Mike Houston’s Weekly Press Conference Quotes

GREENVILLE, N.C. – Sixth-year East Carolina Head Football Coach Mike Houston addressed members of the media Monday afternoon prior to Saturday's non-conference contest against Appalachian State at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. The following are selected comments:

Opening Statement
Great scene up in Norfolk this past weekend. Loved having all of the Pirate faithful up there and all of the purple in the stands. When we came out, you could hear our fans and you could hear the band, really appreciate the band making the trip up there. It really made a difference and made it not such a hostile environment for our players. Really excited to be able to get the win, ODU has got a quality football team, we knew that. Very good defensively and a high-powered offense, just really pleased coming out of there and getting the win. Obviously, we have a lot of stuff we can continue to correct and some things to clean up but the one thing that I am probably the most pleased with is to start the season with the intensity level, the effort, the energy just the way our kids played, just very, very pleased with that. Something that we did at times last year and something we had a times in past years, but I feel like we really have a team now that's doing that, now we have to execute better, and we've got to cut some things out. That's the challenge early in the season, I think we've seen that across the country in a lot of games. Really, really pleased with the way the players are committing themselves to being ready to play and going out and competing at a high level. Good to be in the position we're in, obviously excited to be back home this weekend. It's going to be a great weekend in Dowdy-Ficklen. Obviously, a quality opponent coming here, I know that they did not play very well this past weekend and that Clemson team I saw on film, I don't know where they were against Georgia, but they were a completely different team. In that first half you had App struggle and not play very well, which is very uncharacteristic of them, and you had Clemson play flawless. Sean is an excellent football coach and he's done a great job up there; I know he'll get things fixed. I thought they looked really good against East Tennessee State in the opener, they have a quality football team, they have a lot of guys back from last year, I think they're picked to win the Sun Belt this year, so we have a pretty stiff test coming this weekend. The players, the coaches, we're very excited about it, I think the fan base is very excited about it and so we should have a rocking stadium come 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon.

On the End of Game Sequence
At just a touch under 3 minutes to go we got the ball back. We talked about how we wanted to protect the edges of our offense, we wanted to do a good job right there of making ODU defend us. They had all 3 timeouts. We wanted to make sure we didn't do something stupid where we stopped the clock without them using a timeout. I'll be honest, we had opportunities there to get the first down, I hate that we didn't I would have loved for them to burn all 3 timeouts, get the first down, get the clock under 2 minutes, and then kneel on it. That's what you want to do in that situation right there. I thought we did a good job of doing that. I thought Luke (Larsen), I'll tell you he had a great day Saturday with almost 44 yards net, but that one was definitely the biggest. They came with a pretty heavy rush; he did a great job of getting it inside the 10. Then they're taking over low on time, no timeouts, they've got to go 90 something yards. I think we did a great job on the edges, keeping guys inbounds and not letting them stop the clock. I thought we didn't panic; we did save our timeouts, so I was able to use one when I thought we did get a little tired. I thought our depth showed, a lot of guys rotated throughout the game, so we were fairly fresh up front. I think the way we were able to get to the quarterback all night, not just that drive but all night, he took a lot of hits, and I think it kind of caught up with him there on the last drive. Great job by our defense getting the win, it was a great team win. Obviously special teams was huge, Andrew Conrad knocking down those 2 kicks in the second half was big.

On Rahjai Harris's Performance
He's obviously ecstatic. He and I have spent a lot of time together over the last several years. Because of one thing or another, he hasn't been as healthy as he was his freshman year. He's a kid that is super positive with great leadership. He's also a very smart kid and he's very hard on himself so really excited for him that he went out and was able to pop those 2 runs. We talked about it, how he's going to have to break some tackles and on both of them he broke the tackle to spring to the run. I was also honest with him that I think he left some yards out there too. I thought our offensive line played well on Saturday; we have a chance to be good up front this year. I thought they created opportunities for all the backs to get positive yardage in the run game but excited for him.

On Jake Garcia's Performance
He made some incredible throws; he keeps our offense aggressive. I think that he allows us to be extremely explosive. He made some mistakes, where he forced a few things. We're working with him, you don't have to hit a homerun on every throw, you don't have to force things. We have a good defensive football team, we have good specialists, it's okay to throw it away. He wants us to be explosive every play. He will continue to improve; he will continue to play better. He did a lot of really good things too and he is very hard on himself, he's determined to make sure he cuts out the negative plays. Those receivers, linemen, defense, they believe in him because they have seen what he can do. We will continue to see a better version of him each time he goes out.

On the Importance of Away Games and Tough Games
Let's start with a regional game with ODU. I think games like that are good for our fan base, I think they're good for both schools. It's hard to win games on the road, that's what was so special about Saturday. You weren't perfect, you went into another team's environment where they felt like they had to match you with their best shot, and you got out of there with a win. I think those games like that are good for us. I think this series against Appalachian State is good for both programs, I think it's good for the state of North Carolina. They obviously have a great history, it's a great feel between 2 schools that are passionate about football. A lot of schools in the state may have a football program, but they don't have passion and at East Carolina, this fan base, this region has passion. Same thing in Boone, so you have 2 schools who have that so when they get together, it's probably going to be a pretty good game with pretty high emotions and a great matchup.

On the Character of the Team
I think it says a lot about our team unity. I told them they were going to see a lot of adversity, we're facing a quality opponent, we're on the road. I thought they stuck together really good. We didn't have any breakdowns on the sideline from people losing their head, and at the end of the year, all you're going to look at is it's a W. You're going to have ugly games like that, and you've got to win them. If you can win them consistently, it gives you a chance to have a special season.

On Joey Aguliar
I think he has improved from last year. Last year he was very early in his career at App and ended up being newcomer of the year for the Sun Belt. I thought he played really well against East Tennessee State, I thought he had moments against Clemson. He has a very experienced receiving corps; Kaedin Robinson is one of the better receivers in the Sun Belt. Machai Jackson and Christian Horne both have game breaking speed, both of them have that big play ability. He's got 2 really good running backs there in Roberts and Castle, so he has a lot of weapons. I think he is a really good operator; he did a good job in the zone read against ETSU. I think he's a really good player, I think it's going to be a challenge.

On Shevon Revel
The interception he made was probably the toughest one he could possibly make so I'm glad he finally broke the ice there and got that one. They went at him because of what we were doing with him. We were playing some press coverage down into the boundary, and in this offense that tells you to take the shot, and they didn't hesitate to take the shot right there and he did a really good job defending it. The one touchdown that we gave up he actually ran into Mike, and we've got to work on our spacing is such that we don't pick ourselves right there.

Players Mentioned

Andrew Conrad

Jake Garcia

Rahjai Harris

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