Coach Montgomery’s Weekly Press Conference Quotes
November 12, 2018 | Football
Press Conference
GREENVILLE, N.C. – Third-year ECU Head Football Coach Scottie Montgomery addressed members of the media on Monday prior to this weekend's home finale against Connecticut. The following are selected comments:
Opening Statement:
"Very disappointed coming off a tough loss at Tulane where I thought our offense, defense and special teams battled. Unfortunately, we didn't get it done in any phase of the game for a complete game, which we knew we were going to have to do. We knew that it was going to come down to the team that made the fewest mistakes to win. Offensively, it was very hurtful that we didn't win some of those one-on-one battles, but more hurtful that we had points taken off the board on offense and on special teams. Defense, we went into the game with the mindset to stop the run. I thought we did a good job of stopping the run, holding them to around 3.2 to 3.3 yards per carry, which was what we knew we had to do. Unfortunately, the one-on-one situations on defense, not only did we not get the slant stopped for a touchdown, we also didn't get it tackled at all. Those are the things that come back to us being unsuccessful in the game. We talked about trying to make sure that when we're in those situations in games, it's more hurtful when you lose a game like we've lost three by a touchdown or less, in situations where you take points off the board and you have penalties that hurt you. The penalties that we had in the game, on the field goal and on the reverse, the second play of the game, I thought the officiating was correct on both of them. We need to hold ourselves accountable. As far as that is concerned, if we had got that done, the outcome of the game could have been a lot different. We have to make sure we hold ourselves accountable for the decisions and mistakes that we made throughout this game. All in all, I thought our defense bounced back. You take those three plays out of the game, on slant plays where our defensive secondary has to go make that play, if they don't make the play at least make a tackle. What it's looking like offensively and defensively is that we're one to two playmakers on offense and defense from being able to win these games and put these games away. I thought we started well in the game by deferring, getting a big-time stop on fourth down, and then the offense using that momentum. But that momentum was quickly stopped by what I said before with what happened to us"
On Connecticut:
"Moving forward we've got a UConn football team that is hungry just like us to get their first conference win. We're happy to be playing here in Greenville. The things that their offensive personnel that you saw, being able to score 50 points, that doesn't happen when you have great offensive personnel. It's all led by quarterback No. 5, (David Pindell), who has over 2,000 all-purpose yards already for them. He presents quite a challenge for us and our defense. Defensively, they're big in their defensive front. We need to be able to put it together, it doesn't matter how, whether it's quarterback, half back, receiver, we're going to have to put together protection to effectively run the football, so we don't have to do to Holton (Ahlers) what we did in the (Tulane) game.
"I thought Holton's performance in the game was much better than the numbers say. A lot of those incompletions that he had were where he didn't want to take a sack or man-to-man coverage was too tight or guys weren't in the positions they needed to be. Those were great incompletions. You never hear people talk about great incompletions. He's learning to be sounder as far as taking care of the ball. He had one major mistake there. This week is going to be a little different with the coverages we're going to see. We saw a lot of man last week. We can see man and zone this week and we need to get him prepared for it. Also, a new front. They played some grizzly last year. We played a grizzly front this past week. This week it looks like we're going to see more four downs. So, we've got a lot to get done between now and Saturday to give us a chance to be victorious against the UConn Huskies."
On Holton Ahlers' Growth This Season:
"He's been able to throw the football ever since the beginning. You go back to the first part when I said it's been about protecting himself. If he continues to protect himself, he'll get better and better. But in practice, we can't allow him to get hit of course, but we also can't allow him to get hit in some of these situations in the game. Our problems in our offensive front also have a lot to do with him taking care of the ball and throwing it away. That's the biggest growth. You see these incompletions and people think maybe he took a step back. He actually took a step forward, in taking care of his body and taking care of the ball. So, he's grown so much, and he's grown in situations where he's had the starting group in front of him. It'd be lot different right now if he's looking at his starting center, or not even his starting center but his backup center. He's all the way down to his third center. Then not only his starting guard or his backup guard but his third guard at times being played in there. So, he's grown a lot. I'm impressed by him and looking forward to seeing him continue to grow throughout the year."
