University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Walt Harris' Weekly Press Conference
9/19/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
Walt Harris' Weekly Press Conference
9/19/2000
Walt Harris Weekly Press Conference Monday, Sept. 18, 2000
Opening remarks: Glad to be sitting here 3-0. Obviously, that was a tremendous victory by our football team, our football coaches, staff, and support group, everyone involved. I thought our students and fans were exactly how we prayed and hoped they'd be someday, and we hope that was not a flash in the pan. We hope that every week people come out and show that kind of excitement because it made a difference with our football players, but now this is another week. That's one great thing about coaching, you know, you have a good game you've got to put it behind you, you have a bad game you've got to put it behind you. So we're going to put this game behind us, and we also have 35 football players on our football team that were here, Chris LaSala pointed out, that were here in 1998 when we played Rutgers for homecoming and they beat us. They have the same quarterback, who's from this area. I met him personally for the first time this summer at the Big East meetings and I thought he was a linebacker. I'd heard all about his speed, and I just wish we'd had a little better chance of recruiting him. Mike McMahon is an outstanding player who's done great for them and I just know he'll be ready to go this week. Our challenge will be to get us ready to go, and I'm looking forward to watching our football team respond, because I believe they like to play, I think they're coached well, I think they like to respond to our coaches, and we've got a lot more competition than we used to have and so if someone's not doing the job than we'll just play somebody else a little bit more.
On congratulatory responses from the Penn State win: There were a few people that called, but I didn't get on the phone that much. Honestly, our staff was together, which I think was really neat. Our staff, not all of them - but the ones that were able to break away - we were able to go to a little quiet place and be together with our athletic director and his family and our chancellor and his wife. I'm real proud that the number one man at our university wants to hang out with the football staff after a homecoming victory. I think that says a lot about what kind of family atmosphere we have here at the university.
On not dealing with Penn State for at least eight years: I'm going on the premise we won't have to deal with them at all. We're going to enjoy this for as long as we can. You know, Coach Paterno and Penn State have done an outstanding job over the years. I'm just real excited to be here to represent our football team and our football program and university as a coach. You know, I think it was a great victory, and as I mentioned at the press conference we exercised some demons - which I was referring to all the years where we hadn't done the job and unfortunately had to play them and did not win. We really played them close the last two years, a real gallant effort. It was really neat (to win this year). I think that some people may not realize it but we're getting close to those guys, whether its athletically or just in our mind- set, the confidence it takes to line up against a program such as theirs and the athletes they have, to say "hey, we can, we can beat these guys," and it was a convincing victory, it was a hard- fought game. As I mentioned to you our defense played outstanding, our special teams were outstanding. Unfortunately we weren't really able to knock them out without really a doubt, but we're sure excited to have gotten it now let's put it behind us.
On getting the team focused after a big win: For an immature football team it can be (a challenge), and that's some of the danger. Because we have a lot of young players who haven't been here that long and haven't payed the price that an old salty veteran of four or five years has paid. Last year after we beat Notre Dame, I had a question about whether our football team would prepare for West Virginia. In my mind it was a valid question, but this year I think we have a different group of guys, I think we have a different leadership, we have a group of guys who I think enjoy playing football together, you know, it's been one more year that our program has been instilled so they've been together for another year and I believe our football team likes to play, and I think they like playing for us. So with that in mind I'm not worried about them having a letdown. If it does happen, I think it will have a lot to do with Rutgers, not necessarily that we weren't ready to play. I think they've always presented problems for us. We had the double-overtime game in 1997, we got beat in 1998, we had a game that went back and forth for a while last year and now they have two wins under their belt. So I know they're very excited about that, but I'm not suspect about our effort or our attitude and I think our players will respond because we also have good leadership in our junior class as well.
