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Coach Dana Holgorsen Media Conference
October 04, 2016 03:17 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, October 4, 2016, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening Statement
I don’t know what you all want to talk about. What else do you guys want to talk about?
On how early do you start preparing for Texas Tech
We’ll handle this the same way we handled BYU and last year we had, I think it was before Maryland. We handle it the same way all the time. That way you give the players an idea of what to expect. I’m a big proponent in letting them get away for a few days when you have to opportunity to let them get away. I’m going to have to talk to the guys who were planning on going south, there’s a hurricane going down there, so we’ll have to address that. I always give them Friday off, Saturday off and come back Sunday night. I just think it’s good for their psyche a little bit to be able to get away. You have to find a good balance for getting ahead on an opponent and not overkilling an opponent. I’ve felt like in years past when we just started obsessing over another opponent, and you guys heard me say this in preseason camp as well, that you can overkill someone or things can go stale. Introducing your opponent is one thing, getting some good looks, having more time to game plan and testing some things out, that’s important, and then also trying to get a little bit of developmental work in as well. We’ll let some of the younger guys scrimmage and take a few more reps. Try to let the guys probably heal up a little bit. I think our overall health is pretty good, but let them get away from it. The mental health aspect of it probably is every bit as important as the physical aspect of it, and then get back to work on Sunday. We talked a lot last Sunday, a couple of days ago, about doing the right thing this week but getting ready to embrace the grind for the next eight, which is not uncommon in football. So that’s where we are.
On redshirt senior cornerbacks Antonio Crawford and Maurice Fleming’s injury
Should be. (Redshirt senior cornerback) (Antonio) Crawford is going to be in a green jersey this week, and then will not be in one next week, so he’s full go. (Redshirt senior cornerback) (Maurice) Fleming is full go right now. On that note, having a guy like (junior cornerback) Elijah Battle step up was big, was really big. So we’ll probably have to go out recruiting this weekend for a few more junior college guys, we are on a little bit of a hot streak when it comes to that. Having (junior safety) Kyzir White as the defensive player of the game and (junior running back) Justin Crawford as the offensive player of the game, probably have to go find some more of those guys, and (junior cornerback) Elijah Battle stepping in and playing well. It was good. Good to see.
On if it’s unusual for a player from Junior College to make an immediate impact
Very. It’s very unusual. Especially those two guys who weren’t with us in the spring. We’ve had guys come in, midterm guys, who adjust a little quicker. It’s not unusual for (junior cornerback) Elijah Battle for it to not make sense until now. If you look back, (Mark) Glowinski needed that redshirt year. (Redshirt junior wide receiver) Ka’Raun White is playing pretty good for us, but he wasn’t this guy a year ago. Kevin (White) surely wasn’t this guy in his first year. Mario (Alford) didn’t make a play for six weeks, so it takes those guys time. That’s why having the mid-term thing is really big, but not relying on those guys to have to be full time starters right away is critical.
On the first road game of the year and the home field advantage
I thought we’ve won some pretty big games on the road. We won the last time we were at Texas Tech. We won the last time we were at Iowa State and Oklahoma State. We’ve won at Texas. If you really look at the home field advantage in the Big 12, it’s not as big as you think it is. I do think our crowd did play a big part in what happened on Saturday. I don’t want to diminish the realization that we understand as coaches. It was big in the second half. One, we finally gave them something to cheer about, but I think, especially when our defense was out there and they were loud, that may of had something to do with them having to burn some timeouts. I don’t want to take anything away from what was a great atmosphere on Saturday, but there’s a lot of teams winning on the road. Oklahoma won on the road last week. Baylor won on the road last week. So, that’s the way we’re going to approach it. We don’t care where we play. Our routine is the same. Going to play over in DC was a good road trip for us. It was neutral, and we had a lot of fans there, but it still felt like it was a road game. It felt foreign. We try to do things with our routine to where it makes sense with our guys. We have a lot of guys who when I have a team meeting, this front row is full of seniors who have been to Lubbock, so they’re going to be able to spread the word as far as what it’s like. It’s easier now than it was four or five years ago I can assure you that.
