Holtz' Weekly Press Quotes
September 28, 2009 | Football
Sept. 28, 2009
GREENVILLE, N.C. -East Carolina University Head Football Coach Skip Holtz addressed members of the media prior to this week's game against Marshall. The following are selected comments:
On The UCF Victory:
"It was nice to get back on a winning track this weekend, especially after the last few weeks having to be on the road and losing games. I've been talking about how positive the morale has been, but it's always a nice boost and shot in the arm to get a win."
On The Defense Against UCF:
"Looking at the performance Saturday, I thought defensively there were an awful lot of positive things that happened in that game. Outside of that last 80-yard drive with under two minutes in the game, our defense played exceptionally well. They created five turnovers and did a great job of getting off the field. UCF only had the ball for 25 minutes. Our defensive linemen C.J. Wilson and Scotty Robinson played very well. Our tackles in Linval Joseph, Jay Ross and Josh Smith played really well.
"The three senior linebackers again played very solid. At the end of the game, we tried to get some of the younger linebackers in the game as well. We were trying to get them some experience. Matt Thompson, Cliff Perryman and Steve Spence were all ones we tried to get in a little bit more at the end. But overall, I thought the three seniors played really well.
"Obviously, the two staples on the back end, Travis Simmons and Van Eskridge, played very well in the secondary. But it was really nice to have Levin Neal and Emanuel Davis back. They both played extremely well and were graded as winners. They were a nice addition to have in the secondary. Not only do they help Travis and Van play with more confidence, but they help everybody on defense. When you look out there and see Emanuel Davis and all the plays he has made last year, it's a boost."
On The Offense Against UCF:
"Offensively, there were a lot of positive things. When you have a quarterback who throws for almost 300 yards, a 100-yard receiver and a running back who goes for almost 100 yards on the ground, everything looks a little better. I feel like we've made some progress with what we're doing. I feel like we're getting a little bit better.
"I thought Patrick Pinkney played very well at quarterback. He did a very nice job of managing the football game.
"Brandon Jackson ran extremely hard and protected the ball. I thought the offensive line, anchored by D.J. Scott, Terence Campbell, Sean Allen and Cory Dowless, played really well against a very stingy defensive football team.
"Dwayne Harris just played special. Jamar Bryant and Alex Taylor were solid. A lot of guys were solid, but Harris is a special player. You try to put the ball in his hands as many times as possible and he's going to make some things happen, like he did Saturday.
"It was nice to see the offense get back on track a little bit. Hopefully we can take that and continue to build on it."
On Playing Marshall This Saturday:
"We get into Marshall this week and have the next two games on the road. We talked about it as a staff this morning, you play four of your first six games on the road and that's tough. Right now we're 2-2, 2-0 at home but 0-2 on the road and having to go on the road the next two weeks. It's something we'll have to figure out as a football team.
"When I look at this Marshall football team, they're playing with an awful lot of confidence. I think Coach Snyder has done a great job building that program, especially when you consider where it was four years ago and where it is today.
"I think they have some really special athletes on that team. They're playing hard and with a lot of confidence. They're 3-1 right now with their only loss at Virginia Tech.
"You can take the stats heading into this game and pretty much throw them out the window. You look at it and see Marshall is giving up 5.3 yards per carry, but if you take the Virginia Tech game out, Marshall is giving up under 2.5 yards per carry. The Virginia Tech game was statistically skewed because Marshall was outgained about 600-250 yards. I think if you take that game out of it, you're looking at a very good Marshall football team."
On The Marshall Offense:
"Their main weapon on offense is Darius Marshall, who is averaging 7.9 yards a carry and 166 yards a game. He's doing a great job. He has great balance and is very difficult to tackle. He can start and stop on a dime, bounce it around the front side or cut it around the back side. He also has the speed to go the distance. Every game he has played this season, he has a run of at least 60 yards.
"Their offensive line is big with three returning starters. I think Chad Schofield, their center, is a special player. Their two tackles are 6-foot-9 and 6-foot-5, so they're very big up front on the offensive line. They kind of maul you and then let Marshall find that seem and split it.
"When you look at the passing game, they're breaking in a new quarterback and a whole new set of wide receivers, playing a lot of younger guys. But they still have Cody Slate, the tight end, who is `Mr. Everything' for them.
