Old Dominion Monarchs College Football Pregame Quote, 11/02/2021

Happy Election Day. Hope everybody goes out and gets to do their civic duty and all that going after this. Also want to say congratulations to Coach Hind and the women’s soccer team that’s awesome that they were able to win their division in soccer and then got so many post season awards which is awesome. I thought it was a great example that we’ve got some very talented coaches in this department and some people getting some recognition and that’s great.

Coach I know the attitude has been great all year but was there a little extra pep in your step since you got the win Saturday.

I thought we had our best practice of the year yesterday. Usually, we don’t practice on Monday, usually we practice on Tuesday because of NCAA rules and the election we’re not practicing today. But I thought yesterday was the best practice of the year, I don’t know if it was because of the win or why but our guys were really focused, and it wasn’t necessarily an attitude thing, it’s not like they came out with a different attitude. We just executed really well and played with great effort yesterday. There was extra pep in the step, why that is I don’t know. I don’t know if they knew they were getting the day off the day after and knew they could give it everything they had, or what it was. But there certainly was, it was great to see us have a great practice on Sunday and again yesterday.

Question about the defense. I was mostly paying attention on Saturday, two turnovers, special teams’ situation and a turnover on downs all left them with good field position and I don’t think they had any points out of any of those four.

Our sudden change defense has been pretty good all year. I’ve been very impressed with what Coach Seiler and the rest of our defensive staff has been able to do with our sudden change defense. I thought that was a real big key in the game, for us to be able to overcome those turnovers and those sorts of things. They were able to get a few points off the fake punt and that sort of thing but in general our defense has done a great job with that. That was a really big difference in the game.

Is there one thing that’s the most important for being a good sudden change defense?

Yeah, having a 1-0 mentality and not thinking oh woe is me and giving in to the moment, but saying okay we’re going to stop them. This is our opportunity to go out and make a play and help our team win this game. It goes both ways sometimes you hear the guys say aw man I can’t believe the offense turned it over or I can’t believe special teams gave up that play or one of those sorts of things. Or you can approach it as alright hey this is a great opportunity for us to go out there and show our team that we’re going to make an impact right here and get them to attempt a field goal or get our own turnover or whatever. I think that’s how you’ve got to approach it as an opportunity as opposed to an obstacle.

You guys talk every week about penalties, how pleased were you with how that went Saturday?

Yeah, I thought it went really well. There’s always going to be a few penalties that are missed and things. Then a few that are called that you maybe don’t agree with. That’s every week so those tend to balance themselves out. I thought the thing we did in the last game, we got ride of the pre and post snap penalties. We had the one pre-snap penalty there at the end of the game, which obviously we’ve got to eliminate. But other than that, we were really clean on that. We had the two pre-snap penalties and unfortunately, they were both in the 4th quarter. But other than that, we did really well. I thought they showed a lot of focus and those sorts of things, but with the penalties we were technically able to overcome because we were still able to kick the field goal for the one on the offense and we were still able to stop them on the one that was on the defense. That was huge to be able to overcome those. That was a big focus for that week to eliminate those pre and post snap penalties and we did that which was huge.

That LaMareon kickoff return, how did that spark you guys there? Good energy getting to halftime what kind of spark did that provide for you guys?

The last four minutes of the half and really the first four or five of the second half were really interesting with the back and forth. They took the lead then we ran back the kick, and they came back and tied it. Then we went down and scored on the first drive of the second half. There was a lot of things going on in that middle eight period so that was obviously a big one we were struggling a little bit on offense there. We put together some drives, but we hadn’t kept them going the way we needed to. There was great blocking on that play and obviously he let his natural ability take over and those sorts of things. There were some great effort plays, EJ Green running down there and doing some great things right there right next to Lamareon. That was a huge play in the game, we’d been close a couple times earlier this year on kickoff returns so that was a major shift right there.

I’ll follow up on LaMareon just what he brings to the table, I guess it was obvious with what he brought to the table Saturday, are you expecting more of that?

