Mike Houston's Weekly Press Conference Quotes

GREENVILLE, N.C. – Fifth-year East Carolina Head Football Coach Mike Houston addressed members of the media Tuesday morning prior to Saturday's American Athletic Conference contest at UTSA. The following are selected comments:

Opening Statement
"New week, new opponent. Getting ready to start practicing and preparing for UT San Antonio. Very impressed with a team we thought would be pretty good coming into the season. You look at them on film, they're a veteran football team, mostly seniors that are two-deep across the board, seventh year quarterback, Frank Harris. Got a chance to meet him this summer and he's a very impressive young man. A guy that's very charismatic and carries himself very well, I would imagine that he's probably a positive leader there in that locker room. I got a chance to know Coach Traylor in the last year or so, just a solid guy and a really good football coach. Great challenge down there in San Antonio, they have a very passionate fanbase, it'll be a loud atmosphere in the dome down there and a tremendous challenge for our roster. The kids are motivated to get back on the winning track and motivated to get down there and compete at a high level. Obviously disappointed in the outcome of the game Saturday, a very close game and we just didn't make the plays when we had the opportunities in order to get the win. The players are motivated to get that corrected and so are the coaches, so we'll be back at it this afternoon."

On the Road Game Being a Reset for the Team
"Hopefully. The thing I really want to see the kids do, and it was my message to the coaching staff this morning, is just to stay true to who we want to be, stay true to who I know the kids want to be, do things the right way, prepare the right way, and we want to go down there and play the way all of us expect the Pirates to play. It's going to be a very physical ball game; it's going to be two teams that play really hard. Obviously, we have to do some things better execution wise, we're going to do a great job this week preparing the kids for that. The big thing for the players, I just want them to go out there and play the game the way we know we want to play it."

On Offensive Struggles Seen on Charlotte Film
"It's not just necessarily one thing. At times we had some positive plays, and we had some things we did well. I think the biggest thing that keeps biting us is consistency. I do think they're a very good defensive football team. I said that last week when we were sitting here in our press conference. I think they've got great talent; I think they play their scheme very well, and they've done that all year against a really tough schedule. Those are the kinds of teams we have to execute really well against. A positive play on first down, then not going a great job execution wise on second down putting you in a third and long - that's the consistency I'm talking about. The offensive line, quarterbacks, receivers, whoever you're talking about, we've got to be more consistent play in and play out in order to drive the football."

On the Cause of Conrad's Field Goal Misses
"The issue was his plant foot and follow through. He was off just a little bit. I do think that that's something he'll learn from, whether it's the first kick or the second kick. I have a lot of confidence in him and he created that confidence day in and day out in practice and games. I think he has tremendous talent. I would not hesitate to trot him out there in any situation this week. I think he's a competitor. That's the thing I really like about him. He gets motivated. He doesn't get in his head. He gets motivated to perform well and he takes a lot of pride in that for the team, so I expect him to learn from those two kicks, go out and do a great job this week, and be ready to go on Saturday."

On the Defensive Performance
"Jones was a dynamic athlete. I think we'll see some things we saw last week; I don't think we'll see everything we saw last week. They certainly run their scheme very well, San Antonio does. The big thing from him is you're facing a guy who this is his seventh year of college football. He's battled through a lot of adversity; he's had a couple of years of some pretty significant injuries then he's on his third straight year being highly successful. He missed a little bit of time this year injury wise, but my point is he's seen a lot and has tremendous experience. When you're facing a quarterback like that, the decision making is really good. He sees the game at a slower pace than a younger quarterback does, so his experience is going to be a major factor. I do think that we're going to have to do a great job defending some of the RPO stuff. I think we're going to have to do a great job defending him both running it and throwing it. I think that some of the things that we struggled with Saturday we spent time with Sunday night. It wasn't like we hadn't seen it before, but we weren't as disciplined as we needed to be to shut it down. So, we spent some time Sunday night working against that stuff because if I'm Coach Traylor, I'm going to incorporate some of that stuff into my game plan this week. We expect to see a few things and we're trying to prepare for that this week."

On Playing Some of the Younger Players
"I think you get to this point in the year you're playing a lot of guys and certainly Sam (Dankah) and Brock (Spalding) have played at certain points throughout the year. Those guys are certainly guys that we are depending on for the future, so I do think you could see those guys at certain times and more as the season winds on. I think you start getting bumps and bruises so then your depth comes into play, so you see a lot of younger guys get on the field whether it be on special teams, offense, or defense."

On Preparation to Play in the Alamodome
"You can't truly prepare for being inside because we don't have a space that's indoors. We'll try to create as much noise as we can for the offense to try to mimic what's going to be a very loud environment. That's what we did when we played up at North Dakota State. You really stress communication. Your communication has to be visual and verbal. Everybody has to really focus; we have to make sure everybody gets the call, and everybody's communication is clean. We'll try to get there a little early for kickoff Saturday to give our kickers, punters, returners, receivers and all those guys to get a chance to optically go in there and catch balls, kicks, punts and stuff indoors. By the time we get through with the early warmup stuff, they should be fine."

