University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Walt Harris Weekly Press Conference
10/16/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
Walt Harris Weekly Press Conference
10/16/2000
Opening Remarks: Good to be here, good to get on to a game week. You know, I think we'll be two days shy of a month between wins so we're looking forward to getting back to playing again. As I mentioned before the Syracuse game, that was a hard game for us to endure, but players always respond faster, bounce back better, than coaches, I believe. I think our guys have a good frame of mind. We practiced very intensely last night and we know we're going to be up against a very good Boston College team who won an awfully big football game last week against Syracuse, so we've talked to our football team about how it's going to be a very physical challenge and we're going to have to play better than we have so far this year.
On preparing for Boston College after they played Syracuse, Pittsburgh's previous opponent: I think Boston College learned from our game. They did not let Troy Nunes get anybody deep. I think that was the difference in our football game. You can take out a couple of plays, but I think that was as big a difference as any. They prevented that type of play, and they did a nice job in the turnover ratio, that didn't quite occur in our football game. We just know that Syracuse presented some challenges to Boston College and I think Boston College answered them.
On observations from the Boston College-Syracuse game: Well we hope we learned some things. I just think their coaches did a real nice job, and their players did a nice job of doing what they do and executing their plan. They didn't exactly have a real wide open plan, they just "stuck to their knitting," so to speak, and allowed Syracuse to make the mistakes, and they didn't, and that was the difference in the game. It was a 20-13 game. The turnover ratio was probably very, very big. Both teams ran the ball well, but I think Boston College played the kicking game very well, and therefore Syracuse had a long field to drive it.
I think Syracuse is one of the better running teams in our conference. We have not been one of the better running teams in our conference. That's always our challenge to upgrade that part of our game, and yet Syracuse was not able to make the plays in the passing game that they needed to make because of the emphasis that Boston College was putting on them to attempt to stop the run game. I would think that Boston College will try to play us a bit different. I don't think they're worried about our running game, I think they might be worried about our, well they're probably not worried about any of it, but they'll be more concerned with the pass game than the run game. With Syracuse you probably have to be more concerned with the run game than the pass game, that's how we're different.
On the effects of the open week: I don't think it will have much, other than we can get healthier. I thought in the last ball game we did pretty well in the first quarter, just the second and third quarter where we did not show much consistency in the last ball game. I thought we started off pretty solidly in the first quarter.
On John Turman's health and the starting quarterback situation: John Turman's health is good, he practiced yesterday. It's the first time he's practiced. He looked a little rusty, I think, because we had three other practices he missed, but John was healthy. We're going to name John Turman our starter but also reserve the right to have the opportunity to play Dave (Priestley) if I feel like it's best for our football team. Why? John, I think, has done a nice job in a lot of areas and I think the most important area I see him doing a good job in is handling the way we went about doing it (handling the quarterback situation), or I should say the way I went about doing it - I don't like to use that pronoun too often - he hung in there with it and worked hard to get better. I think he has improved his game. He's showed some physical toughness. He got walloped quite often there at Syracuse. On the first play of the game he hit his thumb on a guy's helmet and whether that affected his throwing or not it did keep him out of practice for a week. So it swelled up and I'm sure it affected him some, but John's done a nice job trying to do most all the things we're trying to get him to do and I think he's separated himself.
On David Priestley's reaction to the quarterback situation: I think he's handled it fine, but the best way to find out was to watch him practice yesterday. He did not have, as I refer to it, a "hang-dog look." He was eager, worked hard in practice. His reps were cut. What we did yesterday was went four reps with John, two with David, and one with Rod because we're still trying to get Rod up to date now that I think he's heathier and try and get him more experience so he can participate in more of a full game plan.
On the duration of Turman's starting role: I named him our starting quarterback, not just for this game. We reserve the right to make a change if we need a relief pitcher or if I think he (Turman) might see things better from the sidelines for a drive or two.
