Football: Coach Bill Stewart quotes
September 05, 2010 03:56 PM | General
September 5, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (Sept. 5, 2010) – Quotes from West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart’s Sunday afternoon teleconference.
Opening Statements
We’ve not seen much difference in what we thought after the ballgame in my comments from last night. I’ve looked at the film with the staff, and we’ll meet with the players today to show them the corrections, good and bad, and we’ll go out and get ready for a fast practice. We’ll get ready in preparation for Marshall every day this week, because it’s a Friday game and we’ll be off next Saturday.
Other than that, I thought the same guys played well, I was really pleased again with our defense and pretty pleased with the special teams. I liked the coverage both punt and kickoff, and we didn’t have a chance for much punt return or kickoff return, which is okay, and I thought our offense made some big plays and had some plays that we better get corrected quickly.
On Injuries
You always get bumps and bruises, and I think I was asked about Roberts Sands after the game, and he’s fine. A guy here or there got a hand busted up or a thumb busted, but nothing really major, and I’m not mad about that. It was a hard hitting football game.
On Reporting Injuries to the BIG EAST conference
I was in agreement along with all the BIG EAST coaches. It’s an everyday question if it’s not answered so let’s just get some kind of uniform policy, and I thought it was a pretty good deal. And now it’s out there for everybody, it’s there at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week. If you talk about it every single day you spend more time talking about bumps and bruises than about the guys that are going to be playing.
On the Marshall series being renewed
Right now, we have a three game contract left and then after that I’m sure it will be discussed by people above me. We’re going to fulfill what the agreement calls for and that is we play this year and two more. I don’t mean to be evasive but that’s going to be handled by other people before it gets down to my expertise.
On Tyler Urban getting injured
He got tweaked a little bit there, and I don’t know how long it’s going to be if there’s any length to it at all. We’re just going to have to watch him this week and see because we have a long season to go. I was really pleased with the way that Will Johnson went and caught the ball and played tight end and I was real pleased with Chris Snook. I hope no one comes out of that game too awful bad. We’ll know more by Tuesday I would imagine, Tuesday and Wednesday when we’re really out there banging again. But today there are some guys sore, there was a lot of hitting.
On Robert Sands’ being careful about hitting too powerfully
You saw some things that I saw. It’s just that when they fly around I don’t know how to not coach that. And Brandon Hogan is the same way. Heck, Keith Tandy on that first punt looked like a heat-seeking missile. I don’t want to tell them to slow down, and then they have to speed up. I don’t say much about that, I just try to tell them to wrap up. You’re not allowed to launch anymore, and I don’t want our guys launching and hurting themselves first or anyone else. Now if you just hard hit a guy and he gets shaken up that’s football. But launching has been outlawed by the NCAA and particularly the BIG EAST, we’re watching it close. So I just tell them to wrap up the best they can, but they’re flying around there, and it’s fun to see.
On If You Change Your Signals Since The Marshall Coaches Know You Well
Each year we change the signals and if they’re trying to look at us to get signals, and I hope that’s what they’re doing, I hope everybody does that, because then they’re spending more time on that then knowing what we’re doing scheme wise. When you tell a young man that this is a play, and that’s not it, then you totally bust that young man’s confidence in you and your staff. That’s why I don’t allow that here. We’ve got huddles, we huddle up now, we can use wrist bands, and we’ve changed signals. To me I think it would be an absolute waste of time for someone to be on the other sideline trying to steal signals. That’s just me, I just want to play ball. Find the scheme, try to attack the scheme and go from there. I don’t know what the opponent is going to do this week, or any of our opponents to be honest, but I’m sure that might be in some people’s thought process.
On Geno Smith’s Play
My thought process was very simple. I took the ball in windy conditions because I wanted Geno and our offense to know that we had confidence in them. That’s the first statement I made. I wanted the ball, now they won the toss and deferred which helped us. But I told our four captains to get that ball. So I wanted to send that message. Secondly, I told the staff, if we’re in there close we’re going for it. I want Geno to know I have all the confidence in the world in him and the other 10 players out there with him. I wanted that young man to know he’s our guy, we’re going with him and I wanted to showcase him right from the get go. And that’s why we went with the fast pace. I wanted people to know here it is, this is what we’re going to do. That was just the thought process, right or wrong, good bad or indifferent that was my thinking.
On the defense being under the radar
When you sit back there as a head coach, you don’t have to think so hard about calling plays on the offense, so I watched those guys. I watched the shallow cross runner crucial third down. That hurt us some last year, I remember it hurting Eain Smith early in a particular ballgame here at home. The quick screen out there, they try to get that but our guys are fast and our guys ran that down. Everything they threw at us, option, the zone, counters, quick screen, the shallow routes, everything they threw at us, our guys adjusted, and I thought that was really good. That’s the mark of a sound plan and that you have athleticism out there on the defensive side. I was really pleased with the way our defense adjusted.
On Brandon Hogan’s strengths
Brandon Hogan is such a good-spirited young man, and he loves to play the game. He reminds me of Vaughn Rivers and Antonio Lewis, those two youngsters we had here back in 2007. I personally recruited Brandon, he’s a tremendous quarterback, and he could be a wild cat guy. He turned that game around, and I was watching him on the kickoff and he just wants to play. At punt returner, he almost brought that punt return back, he was one man away when the ball bounced back to their left and our right. He’s really come on and as a team leader he’s really come on and done a nice job. I get mad at Brandon because I want him to graduate and get that degree and be just as important in the classroom, that’s why I get on him so much.
On the Play of the Offensive Line
It’s going to be the same (lineup) for awhile because I want to make sure to keep guys fresh. These guys work so hard, I think you can play three guards, three tackles and two centers. I’ve always thought that way, and that’s what I’ve always done. I don’t plan on changing anything.
On special teams
Right now, Greg Pugnetti is our punter, he averaged about 49. I thought Corey Smith kicked off well. We have guys doing what they need to be doing for the team. There will still be competition, John Howard is still going to compete with Corey for the kickoff spot, and Corey is still competing with Tyler for the field goal spot. Basically the three you saw, the kickoff man, the field goal man and the punter will start next week unless something dramatic happens in practice.
I hope it continues to work as well as it did. Right now I’m pleased with what we’ve decided, I think each player has earned the spurs to do that, and we have a lot of talent. Right now, we’re just going to continue to do what we’re doing and master those three areas.
On Noel Devine
He played, and we tried to get him his touches. We want to get him in a rhythm. People expect him to go out and run for 300 yards against these guys. They spent the whole day trying to take Noel out of the game plan. That’s why we threw the ball. I got bullheaded at the end, and we just wanted to bang it and that’s what we did. I thought he did well, but you have to spread the ball out and pass it so you don’t overload him.
You have to get into a flow. It’s kind of a chess game there, and what happened is we figured out they were angling towards him all the time to take him out of the offense so we started spreading the ball and running reverses and when we had them running east and west and got them tired, we put Noel back in. I felt very comfortable we could win the football game without running Noel 30 times, I didn’t want to do that. Maybe down the road we’ll have to do that. He fumbled the ball, and we have to get that corrected, but we will. He’ll be fine.
He’s always had mental toughness, but it’s all about the patience. Right now, he’s a very patient team player and that’s what I love about these guys. That’s how much these guys have grown and that’s what excites me about them. The leadership has just been outstanding and I’m sure it’s going to continue.