On The Development Of The Younger Wide Receivers:
"The two that I'll start with is Blake Proehl and Leroy Henley. I think that they continue to have to grow. One thing that we've noticed about Leroy and Blake is the fatigue factor is starting to work in on them. Guys coming off ACL injuries, it's been a long season and a long grind. They're working really hard to get better. The one thing we missed in this game is the solid play by Deondre Farrier, who had surgery on his meniscus on Thursday. We thought he was going to be able to play through it on Monday and Tuesday then we found out he was going to have surgery on Thursday. So, we missed that. Tyler Snead getting injected into it definitely has helped us. Mydreon Vines is a guy we want to see more out of. Hopefully we'll see more out him this week. We're going to have to get guys located in one position and let them go play. One of the things when guys in the older group start to get hurt, now you have guys that have practiced and played in one position, have to go learn other positions and the details of those positions. I think Tyler Snead is benefited from being one position. Understanding that position, learning and going. But the two guys we're going to continue to work and get better work out of is Leroy Henley and Blake Proehl. We've got to get their bodies back to where they were at the beginning of the year. There is wear and tear, but there are things we can do throughout the week to get them better."
On Talking With ECU Leadership:
"There's been conversations between several people, that I won't talk about publicly, but we are in the absence of an AD. So there hasn't been, outside of the people that we're working with on a day-to-day basis, that's not something we've talked about. Do I have conversations with people? I have conversations with people. Most of my time, 99 percent of it, is making sure we put the best players on the football field, keep our kids healthy and give our offense, defense and special teams the best chance to win."
On Being A Play Or Two From Winning At Tulane:
"Making sure the Pirates don't beat Pirates. You can't say you're a play away or two plays away. Almost doesn't really get it done. I'm more concerned with the plays that we made that came off the board. The long field goal by Jake Verity. Points coming off the board. The reverse that we had of course scripted at that point in the game, and points come off the board. It's not about the one or two plays, it's about the discipline in games. The penalties in games. The ones that weren't touchdowns that were penalties. So, we've got to continue to stress that and go as hard as we can on making sure guys understand that one play at a time and not after the game, what about one or two plays. We've got to make sure our discipline stands up throughout the game."
On The Status Of Jonn Young:
"I thought Jake (Verity) stepped up in a major way. He didn't know he was going to punt, then Jonn goes down with the ankle injury. We feel pretty good about getting him back. He won't kick tomorrow then we'll try to get him back kicking on Wednesday and hopefully he'll feel better. Thank goodness Jake was ready to go. There's a lot of things about punting that's different, mentally. We have to get the ball out in a certain amount of time. Then he also has to get his mind sharp to be able to go back in and hit big time field goals and extra points. I started the team meeting Sunday with telling him how much I respected his ability to go in and do a job when we needed him to do it. There was a really, really critical punt in there that gave us an opportunity to have a great chance to win the game."
On How Frustrating The Injuries On The Offensive Line Are:
"Probably the biggest part of the frustration is that we had found the five that we really liked and like working together. Throughout the offseason building to that. It was hurtful when we lost one of them, when we lost two of them right beside each other, it was really tough for our offense. We're going to have to adjust this week. We're still going to have to have the ability to run the football. We'll make some adjustments that'll probably benefit our offensive line a lot more than we have in the last couple weeks. We can't just keep saying we don't have this guy or that guy. Eventually you have to do something that's completely different to give us a better chance to run the football. But the hardest part is that we felt that we had the five across the board that we really liked at that time with D'Ante (Smith) beside Cortez (Herrin) beside John (Spellacy) beside (Brandon) Pena beside Garrett McGhin and it really came together at that point in the year. Then, as soon as we felt like we started to gel in the run game, we get an injury.
"So, it's frustrating but it's part of the game. Next man up. We need to have that type of mentality. No excuses, no explanations for it. We need to be better in the run game. We can't stress this young quarterback the way we've stressed him. I like the way he's taking care of the football. I like the way he's running the ball. We always have to add the extra number with the running back and we have to give our running backs the ability to create some different type of runs and that's what we're doing. But unfortunately, when you are struggling at some of those positions on the interior, you can't have a game where you're starting with a tackle for loss and 2nd-and-13. Where in the passing game, if the quarterback can take care of the ball, at the very minimum you'll come out with 2nd-and-10. So those are some of the things that go into it. Frustrating is a good word. The other part that goes into the run game is the injuries we've had at tight end. (Johnny) Bogle going down. (Anthony) Watley with the hand surgery and we're trying to work him back in this week. Hopefully we'll see him. He's started to practice and move around. He started to run last night and hopefully he'll be practicing tomorrow. When you have an absence of those two tight ends at different times and the offensive line, you have to put too much stress on the quarterback. If we could just take some of the stress off of this quarterback, our defense could come on and stop some of those big plays, we have a good chance to finish well."