On comeback wins
I think this team is tough. I think they play with a lot of grit. They just fight. They don’t give up. They’re passionate about what we do. We have a couple of terms that our team picked that describes this team and it was kind of that. They’re a group that likes to fight, feel like they’re pretty tough and feel like they have a lot of grit to them to where if they get down they’re not going to panic. I think our coaching staff has done a better job this year as in years past where you just don’t hit that panic button and you remain calm and regroup. There’s been a couple of halftimes that have been challenging. Missouri was a challenging halftime. When (senior quarterback) Skyler (Howard) was in the training room. Youngstown (State) was a challenging halftime. I don’t remember what BYU’s was, but yeah, just going in there and having the confidence that your team is going to regroup, make good halftime adjustments and go out there and play your tail off for the next half. That’s been critical. Give our coaches credit as well.
On importance of winning close games
Yeah, I think there’s something to that. It’s probably why BYU is going to win some games here in the next two months. You think our games have been tight. They’ve played what, five now and it’s come down to the last drive on all five. Good to see those guys get a win last week. Yeah, I think there’s probably something to that. When it’s easy and you’re blowing teams out, how is your team going to respond in a close game, that’s always a question that you’re not going to have answered until it happens.
On conference play and knowing the team you’re playing
I can’t remember, just picking. Yeah there is a lot of familiarity. Here’s the deal, you can say that about us and Texas Tech, but you can say it about us and Kansas State. We’ve been pretty much the same schemes going against each other for five games now. You can say the same stuff about TCU, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. That just exists in a conference game. Is it going to give us an advantage to be able to have two weeks or are they going to be more game ready because of the speed of the game aspect of it? I don’t know. Just get your best game plan together and line up and do what you feel like you need to do to be able to be successful is kind of the way we approach every game.
On changing the game plan when playing a familiar team
There’s always some stuff at the beginning of the game that you kind of try to fool them with, but you get to a point where you are who you are. You’re not going to be able to come up with a whole new offense or a whole new defense. There’s always wrinkles to it, but you’ll be able to see early on, then after those wrinkles are exposed, everyone pretty much just settles in and they are who they are and you play ball.
On having two bye weeks early in the season
I think it probably benefits us. Where it’s going to hurt us is on December 3 when we have to play and other teams don’t, and they go on the road recruiting and we can’t. We get two bye weeks. There are other teams that don’t because their second bye week is December 3. Advantage now, disadvantage when you don’t get to go recruit that last week. This is the last year that we are going to have to deal with it because next year with the (Big 12) championship game, everyone will have that off, unless you are playing a 13th game in the championship game, which means everyone will have one bye week. It’s what everyone else does. I don’t view it as a disadvantage. We have to use this week for some recruiting, because we’re not able to recruit that last week when everyone else is.
On the position battle at the kicker position
I thought (redshirt junior kicker) Mike (Molina) did well on Saturday. (Redshirt senior kicker) Josh (Lambert) is rusty, so we will see how they practice today and make decisions based on how they practice. I don’t view kickers any differently than I do quarterbacks or defensive linemen. I said that after the game, and it’s the same way right now. We’ll see how they practice. We will go out there and watch them kick and if it looks good, then we will go with the one that we feel better about.
On if redshirt senior kicker Josh Lambert could be used for long distance field goals
(Redshirt junior kicker) Mike (Molina) has more pop than (redshirt senior kicker) Josh (Lambert). We’ll look at it and see where they are today.
On if the kicker position battle will last throughout the season
Can we talk about something else other than kickers? I hate bringing kickers into the forefront of things, just ignore them. Kickers, (long) snappers, those guys, just ignore them. (Redshirt sophomore kicker/punter) Billy Kinney had a great day, our punt team looked great. He is doing a great job of flipping the field. Special teams wise, I think we are alright. Two years ago when we gave up a punt return and lost, and last year we gave up a couple of punt returns and lost. That didn’t happen this year, so good for special teams.
On how the offensive line played against Kansas State
Very, very, very average. It was our worst game to date. (Redshirt senior offensive lineman Tyler Orlosky) T.O. played good. He is always going to. Everyone else was very below average. That needs to improve. Now, when you say something like that, why? Because Kansas State is pretty good. Why was it a low scoring game? Because Kansas State’s defense is really good. Without a doubt, the best defense that we faced this year. I don’t think it’s even close. Those guys are good on defense. They have next level guys. They have experienced guys. They were at their best last year, game 12. They are much better now than they were last year game 12. Give those guys some credit for that as well, their front is really good.