You know he’s done a really nice job on special teams earlier on whether it’s been making good decisions as a kick returner, whether it’s been as our bullet on punt. I mean if you look at the last game, they were lining two guys over our bullets and double teaming them which is something you see in the NFL. The difference is in the NFL the other guys can’t leave until the balls kicked. In college everybody can leave, it’s very rare you see that in college. The fact that our guys were able to attract that much attention, Lamareon and Javon Harvey, that’s a major thing and that should help our punt game at all times. He’s been making some plays on special teams, and I think his natural ability is starting to show through and he’s gaining a lot of confidence and I’m excited. He’s right where I thought he’d be so I’m excited where he is right now.

That game went down to the last two seconds, you had the possession at midfield right before that. How important is a game like that in your development as a new head coach? In terms of game management.

I look back at it and obviously there’s some things like I talked about on the fake punt I probably should have called timeout on that one and those sorts of things. I thought I improved in the game management aspect of it in being able to manage the clock at the end of the game. That’s something that’s an experience thing and obviously we play a lot of close games, so I’ve had some experience now with it and those sorts of things. I thought I made some improvements. I thought our kids made some improvements on how they managed it, which allowed out coaching staff to manage the clock a little bit better. I thought that’s just something I need to continue to do a better job of in game. I gain confidence in those situations as I do it more often and the kids gain confidence in executing those situations as well. We’ve had quite a few close games already and we’ve got a bunch of different situations that we’re going to be able to fall back on throughout the rest of this year. What’s hard is in practice and creating those. You can attempt to but its just not the same when they’re manufactured a little bit.

It’s been a minute since you’ve had a road game. Are you ready to get right back in the swing of that or does four weeks make a difference?

It’s not that big of a deal. Its funny, you probably get more rest and sleep and all those sorts of things on a road game. At least I do, I sleep like a baby on planes and buses. Like I said before I’ll pretend like I’m reading a book and Ill be out before the plane takes off. I probably get more rest on road games than on home games. On home games a lot of times I’m out recruiting and doing those sorts of things. The fact that Dr. Selig allows us to stay in a hotel the night before home games I think is a big deal, it kind of keeps things consistent on road games. Its not that big a deal, obviously I’m going to keep my finger crossed that we’re going to have no issues with our travel this week. I don’t see it as being quite the obstacle that maybe some people do.

Have you talked to the team at all about bowl eligibility? I’m guessing your answers going to be something to do with 1-0.

No. I’ll avoid the 1-0 answer and I’ll tell you no I have not. It hasn’t even come up. Like I said before the guys have gotten so used to what my answer will be just like you have, they just quit asking. Its kind of like my kids, my kids have stopped asking for ridiculous things which is because they know I’ll say no. I guess being consistent has its rewards sometimes. I think that the one thing I would say, every game we get to play is a blessing. Every time we get to play a game is a blessing. Our guys are focused on being able to win this game and God willing stay together as long as humanly possible. Like I’ve said before each team is its own team. Each year is its own team. College football is not a thing where you build any more. You don’t build on one year to the next. Every year is starting over. It’s each own individual team and you have to recognize that there is a finality to every bit of it.

The events that led up to you guys having today off, there was a lot of events that led up to that. You guys have a relationship with your guys that I’m sure goes far beyond the field. What’s your open-door policy like for them coming to talk to you about things that are happening off the field and do you have guys come and talk to you about issues that are impacting them and what they see and everything like that.

Yeah. Obviously, I have an open-door policy, it’s not as open door as it used to be with covid its actually a closed door, but they can come open it whenever they want, so I can take my mask off every once in a while. They come to me about a number of different topics all the time. Some guys are more open with doing that, other guys aren’t. I would hope that they would know that I’m going to keep an open mind with whatever they’re going to say. On a slightly different area the mental health of our players, the mental health of college kids everywhere, really Americans everywhere, has been I think we can all agree, has been negatively impacted by this pandemic. Either that or it’s always been there and its just exasperated the issue and we’ve all maybe got a little window into what that can be like in that isolation, any kids that are having a problem with that I’ve always encouraged them to come and see me. I think we’ve been pretty open about the fact that we’re going to help guys with those sorts of things. I think our guys feel very comfortable about that. As opposed to maybe when all of us were a little bit younger as a 19-year-old male you weren’t comfortable saying I’m struggling because back when we were all growing up that was a sign of weakness. I think now its seen more as a sign of strength to be able to admit when you need help so yeah, I have an open-door policy all the time.