University of Pittsburgh Athletics
Walt Harris Addresses the Media at Pittsburgh's Football Media Day
8/11/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Walt Harris Addresses the Media at Pittsburgh's Football Media Day
8/11/2003
Walt Harris Press Conference
Media Day
Opening comments:
?It?s exciting to see that our turnout (media day) is getting bigger and bigger. It makes it more exciting for our players, our team and our program. We?ve been climbing this mountain to respectability and we?ve gained respectability at the end of the season the last couple of years, but we were unable to get much respectability before the season. I think that has changed now. Our football team has gained more and more respect nationally and we owe that to them. I want to thank our coaches for getting us to this position at the start of training camp with all the hard work everybody has done. We are very excited about this upcoming season. We understand that there are a lot of expectations that people have put on us, which is fine, but the expectations that we are focused on and concerned with is our own. Our goal is to win every game, and win a national championship along with the Big East championship. That?s our goal and we think there?s always a chance.
?We?re looking forward to teeing it up here in the next couple of hours and an exciting year. We?re a little nervous about the style of training camp because we?re all new to it, but we all have our sheets so we won?t get lost.
?I?d also like to talk about a couple players in case you have any concerns about them. Tyre Young is no longer a part of this football program. We have two young men who are involved with Clearinghouse issues. They are Wendell Brown and Alan Richardson. Eric Thatcher is rehabilitating an injury and will come to the
On the Clearinghouse situation getting resolved before the start of the season:
?Yes, we hope to find out soon.?
On new training camp format:
?Our seniors, they love to play. They can?t wait to get out there and play. They want to start working to get better and getting in position to accomplish our goals. It is very different. There is going to be a lot of new things that may make things go by faster. We don?t have a very long training camp this year because of not having an opening game and because school starts when it normally does. Our training camp is going to be very short. We?re going to be in two-a-days for a week, with our players living where they?re going to be living during the season. It?s going to be different and put a stress on the trust because there is an opportunity for players to do things at night.?
On being more of a head coach than just a quarterbacks coach:
?After a ballgame, after calling plays, dealing with the ups and downs of the position that I have the opportunity and privilege to coach. When I come to the press conference, I?m going to make more of an attempt to be less of a quarterbacks coach, offensive coach during that press conference and try more to oversee it from a head coaching perspective. I think over time, I?ve been much harder on them (quarterbacks) than I have been on defense. I?ve been especially harder on the quarterbacks. I?m not sure I have been fair to the development of our quarterbacks and to the offensive development of our team. I am going to try to look at the bigger picture and not look at the details that come up to me when I know I?m coaching the position involving play calling.?
On the proposed BCA Classic matchup with
?We agreed to play. We are looking forward to the opportunity of playing in a preseason game. We are always trying to gain opportunities in the national limelight. We thought for an excellent cause, we would welcome the competition. It would not count as a league game, or in the Big East standings. We thought it a good opportunity to make some money for our program and other programs within the athletic department of the
Would you consider playing other teams?
?Oh yeah. We haven?t made any plans with other schools. The Black Coaches Association made them (plans) toward us, and we were excited about the opportunity.?
On non-conference scheduling:
?We have a new administration with Jeff Long as the athletic director. We?re not really knowledgeable about how the schedules are going to change in the next couple of years with regards to
On turning the program around since he arrived:
?I didn?t know how long it would take, honestly. I don?t like to put timetables on things because when you put timetables on you put more pressure on everybody within the program. I don?t think that anyone had any idea where we were at when we took over in 1997. I know we?re responsible for building a successful football program, but we had a long way to go. We inherited one NFL draft choice, in Hank Poteat a third round pick. If you look at other programs that turn themselves around quickly they usually have facilities and watch how many draft choices they have. You win this game with players. It has taken us a long time, much longer than we wanted. No one wanted us to win more than us, and it is no fun to walk off the field with everyone working as hard as they did and not be successful. There are a lot of things that we had to get in place, and we?re still in the process of opening young people?s eyes to what we have to offer here. As early as last year, we were not getting early commitments because we were losing them to schools that were nationally ranked because they were and we weren?t getting respect. Fortunately we were able to get some respect by the end of the season, and this year things are much different. It has taken a long time to get it right, and we?re excited about the opportunity because we believe we?re a lot closer than we?ve ever been.?
