East Carolina Pirates College Football Pregame Quote, 10/22/2024

OPENING STATEMENT

“I think today for us was just back to day one. It was day one for us. It was the most important day of the year, of the week, because it’s today. We can’t worry about tomorrow, can’t worry about yesterday, can’t worry about anything that’s going on outside right now. We got to worry about the young men in our locker room. We got to focus on getting ready for Temple, focus on our seniors, and how can we prepare today to get ready for Saturday. That’s all we’re focused on this morning. Focus on our practice, we focus on our meetings. We changed a few things up, just what time we met or what order we met in or how we did order of practice, just to create a little flow there differently, a little different vibe, maybe, so to speak. My whole purpose of that, just try to create some positive energy and a positive vibe within our players and within our locker room. I told our coaches, I said, ‘When we go out there, they got to feed off us.’ I said, ‘We got to be the most energetic guys out there.’ Our young men certainly responded.

“At the end of the practice there, we had a little call it no quarter drill, just some perfect plays and finish with the score and everybody celebrating the end zone. I told them, I said, ‘Hey, I love to see that. That’s what we need to take into Saturday. If this works on Tuesday, you got to take it on Saturday. If you’ll take that effort and that energy into Saturday, I think we have an opportunity to play the way we want to play.'”

On the energy being high at practice

“First of all, you’re going through this thing and you realize you wake up about 3:30 in the morning and you’re thinking, ‘Hey, what I got to do before practice? What I got to do after practice? How I got to handle this situation, handle that situation?’ You’re worried about all those things. Then you get out there in the grass and you realize the guys just take care of themselves, and they move around the way they should, and they handle themselves like professionals and practice the way they should.

“Obviously, we’ve got to clean a lot of things up before Saturday. X and O, fit-wise, communication, we got to keep continuing to work on that. But the energy and the effort, I thought was very positive. That was the focus, and that’ll be the focal point moving forward. We got to be clean, execute at a higher level. But just the way they finish practice, I think that’s something we could send momentum into the afternoon meetings and on to tomorrow.”

On hard it is with all the assistant coaches not knowing their future

“I was on a Zoom call last night with all players’ parents, just communicating with them and letting them know we’re here for them, here for their son, and that we’re doing this for our seniors, and that we’re looking at the windshield, not the rear view. One of the few questions I got was about the staff and the family. I thought that was pretty cool. That’s where their mind was at, even though their son’s going through a situation.

“But that’s what we’ve got to march through. We’re going to face adversity in life. We’re going to face adversity as a parent, as a dad, as a husband, or in our job. We’ve got to keep marching forward, keep looking at the windshield. This morning, it’s win the day this morning, win practice. This afternoon it’ll be film study, win the film study. If players come back in, ‘Hey, let’s win that meeting.’ Let’s do a great job teaching in that meeting and making sure we’re connecting with those young men and preparing ourselves for Temple on Saturday. I’ll tell the guys after that, it’ll be, ‘Hey, prepare your body for tomorrow to win tomorrow.’ It’s win every minute of the day right now. That’s all we’ve got to do is look forward, never backwards.”

On how the players have responded, helping him push through adversity

“They’re everything. They’re everything. It’s easy to get frustrated, but we’re not going to. I just smile and I look at them and they bring me energy. Javion Clark, Pinball, had suffered an injury early in the season. Nobody could be more down than that young man, but nobody has better energy than that young man. I look at him and say, ‘How could I be any different?’ I got to be more like him. I think all of us do and all of our players do, and continue to march forward and feed off each other. I said, ‘That’s what will happen if one of us are having a bad day, we pull each other up.’ That’s what I talked about with the seniors. Hey, you guys probably understand this more than anybody else. You guys make sure you’re taking the rest of our locker room and can keep them together, keep them in tight, and we stay together.”

On how he balances putting his own spin on things versus not breaking routine too much

“Yeah, there’s a fine line, right? A fine line of, ‘Hey, let’s keep the routine and do what we do and keep the goals and the main thing, the main thing, and then change the thing up or two.’ Hey, you don’t change too much, but still make it fun, still make it energetic, blah, blah. I don’t think changing something may just be a different way to approach it or attack it. It may just change their mindset or get their mind off a normal routine. I think sometimes we get in a certain routine or a certain rut, and you’re like, ‘Here we go.’

