Coach Houston’s Weekly Press Conference Quotes

Press Conference

GREENVILLE, N.C. – Second-year East Carolina Head Football Coach Mike Houston addressed members of the media Tuesday prior to Saturday's road game at USF. The following are selected comments:

Opening Statement:
"Tuesday, 11:30 am. The sun has shown for the last two days. Nobody died. We haven't seen our families since Saturday night, so the coaches have been hard at work. The kids had a good Sunday. I'm excited about our matchup this week against South Florida. I'm looking forward to getting things corrected that we need to get corrected after the game against Georgia State Saturday. Disappointing to not be able to get the win down there against a very good team. I'm excited about the next matchup."

On The Biggest Challenges USF Presents And The Things ECU Is Trying To Correct:
"I think South Florida, just like we saw last year because they have a lot of the same guys back from last year, has good size, really good team speed on both sides of the ball and at skill positions. Defensively, I thought they played very well against Cincinnati. They turned the ball over a lot on offense last week and still held Cincinnati to 28 points. I think that says a lot about how their defense is coming around. I think you have to kind of throw the Notre Dame game out with as many players they were playing without due to COVID. So, they have kids that played against Notre Dame that aren't even in the two deep. So, I think you have to toss that game out a little bit.

"They've had their issues at quarterback, but they've got talent. They've got four different quarterbacks that they've played. All four are talented players. One transferred from North Carolina. Another is a grad transfer from one of the SWAC schools. Then they've got the freshman, No. 12 (Katravis Marsh) and then they've got (Jordan) McCloud who played against us last year. No. 12 (Marsh) started against Cincinnati. Obviously just an extremely talented young athlete that is a true freshman and he looked like a true freshman. Really talented, it's just no different than any other kid in that situation. He has not seen everything that he's going to see on a down after down deal and he struggles a little bit.

"They played the kid from North Carolina (Cade Fortin), he did some okay things. He looks like a guy that really knows how to operate the offense, a good arm, a pocket guy. But really McCloud, I thought, came in and gave them the best opportunity to score and move the offense down the field against Cincinnati. Now obviously, they see those kids everyday so they may have different opinions. I thought he had a better chemistry with his wideouts. His mobility gave you the run threat. I thought he threw the ball better than when he played against us last year, and I thought he played well against us last year. So, I think you'll see McCloud, but again, I'm the coach at East Carolina, not South Florida."

On How Much Of The Offensive Line Issues Are Players Not Knowing What To Do Versus Just Getting Beat:
"I wouldn't say not knowing what to do as much as having experience doing it. What I mean by that, Nishad Strother has played three different positions in two weeks and just a normal person might say going from right guard to right tackle to left tackle is not a big deal. It still is different, there are different things and you work with a different guy. I think there's some of that. I think there's Avery Jones playing his first college start, we didn't play well together. That's the biggest thing I saw. You had small mistakes that were causing us to get beat when if we take the right footwork or if you work together better on the sort to one side, you don't get beat. So, I do think there is a continuity factor. I think there is a youth factor. You don't have D'Ante (Smith) or Noah (Henderson) right now. That's two of your more experience linemen. So, you've brought in guys that have not been together as much. Was there some of a player here or there getting beat one-on-one? Yeah, it happened a couple of times. The bigger problem was the mistakes that I attribute to continuity or familiarity with the position they were playing on Saturday."

On How COVID Has An Effect On Preparing New Players:
"It does. We didn't have spring practice or summer workouts. I'm one year into this job. It really screwed us a bit, but nobody cares. Once we start playing games, nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear excuses; nobody wants to hear the reasons. All they care about is that you didn't beat Georgia State. There's lots of reasons. The one thing that really does piss me off is when people take shots at the kids. Because if there's one group where it's not fair, it's not their fault, and if they're trying very hard to do what we're asking them to do, they want to go out and play at a high level, it's our players. I like the players in our locker room. We have good culture in there. They're positive. They're going to play hard on Saturday. They're going to play better Saturday. They're going to continue to improve and I'm excited to get to go out and spend the afternoon with them."

On What Week To Week Challenges That Are Different At ECU:
"I think this job is very similar to Lenoir-Rhyne, very similar to the situation we inherited there. There's some similarities to The Citadel, but probably more to Lenoir-Rhyne. I've said that many times. It pisses people off sometimes when I say that because they don't want to hear that. This is a great institution. It is a phenomenal place to be the football coach. It's got a really bright future. We're excited to be here. We're in the middle of a complete rebuild. It is what it is. The challenges are all the things that you talk about. We have so many new players, we have so many young players. Even our old players are young. I mean Holton (Ahlers), who you consider an older player, he's got this year and two more years after this. And he's one of our old guys. You have all of the development stuff. So, the challenges are getting all of the guys on the same page. Whether it's the offensive line, the secondary, the defense as a whole, the wide receivers and Holton, a couple of new running backs, whomever it is. It's getting everybody on the same page. It's getting everybody to where they're functioning together better as one. It's cutting down on mistakes. That's really the big thing, cutting down on the mistakes.

