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Coach Dana Holgorsen News Conference
October 25, 2016 05:22 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, October 25, 2016, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening statement
Moving on to Oklahoma State. It’s always a fun trip to go to Stillwater. Have a lot of ties with Stillwater and Oklahoma State. Always a great place to go coach a football game, great place to play a football game and a great place to watch a football game. It’s a spectacular facility. They have a great fan base, great crowd. It doesn’t matter what time it’s going to be, they’re going to be there. It’s homecoming. It’s going to be full. It’s going to be fun. They have a good quality team. (OSU Head Coach) Coach (Mike) Gundy has done a great job this year as he always has. These guys are playing well. Had an unfortunate loss earlier in the year. If you can consider it a loss. I guess now that I have to prepare for them, I got asked this question by someone as far as what should happen, didn’t have an opinion after studying it and all of that, and it’s obviously unfortunate. Had a tough loss at Baylor. Baylor is playing well. This team can very easily be sitting at 7-0, and that’s the way that we have to approach it. They’re playing good as of late, scoring lot of points. The offense is getting into a rhythm, playing well. Looked pretty healthy, looked pretty multiple to me, so taking care of the football not turning it over very much, doing well on third down, converting in the red zone, throwing the ball a lot; it all starts with their quarterback. (OSU junior quarterback) Mason Rudolph is probably the best pure pocket passer that we have in our league. Probably considered one of the better ones in the country when it comes to that. Doing a good job of protecting him. Have great receivers that he’s throwing to. The (OSU junior wide receiver) (James) Washington kid No. 28 makes a difference. He makes plays in each game and can score at any time. He came out of nowhere a couple of years ago and midseason last year he just burst onto the scene and has been playing extremely, extremely well, ever since then. We have to make sure we know where he is at all times. They’ll get multiple with their formations. They have good tight ends and fullbacks and a stable of running backs that they can put back there, so they’re very multiple with their formations. They’ll run it, but the thing that scares you more than anything is just their drop back passing game, getting the ball down the field and scoring it in a hurry. They’re averaging 40-some points a game. They’re capable of scoring more than that, so we have to be on guard with what they’re doing. I know we’ll be prepared to be able to go against that.
Defensively, I have a lot of respect for (OSU Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers) Glenn Spencer. They’re a tough bunch to go against. Glen was there when I was there. He’s a smart guy, he gets very creative with his schemes, and gets his guys playing hard. They were a tricky bunch last year to go against and they’re the same thing this year. They lost a first-round draft pick in (Emmanuel) Ogbah, a good corner, good linebacker, everyone else is back. It’s the best safety bunch that we’ve went against. They have good quality corners that can run. They’re backers are always in position and their front have thick kids who plug gaps and do a great job, so it’s a tough group to go against. You have to be very sound with your schemes and you have to identify what they’re doing, then you have to maintain blocks. Probably the best thing that they do is get off of blocks and make tackles.
Special teams is always an area that you have to pay attention to. They’re extremely solid in their kickoff and punt coverage units. They have the (OSU senior kicker) (Ben) Grogan kid, all-time leading scorer at Oklahoma State. Four year starter, been around there for a long time, is extremely solid in the kicking game. He can make kicks from anywhere. They’ve blocked how many kicks? At the Texas game it seems like they blocked four or five of them. They just do a good job at special team. (OSU Head Coach) Coach (Mike) Gundy is very influential in that, spends a lot of time with it and they’ll be ready to go. Big challenge. I said this last week, I thought TCU was going to be our biggest challenge of the year, arguably it was. I thought our guys played really well. Watching the video, going back looking at it, I think we played well on all three sides of the ball. Great team win. I was incredibly excited about that. Have to keep moving forward. It’s a huge test for us. Playing on the road is hard. Playing in Stillwater is difficult and these guys bring challenges in all of the phases and it will be tough. Our guys are going to understand that, they’re going to know it, they’re going to prepare hard for it and we’re going to get ourselves ready to play Saturday, and it should be a fun atmosphere and a fun game to be a part of.
