Quotes from Tuesday's News Conference
9/20/2011 8:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 20, 2011
Head Coach Randy Edsall
Opening Statement:
"Taking a look at Temple on film they are a very good team. They could be 3-0; they gave Penn State everything that they had and had opportunities to win that game. They put it to Villanova the first week and they trounced Akron the second week.
"They are a very physical team on offense. They like to run the ball. They have an outstanding running back in Bernard Pierce. I know these guys because I have played them before. They are going to be physical, they are going to run the ball, they are going to do some play action passes and they use two quarterbacks. They are big up front. They average 6-foot-5, 318 pounds across the front line.
"Defensively they are very active. Adrian Robinson at defensive end is very good. He was the MAC player of the year two years ago. They are fourth (nationally) in scoring defense and eighth in sacks. We are going to have a tremendous challenge.
"Tahir Whitehead is a guy who stands out at linebacker. They have a very smart and savvy free safety in Kevin Kroboth. Two good return guys in their specialists in Matt Brown and Joe Jones. We are going to have to make sure we take care of ourselves by eliminating some of the penalties and mistakes that we made and concentrate on our game plan. It's going to be a tremendous challenge and one that we really have to prepare for."
On the changes to the depth chart:
"Every week we come in and watch the film and evaluate it. We see what guys have done. We will still be playing a lot of defensive lineman up front but Andre (Monroe) was someone who we saw was being very productive. We felt that through his play on the field that he deserved to start. A.J (Francis) will play and Mo (Maurice Hampton) will play even though the scheme that we had to play last week wasn't conducive to us playing four defensive tackles. This week it will be different.
"Alvin Thomas earned the opportunity to be a backup through the things that we saw him do on the practice field. The one thing that I told these guys is that if they aren't doing things they are supposed to and others are playing well on the practice field that they are going to get an opportunity. We put Alvin on the kickoff coverage team and he did a good job. It's those things that we saw guys do and other guys didn't play as well as we thought they would and it opened up the door to these guys to move into the positions that they are in."
On the wide receivers:
"Tony (Logan) is a guy who has been around here for five years now. I think that he might have viewed himself as more of a return guy before. He had a good camp and I knew that if he needed to go in and play that he would do well. Tony has the ability to make people miss when he has the ball in his hands. He has to make sure that he is consistent with the route running and the depths of the routes. He is a young man who has the ability to make plays.
"Devin (Burns) is continually learning and getting better. He made the switch in the spring to wide receiver (from quarterback). Markus Leak is a young man who as a freshman has come in and picked things up very quickly. He went out there and impressed us as coaches. The more that those guys play the better they will get and the more comfortable they will be. I think that all of them made good strides with the playing time that they got. Now we expect them to be better this week."
On Temple running back Bernard Pierce:
"He is a powerful guy who can make you miss. He runs extremely hard and will try to bounce the ball to the sidelines. He is a downhill guy. He is going to go in there and he will lower his shoulder. He is averaging 115 yards a game and 6.3 yards a carry. He is somebody that we have a lot of respect for and we know that we have to do a good job to be able to slow him down."
On Danny O'Brien's miscues against West Virginia:
"Everyone has games that you don't play as well as you would like to. Danny (O'Brien) has put that one behind him. He will go out this week and prepare well and we expect him to play well.
"With any quarterback you want them to be confident and Danny is that. But with Danny we need him to do what the great ones do and go out there and take what the defense gives them. Danny is a victim of his own circumstance some times, he has so much confidence in his own ability that he might try to throw a ball into a very small window when he shouldn't. As I told him sometimes an incomplete pass is the best thing that can happen instead of forcing something.
"That doesn't happen over night with a quarterback they have to see those things and go through them to learn. Experience is the best teacher. The experience of the West Virginia game will only make Danny better.
On the offensive lines performance:
"We haven't given up a sack but we still need to get more push up front. I thought that we ran the ball better this past game. Some of that was because of how much they were dropping off in coverage. I'd like for them to continue to work together. I think they are doing a good job of working together.
"They are going to get tested this week because Temple is eighth in the country in sacks. They have some quick guys coming off the edge. We are a work in progress; we are nowhere near where we want to be or where we are going to go. The big thing is I want to see them get better and more push up front. I want to see the technique continue to get better.
"But the first two games when you look statistically that we haven't given up any sacks and the number of yards that we put out, there has been productivity there. But we can still get a lot better than what we have done in the first two weeks.
On personnel changes they've made defensively:
"One of the things that we really want to do is increase our speed, athleticism and length at certain positions on defense. That's really what we are looking for as we go out recruiting. That's what we are looking at as we go out recruiting is that we want more speed, athleticism and length on defense."
On D.J. Adams' skill set:
"He is one of the guys who is a downhill runner. He isn't an east-to-west guy. He is going to hit it downhill because he is tough. He has good quickness. He has the ability to make people miss. He has some burst and explosion to get through some of those holes to go along with his great vision.
