navy when they had to. They have my total attention. I’m worried, I don’t think our players should have any trouble in my mind getting up for these guys. Having not played them the last two years could maybe hurt us, maybe that will hurt them, I don’t know. Maybe it will help us. They are a good football team, and they’re out to have a good year, and it looks like they’re on track to do that.
On Using Speed to play Efficiently on Offense
Like I said, the things we did there in the first half, maybe we were a little hesitant in what people could see. Like I told you after the game, let’s just take some kind of plan to play our game and go from there. Has it been good to us? Yes. Will we do it more? I don’t know, it’s kind of a feel thing. I watched their defense not getting the pressure that they had earlier and I said pour it on them and that’s why we did what we did at the end.
On How the Maryland Team Has Changed Over the Years
Tommy Bratton and I have worked together. I’ve coached against Ralph (Friedgen) for many, many years and many on his staff I’ve coached against. I know they have an excellent coaching staff, they don’t have a good coaching staff, they have an excellent coaching staff. Maryland is still Maryland, they’ve had a rough couple of years, now they have not only won, but they have an excellent quarterback and I know that with (Da’Rel) Scott running that ball or (Davin) Meggett running that ball they’re going to be very, very difficult. Defensively, I’ve known those guys for years, they’re going to sic’ ‘em, they’re going to blitz us, they’re going to just create havoc, and I just hope and pray we can create some big plays and get them off balance. I swear to God, this is going to be a whale of a football game.
On Injuries
Sands is very good, saw him at his treatment at 10 this morning. He’s good. I talked to Pat Lazear and he’s getting better. I can’t say good, but he’s getting better. I’m happy with what I found out about Tyler Urban, and I know he wants to play this week. Other than that, we really came out of that game pretty well. Even though it was a hard hitting game, our guys came out pretty healthy. I’m not too alarmed right now, being as its Sunday, with that injury list.
On Defense
I thought we rallied, and I kept telling our boys that you’re too fast, you’re too strong, you’re too explosive, and they can’t block you. Make them tackle you, go to the ball, play hard, leverage the ball. That’s what we were telling them, and that’s the way they kept playing. Our guys never quit, once we got that fumble, and they saw that offense move, our guys got the spark. Heck, one of the biggest problems was trying to call plays on that final drive, and the defensive kids were out there in the huddle and the coaches couldn’t communicate. That’s how far up our team was. That was such bonding, and I was so pleased. I went over and told Chris Neild and J.T. (Thomas) “Guys, I love it, I love what you’re doing and God this is great, but let the coaches make the calls.” And they laughed and said “Sorry Coach, we just get all caught up.” Because our defense led the charge even though the offense got all the glory. The defense led the charge, and they got after Marshall in the fourth quarter and turned the game around, and I was very pleased with that.
On What a Positive Performance Does for the Defense
It speaks volumes, and it was big because they bonded together, and we kept attacking and they couldn’t block us and that was really neat to see. A couple of times there at the end, especially in that overtime, they went backwards and that’s good stuff. Brantwon Bowser leveled old Smith, the big tight end that hurt us on the crossing route, and he leveled him and I felt real good about that. So it’s a real compliment to Jeff Casteel and all our defensive coaches and most importantly it’s a compliment to all our young guys in the arena. They never say die, they played hard and hopefully it will help us down the road in hostile environments in other stadiums, and hopefully it will help in the game. Again, we need to end games in a positive manner on both sides of the ball, and again I was pleased with our special teams.