On Whether He Regrets Not Starting Holton Ahlers During Game One:
"No. Just because he wasn't ready to get protected. The one thing I'll say about Holton is that he grew a tremendous amount coming out of training camp. When everyone else in that situation could have been put in that third role at that point in time, just because of a lack of understanding. Also, our defense put a lot of pressure on Holton from the way that we play our ends. So, it stressed him and his protection, understanding how backers fit off of the protection and he wasn't, even early in the game, he just wasn't ready. Now, we've been very lucky a couple of times with the hits that he has taken. You still would like for him to learn from some of these hits and shots that he has taken. They're not just about him understanding protections but also what's in front of him. If you look around our state, there have been a couple of guys that have started quarterbacks early and they've taken some hits that you would like to have back. I just can't put a guy out there that really wasn't ready to protect himself in that situation. Talent-wise, he has it all. If there was a situation where we could have him download the whole playbook and know everything in that playbook as soon as he went out there, talent-wise I've been saying I think this kid is special. There's a lot of things that we did to bring a little bit of the playbook to him which has made it a little bit easier for him. We're really excited about where he's going and the direction. But he's got to continue to protect himself. He's still taking one or two shots a game that if we get hit by the right person in that game, we'll lose him. So, he just wasn't ready. I wish he was ready, but he wasn't ready at the time to protect himself."
On Status Of The Backup Quarterback:
"Reid (Herring) is back. Reid was back last week. He was getting warm on the sidelines because Holton did take a shot, that was one of those shots that you hold your breath on, this past week. But Reid is back and ready to go. He's back healthy, thank goodness, after the accident. He had to move through a lot, physically and we were able to bring him through it."
On Biggest Hurdle Right Now Without A Chance At Postseason Play:
"It's always motivation, but it would have been motivation in my first year and that would have been it. The locker room is totally different. Everything is different in that locker room. The one thing I have to do is I have to make sure that I'm making the biggest investment for our football team and our players throughout the time here. Just time spent with each of these guys. The locker room is completely different. It would have been motivating these guys. But we practiced on Sunday, the day after a huge game for us where we didn't come out victorious, and we practiced extremely well. So those are the things we had to come across. But we've got to continue to keep our guys healthy. That's probably the biggest hurdle at this point in time."
GREENVILLE, N.C. – Third-year ECU Head Football Coach Scottie Montgomery addressed members of the media on Monday prior to this weekend's home finale against Connecticut. The following are selected comments:
Opening Statement:
"Very disappointed coming off a tough loss at Tulane where I thought our offense, defense and special teams battled. Unfortunately, we didn't get it done in any phase of the game for a complete game, which we knew we were going to have to do. We knew that it was going to come down to the team that made the fewest mistakes to win. Offensively, it was very hurtful that we didn't win some of those one-on-one battles, but more hurtful that we had points taken off the board on offense and on special teams. Defense, we went into the game with the mindset to stop the run. I thought we did a good job of stopping the run, holding them to around 3.2 to 3.3 yards per carry, which was what we knew we had to do. Unfortunately, the one-on-one situations on defense, not only did we not get the slant stopped for a touchdown, we also didn't get it tackled at all. Those are the things that come back to us being unsuccessful in the game. We talked about trying to make sure that when we're in those situations in games, it's more hurtful when you lose a game like we've lost three by a touchdown or less, in situations where you take points off the board and you have penalties that hurt you. The penalties that we had in the game, on the field goal and on the reverse, the second play of the game, I thought the officiating was correct on both of them. We need to hold ourselves accountable. As far as that is concerned, if we had got that done, the outcome of the game could have been a lot different. We have to make sure we hold ourselves accountable for the decisions and mistakes that we made throughout this game. All in all, I thought our defense bounced back. You take those three plays out of the game, on slant plays where our defensive secondary has to go make that play, if they don't make the play at least make a tackle. What it's looking like offensively and defensively is that we're one to two playmakers on offense and defense from being able to win these games and put these games away. I thought we started well in the game by deferring, getting a big-time stop on fourth down, and then the offense using that momentum. But that momentum was quickly stopped by what I said before with what happened to us"
On Connecticut:
"Moving forward we've got a UConn football team that is hungry just like us to get their first conference win. We're happy to be playing here in Greenville. The things that their offensive personnel that you saw, being able to score 50 points, that doesn't happen when you have great offensive personnel. It's all led by quarterback No. 5, (David Pindell), who has over 2,000 all-purpose yards already for them. He presents quite a challenge for us and our defense. Defensively, they're big in their defensive front. We need to be able to put it together, it doesn't matter how, whether it's quarterback, half back, receiver, we're going to have to put together protection to effectively run the football, so we don't have to do to Holton (Ahlers) what we did in the (Tulane) game.
