Walt Harris Press Conference Transcript

9/20/2004

Coach Harris reviews the Nebraska game and previews Saturday's Furman encounter.

Walt Harris Press Conference

Sept. 20, 2004

Furman Week

?Our Nebraska game was a disappointment in some ways because we were our own worst enemy. I thought defensively we played well enough to win the game, but offensively we had turnovers in the red zone and we had a dropped punt that really made it difficult for us to win. But in the second half, I think it?s real easy for a team to fold and we didn?t. We fought through it. Our quarterback took a lot of hits. We have a lot of young receivers out there unfortunately. I thought Palko came through. When we gave him a chance, I thought he played well. He has to obviously do a better job with turnovers. I?ve been all about turnovers since day one. He has some upgrading to do, but I thought he fought back along with our special teams, our defense and our offense. We gave ourselves a chance to get back into the game. You don?t want to lose to anybody, but it could have gotten ugly and it didn?t. Our guys fought back and put themselves in a position to have the chance to tie the game and go into overtime.?

?As for Furman, I think they?re a football team that has to be reckoned with. A lot of people look at Division I AA as a pushover, but I?m sure Coach Schiano from Rutgers doesn?t believe that, and I?m sure Mississippi State doesn?t believe that either. We?re playing a fourth-ranked team in the nation, averaging 40-some points per game, giving up only seven points a game. We know we?re up (against) an opponent who has 10 starters back on offense and 10 starters back on defense. They have a quarterback who started at Florida for three games?and he outran the secondary on an option play. He?s an awfully good passer and we think he?s an outstanding player. They played Clemson last year and lost 28-17, and they played North Carolina at Chapel Hill in ?99 and beat them 28-3. So, right now as long as we?re turning the ball over everyone is very dangerous. Hopefully we?ll get that squared away, get the penalties squared away, mature as a football team, especially on offense, and hopefully have a good game against Furman.?

Did you see the team maturing in the Nebraska game?

?Our team fought through a lot of adversity. A lot of adversity was ourselves and the things that we did. Let?s face it, Nebraska is not easy. They were (strong) up front, very competitive. I thought they rushed the passer extremely well. We had some big areas that need major improvement. They kept us off balance for a long time. I think the drive at the end of the half was real important for us, momentum and confidence wise. We just have to do a better job on first and ten. We had a horrible field position, minus three, minus 17, minus 1, right off the bat. It?s hard when you start down there against anybody, let alone a good defensive football team. A year ago, Nebraska was the best team in the Big 12 on defense. They still have those remnants and they?re well coached.?

Were Tyler?s mistakes physical or mental?

?I think his mistakes were difficult with the play that was called and not enough experience in how to deal with it. That takes time to educate. I know in Rod?s opening game he had three picks. Tyler just moved it to the second game. The bottom line is he has to upgrade that and it has to be high in his mind set. Another mistake down there was we didn?t run the route as precise as we needed to run it and he got the pressure coming from the backside. I think he got hit as he was letting go of the ball. I think he felt the pressure, so he tried to rush it. If we run the route better, the ball would have been wider. Greg faded his angle, but we need to keep the play a lot wider. But the bottom line is, it?s very difficult. He?s competing, he?s trying to make first downs, he?s trying to move his team, he?s trying to be a good football player, and sometimes you try too hard. He just has to be smart with the football because we?re playing good defense which is very exciting.?

?I think we?re in it together. Play calls are in it as well. There could have been some better play calls. We just mad some mistakes, and they put a lot of pressure on us in terms of what they did and what our preparation was. That kept us off balance and we couldn?t overcome it until later. We got banged up in the backfield. Greg did not run the same way. Murphy got hurt. Marcus got hurt. We weren?t very deep right there. We were short, so to speak. Hopefully this week we?ll get Brandon Mason practicing more and another healthy body in there.?

What were the injuries coming out of Nebraska.

?We won?t know about injuries until we get back out and practice on Tuesday.?

Do you plan on using freshman Brandon Mason to help out at running back?

?Brandon Mason we liked in camp, but who knows until you turn it on. One game doesn?t make the season, and one scrimmage doesn?t make a career. We like some of things that he did, but he just has a lot to learn as you can imagine for a freshman. You see some of the other freshman out there and they have a lot to learn as well. We do like what we saw in camp though.?