"He caught the touchdown pass against us a year ago to tie the game near the end. He's a great receiver. They're utilizing him out of the backfield right now, too, as the `Wildcat' quarterback. He's all over the field and really doing a nice job for them.
"I think that's a very good offensive football team. They have the ability to control the ball and eat up time, yards and clock. I think their quarterback and wide receivers will continue to get better each and every week, because you can seem improvement from week one to today."
On The Marshall Defense:
"On defense, this is a very physical group. It's always a very physical game when we play Marshall. It's a great rivalry game for us as there is a lot of history and tradition between the two programs.
"This is always a very physical game, however. When we went up there two years ago and needed a win to clinch the Conference USA East Division, Marshall was 1-8 and kind of beat our brains in. They controlled the ball and moved it down the field.
"I think this defense exemplifies what I know of a Marshall defensive football team. They're very physical and tough. They run extremely well and I think it starts on their defensive line.
"Very similar to last week's group with UCF, Marshall plays a lot of people on their defensive front. Albert McClellan has been there for what seems like forever. He's a great player who makes a lot of big plays for them. He had six sacks against Bowling Green, which is unheard of to have that many sacks in one football game. So it starts with their guys up front and how physical and athletic they are.
"The guy who is probably the real difference maker on that defense is Mario Harvey. When you look at him as a middle linebacker, he can run, hit you and he's very active. He reminds me of Quan Sturdivant at North Carolina. Sturdivant was all over the field making a bunch of tackles and that's what you see right now with Harvey. He's a very good a linebacker and player. Brandon Burns, the strong side linebacker, has played a lot of football for them as well.
"This defense is probably better than UCF's. Marshall is very similar to UCF up front, but better on the back end. Marshall's corners have improved as they have been playing from the beginning of their careers. DeQuan Bembry is a really good player. He took a ball away from a 6-foot-8 wide receiver at Memphis last week, which was an impressive play.
"I think they're getting better as a football team and their defense is very stout. It's going to be another great challenge for us. It's something that our players are excited about and we're excited to be back into the conference race."
On This Week's Injuries:
"Dominique Lindsay is, at this point, kind of doubtful. We really don't know. He practiced yesterday in shorts but it's going to be determined by pain tolerance at this point. His range of motion and strength have improved. He's making some big strides right now. They thought he would be able to run around this week and then be at full go for next week. We're just going to have to see how things go this week, evaluate it and see how much pain he's in with that shoulder.
"Saturday, we got a little beat up and sore, but nothing too serious. Everybody looks good from last week."
On The Offense's Progress Against UCF:
"I don't know if it was a turnaround for Patrick Pinkney as much as progress. I thought he played a little bit better against North Carolina than he did against West Virginia. I said before we played North Carolina that I thought we could be much better as an offense, but our stats wouldn't show it because of the defense we were playing against. I thought Patrick did a better job in the North Carolina game of managing the contest, taking what the defense gave him and not forcing plays. That was shown in our couple long drives during the second half. I thought he did much better in the North Carolina game.
"Again, I think he took a step of progress this week. The one play that you hate to see is a quarterback throw across the grain when he's running to the right. That's when he threw the interception and put our defense in poor field position. But outside of that, I thought Patrick did a nice job managing the game. From a performance standpoint, we just have to keep improving."
On The Redzone Offense:
"I certainly was not excited about our redzone offense. That was probably the Achilles' heel Saturday. I'm excited about a lot of the great individual efforts and the way we moved the ball, but if we could have pushed the ball into the end zone from the redzone, we could have had a chance to empty the bench in that game. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do that. It's something we have to look at. From an offensive standpoint, that's the thing we have to shore up right now."
On Jonathan Williams' Fumbles:
"I wouldn't say I've lost confidence in him, but right now there are other backs who deserve the opportunity to carry the ball. In his last four or five carries, he has two fumbles. I think a guy like Giavanni Ruffin and a couple of the other backs working behind Jonathan deserve the opportunity.
"When you have talent like that around you in Dominique Lindsay, Brandon Jackson and Ruffin, you have to protect the ball. If somebody is not protecting the ball, he's not going to carry it. That's where we are with Jonathan right now. We are not putting him out to pasture, but at the same time, those guys are going to get their opportunity to prove they can hold onto the ball. Jonathan is going to have to earn his way back into the mix by carrying the ball every day in practice."