On being a favorite this season rather than an underdog:
?It is one of the final steps that we have to take as a football program and I mentioned that to the team last night about playing as a favorite. That?s a step that we have to take. A maturity that we have to take to go into a game that we?re favored and play relaxed, play hard, play loose, and play confident versus playing tight and afraid to make a mistake, afraid to lose. That takes experience. We?re going to have that opportunity because we do have a bulls-eye on our chest and are going to get the opportunity to play when we are favored and hopefully by the way we practice and the way we prepare and the realization that we have to play. We just need to relax and let our talent and our work ethic take over during a game that we will be able to play well in that position. We also have a lot of teams that we?re going to play who we are very competitive with meaning that we?re real close. We?re used to playing as underdogs and if you look we play those teams real tough because our team thrives on the lack of respect part and they like a challenge. Now the challenge is a little different because we?ll be favored in more games than what we have. Our guys have to relish that as well. That?s a big step to being a top flight football program and we?re in the process.?
On the team dealing with the passing of Billy Gaines:
?I?ve talked to the seniors a couple times this summer on what we plan to do in memory of Billy Gaines. Our team is very committed and is exemplified by the number of people that went to his funeral. We are going to try with the help of Jeff Long, our staff, our seniors and all of his teammates to try to keep his memory alive and to give him the respect that he and his family deserves. We?re in the process of tightening that up.?
On preventing complacency in response to preseason hype:
?I think a few years ago we had high expectations, not as high as this year, but we had high expectations. I think that experience that we went through, we learned that year what was causing the problems and we also learned in the next what we needed to do to circumvent those problems. This is a different team and we have different guys, different goals and different personalities. It?s just a different team. I don?t anticipate that being a problem, but football is a very challenging game because the ball isn?t round and it doesn?t always bounce how you want it to bounce, but we?re going to take precautions as best we can. You win with good players. Its not about plays, it?s about players. We think we have good players, motivated players, leadership, and we think we have what it takes. Our coaching staff, starting with me, has to mold our players to handle the new challenges and to keep the lines of communication open so that we can continue to grow and get better game by game as a football team.?
On the national rankings:
?One thing I mentioned last night that was mentioned by one of our coaches, we didn?t believe the rankings before. We always thought we were a good football team and when people didn?t rank us in the preseason we didn?t believe that. The same thing goes for the rankings now. We can?t think that just because we?re ranked that people are going to lay down for us. It?s up to us to prove it because we haven?t done anything yet. It?s nice to get the respect if for no other reason than a reward for these guys, because with respect comes honors and special recognitions. The other thing that it helps is recruiting. Recruiting is always the life blood of your program. We?ll give ourselves a better chance to be more successful in recruiting than we ever have been.?
On this spring?s practice and areas that need to be improved on:
?Well I think we?re still up in the air on replacing five defensive players. We?re not sure who the best option to replace them will be. Offensively, we have three holes. I believe we have solved one of them. Jon Schall, who started as a true freshman, has exemplified a lot of outstanding things this spring, the biggest being sticking with football even though he went from starter as a true freshman to backup and not getting to play much. He had a very good spring, and we?re not sure exactly where he?s going to play, whether he?ll be a guard, which he?s played, or a center. We played him in the last week of spring practice at center to give him some experience with our quarterbacks. So we have five defensive and two offensive positions up in the air. Everything else I think we?re pretty set.?
On larger crowds at Heinz Field:
?I?ve gone to our basketball games and I?ve seen what the home court advantage is. I?ve looked at their record of 16-0 and we have had to go on the road and play at some tough places. I know it?s a part of our preparation and it makes it much more difficult to perform when it?s loud and difficult to even call a play or even think. So I?m looking forward to seeing that. That?s one of those parts of the program that we have to accomplish if we are to be a consistent player on a national level. I?m looking forward to everyone being excited and obviously a lot of people being there.?
On injuries from the spring:
?We?ve had some injuries, but I think we?re one hundred percent ready to go. We don?t anticipate any lingering injuries.?