On gauging Rutgers: Well Virginia Tech is an elite football team. Nationally, they've got what has to be one of the top two or three football players in the United States in Michael Vick, and he's at a position where he can make you look bad quicker than any other position because not only can he throw but he can run around which he did. We watched the tape and I told my offensive staff to let's not show this to Coach (Paul) Rhoads (defensive coordinator) yet, because he's (Vick) phenomenal. I met him this summer at the Big East deal and he's really thrown together. He's got lumps everywhere, he's a running back playing quarterback so he really puts on a lot of pressure. They've got a lot of speed, they're an elite team. So I don't really worry what those victories look like. I think what happens is when you win you get confidence, and then when you gain confidence you practice better, and so what happens is in practice you become a better football team because you practice better. No matter who you beat, you know there's a lot of people who say our first two victories weren't against top-notch competition, but what it did for us is it gave us confidence in what we're doing. I think that had a lot to do with what happened on Saturday.
On Rod Rutherford's play: You mean `Lightning Rod?' We have to be real careful about that situation, and what I mean by that is everyone's all excited, the guy you're looking at (Harris) is very excited too, but we can't count on that happening every week. That's not fair, he's also not going to have that big a part of the game plan because he's not quite ready yet. But like I mentioned the other day, he did do a good job in what he did. He got every snap, which to me is a big reason why you don't play a lot of those guys. You know, you don't put a lot of freshmen in there, I think it was the fourth play of the game, to get a snap. You worry, I'm worried, I'm Mr. Conservative, I'm worried whether he's going to get the snap, so he obviously proved he could do that so we're going to try to give him a little bit more. Now it's up to the other team to figure out what that is, so the thing that I love about the young man is he's very humble, and he runs hard. A couple of those first down runs were all Rod Rutherford. I think he'll respond to more situations and we're looking forward to putting him in the lineup and trying to make it hard for people to defense us. As I mentioned the other day that to me that's what coaching is, it's putting your good players in a position to play regardless of class and regardless of experience. We spotted him and he obviously came through for us. He was voted by our staff as the offensive player of the game, so that's a pretty big compliment for a guy that, I don't think he played more than 10 plays.
On Rutherford being ready for the passing game: Oh he's ready, it's his coach that's not ready. He was born ready, we've just been real slow. You know, I think hopefully I'm being real intelligent about bringing him along slow, because as you can see we have a mighty fine talent and we want to bring him along at nice increments and who knows what might happen this weekend or the following weekend, you know? But we're taking it nice and slow and I think he's building his confidence and I know he believes that we do want to make him a quarterback, even though he looked pretty good on that run after the catch.
On the defense's play to date: I love our defensive scheme, that's why we hired someone familiar with it. I think it makes us a better football team, and a better defensive team. I think what the winning edge has been so far has been our secondary's played so well. Coach Rhoads is the secondary coach, and I don't know if I told you but if I had stayed at Pacific I was going to hire Paul Rhoads as my secondary coach. He obviously has distinguished himself as an outstanding secondary coach because he's coaching some guys that were in high school not too long ago. And playing in big games in front of sellout crowds and all that stuff I think he's done an outstanding job as a secondary coach, and it's also helped him out to call the defense so that he does not put those guys in a position to give up the big play and that's what they have not done. We scramble around and it's great to see Corey Humphries do so well in place of Ramon (Walker), but it was also nice to see Ramon back in there smacking guys. We're just rallying to the ball, we finally have a two-deep, so to speak, where we can rotate guys in there, and we have guys who can only get three sacks in 11 games then end up getting seven sacks in two - well really three - but that's two in three games. Ryan Smith is coming on, and Joe Conlin is battling through injury, so there's a lot of good things on defense; but I think the most important thing on our defense is I think our guys are responding to our coaches on defense. And our special teams is doing a bang-up job on keeping the pride that we built, really, last year, and our offense we finally ran the football and were able to keep them off the field. They're a difficult team to throw against, I felt. Our quarterback got six sacks two weeks in a row. Why? A lot of it's because they're good, a lot of it's because we're young in a couple spots. But we were also able to get some things done and make it exciting. We just weren't able to put the game away which was frustrating, but we'll take it.