On Seeing Raheim Jeter More This Season
"Oh yeah, absolutely. With a lot of those guys in that freshman class, which we really like that class, you're going to try to get them playing time any time you can. If it's the right situation, which you're trying to protect their redshirt, unless they're playing a lot, it makes sense to play them a lot. You hope to get him in, you hope to get some snaps under his belt. Obviously, he has improved a good bit since the spring, and he will continue to improve being a true freshman."

On Changing Play Calling Duties
"I've watched the game multiple times by now. I've watched it very closely from the standpoint of watching the play call and watching the defensive call knowing what is supposed to happen with the play call, and seeing where the issues are. I'm going to do whatever is best to give the Pirates the best opportunity to win on game day. Right now, we need to coach better during the week as far as it comes to execution, and we need to execute the plays that are called better. That's on us as coaches to prepare the players better. Right now, that's my focus. I'm not happy with where our record is, and I'm not happy with the way we're playing. I know we've got to put points on the board, and I know we've got to play more consistent offensively. I'm going to always be evaluating every aspect and do what's best to give the Pirates the best opportunity to be highly successful on game day. That's where we are."

On Javious Bond's Injury
"Javious is close. He ran yesterday. Hoping to have him back quickly, but that's kind of where we are with him."

On the Depth of the Running Back Room Despite Injury
"You saw Marlon (Gunn, Jr.) is back healthy now. Kamarro (Edmonds) has shown himself the last few weeks, Rahjai (Harris) has been kind of the steady, there every game. Gerald Green is going full speed at practice today, so it's good to have him back from injury. We have had a little bit of injury bug in that room, but we still have a very solid room right there. We've got to do a great job of getting those guys going whether it's in the run game or the passing game. They all are working very hard and very driven, so looking forward to having a great week of practice with that group this week."

On Offensive Line Combinations
"When we go the competition periods, you're going to have two different lineups. Within those lineups, you may shuffle guys between ones and twos. I said at the beginning of the year, ideally we want to play eight guys on the offensive line and we've just struggled to have enough guys playing at a consistent level in practice to go in on game day. We've started to have a couple of guys come on a little bit more lately. Obviously we played eight offensive linemen Saturday, a couple of really young players, a couple of guys who weren't really ready to go at the beginning of the year that are ready to go now. As with every position, practice during the week really trumps everything. The players go out there and they compete, and we're going to put the players out there that give us the best chance to be successful. Certainly, there were some positive things we saw with some of the guys that came into the lineup Saturday that gave us a chance there in the second half. Some of the guys that had struggles in the first half are very motivated to get things corrected this week. I think there will be good competition."

On Dontavius Nash's and Overall Safety Performance Against Charlotte
"I thought for the most part he played well. He has played better and better as the season has gone on. He's tackling better, he has great ball skills, plays the ball well in the air, so I thought he did a solid job on Saturday. I thought Julius (Wood) had one of his best games of the year. Julius has played pretty well for the bulk of the season. I think he's one playing better and better and is playing at a pretty high level right now. I was fairly pleased with our safety play on Saturday."

On Chad Stephens' Play This Season
"I think Chad is having a very solid year. He leads us in tackles for loss. Chad has the ability to be very disruptive. When he's playing disciplined and really playing within the scheme, he can be highly disruptive. That's the big challenge for him, playing disciplined. He's a tough, hard-nosed kid. He plays tough, he plays very, very hard. He has a chance to impact the ball game when he's doing those things."

On Playing Both Quarterbacks Again this Weekend
"As I've said for the last couple of weeks, I want to see us play with more consistency. I think that's the key for those two guys. Both of them have some strengths and both of them have some things they need to improve on. What we're trying to do is to continue to help them to come along and take advantage of their strengths, and continue to learn from their experiences. Looking forward to a great week of practice for those guys this week."

On Recruiting During a Tough Season
"We continue to talk to recruits about the things that we sell about East Carolina University. The first thing is the passionate fan base that we have, and we're very fortunate. Last Saturday was another great representation of that and that football is important here. Certainly, we're very transparent with this is not where we want the program to be at from a win-loss level, but at the same time we do expect to be highly competitive week in and week out. Most of these recruits have been here the past couple of years. Most of them we have been recruiting for a while, so they've seen the postseason play and the winning at a high level. They know what potential there is here at East Carolina. Those are the things we really hang our hat on and are what traditionally, over time, East Carolina has been."

Players Mentioned

Javious Bond

Gerald Green

Raheim Jeter

Dontavius Nash

Chad Stephens

Footer