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 opener at Rice. The following are selected comments:

Opening statement
"Obviously it was a lot better weekend this past weekend. The sun was a little bit brighter on Sunday. It was good to have the sun out on Sunday after Friday and Saturday. It was great to be back in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium and what a great turnout by our fans. You sit there and have eight to nine inches of rain and I know we had a lot of tickets out for the game, we were expecting a big crowd, but we were worried with the weather. I thought the stadium was fantastic. The fans were very loud, students were loud, it made for a great environment. One of the great things about playing at home is our fan base. I just really appreciate those people that were out there in the weather and out there to support the players. I also want to give credit to our grounds crew, Joey (Perry) and his bunch. The field was beyond what you would expect, given the amount of rain that it took in 24 hours for kickoff and really had no issues with the surface. Steve (Hinrichs) and his equipment staff did a great job of trying to keep as dry a football as we could have on the field. So just a lot of people put a lot of work in to support the players and the program this past weekend and turned out to be a really good weekend for our players and for everyone. It's good to get in the win column and good to get a win like that against a solid opponent. It sets us up heading into conference play on a high note."

On what the win does for the team's confidence
"Well, I think getting a win is important. I think getting a win like that and in that kind of fashion is even more important. We had a great week of practice last week and we talked our big emphasis which was taking our practices into game day. I thought our players did a fantastic job with that and certainly gives you a lot of confidence just in the fact that you're playing better each week. It's good to see the tangible results on the scoreboard this past weekend. That's huge going into this week's game."

On his team's execution this past weekend
"First off, only one ball on the ground all night. That was going to be a huge issue. We talked about it on Friday and Saturday that we just we had to do a great job of taking care of the football. I really don't think the one fumble had anything to do with the wet conditions. I think it was just poor ball security by the one receiver, but I thought we did a great job taking care of the football overall. We did a great job decision wise, primarily at the quarterback position. I thought our offensive line executed at a much higher level than what we'd had the previous couple of games. I just thought there was lots of positives when it comes to execution on Saturday."

On Rice's offense
"They've got JT (Daniels) who has an elite arm, and he does a really good job in the pocket. They have some playmakers. Luke (McCaffrey) may be the best receiver we've seen so far this season. He had a huge game against South Florida the other night and against Houston. He had almost 200 yards receiving on Saturday night so he's pretty elite. Dean (Connors) out of the backfield, I think he had an 80-yard touchdown against South Florida on Saturday. He's made plays in every ball game. I think it's a combination of a really good quarterback, very solid offensive line and then playmakers that have big play ability all around. They're averaging 35 points a game. They put up big numbers in virtually all their games. We've got our hands full offensively."

On playing more length on defense this weekend
"You saw the other night that Sam (Dankah), BJ (Davis) and Jeremy (Lewis), that their length at the second level was a factor the other night. I think that you try more and more to get different combinations on the field and just getting a lot of people on the field. That helps and you'll see those guys on the field this week."

On the importance of getting a shutout
"You want to get a game like that. We didn't talk about it a ton during the game. The thing I liked was that as we put some of the younger guys in, we had a lot of Pirates play their first college snaps on Saturday night. I was very pleased that they went in there and it didn't get sloppy on both sides of the ball. Raheim (Jeter) went in there and executed with some backups and the ball wasn't on the ground. There weren't false starts. It didn't get really sloppy offensively. Our defensive kids went in there and you had Jamari (Young) and Josh (Benton) get their first college tackles, but they were in the right places. We didn't give a big play or anything like that. It was good to get the shutout with playing a lot of people and not having a big drop off."

On emphasizing the start of conference play this weekend
"We talked about right after the game in the locker room, that conference play starts this week. It doesn't change our weekly mentality. The focus is just to go 1-0 this week. There's really nothing else. It's about having a great day today and you can have a great week. If you don't start off with a great day on Tuesday and with all the stuff we do on Tuesday, it's a pretty high contact day. So having a solid day today is going to be key to playing well on Saturday."

On adding more competition periods in practice and emphasizing the fourth quarter
"Well, when we can and there's some similar styles from Rice as to what we play. We'll be able to incorporate some of those in this week. The other thing we did is we worked them in at the end of practice last week and we usually do them earlier in practice. We just felt like we had to emphasize to our players that against Marshall and App State, we had chances to win the ballgame in the fourth quarter. We didn't finish the way we wanted to. It's really focusing on trying to finish and focus when we're tired, when it's late in the practice, and translating that mentality to focusing and finishing there in the fourth quarter. I thought the players responded to some of our changes last week with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and they felt good about it. We'll continue to look at ways to mix things up and still achieve our goals."

On facing new teams in The American
"I think it's just this is the new American and you're facing a new member in the opener. I think that East Carolina fans know Rice from the Conference USA days and so they know what we're up against. I've known Coach Bloomgren for 20 years since he first got into coaching, and I was a young high school coach. I know him very well and know what he's about. There's some familiarity even though it's a new team."

On Javious Bond's emergence
"It's hard to quantify it. It's the 'it factor' and some guys just have it. All the ones that play eventually have it. There's very few that come in and they're freshmen and are ready. He has the maturity and the confidence to go along with the ability. It's not false confidence and it's not cockiness. He has the mentality to play early and not all of them do but I knew he did. It's why I put him back deep as a kickoff return guy at Michigan. I was a little uneasy about that, but I have confidence in him. I think the more experience he gets, the more he looks like he belongs. Those two tackles on kickoff were very impressive plays. The defensive coaches would love to get a hold of him. The touchdown run for his first college touchdown was a pretty special play. There were two unblocked defenders out there that he made miss right before the goal line. I just think he's got a combination of ability and some intangibles with just being a guy that's ready to play."

Players Mentioned

Javious Bond

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