Charlotte 49ers College Football Pregame Quote, 09/10/2019

Obviously, frustrating when you have to come back in here on Sunday and watch the film that we had to watch. I think that all the times that we had to answer them on Saturday, when they made a big play, when we had our own self inflicting wounds that they were able to capitalize on, but we responded. The fight that our team has and the energy that our team plays with, I thought we wanted it more than they did. And I thought at times we played harder than they did. I don’t know if our execution was better than theirs, and those are the things we have to correct for this weekend. An amazing atmosphere this [past] weekend. Our players were ready for it but we obviously didn’t start the game the way we wanted to with an 87-yard touchdown run on the first play and then a three-and-out. But I think that this team is not one that will hang (its) head and quit. That is going to be a part of our ‚ÄòMO’. We’re going to play really hard and want it more than you do. And now, we just have to get the execution to match. We had some great individual performances. You go back and basically have three turnovers with the blocked punt. I thought we got beat handily on special teams. There were times that we gave up big plays when we were in positions to either have tackles for loss or interceptions in the middle of the field and we didn’t make some of those big plays when we had the opportunities. We learned a hard lesson on Saturday and our guys responded extremely well on Monday and Tuesday. We had a great practice this morning [Tuesday]. Now we have to take what we learned and prepare to go play really well at home this weekend against a team that blew us out of the water on the road a year ago. Each and every week for us, we have an opportunity to make a point and make a statement and this week is no different.

You are a new staff here and they also have a new staff there [at Massachusetts]. A win against them last year and things may be different here this year. How do you look at that game?

I think once you look at that game and see that we are a different team this year than we were a year ago. For a couple reasons, the first being what just happened at Appalachian State this year, that happened to us last year at UMass. These guys are different, the way they responded on Saturday was totally different than the way they responded a year ago. As far as schematics and how players are playing goes, I don’t really watch a lot of that. I look at it from a personnel standpoint as far as who’s back and who has had some experience. You go back and look at all the places that [head coach] Walt [Bell] and his defensive coordinator have been. You go back and pull film from those aspects.

How much of that is just the experience you have now and to be able to draw from last year?

I think you are constantly convincing your guys that they are changing and that it’s for the better. So pointing out that they are different in the way they handle adversity, is important. It’s a growing process. And now, when we face adversity, you can draw back to previous games and show them that they can do this and have done it before. The way we play and the way we respond to adversity is now the standard because you have shown me you can do it. We are going to have a fourth-quarter battle eventually and I hope we recover an onside kick, if we have the opportunity. I hope we pick off a ball that’s thrown right in the middle of the field. All those opportunities we had to go tie that game or win that game that we’re able to make those plays that we didn’t before because we have practiced, prepared. And that we are going to make them, create our own breaks. So, we’ve learned a lot and now we have those experiences to draw from moving forward.‚Äù

How did they get through on that blocked punt?

The same thing that happened in practice last week. We lined up in a particular look with a certain number of guys to one side and they switched it and added another and we didn’t change the count which left a guy unblocked and he volleyball spiked it right back at us. Those first two possessions at the end of the first half make you nauseous. You got a turnover, you give it to them on the five-yard line, the blocked punt. It’s a 14-13 ballgame at the end of the first half with two minutes to go. That’s twice now we haven’t handled that situation well at the end of the first half, so it’s a point of emphasis, like it always is, but our guys will make sure that doesn’t happen again.

You guys had an emotional game last weekend at Appalachian State and next week you have No. 1 Clemson. What do you have to do to make sure the guys are over last week but not looking past this week?

You got beat, so you’re frustrated and you can’t wait to get back out there again. And our guys have responded that way all season. It’s not like our whole season was based off of whether or not we beat App. We felt like we should’ve beaten App. The way we played on Saturday, we felt like had opportunities, and on their side, I’m sure they feel like they should’ve blown us out. I guess it depends on whatever side you are on. The only thing it told me is that if we can control what we can control, then we can beat who is on our schedule. I think it made it that much more glaring to our players was that everything we talked about needing to do during the week to have success on Saturdays is directly correlated to a win or a loss. And I don’t think it has to do with the opponent but it has to do with us and our execution. They’ve responded great. It’s not hard to get these guys fired up about playing UMass; they drilled us the first time we played them. They are thrilled about playing at home because of what they saw the first time we played at home, so it hasn’t been difficult at all, they have been great.

At what point does the learning curve end?

There is no learning curve. You’re right, it is no excuse but I feel like we are going to learn something every day while I am the head football coach here. If you ever feel like you are where you need to be, then you are probably going to get passed up pretty quickly. So I think we can learn something new every day about a player, a situation, a call and you can go back through the 160 plays in a football game and there is always going to be something new that you can learn from.

How are you feeling about the depth at the wide receiver position?

Really good. We have had some guys step up and make some big plays. Obviously, Victor Tucker made two big contested catches in the end zone on Saturday to keep us in the football game. Those were big time plays and I think Micaleous [Elder] and Noah [Henderson] have provided that depth we needed. Noah got his first start on Saturday and I thought he played really well. Micaleous was dynamic and did what we see him do in practice. And Cameron Dollar has been extremely consistent as well as Tyler Ringwood. I think we have six or seven wideouts who we don’t have to tell the quarterback ‚Äòhey this guy is running a rout for nothing.’ I mean everybody is involved in the scheme.‚Äù

Jackson Vansickle was kicking off on Saturday, What’s the reasoning behind that?

We felt like during practice and during scrimmages that Jackson had positioned the ball a little bit better and had gotten more hang time than [Jonathan] Cruz did. I think Cruz has responded very well the last couple of days but I don’t know if it did a lot to help Cruz on Saturday. But we made that decision on Monday of last week. We kicked it into the wind a couple of times on Saturday and Jackson put the ball right in the middle of the field. We have to make sure we are positioned correctly on kickoffs.