On Oklahoma State improving their rushing attack
Yeah. They have good quality backs back there. The (OSU senior running back) (Chris) Carson kid should be back from an injury. He did well against us last year. It’s not they’re backs. I think their cohesiveness upfront has been an issue, which I see has been addressed, been resolved, a lot more experienced now. Shoot, there are four or five guys that are highlighted here that played against us last year. They have a lot of guys back and with that you’re going to see improvements. So their numbers are up, their run yardage is up, they’re running the ball what 35 times a game now. They’re not probably as happy with it as they want to be. I know that’s a huge area of emphasis with coach (OSU Head Coach) Coach (Mike) Gundy. I’m sure they’ve worked on it hard over the last couple of weeks, especially with their bye week, and we need to be ready to stop the run.
On having a group of guys who face the challenges
It’s just life in the Big 12, is what it is. This is the fifth year in the Big 12 we have a lot of seniors who understand it. Look around college football, you have to be ready to play every game.
Big 12 is obviously no different. We’ve been a part of it for five years now. We have guys who sit in this front row right here who have been a part of it for five years. We have guys who have been around and understand it, so the only way that you win is by getting yourself ready to go and preparing hard for it, going out practicing hard on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s and putting your best efforts forward. Makes my job probably a little easier than having to yell and scream and motivate and talk about the importance and educate on the $500 plus million dollar facility that exists in Stillwater. That attracts top-notch recruits and excellent coaches and a fan base that expects to win. That sounds pretty damn challenging to me. Right? They’ve won what, 17 out of their last 22 games? I’d say they’re going to be pretty ready to play, and they’re going to expect to win as well.
On redshirt sophomore quarterback/running back William Crest Jr.
See what he can do to play football. He’s that type of his who just wants to play, so we’re trying him out at a couple of different special teams and seeing how that works out.
On if he would rather have a team with talent or chemistry
Both, which is what we have. I think we have excellent chemistry, the guys like each other. I’ve said this every week since I’ve been there, they like each other, they hang out a lot and have good rapport with each other, fight hard for each other. The coaching staff enjoys coaching them. I like to think that they enjoy being coached by the coaching staff, you would have to ask them, and I think we have players. I think (Directory of Strength and Conditioning) Mike Joseph develops players as good as anyone does in the country in the weight room. I think (Director of Player Personnel) Ryan Dorchester does a great job of identifying talent, regardless of what the stars are and what specific people say about them. We figured out how to recruit older kids when it comes to grad transfers and junior college players and four-year guys. It’s what you’re looking at now. Guys have worked hard and developed based on how we’ve practiced and what we’re doing on our specific schemes on our specific sides of the ball, we’ve developed pretty good football players. I think the NFL scouts kind of like stopping by as well, and they’ll probably tell you exactly what I just said.
On Why Oklahoma State’s Head Coach Mike Gundy hired him
Just Brandon Weeden. He was going to be the quarterback, so he’s a drop back pocket guy kind of like who they have right now in Rudolph. I guess my track record was okay when it came to coach this guy on how to complete passes. I implemented a system, and I learned a lot from them as well. This has been kind of a yearly discussion when it comes to this but took some things from them that helped shape where I currently am. I think they took some things from me. (OSU Head Coach) Mike (Gundy) took some things from me where they currently are. I’m probably more like him five years ago now, and he’s probably more like me than five years ago now, which is kind of interesting.