On How The Defense Was Able To Get So Many Sacks Against UCF:
"It's kind of like what happened to us in the West Virginia game. We got up a couple scores and that made UCF one dimensional. When the opponent gets one dimensional, and our defensive line gets to tape their ears back and know it's all about trying to make things happen, it helps you.
"The other thing was that we blitzed more Saturday than we had probably the entire season put together. We played more man coverage having Levin Neal and Emanuel Davis both back. That gave us more confidence to play man coverage and be more aggressive on the defensive front.
"You saw guys like Steve Spence, Chris Mattocks and other linebackers who were much more involved in the back end. Plus we created some hurried throws, which created some interception opportunities down the field. We forced five turnovers, which is a huge day for the defense.
"Overall, it was twofold, we got them more one dimensional and blitzed a lot."
On This Year's Group Of Linebackers:
"When you look at Chris Mattocks, Jeremy Chambliss and Nick Johnson, they're smart, intelligent, where they're supposed to be and always around the ball. We can do more with them as opposed to some of our other linebacker groups because these three have been in this defense for four or five years. They know what they're doing. You can blitz more and they understand where they are and where to fit with the packages.
Blitzing and leaving guys free doesn't help you. Everybody says we need to blitz more. You need to blitz more if you can be successful with it. With the intelligence, knowledge and experience this group has, they could be one of the more productive cores we've had here in the last few years. We've had very good players like Chris Moore, Pierre Bell and Quentin Cotton in the past, but these three guys are steady and do what they're supposed to."
On The Redzone Offense:
"We have to look at the redzone. We're taking a good, hard look at that because it's not the first weekend it has been an issue. We have to spend some time this week reviewing what we've called, who we've given the ball to and check things from a personnel standpoint. We also have to look at it from a scheme and coaching standpoint.
"We have to look at what people are doing differently to us, too. Marshall is going to see what UCF, North Carolina and West Virginia did against us in the redzone and apply it this week. We have to attack what we're going to see this weekend from Marshall and also what has been done to us already this season because we're going to see everything that worked used against us again.
"We need to see if we have to run more two-back sets. I didn't talk about how well Kevin Gidrey or Rob Kass played Saturday. Kass was in for 37 plays as a full back and second tight end. He did a great job and caught that ball down on the two-yard line. I probably got a little bit impatient, I really wanted him to score the touchdown, and tried to throw the dump pass to him on first down. He was wide open, we just missed the pass. I thought he did a great job.
"We just have to look at personnel. Are we better with Rob Kass in there playing as a second tight end or fullback? Or are we better with two backs in the backfield. Are we better with Giavanni Ruffin, Brandon Jackson, Dominique Lindsay and some of those guys together in the backfield? Those are the type of things we have to look at.
"The thing about is if you spread it, the defense can always put one more man in the box than you can. Then you have to throw the ball, which has been our downfall in the redzone. We haven't been able to throw the ball efficiently in the redzone. Maybe you spread it and come up with some better passing combinations. Or, if you can't throw it, you have to bring people in for a power I or full house backfield formation."
On Coach Thomas "Rock" Roggeman:
"I think he's an inspiration as a man and as a person. I think he's an inspiration because of the character and respect our players have for him for the type of person he is and the type of commitment that he makes to this program. He's very determined, committed and passionate about this program.
"Rock talked to the team for about a minute before Saturday's game. I asked him if he would be comfortable with that. He said he was. Somebody asked me afterwards what he said. He talked about how fortunate the players are to play for this program, a program that has so much pride.
"It was not a `Win-one-for-Rock' type of talk. It was not telling the guys to go out and play for him. I don't think the inspiration was to go get motivated and go play for him because of what he's going through.
"Rock's entire situation has been very private. He has been very to himself. His family is here in town and he has spent an awful lot of time with them.
"I think it's more to do with the respect for Rock as an individual, as a person and the type of commitment and passion he has to this program and his profession. It's about the type of person he is.
"I think he's much more an inspiration to these young men to become better men, than he is to our football team to go win a football game. His message wasn't, go win the game for me. It wasn't that type of inspirational talk.
"I wish I had it on tape; I'd like for my son to listen to it. Not to go win a football game, but to become a better man."