"It was good to get him back. We kind of knew going into the season that how we used him against West Virginia is how we are going to use him for the rest of the season. He has to continue to fulfill his role and as we see things maybe he will get some more touches in the up field sets. We are very pleased with what we saw out of Davin (Meggett), Justus (Pickett) and Jeremiah (Wilson) as a third-down guy. It helped Davin because he was fresher against West Virginia so he was more productive because of that."
On Kerry Boykins:
"Kerry (Boykins) is a young man who is very versatile. A lot of times you don't find wide receivers who want to play special teams. He is a guy who is very multiple. He can learn all three of the wide receiver positions. He is one of those guys who is a jack of all trades. He is a guy who is going to go in and play special teams as well.
"He got his opportunity to be a starter and he will be again this week. You feel good about guys like that because he is going to do things the right way. He is dependable and reliable. You need those guys on your team who can do a multitude of jobs for us to be successful. We need to teach him how to tackle on kickoffs so he doesn't go in and bang his head like he did. I really love Kerry in terms of what he stands for. He is unselfish and just wants to do whatever he can do to help his team win."
Sophomore QB Danny O'Brien
On what he saw on the film after the West Virginia Game:
"I saw a lot of mistakes made, myself obviously being the primary guy, but just a lot of opportunity to improve. I feel like we did a lot of good things also. I'm a competitor, we're all competitors, we all want to win, but we did a lot of good things and we're going to try to build around that and learn from our mistakes."
On Temple's defense:
"They're a physical team. They're a very good team that's well-coached and they almost beat Penn State, and Penn State is a very good team. They're a team we're not taking lightly by any means and we're really focused on them. I've watched a lot of film already on them and I feel good about it and we're just going to get ready this week."
On whether or not his play against West Virginia could be attributed to his inexperience as a sophomore:
"I wouldn't say it's because I'm a sophomore, I've never been one to use any excuses. I just didn't play to the level that I needed to. If you want to find a quick way to find out who your friends are, throw three picks in a game, a lot less people are in your corner after that. It's a learning experience and it's all about tempo right now. We can't sulk on that and it all starts with me."
On what is important to execute this week against Temple:
"We just have to take care of the ball. I feel like we're going to run a lot of plays so if you can take care of the ball and convert on third down, it's going to equate into points. So we have to take care of the ball, sustain drives, and keep their offense off the field."
Junior WR Kerry Boykins
On the return of D.J. Adams to the team:
"D.J. is a big impact in our red zone. Once he's down there he finds the end zone somehow, he can go in sideways, forwards, backwards, on his head, you know somehow he just gets in the end zone. It's just a beautiful quality that he has."
On Danny O'Brien's determination this week:
"I mean, I saw it on his face Sunday, we came back up here to lift and I could just tell he was focused. He was in the meeting room watching film, and he's just so amped right now, ready to go and ready to get that taste out of his mouth. We all have a bad taste in our mouth after this loss, and you know with the competitor Danny is, throwing three picks he hates that, so he's ready to just come out and work."
On what the team learned in the West Virginia loss:
"Well we learned that we can't come out slow. We have to come out pretty up-tempo and hitting on all cylinders, because sometimes you dig a hole too deep that you just can't get out of."
Sophomore DB Dexter McDougle
On the biggest thing the defense has to do to improve:
"We're just going to keep playing hard, keep playing fast, and keep running to the ball. That's the main focus for Coach, just run to the ball because you never know what plays can be made."
On what changes have been made to ensure the team gets off to a fast start:
"I think we just have to come out to practice wanting to practice and just wanting to play football. Sometimes people just want to play in the games, but Coach says you have to want to practice, so we just have to come out ready for practice every day. Coach always talks about having good body language and just get hyped about preparing for the game and not just playing in the game."
On if the recent suspensions of players have brought the energy level down:
"No not really, because we know we have guys behind the people that are suspended that will step up and play. We have guys go down, but we already know that the next guy is going to come in and play as good if not better, so it hasn't really brought our team down at all. We're just ready to play Temple and prepare, even with those guys out."
On the running game of Temple:
"They have a good running game and we're going to respect that, but we know we`re going to prepare and be able to play hard against them. We know they have a great back, he was all-conference, so that will definitely be a priority for us in practice this week."
Junior OL R.J. Dill
On Temple's defense and how the offense will attack them:
"I think we're going to run the ball on them, and we're going to pass the ball on them. We've been balanced. We've run the ball well and passed the ball well. They're not really similar to either one of the defenses we've played previously, they're probably closest to our own defense and I think that gives us a little bit of an edge. [Temple] holding Penn State to 14 points is not really our worry, we're going to watch the film and see what Penn State did wrong and we're going to attack them better."
On what the return of D.J. Adams meant for the team:
"I think D.J. Adams is a very tough, hard, physical runner. I think he added another dimension to keep our running backs fresher during the game, and I think that was something that helped us a lot. Davin [Meggett] was able to run the ball harder in the second half, as well as D.J. and Justus [Picket] who played very well."
On the mindset in the locker room:
"We're excited to play again, we want to prove that last week is not who we are. We're not going to cost ourselves games based on mistakes, so we're excited to go out there and prove who we really are."