Freshman Darrell Strong made the depth chart this week.

?I think we made a good move for where we are right now. He came in and made a couple nice plays. He caught a slant and almost broke it. Then he makes an unbelievable catch at the end of the game and he had some other opportunities where we didn?t go his way at the time. But he did a couple of things like a first game player would do when he ran a two-step slant route on fourth down and made it hard to complete. If he held on to it like he thought he could he might have had a touchdown. He runs with the catch. With his first time out, after being a receiver one week and then bouncing from quarterback to tight end to receiver, I think that?s a nice start. He?s a smart football player?

What can Pitt expect to face in Furman?s offense?

?They?re going to face an offense with a great quarterback. Martin runs some options, a lot of times he?s a runner and he?s fast. They?re a tight end team. Any time you say the word option to a defensive coach they all get nervous because nowadays, not very many people run it anymore. They put a tight end in. The games that we?ve seen are either no tight ends, or only one tight end and three wide receivers, so it makes it hard for us to see where they are in their defensive scheme against a team that place tight ends and two backs.?

Is their bread and butter running?

?The bread and butter is throwing the ball. He?s averaging over 200 yards throwing the ball and he?s a tremendous athlete and very fast.?

Defensive lineman Phil Tillman is playing more.

?He did a great job on the goal line on the fumble. He penetrated and affected the snap, so we were real excited about that.?

What is Azzie Beagynam?s status?

?Azzie?s out. He?d been playing his best game. That?s a tough loss. He?s going to be out for awhile.?

Will Allen Richardson still be the punt returner?

?We base it on practice and of the guys we have, he catches the ball the best. We know Coach Rhoads isn?t going to put someone back there and have to put the defense back out after a minute. Allen is a neat kid. I thought he came back from the miscue in a very positive way. We have to block better and protect him better on punt returns. When people aren?t coming around you, that makes our guys better punt returners. The mistake he made was that he backed up. That was part of the problem. It was a tough catch, it wasn?t a nice spiral so it made it a tough catch. To catch a punt, kick a field goal and stand there and throw a football as someone is bearing down on you are probably the three hardest things in football. He bounced back which is real important. He?s like a lot of our guys on offense. I think our offense tried to bounce back and we have given ourselves a lot better chance. We need to play smart on offense and that takes a lot of stuff away from the defense from the other team. Our punter (Adam Graessle) is the Big East Special Teams Player of the Week. He netted 46 yards per punt and that?s tremendous. He punted the ball like we always hoped and dreamed and knew he could. We have to play more to our kicking game and play more to our defense when we?re on offense.?

Josh Cummings seems to be the kicker you wanted him to be.

?He pounded the ball well. It?s really good to see those two young men really being a factor and as the season goes on and as the team matures, that part of the game will be very big in us developing into a good football team. You have to play the kicking game well and when you can guarantee you can get three points down there and guarantee you?re going to get a good net punt that?s huge.?

What is your defense doing best at this point?

?We started off shaky in terms of our assignments, but we settled down in the game and I think that was very important. We had guys make mistakes, but I think we settled down and they didn?t score any points in the second half. Compared to last year, I think we?re tackling better.?

Joe DelSardo was productive Saturday.

?I thought Joe looks like the best walk-on we?ve had, the best walk-on performance we?ve had as wide receiver, but of course he?s not a walk-on anymore. I thought he did an excellent job. Everything he did was extremely precise. He knows and understands our system. Our quarterback knows he?s going to be where he?s supposed to be when he?s supposed to be and that?s tremendous for those guys.?

Since you are so inexperienced has your play calling been less of what it has been in the past?

?I saw some improvement out of us, but we have scaled back quite a bit. But, obviously I don?t think we scaled back enough because we?re not precise and consistent with doing what we?re doing. We?re not always throwing how we planned on doing, but we?re working hard on getting better and I saw improvement. The catch Greg Lee made was outstanding. It?s great to see him doing things we knew he was capable of doing. It?s been a rocky road getting to that point with him, but it was gratifying to see him make a tremendous catch and some other nice plays as well. He just has to put it all together. If he catches every pass he has over a hundred yards receiving. So, we?re real excited about what he has accomplished and that?s real progress and helps number three.?

Walt Harris Press Conference Transcript

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