On the difference in running the ball versus Penn State: Well I think Kevan (Barlow) really came ready to play. He ran, he really punished some guys. He didn't get frustrated. Coach Carter, his running backs coach, had a real good understanding of what we expected. I think he got frustrated against Bowling Green a little bit. He's a load, and he's everything we know he can be, and he's just got to be there in the run and the pass game every play, because he's got a lot of talent in the passing game as well. We kind of made a bigger commitment as well, we got a little better down and distances and made a bigger commitment to running the football and I participated in giving our guy's a better chance, too.
On the development of the offensive line: Yes, we only have one true freshman in the two-deep, which is real exciting. Most of the time we've had two-to-three true freshman in the two-deep so we're gaining on it fast. I think (offensive line coach) Tom Freeman, you know, it's been a heavy load. In my opinion quarterback and offensive line are the two hardest positions to play and Tom's had to play two freshman last year at guard, redshirt freshmen. Now he's got a true freshman at guard and a redshirt freshman at tackle and I think that's hard at a very complex position, but I think those two inside guys for Penn State were really fine football players. They were really physical, really strong, especially 98 (Anthony Adams), he was really a fine player. They made it hard on us, but we're slowly getting there, it takes time to get there at that position. Obviously this year we have two seniors, so we'll have to get there fast because we'll have some young guys there next year, it's going to be that way for a while.
On the flexibility of moving people on the line: To me that's an extraordinary deal that Jeff (McCurley) can be competitive. We think he's an outstanding center and an outstanding guard as well as just being an offensive lineman who started two years ago in the fall. Just goes to show what top-notch young men, good athletes, but also top-notch young men can do when they put their mind to it. That's nice, it's always good when you can have more depth. I think Chad's (Reed) great too, the fact that he came in and started the game and we can have confidence that he can play at this level - get the snap, make the calls and all that good stuff - that really helps us and makes us a better team.
On the quarterback situation: I was on the Big East teleconference this morning and a guy asked me that and I think it's a safe bet to think that John Turman will probably start this week, but in my mind that does not mean that David (Priestley) will not play. I just felt like, as I mentioned after the game, that John was in the flow of the game. We weren't giving him a whole lot of time, and when he had the time he was competitive and I didn't feel that we needed to make the change. John and David are similar- type quarterbacks. Rod gives us a much different look, he puts a different kind of pressure on the defense. And I'm hoping someday that Rod puts the same kind of pressure that John and David put on a defense, but it takes time to be a drop-back passer.
On going for the two-point conversion after Rod Rutherford's touchdown: We had it, but by the time he snapped the ball, we didn't have it anymore. Our holder (Tim Stein) has some guts and commitment to our football team and our program by going out there with a separated shoulder. We probably could have called time-out. He was worried about the clock. I think he chose to focus on the center and getting the football. In the heat of the moment it must have been difficult. He's not a quarterback so he may not have been thinking about throwing it away. He is a tough competitor and this game was hard fought.
On the performance of the wide receiving corps after three games: This is the best group of wide-receivers we've had since I've been here. They are fun to be around and they are always open. They come to us on the sidelines and let the coaching staff know how they can get open and what they are planning to do. I really respect Latef Grim. He helped Rod Rutherford on one of the play calls. He is a disciple of our program. It was great. I talked with J.D. Brookhart and we discussed how exciting it is to see them block for their teammates. R.J. English and Lamar Slade, it is great to see them looking good. Rod Rutherford, who knows where he will be soon.
On the play of fullback Lousaka Polite: Lousaka Polite is an outstanding player. He made a great catch, probably the best catch of the game right off of his hip. He has been blocking physically. He is very coachable and a very good student. I can see why George Novak (Woodland Hills High School football coach) has been so successful. He is a treat to have. Hopefully, we will have some more of his players in the future.