“I told Coach Big John, we’re going to stretch a different way. Just to say we stretch a different way. It’s not the same way we stretch on game day. That way, go to game day, stretch, ‘Hey, it’s time to ride.’ I told the guys that. We’re not changing up just for the purpose of change. We’re changing up for reasons and just create some new energy there, a new focus and a new mindset. Really just say it’s a brand new day. It’s day one, brand new day, and our focus is forward on Temple.”

On going from the booth to the sidelines on game day

“I’m excited about being on the sideline with our young men and our group and just being down there and being a part of that for one. You miss that in the box a little bit. You’re up there, a little bit like playing a video game or something. You’re just so far, I was removed from everything. I did enjoy my Diet Mountain Dews up there. But no, I’m looking forward being down there and being with our guys. I’ll still call the defense. I try to keep everything is consistent as possible. With that, Coach (Steve) Shankweiler is going to be in the box and helping manage the game from a clock management standpoint and just going through things there, and we’ll communicate with him.

“I told those guys, tomorrow afternoon, we got to sit down and talk about clock management with Coach (John David) Baker. Coach (Ryan) McManus runs our Championship Analytics book, and Coach Shankweiler and Coach (Andre) Powell, special teams. We’ve just all got to have a meeting to sit down about how we want to tackle this thing, how we want to manage the game on Saturday from special teams to offense, defense, and play complementary football, and at the same time be aggressive and give ourselves a chance to win.”

On if he’s still going to find time to look at the iPads on the sideline for defensive adjustments

“I’m not sure how many snaps of offense I’ve watched live this year because you’re always checking out that iPad. I spoke to somebody that met with Coach Belichick early in the offseason, and Coach Belichick said, ‘Don’t try to watch every snap. Just get the ones fixed that give you problems.’ That was probably good advice, and I didn’t listen to it. But I think on the sideline, it’ll be exactly that. Hey, show me that look or two, and boom, we got to get right back to paying attention to what’s going on in the field. For me, it’s going to be a cheer on our offense and make sure they’re ready to ride. If they need me to call a time out or celebrate with them in the end zone, then that’s where I’ll be at. That’s where I’ll be needed. But you’re exactly right. The booth, as far as your eyes up there and seeing some things, is different than it was years ago. Years ago, you were totally relying on that guy up top to tell you exactly what was going on in the far sideline, maybe in the box, or a guy on the sideline couldn’t quite see.

“But now you have instant replay at your hand and every single play from four different angles. Sometimes you can hear the TV announcers on it as well. It’s changed the game for sure.”

On the players saying they’ve never seen so many smiles at practice

“We took the field together just to take the field united, take the field in, keeping it tight, stay together. That was really the only thing. Rather than going out there one by one. There’s some advantages to both. I always say this, there’s a lot of different ways to skin a cat. Let’s just make sure we’re holding the tail when we skin it. That’s it. Just having a different approach, it doesn’t mean it’s the right way or wrong way. I don’t know. I told our coaches this, if I were to start my program from scratch somewhere else, I may not change a thing. I may do exactly the same way we’ve been doing it because I’ve done it that way for so long. But I think we need just to tweak a few things right now just to have a different approach to it.”

On if he felt like the players were more engaged after the tweaks

“The players were probably fine. It was mostly me that was like, ‘Oh, man, I hope this is going okay. We’re getting what we need out of this. I hope we’re getting the reps we need out of this. We’re attention to detail. We’re playing the game the right way.’ Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you do, and we tell our players this all the time, it doesn’t matter what you do, but how you do it.

“Are you going to play with great effort? Are you going to play with physicality? Are you going to have energy for your teammates? You’re going to be disciplined and execute all those things to help you win football games. At the end of the day, that’s what matters. The players did a great job handling practice. That was just my anxiety there, kicking in a little bit.”