"Our players come in and watch the film and it's if you cut out a half dozen mistakes here or there and it's a completely different ballgame. That's what happens when you play veteran teams. You make a mistake; they make you pay for it. That's our big focus this week, cutting down on the mistakes. Whether it's a pre-snap penalty procedurally or it's working together in protection or the secondary is rotating this way. We've got to cut down on the mistakes and we've got to continue to push them to play hard, play fast and defensively, run and hit. Offensively, attack and get north. It's those things."

On The Status Of D'Ante Smith:
"D'Ante is our most experience lineman so obviously not having him last week, it's going to leave a void there. Nishad Strother is a very good player. He's going to be a really good player. I can't say enough positive things about him. But you guys know better than I do how many starts D'Ante has under his belt. It's a large number. Whereas Nishad, that was his second college start and he started at two different positions. So, just the experience factor is what you miss. D'Ante always has a high motor. So, you have that too. I'll be glad when he's back. I do think we'll have him back fairly soon. I don't know if it will be by the weekend or not."

On The Status Of Noah Henderson And Demetrius Mauney:
"Noah's progressing. It's still going to be a while. He's progressing. He's great with a positive attitude right now. He's trying to find his role as a supporter of the guys on the field. I'm really proud of him and the attitude he's taken with that. Demetrius, he battled some injury stuff, battled some health stuff for a while there. He's back in the role as far as traveling. He did some good things on special teams there Saturday and so he's finding his spot."

On His Philosophy With Mason Garcia:
"He's very similar to what I was talking about with the South Florida kid. He's a freshman. It was the first time he'd had a road game in his entire life. His first college snaps ever. Great attitude. Enjoyable kid to be around, working his tail off. He's getting better every day. We're getting him as many reps during the week as we can get him. We'll continue to try to get him game reps when the situations arise. At the same time, we're going out there playing to win and right now, Holton's experience and Holton's ability gives us a better chance right now. There will be a day when Mason Garcia is the starting quarterback here. When that day comes, he'll be ready for it."

On What He Learned From The Logistics Of Traveling During The COVID-19 Pandemic:
"It's all a pain in the butt. It's what we've got to do. Something as simple as after we finish walkthroughs on Friday, the doctors tell us we've got to eat here at the facility instead of eating on the bus or the plane as we're traveling. Same thing on Saturday night. It's an inconvenience. It's not that big of a deal, but still, it's 30 or 45 minutes on either end that holds you up. Instead of taking two busses from the airport to the hotel, we've got five busses from the airport to the hotel. It's an inconvenience, it costs us more money, but it's what we've got to do. We have to wear our masks the entire time we're on the bus, the entire time you're on the flight. It's an inconvenience, but it's what we've got to do. A lot of inconveniences, some of those are financial inconveniences, but it's what we've got to do to operate right now. The good thing is, once you get on the field, for the players, they go play. We're testing so much that we feel like we have a pretty good shot at remaining safe. So, it allows them to just go out there and play football."

On Whether He Has Seen Signs Of Encouragement From The Defense:
"I'm encouraged by spots. When you look at the periods where we have not played as well, it's usually one of those where we've got a mistake and it's somebody set something the wrong way or somebody did something the wrong way and it's usually a younger player. Those things are going to continue to improve. I thought we played fairly well in the second half defensively. We gave up one score there, with I think 20 seconds left on the clock, after not getting a first down deep in our own territory. That's a pretty solid second half. Now the first half, we had some big plays that we gave up and the big plays resulted from mistakes so we've got to get those corrected."

On Whether Playing In Atlanta And Florida Has Recruiting Value:
"Sure, it does. It would help a lot more if we could get out to the schools on Friday and see some games on Friday night. That way the recruits knew you were there and then they knew your team is playing down there. Certainly, Atlanta and Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando are all big recruiting areas for us. This is a weird year, but at least our name is down there. It would have been nice to have gotten a win in Atlanta, that would certainly help a lot more. But it's just a weird year with the recruiting stuff."

Players Mentioned

Mason Garcia

Noah Henderson

Avery Jones

Demetrius Mauney

D'Ante Smith

Nishad Strother

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