John is the starter, so my number one focus is John, how it affects John, how John is able to deal with all the pressures and all the situations. I expect David to keep himself ready to go just in case he does get the call or we have a time where John gets injured or is unable to play. But right now my focus is John. You can only hopefully get one guy ready to go and that's the guy we're going to go with.
I have not told John (he is the starter) yet. We practiced that way yesterday, though. I wanted to see him again and see how his thumb responded.
On getting Rod Rutherford into more of a quarterback role, and dividing practice repetitions between the quarterbacks: We're basically doing the same thing as before, it's just that John was getting less reps. David and John's reps were even and Rod would still get his reps. We're trying to make Rod into more of a full game-plan quarterback, he's always been a quarterback for us, even though he's caught a couple passes. He's always been a quarterback for us, in our mind, and it is difficult to get three guys equal reps, so now we're going to get one guy most of the reps and the other two guys a little bit of the reps. We have a reduced game plan for Rod anyway and this will allow him to continue to improve. He missed a lot of practice time (due to his ankle injury). Last week (when Turman was sidelined due to injury) he had an opportunity to practice quite a bit. He and David shared the reps last week and I think it was an eye-opener for Rod. What I mean by that is he probably saw some things happen, or didn't happen to him, how hard it is to stay up to date and the game plan and the execution of it when you're not getting practice reps. So in my discussion with him he has to have a different plan when he's standing in the back watching than what he's had because he was very rusty. You would expect that quite honestly, but as a coach I don't ever like to let them have an out. He's got to be ready to go, and because that is his fate, that is his situation at this time, and he needs to be ready to go. He needs to handle all the nuances of being a quarterback and last week was a good eye-opener for him so we utilized the bye week. It probably worked out best, even though I felt bad that John didn't practice because John, as with all quarterbacks, need repetitions.
On Rod Rutherford's health: He looked a lot better, yes. He was not healthy for the Syracuse week, and I don't think he really got healthy until yesterday, honestly. I saw him moving around yesterday like the Rod Rutherford I saw on tape, like I've seen on game tapes. So obviously his portion of the game plan is small because we want to make sure that he executes it well.
On David Priestley's health and the possibility of any lingering effects from his surgery: No I don't think the shoulder has been a lingering problem. David is not quite the same player that he was and I don't know exactly why. But I think that his arm strength is not probably as much as it used to be. R.J. English is an example. R.J. played good for us two years ago when Latef (Grim) was knocked out of a game. He did real well, made some big plays and then he got a knee (injury) before spring practice last year. It took him almost a year to really come back, and now you see him blossoming in our game plan and making plays. I think that play he made for us Saturday (versus Syracuse) on third and eight from the eight to score to get us within two points was really a spectacular football play, great effort, great run, and obviously very big. So I think it takes time to come back from injuries, both physically and psychologically. I don't think David's quite as accurate as he was. I think his accuracy is starting to come back, but he's not quite as accurate as he was and it's a hard position to play. I don't have all the answers why he's not where I thought he'd be. I think he'd probably agree that he's not where he thought he'd be at this time in the fall.
On the "relief" of naming a starting quarterback: Well, I won't get anymore questions, which have dominated the press conference again. But I think I made it a point that I really admire a lot of the things John Turman has done. As far as being tough, hanging in there, staying positive when I'm sure at times when David would play and he thought he should be in there playing, I never saw him copping an attitude and (doubting) his ability to bring us back. That last drive in the fourth quarter (against Syracuse) was really pretty remarkable. Those last two drives in the fourth quarter were pretty powerful and they had a lot to do with this decision. I also want to set the tone for the kind of quarterback we want to play here. We need to have a tough-minded guy who's going to stand in there and going to deliver the ball especially when they're coming free because that's when you're going to get tested. It's easy to be a quarterback in what we call seven-on-seven when no one's coming after you and people aren't coming free, it's a lot easier to be a quarterback. In order to be a great quarterback, you've got to be able to stand in there and throw the ball when they're coming downtown right at your face and you've got to stand in there and throw the football and I think John has done a nice job of that all throughout the year.