On forcing turnovers
Yeah they do a good job of holding on to the football. They do a great job of creating turnovers, that’s part of the game. I focus on other things, like the one thing that I was disappointed in last week was the three turnovers that we got, only one of them was from our defense, (redshirt senior cornerback) Rasul (Douglas) did a great job of breaking on the ball and ran that thing down 30-some yards. That’s been a priority in this room with our team. He did a great job of that. Hats off to our coverage unit, our kickoff unit did a great job of covering. (Assistant Coach Defense/Special Team) Coach (Mark) Scott is going a good job of coaching these guys up. You have to get the right guys, you have to get their assignment down, you have to work on their technique and you have to get them to play with a lot of effort before a turnover exists in that phase. So we have all of that right over the last couple of weeks and really improved our coverage units, and then we made a couple of plays. (Redshirt junior safety) Shane Commodore made a play, (redshirt junior safety) Marvin Gross (Jr.) made a play. We only scored on one of those three and that’s what’s disappointing to me. The only downside that I can say on the game was we only scored on 33 percent of our turnovers. If you want turnovers to make a difference, you have to score. So I can argue that the turnovers didn’t play a big part in why we won last week. Just my philosophy.
On senior quarterback Skyler Howard has improved
He’s just a ball player. He’ll be the first to tell you that he didn’t play his best game last week. I don’t think he did either. TCU makes it hard on you. He’s just a ball player though. He did a great job in the run game. I’ve been saying this when no one was saying anything good about him, the guy makes the right checks in the run game. He understand what we’re trying to do, he makes the right checks, he keeps it when he supposed to, he hands it when he’s supposed to, he holds it to the edge, he scrambles around in the pass game and gets some first downs. Does a good job with our draws, getting positive yards. Pass game he’s made strides. Just the intermediate stuff we’ve talked a lot about, completion percentage is up, about 16 percent from where it’s been his first two years, which I think is sitting at 66-67 percent, so I think his leadership skills is probably what I’ve seen more than anything. His practice habits, the way he attacks the game plan, watching video, making sure he understands exactly what we’re wanting him to do and then cultivating relationships with his teammates in the locker room and all of that, I think he’s improved greatly.
On the cornerbacks play
I think they’ve gotten better every day. I give (Assistant Coach (Cornerbacks) Blue Adams credit every day for just drilling them day in and day out. The reason we hired Blue is because he’s a master technician, so he’s hard on his guys, he’s demanding. (Redshirt senior cornerback) Rasul (Douglas) has got better, making plays, is comfortable, understands the scheme and understands the technique. (Junior quarterback) Elijah Battle has come out of nowhere. He wasn’t even in the two-deep the first month of the season and he gets better and better and better. There is one explanation for it is that he’s getting coached. (Redshirt senior cornerback) Maurice Fleming has been player of the game at corner. (Redshirt senior cornerback) Antonio Crawford went in after that call that no one wants to talk about, went in and fought his tail off against some pretty good receivers, so I think there’s one explanation for it. (Redshirt senior cornerback) Nana Kyeremeh made a play against BYU to win the game. I think there’s one explanation, those guys are getting coached hard, and they’re getting better every day.
On the recent targeting penalties
We submitted last week’s (penalty) and it came back like I thought it would. I understand how these things get looked at and, we look at them, I have to be pretty careful with how I respond to this, but we look at it through West Virginia’s angle, they look at it through the referee’s angle. Right? So they are going to justify pretty much everything that they do. I don’t care, I don’t agree with it. I sat in here in the team meeting and I said ‘I can’t ask you to do anything different’. The level of the defender went from here to here and you can see (junior cornerback) Elijah (Battle) go down from here to here and his head turned, I don’t know. I can’t ask him to do anything else, and the fact that they reviewed it is baffling to me and upheld it. I worry about what we teach our players, and I get the integrity of the rule, I agree with the integrity of the rule, I agree with the rule. I think coaches across the country have done a much better job of teaching tackling the right way, including us. I can’t ask our guys to do anything different than what they did the last couple of weeks.
On the team allowing more sacks against TCU than they have all year
A couple of them were on (senior quarterback) Skyler (Howard), a couple of them were on coverage. TCU is as good as anyone in the country at that. They have led the country in sacks before, and a couple of years ago they led the country in tackles for loss. They are good. That’s why we didn’t throw it a ton. The (offensive) o-line has to do a better job pass protecting. Skyler (Howard) has to do a better job at getting the ball out of his hands, the receivers have to do a better job at getting open, I have to call better plays. It wasn’t great. I will be the first to admit we were pretty average on offense last week. TCU probably had something to do with that.