"I thought Holton's performance in the game was much better than the numbers say. A lot of those incompletions that he had were where he didn't want to take a sack or man-to-man coverage was too tight or guys weren't in the positions they needed to be. Those were great incompletions. You never hear people talk about great incompletions. He's learning to be sounder as far as taking care of the ball. He had one major mistake there. This week is going to be a little different with the coverages we're going to see. We saw a lot of man last week. We can see man and zone this week and we need to get him prepared for it. Also, a new front. They played some grizzly last year. We played a grizzly front this past week. This week it looks like we're going to see more four downs. So, we've got a lot to get done between now and Saturday to give us a chance to be victorious against the UConn Huskies."
On Holton Ahlers' Growth This Season:
"He's been able to throw the football ever since the beginning. You go back to the first part when I said it's been about protecting himself. If he continues to protect himself, he'll get better and better. But in practice, we can't allow him to get hit of course, but we also can't allow him to get hit in some of these situations in the game. Our problems in our offensive front also have a lot to do with him taking care of the ball and throwing it away. That's the biggest growth. You see these incompletions and people think maybe he took a step back. He actually took a step forward, in taking care of his body and taking care of the ball. So, he's grown so much, and he's grown in situations where he's had the starting group in front of him. It'd be lot different right now if he's looking at his starting center, or not even his starting center but his backup center. He's all the way down to his third center. Then not only his starting guard or his backup guard but his third guard at times being played in there. So, he's grown a lot. I'm impressed by him and looking forward to seeing him continue to grow throughout the year."
On The Development Of The Younger Wide Receivers:
"The two that I'll start with is Blake Proehl and Leroy Henley. I think that they continue to have to grow. One thing that we've noticed about Leroy and Blake is the fatigue factor is starting to work in on them. Guys coming off ACL injuries, it's been a long season and a long grind. They're working really hard to get better. The one thing we missed in this game is the solid play by Deondre Farrier, who had surgery on his meniscus on Thursday. We thought he was going to be able to play through it on Monday and Tuesday then we found out he was going to have surgery on Thursday. So, we missed that. Tyler Snead getting injected into it definitely has helped us. Mydreon Vines is a guy we want to see more out of. Hopefully we'll see more out him this week. We're going to have to get guys located in one position and let them go play. One of the things when guys in the older group start to get hurt, now you have guys that have practiced and played in one position, have to go learn other positions and the details of those positions. I think Tyler Snead is benefited from being one position. Understanding that position, learning and going. But the two guys we're going to continue to work and get better work out of is Leroy Henley and Blake Proehl. We've got to get their bodies back to where they were at the beginning of the year. There is wear and tear, but there are things we can do throughout the week to get them better."
On Talking With ECU Leadership:
"There's been conversations between several people, that I won't talk about publicly, but we are in the absence of an AD. So there hasn't been, outside of the people that we're working with on a day-to-day basis, that's not something we've talked about. Do I have conversations with people? I have conversations with people. Most of my time, 99 percent of it, is making sure we put the best players on the football field, keep our kids healthy and give our offense, defense and special teams the best chance to win."
On Being A Play Or Two From Winning At Tulane:
"Making sure the Pirates don't beat Pirates. You can't say you're a play away or two plays away. Almost doesn't really get it done. I'm more concerned with the plays that we made that came off the board. The long field goal by Jake Verity. Points coming off the board. The reverse that we had of course scripted at that point in the game, and points come off the board. It's not about the one or two plays, it's about the discipline in games. The penalties in games. The ones that weren't touchdowns that were penalties. So, we've got to continue to stress that and go as hard as we can on making sure guys understand that one play at a time and not after the game, what about one or two plays. We've got to make sure our discipline stands up throughout the game."
On The Status Of Jonn Young:
"I thought Jake (Verity) stepped up in a major way. He didn't know he was going to punt, then Jonn goes down with the ankle injury. We feel pretty good about getting him back. He won't kick tomorrow then we'll try to get him back kicking on Wednesday and hopefully he'll feel better. Thank goodness Jake was ready to go. There's a lot of things about punting that's different, mentally. We have to get the ball out in a certain amount of time. Then he also has to get his mind sharp to be able to go back in and hit big time field goals and extra points. I started the team meeting Sunday with telling him how much I respected his ability to go in and do a job when we needed him to do it. There was a really, really critical punt in there that gave us an opportunity to have a great chance to win the game."