On what he saw in redshirt freshman linebacker David Long in practice to start him against Kansas State
Not as much in practice, but how he was playing in games. I would guess, you can ask (Associate Head Coach (Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers) (Tony) Gibby (Gibson), I would guess he played 30 snaps a game. He was on all of the special teams for the first three games and his production was really good, so we felt like it was time to make that change. It’s not surprising to me, I watched him all last year, trying to block him when he was on scout team. I suggested him on numerous, numerous occasions to pull his redshirt and play him because I thought he was game ready last year. He went in there and made the difference. He is doing a good job. I’m proud of him.
On recruiting schedule this week
We will get some coaches out of here on Thursday. Me and (Associate Head Coach/Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers) (Tony) Gibby (Gibson) will stay here Thursday and do some developmental stuff. Most of the coaches will be out recruiting on Thursday, Friday and some on Saturday. Hitting high schools, hitting different areas and hitting junior colleges. I feel like we have some momentum in recruiting finally, to where we will take advantage of that. You can’t get out there and go talk to them, but you can be visible. You can talk to them on the phone and text message with them, do the twitter thing and all of that good stuff, but just being visible and supporting guys that you want at the games, I think is very important. How much evaluation is going on? Not a ton. This is an evaluation period. The NCAA is talking about revisiting it, but this is an evaluation period, where I don’t know how much evaluation you have to do, with Hudl (recruiting website) and all of that stuff you can sit there and watch everything that they do. Going out and eye balling them is important, like I did when we went to down to Mississippi last time I was out. I put my eyes on a couple of guys, and we liked them. There is a little bit of that, but just supporting them is probably the biggest thing. Watching some games, and then back to work on Sunday.
On if he anticipates teams to start double covering redshirt junior wide receiver Shelton Gibson
They have, the first couple of games they kept their safeties back. We have shown that we can run the ball to where safeties are starting to come down. Kansas State put a sixth guy in the box, they didn’t do that last year, and they did this year. Which makes more one on one stuff. I hope they do something. I like to see when safeties are over the top. It makes it easier to run the ball. It’s easier to scheme things up and run the ball versus good numbers than bad numbers. He’s a special cat now, being able track the ball and catch it over his shoulder. That catch he made, I don’t know how that didn’t get called when they ripped his head off, but that’s him. He can track the ball and catch the thing. Probably, should have targeted him a couple of more times. He needs to continue to work on a lot of underneath stuff. That’s the part of his game that he needs to continue to do. That definitely gets people’s attention and moves those safeties back, which opens up things underneath for our inside receivers and our run game
On depth at wide receiver
It’s going to continue to get better, (sophomore wide receiver) Gary (Jennings) is getting seasoned, he’s settling in. (Sophomore wide receiver) Jovon (Durante) had his best game. (Freshman wide receiver) Marcus (Simms) is more like (redshirt junior wide receiver) Shelton (Gibson) than anyone we have. He can really stretch the field. He’s still raw, still trying to figure things out. Those six, (redshirt senior wide receiver) (Devonte) Mathis is giving us good depth on the inside. (Freshman running back) Kennedy McKoy is not playing as much as I want him too. When we get into some of these games where we snap the ball 95 times instead of 70, like we have the last two weeks, then that makes guys like him more important because he can give you more depth in the backfield but he is versatile enough where he can give you some receiver reps as well. That’s going to be important moving forward.
On if he has plans for freshman wide receiver Steven Smothers
Not at this point, no.
On why he was frustrated with the wide receivers
Yeah, I got mad there for a little bit in the second quarter. We busted a couple of assignments. That was the biggest issue I had, guys weren’t where they were supposed to be. It happened on critical downs, you are talking about third and long, fourth and long. In the second quarter, we went for it a couple of times, and we were not very good on critical downs and it was because guys were not in the right spots. Yeah, that’s going to upset me. He handled it well. Those receivers will tell you, I love those guys. I spend a lot of time with them, so they are the ones who are going to get the majority of the wrath. That’s just the way it is, they know it, but they all responded well. (Senior wide receiver) Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) is a great leader. I can say about anything I want to to him. He corrals those guys, especially the young ones, and (redshirt junior wide receiver) Shelton (Gibson) is the same way. (Sophomore wide receiver) Jovon (Durante) is still relatively young and learning a new position, so I have to keep that in mind a little bit, but he responded and had his best game. He will keep getting better at that inside spot.
On what being ranked means to the team
Don’t care. It’s good for the program, notoriety, it’s good for recruiting and that sort of thing, but this group doesn’t care. That’s not our goal.
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