On Oklahoma State’s freshman running back Justice Hill
Well they turn and hand it to him and he runs to the hole, if one exists. Our job is to make sure that one doesn’t exist. That (running) back from TCU was spectacular I thought, but (junior running back) (Kyle) Hicks, golly he was pretty dang good. We are going to face backs moving forward that are pretty good.
On if he focuses on other games going on around college football
Did they? I didn’t know that. I don’t pay attention to any of that. I pay attention to who’s on our schedule, more of the ones that are ahead of our schedule. I don’t have time to sit there and look at all of that other stuff. There are a lot of games that I would like to watch, there are a lot of games that I will study in the offseason, but there is only so much time in the day, and I can assure you it is spent on the task at hand.
On what has to happen to make an upset
If I had the answer to that (media member) Bob, I wouldn’t be standing here. I don’t know, it’s a bunch of 18 to 22 year-old kids. There is a lot of parody in college football. Is it game plan? Is it motivation? I don’t know, don’t know.
On how important it is to dictate the pace of game
Huge, so yeah. I can do whatever we want on offense tempo wise, not production wise or points wise. I would like production to go up, and I would like points to go up. Tempo wise we can do what we want, I think you have seen that. We are comfortable doing what we need to help win the game.
On Assistant Coach Offensive Coordinator/ Fullback-Tight Ends Joe Wickline being in the press box during games for the first time this year
Don’t listen to him, he has been up there before. He’s fine being up there, he’s fine being on the sidelines. He could probably go get a Coke and sit in the stands and be just fine. He is doing a great job. He does a great job throughout the week of game prepping and getting a good game plan together. He coaches the heck out of our scout team of doing the right stuff, getting the guys on offense to play well. Throughout the course of the game it is good to have another set of eyes up there that is saying ‘here is what they are doing and here is what you need to do to attack it’. So it’s working out well.
On Assistant Coach Offensive Coordinator/ Fullback-Tight Ends Joe Wickline has brought to the coaching staff that was missing last year
Just knowing what the opponent is doing. He’s a pretty seasoned coach, he knows what they are doing. He has a lot of knowledge of the Big 12, so he knows guys’ tendencies, he knows what they are doing defensively and does a good job of putting it down on paper and helping coming up with the game plan to the point to where we can put our guys in the best position that we can. Then there is the prep throughout the week, you have to go against looks and you have to get guys used to seeing what they are going to see, and then there is in-game adjustments as well.
On changing philosophies about the tight end/ fullback position
I don’t know, we have used them. We used them at Oklahoma State when I was there a little bit. Kind of like what they are doing know. It’s all based on personnel. I had Cody Clay here, and I thought he was a good blocker so we used him a little bit. It allows you to game plan a little bit more. I guarantee you (TCU head coach) Gary Patterson wanted to see 10 personnel, two-by-two or three-by-one every snap. He would have been pretty tickled to see that. Being able to be multiple is big with a game plan. There is only so much you can do out of two-by-two. There is only so much you can do out of three-by-one, but being able to add gaps and being able to get into different looks, you can come up with a lot of formations with backs and fullbacks. It is tough to come up with a lot of formations with just straight 10 personnel.
On talking to the players about the 6-0 start
I can assure you I am not going to respond to a college football playoff question, but the second part of your question is very relevant, and I think we have a group of kids who understands where we are. Our job is the same going into game seven as it was going into game one. You have a week, you prepare all week and you practice hard to get yourself in a position to play on Saturday and then go play. Our guys like where they are, based on what people are saying or the attention, I can assure you has no impact on them whatsoever to how today’s practice is going to be and what they are going to do to prepare to win the game this Saturday. That message has been sent loud and clear, and guess what, it was sent loud and clear August 1. We have goals ahead of us, and we are not anywhere close to being in a position to meet any of them.
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