On How Frustrating The Injuries On The Offensive Line Are:
"Probably the biggest part of the frustration is that we had found the five that we really liked and like working together. Throughout the offseason building to that. It was hurtful when we lost one of them, when we lost two of them right beside each other, it was really tough for our offense. We're going to have to adjust this week. We're still going to have to have the ability to run the football. We'll make some adjustments that'll probably benefit our offensive line a lot more than we have in the last couple weeks. We can't just keep saying we don't have this guy or that guy. Eventually you have to do something that's completely different to give us a better chance to run the football. But the hardest part is that we felt that we had the five across the board that we really liked at that time with D'Ante (Smith) beside Cortez (Herrin) beside John (Spellacy) beside (Brandon) Pena beside Garrett McGhin and it really came together at that point in the year. Then, as soon as we felt like we started to gel in the run game, we get an injury.
"So, it's frustrating but it's part of the game. Next man up. We need to have that type of mentality. No excuses, no explanations for it. We need to be better in the run game. We can't stress this young quarterback the way we've stressed him. I like the way he's taking care of the football. I like the way he's running the ball. We always have to add the extra number with the running back and we have to give our running backs the ability to create some different type of runs and that's what we're doing. But unfortunately, when you are struggling at some of those positions on the interior, you can't have a game where you're starting with a tackle for loss and 2nd-and-13. Where in the passing game, if the quarterback can take care of the ball, at the very minimum you'll come out with 2nd-and-10. So those are some of the things that go into it. Frustrating is a good word. The other part that goes into the run game is the injuries we've had at tight end. (Johnny) Bogle going down. (Anthony) Watley with the hand surgery and we're trying to work him back in this week. Hopefully we'll see him. He's started to practice and move around. He started to run last night and hopefully he'll be practicing tomorrow. When you have an absence of those two tight ends at different times and the offensive line, you have to put too much stress on the quarterback. If we could just take some of the stress off of this quarterback, our defense could come on and stop some of those big plays, we have a good chance to finish well."
On Whether He Regrets Not Starting Holton Ahlers During Game One:
"No. Just because he wasn't ready to get protected. The one thing I'll say about Holton is that he grew a tremendous amount coming out of training camp. When everyone else in that situation could have been put in that third role at that point in time, just because of a lack of understanding. Also, our defense put a lot of pressure on Holton from the way that we play our ends. So, it stressed him and his protection, understanding how backers fit off of the protection and he wasn't, even early in the game, he just wasn't ready. Now, we've been very lucky a couple of times with the hits that he has taken. You still would like for him to learn from some of these hits and shots that he has taken. They're not just about him understanding protections but also what's in front of him. If you look around our state, there have been a couple of guys that have started quarterbacks early and they've taken some hits that you would like to have back. I just can't put a guy out there that really wasn't ready to protect himself in that situation. Talent-wise, he has it all. If there was a situation where we could have him download the whole playbook and know everything in that playbook as soon as he went out there, talent-wise I've been saying I think this kid is special. There's a lot of things that we did to bring a little bit of the playbook to him which has made it a little bit easier for him. We're really excited about where he's going and the direction. But he's got to continue to protect himself. He's still taking one or two shots a game that if we get hit by the right person in that game, we'll lose him. So, he just wasn't ready. I wish he was ready, but he wasn't ready at the time to protect himself."
On Status Of The Backup Quarterback:
"Reid (Herring) is back. Reid was back last week. He was getting warm on the sidelines because Holton did take a shot, that was one of those shots that you hold your breath on, this past week. But Reid is back and ready to go. He's back healthy, thank goodness, after the accident. He had to move through a lot, physically and we were able to bring him through it."
On Biggest Hurdle Right Now Without A Chance At Postseason Play:
"It's always motivation, but it would have been motivation in my first year and that would have been it. The locker room is totally different. Everything is different in that locker room. The one thing I have to do is I have to make sure that I'm making the biggest investment for our football team and our players throughout the time here. Just time spent with each of these guys. The locker room is completely different. It would have been motivating these guys. But we practiced on Sunday, the day after a huge game for us where we didn't come out victorious, and we practiced extremely well. So those are the things we had to come across. But we've got to continue to keep our guys healthy. That's probably the biggest hurdle at this point in time."
Players Mentioned
Quarterback
/ Football
Wide Receiver
/ Football
Wide Receiver
/ Football
Offensive Line
/ Football
Wide Receiver
/ Football
Wide Receiver
/ Football
Placekicker/Punter
/ Football
Wide Receiver
/ Football
Punter
/ FootballSaturday, April 18
Monday, April 13
Friday, April 10
Tuesday, April 07