On last year's tough loss to Boston College being motivation: I thought we had a little better chance (against Boston College) than we did against West Virginia (last year). That is why last year I reflected back at the time (about the missed opportunity for a win versus Boston College). We made too many mistakes and when we don't do well that's the reason why, in my opinion. I don't complain too much about talent, I talk more about numbers and do I have enough numbers and are we doing what we're coached to do, those are my two focuses. The latter is the only one I have control over and sometimes I wonder if I do have any control over that, too. But that's where my focus is and we have what we have and we're going to coach and get them to be as good as they can be. The Boston College game last year was a game where we thought we had a chance, but obviously they made the plays on both sides of the ball when they had to. We have no one to blame but ourselves for that, we've had to live with that, and they had a huge win this past week. Credit goes to their players and their coaching staff, but now we have to get back to doing what we do, which is play Pitt football - which is enthusiastic, excitement, and execution, and we're looking forward to seeing that.
On Kevan Barlow's lack of playing time versus Syracuse: That was really between he and his running back coach (Kenny Carter). I think Nick Goings came in and ran really effectively for us. It was unfortunate that Kevan did fumble. Luckily he did not have a turnover. We made (turnovers) a big emphasis, Ken Carter as well as Walt Harris and (offensive coordinator) J.D. Brookhart. The guys (coaches) that were involved with turnovers made it a point to their players. I'm sure that it had some effect on Coach Carter's decision to play Nick a little bit more.
On making personnel decisions during a game, specifically Kevan Barlow: If the subject (making a change) is brought up he (an assistant coach) usually asks out of respect. You know, "is this okay coach." He (Kenny Carter) had no problems from me (regarding taking out Barlow against Syracuse). I thought he was executing what we thought was our best chance to win.
On the chances of running back Darcey Levy and fullback Dustin Picciotti playing against Boston College: We're working on it, that's all I can say. We practice, we gave them more reps this past bye week, and hopefully they'll be better prepared and this week we're grading the practice tapes again. So now Coach Carter, who's coaching both those guys, gets a better feel for whether they are going to be able to play up to their ability level or whether they're going to be a problem for the rest of the football team because they're not as far along in their assignments. We'd love to play them but we love winning better, so we're going to do what we have to do to be successful. Hopefully, we'll be able to get both those guys in the lineup somewhere.
On the status of kicker Nick Lotz after a rough game: We think Nick Lotz is one of our best football players. We were disappointed that Nick did not perform at the level that we're confident he can perform. He had performed very well for us all year and late in the year last year he came through for us like gangbusters, especially against Notre Dame. At one time this year he was kicking 1.000. I just think he had what you would call the proverbial bad day. What has he done? I think he's upped his focus, I think he's put that game behind us, and he's a real fine football player, all-conference type player, and those kind of guys rebound. Just like all young kids do, they rebound quick, and I think he did a nice job yesterday in practice. I think he was like six of seven, the only one he missed was a 53-yarder, and he came back and made it and probably could've made a 60-yarder. That's what we're looking for, you saw the improvement in (long snapper) Kurt Johnson. Kurt Johnson was one of the guys I was real excited about and tried to really give him credit where credit was due because he fought through some adversity and did a really nice job snapping the ball for us in the Syracuse game. So Nick will come back in our eyes.
On Rod Rutherford as a running or pocket quarterback: I would not say that Rod is not the type of quarterback to stand in and throw the football. You'll also notice that last week our quarterback (Turman) ran a couple times, one for an 18-yard touchdown and another for a two-point conversion. And if you've watched us over the time we've been here we love our quarterbacks running, so that's something we believe in and do not discourage. I'm talking about standing in there and delivering the ball when you're throwing it, not shying away from the throw. So Rod will deliver the ball, I have a lot of confidence that he will stand in there and be a tough-minded quarterback when the time comes, but also when it's not there we want him running.