On what it would mean for the seniors to close it out the right way

“There’s a lot of them. I think they got here a couple of weeks before I did. We’ve been through a lot together and been through some tough times, some good times, and seeing all aspects of it. Just to see those guys get a win on Saturday and knowing what this week’s been like and moving forward, what that could mean for us, that would be huge for those young men and those seniors in that locker room and just our program. I told our seniors this a while ago. I said, ‘Hey, we get this one, it’s going to get even more – the train will get it going even more.’ We all need that right now.”

On what he expects from Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium on Saturday

“I expect homecoming in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. I think we have some diehard, awesome fans. I understand if they feel certain ways, I get it. But I don’t think for one second they won’t fill that place up and be proud to be back in Dowdy and be a part of Pirate Nation, be with their classmates, and be proud of this university. I understand that they have some frustrations. We all do, and we all want to get those fixed. We all got a lot of football left to play.

“We’ve got five games left to play. I mean, that’s a lot of football. You’re sitting here 3-4, five games left to play. We’re only focused on one game at a time. You only focus on Temple. But there’s a lot of different outcomes that can come up in five games. That’s what we talk to our players about. We’ve got to just go enjoy Saturday. I appreciate being at this place because you have passionate fans. They have opinions, and everybody’s entitled to it. I appreciate their passion. I’d rather be at a place that has passion and cares than a place that has no passion, doesn’t care, and never shows up one way or the other. I’m glad to be a part of that, and I appreciate that.”

On if Katin Houser will start at quarterback

“I’ve never been asked a quarterback question in my life. A couple of things. You don’t realize when you’re on one side of the ball. Quarterback plays the number one topic you’re going to talk about. The other thing we talked about or came up earlier in the meeting this week was the air in the ball. Is it inflated too much? Not enough? I’m like, Who cares? Just go get a turnover and go put in the end zone.

“Every day is a competition, and we need to make every position like that, whether it’s quarterback, whether it’s O-line, D-line, at secondary, linebacker. I did think Katin played extremely well in his last time out. I think Jake’s done some good things this season, too. I’ve got to sit down with both of them and not to talk about football, just to get to know them better as young men. The defensive side of the ball, I can spend a lot of time with those guys and have the last several years. I always bump fist with those guys in the hallway and pound them up and all that stuff.

“But for sitting down and have a conversation with them, how many times have I done that with an offensive guy. I just need to do that and just give them the vision and give them the goals and tell them how proud I am of them. Hey, we got nothing to lose. Let’s let this thing ride. Let’s go play freely. That’s everybody in the program. Let’s don’t put pressure on ourselves. Let’s go play. Let’s go turn it loose and just see what happens from there.”

On how strange it is to be reintroducing himself to the offense as head coach

“A fun fact, by the way, I started out coaching as an offensive coordinator. I don’t know how I got on the defensive side of the ball, but it’s unique. I think I’ve learned this in the last four years. You can’t control, and you can’t do everything. Sometimes you try, but our coaches and our staff have been awesome. ‘Hey, how can I help you? What can I do for you?’ This, that. I think you got to make sure you’re delegating things.

“At the same time, you got to keep everybody’s eye on the goal and keep the vision forward. Because as you mentioned, they may be thinking about home or outside of here, and we all got to be pulling in the same direction. We’ll worry about December when December comes. We’ll worry about the end of the season when the end of the season comes. But right now, let’s focus on today. Let’s focus on winning today and where that entails. Let’s get it done.”

On if there’s anybody he’s reached out to or advice

“I’ve gotten a lot of advice. The best one, my father-in-law, wrote me an email. He told me, make sure I became boss day one. And he’s awesome. It was actually a really good email and just went through it there. Just his advice to me and was very fatherly and just love him to death for that and look up to him. But reached out to several people who’s been through this.

“A friend of mine, Spencer Danielson, who went through this at Boise State last year, spoke to him. It was about the same time of the transition. Obviously, I’m still going to use Coach Houston because we’re still great friends and different folks like that. But there’s only so many guys out there who have been through a transition like this in the middle of the season. Danielson just offered us some great things that he did or how he did do it or how he would have done it differently, looking back, right or wrong, but I thought was really good just to talk to him and go through some things there.”