Old Dominion Monarchs College Football Pregame Quote, 10/25/2021

On how the bye week was spent – reflection vs. recruiting:

I think we’ve done a pretty good job of reflecting all the way through the year doing some self-scout and things like that. We’re still actually doing a little bit of that right now. Obviously, that was part of it. I think instead of self-scout so much it was more about getting the younger guys in the program work in our schemes that maybe they’d been on our scout team and things like that having them work directly with the schemes. Recruiting, we had a bunch of guys out recruiting, some coaches left on Wednesday, so they were out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Other coaches were just out Thursday and Friday and we had a couple that were just out Friday.

[That was] this past week. So, every coach including myself was out on the road on Friday so that was good. That was nice because we were able to get to some high schools and some places that we haven’t been able to be in person yet at all. That was great, it’s always great to be able to see things live and in person. It’s a much better evaluation than even on the tape because you can see how they act and how they respond to adversity and things you just can’t see on the tape.

On LA Tech, QB Austin Kendall and WR Smoke Harris:

The quarterback’s obviously a very experienced player. I remember him from recruiting him a little bit in high school. Started at Oklahoma then went to West Virginia, now here. He’s had a lot of experience; he’s seen probably every coverage under the sun at this point. The wideout is a good player, he’s very quick. He’s a good wide receiver. Sometimes those quick guys are just quick guys.

He is a good wideout he has route definition, he knows how to set guys up and things like that. He’s a very good player.

On what he liked and didn’t like from watching the WKU film:

After watching that tape, obviously I didn’t like how we started, you know we dug ourselves a hole, it’s been a theme a couple games this year that’s unfortunately hurt us. The turnovers were a major factor. We knew the middle eight, the last four of the first half and first four of the second half was going to be critical. We had a nice drive going, thought it was going to help us be able to win that part of the game and then we turned it over and they were able to score. I thought that was a big point in the game right there. We left way too many plays out on the field on both sides. We’ve got to make sure we’re more detailed and things like that. Even on some plays that we were making‚Ķ you know it’s funny. Sometimes you think okay you made the play you must just give them a plus and move on. No, sometimes a guy makes a play and there’s still a lot left to coach on that play because of how it was made and things like that. There was definitely some of that. We’ve just got to make sure that we continue to be more detailed. I did like how we pushed the ball downfield on offense. I did like how we continue to be able to stop explosive plays on defense for the most part. We’re below 10% which is very high up there in the national standings. But we’ve got to make sure we stop hurting ourselves on pre-snap penalties especially on third down which has been a theme that we’ve got to stop.

On how beneficial the bye week is for players like QB Hayden Wolff:

It’s huge. Every rep you get as a player is going to help you so obviously the game reps that Hayden got last week are going to help him be a more effective player the whole time through. Even the practice reps, he gets a few more practice reps being with the ones then before. Every rep you get is something you get to learn from, they’ve showed us a couple different looks last week. You’re not going to be able to prepare for every single look, there’s always going to be a thing where you’re going to have to go back to your rules and execute. For the most part I thought he did a nice job on that. I think that those are things you’ve just got to continue to do and the other thing that I think is very hard to simulate is the pocket movement. Moving in the pocket we can simulate things like that but in order to get it exactly how it is it’s got to be live, and he’s got to know he might get hit. Those sorts of things I think are reps that are valuable as well.

On the support from his teammates:

We’ve got a tight team. The quarterbacks have been great. I know DJ Mack has been incredibly supportive through this, all the guys have. Just the way Hayden was when DJ was named the starter. We’ve got a tight team that wants to win football games and they support each other, and they know that’s the goal they want to win games and play well.

On the positives he took from the bye week:

I thought we got better; I really did. We were able to practice in pads last night, usually on Sunday we’re not in pads so that helped. You know getting a little head start on Louisiana Tech and things like that. I thought the guys came out, I explained to them why we were practicing in pads and instead of complaining and whatever they were fired up. I thought we had a very good practice with good energy. We approached the special teams period with a lot of energy and detail. I was really excited about how we’ve been practicing and how much better we got this week.

On how valuable LB Jordan Young has been to the defense:

Obviously, Jordan was one of the very first guys I talked to when I got this job because I knew how important he was going to be, I remember telling him then that I wanted him to be the captain. He probably thought I was crazy since it was our first conversation with each other. It’s been awesome and it’s a well-deserved thing. His instincts, also his ability to move efficiently and those sorts of things. I’ll tell you what’s really valuable is there’s a lot of teach tape that we can teach our young linebackers on what to do by how he’s doing it. Coach Seiler is in great shape and he’s a good athlete, but I think JY does a little bit better than he does. It’s great to be able to have him show the guys how to do it, so that’s been awesome.