East Carolina Pirates College Football Pregame Quote, 10/11/2022

Obviously disappointed in not being able to get the victory down in New Orleans this past weekend but we faced a very good Tulane team. When you look back at the game, and I’ve watched it multiple times and watched it with both sides of the ball and special teams, you look at the things that we did well, and I thought we did start the game very well. I thought we played very well in the first quarter. I thought that as the game went on there’s half a dozen plays where Tulane made a play and we did not, one way or the other, and thought those plays, combined with a couple of mistakes that we made that Tulane did not and it ended up in them winning what was a highly contested game. Congratulations to Coach Fritz and Tulane on moving on to 5-1. They’ve got a good football team, just like we thought, and we’ve got to be better in all phases of the game. We’ve got to improve from our performance last weekend. The one thing I do know is we have a very motivated group of coaches, and we have a motivated team. We had a good workout on Sunday evening. We’ve had productive players and coaches meetings over the last day and a half since then. I expect us to have a really good practice this afternoon and expect the Pirates to play well this coming Saturday. Excited to be back at home, should be a great atmosphere with a 7:30 kickoff and homecoming. You’re going to have a lot of people back here for the Hall of Fame induction and Marcus Crandell going in and there’s just a lot of excitement around the game. It’s two really good football teams. Obviously, Memphis is coming off a tough loss to Houston last Friday night. I was able to watch most of that game after we finished up our meetings. You get two really good teams that are matched up this weekend and it should be a great game; we’ll be ready to go.

On a handful of plays dictating the outcome of the team’s games to this point in the season:

The one thing I know is, that the kids want to be successful. I do think you address each situation a lot of times it’s things that they know, so you just try to coach up how to play the ball better, whether it’s offensively or defensively or you coach up a decision no matter who is making it and how we can make a better decision. We’re always looking at how we can do things better as coaches at the end of the day and it’s a game played in real time, and somebody is going to make the play and somebody isn’t. You just try to do the best job you can of addressing it and I think you do; I think you directly address it and try to coach it and try to improve on it.

On the offense struggling in certain parts of games:

I think that the opponent and how they’re defending you has a lot to do with it. I think rhythm and sync has a lot to do with it and everybody being on the same page has a lot to do with it. For example, South Florida got up there and decided they want to play us press man on the line of scrimmage, and we were able to hit some deep balls on them and we connected, and we won the 50-50 balls. This past weekend, Tulane defended us completely different, and I think after probably the middle of the second quarter on, we were able to drive the ball pretty well until we got down to around the 30-yard line, and we just did not make the plays that you must make. You’ve got to score points. On the other side, we did give up a few plays to Tulane. I think that’s where it goes into where we’ve got to improve our execution. We’ve got to improve everybody being on the same page. Everybody in this conference has a lot of talent. Tulane had a lot of talent on defense and a lot of talent on offense. Memphis has got a lot of talent on both sides; we all have a lot of talent. It comes down to who can execute the best, who can play together the best, that’s really the big one, the better team is going to win on game day. We’re striving to try to get a group of individuals to play together and be the best team on game day each Saturday.

On the health status of the running back room:

I think it’s pretty good. I mean, we’ve got bumps and bruises everywhere. Everybody does. I promise you Memphis does too. We’re fortunate to have a great athletic training staff and they’re doing a great job with the kids as far as taking care of their bodies and improving each day and the goal is to have everybody ready to go on game day.

On emphasizing the scramble drill on offense:

The scramble drill is something we work each week, and it’s very choreographed. I don’t think we did a great job with it at times last Saturday and why we didn’t last Saturday? That’s the questions you ask when you’re watching the film. It’s certainly something you emphasize; we do pass scale good on good every Tuesday and every Wednesday in practice. The thing I encourage the quarterbacks to do is to not sit back there because you don’t have an offensive line and a defensive line in those settings. After a certain beat, you need to scramble, and Coach Kirkpatrick encourages them to scramble because you can work the drill against air, and you work it against the air, so they know where to go. The best work is when you’re going against the defense because you’re reacting to another body. We’ve just got to continue to do a better job of taking that to the field. We’ve obviously had some huge plays in the scramble drill throughout the season so far. It comes down to more of just a focus deal in the ballgame.

On Memphis’ game against Houston last weekend:

Well, I think it was not as much what I saw from Memphis as what I saw from Houston. You had a huge kickoff return for a touchdown that started the whole thing and kind of energized Houston. Houston started playing better defensively. They’re able to get some stops. Houston was able to score, they were able to get an onside kick. The combination of the scoring drive, onside kick, and Memphis is right back on the field on defense. Houston was able to drive down easily for the game-winning touchdown and extra point with seconds left on the clock. Houston really got going. The kickoff return kind of ignited the comeback and then I do think that Memphis got tired defensively there late in the game.

On the uncharacteristic mistakes against Tulane:

Well, there’s obviously something to it and it is uncharacteristic, because it’s something that we’ve worked very hard to eliminate from our program and we have not had a issue with that. We talk about it each week. We want to play with emotion, we want to play with intensity, but we don’t want our emotions to control us. We had a player that made a poor decision after the whistle on a critical third down that we had gotten a stop there in the first quarter. That gave Tulane a first-and-goal inside the five. It’s a mistake that player wishes they had back, they are remorseful for it. Once it happens, it happens, and it’s a heat of the moment thing, but it’s not something that can be tolerated and it’s not something that our team wants. It’s something that we’ve got to continue to focus on and it’s something that I’ve talked about each week. I know there’s certain things that I hammer each week that sometimes the kids don’t register how important it is. If something like that happens, ‘That’s what coach is talking about.’ It’s part of being a good football team, because good football teams, they don’t beat themselves with pre-snap penalties and post-snap penalties, you’re going to have penalties during the play, you’re going to have things that happen because it’s a highly competitive game. The interception the endzone, it was a poor throw. That’s all it is. It’s a poor throw. If the throw is accurate, it’s a touchdown. That was a big play that the Tulane defender made but that is one of the plays I was talking about that those are one of the half a dozen plays, where if you make the play there and Tulane doesn’t, it changes the game and probably both those plays do. That’s the stuff that we’ve got to correct and clean up and do better.

On defending Seth Henigan:

It’s challenging. He is their leading rusher as far as yardage gained on the year. Part of that is that they are using three different running backs and it’s more distributed among those three. But still, he’s their leading rusher in yards gained on the year and that’s the example of his mobility. He’s a really good quarterback. He was good last year; he’s improved this year. 1500 plus yards, passing completion percentage over 60 percent, 10 touchdowns and one interception. I think Michael Pratt is one of the better quarterbacks in our conference, but I think Seth Henigan may have more arm talent as far as just strength and accuracy and things like that. I think he’s a really good player, I think we’re going to be challenged and I think his mobility adds another wrinkle to that.

On opposing defenses taking things that were successful from other teams:

Well, I think we all are copycats to a degree. I think offenses try to; we always try to work things defensively for us that somebody else might have had success with earlier in the year that we think may come back up. I think a little bit the same way with opposing defenses to, but you look at the last couple of games, Navy, South Florida and Tulane and those are three completely different schemes that we saw. I do think people may try to look at a few things that may work here and there, but it still has to fit within what they are schematically.