Rice Owls College Football Pregame Quote, 09/03/2019

Like I said in the postgame press conference on Friday, the only thing that was disappointing was that we didn’t come away with a win. I’m so proud of our kid’s effort. I’m proud of many of them for the way that they played. I thought we played our hearts out for four quarters and really laid it on the line. It’s hard to get a group of 18-22 year olds to do that. But, if you do it for each other, you have a chance and that’s what we saw the other night.

Preparing for that team, that Army team, we knew that it was going to be a ground and pound, physical matchup all day long. That’s exactly what we got. There were no surprises in how they played or really in how we played either. It was a lot of how I envisioned the game going to be quite honest with you.

I have to give a lot of credit to Coach (Jeff) Monken and his staff. They’re an unbelievable football team with a great culture and guys that play together as well. I think they are a Top 25 caliber football team that will win a lot of games. I’m really impressed with them. I told them in pregame, just like I told you all last week, that there’s so many things when I look at their program that are exactly what I want our guys to be; what I want our team to be. It starts with their culture. It starts with the way that they play like their hair is on fire. It ends with the physicality that they put on film. They are the team that nobody wants to play.

I thought we did many of the things that I’ve talked about; that I want us to consistently do. We consistently preach day-in and day-out that are keys to winning games. We protected the ball. We didn’t have any turnovers. We didn’t give up and sacks. We forced a takeaway and we won the field position battle. We won a lot of places, just not on the scoreboard. We know it’s a win business. We make no bones about that.

There are still several areas that we want to clean up. When we came into watch the film on Sunday and watch the tape with the players, they all agreed that there’s plenty that we can clean up. I think the coolest thing to me might have been a reflection of our culture. Whether I was talking to individual players that said ‚ÄòCoach, I lost that game,’ or whether it was individual coaches that said ‚ÄòCoach, my position group lost that game.’ The reality is nobody lost that game. We lost that game collectively. But, it’s a good culture when you have people that want to take accountability and want to do more. I think that’s really, really healthy.

We’re definitely not where we need to be. I want our kids to realize the steps that we’ve taken since last year. Knowing it’s still a process to get program to where we want to go. But, we’ve taken some real steps. Once again, they are going to keep fighting. We’re going to have an emphasis on finish, just like we have. We’re going to find a way to finish and make those plays.

Defensively, it was a pretty awesome job. I’ve got to highlight that performance (and) the way they played. My hat’s off to Coach (Brian) Smith, the defensive coaching staff, and the plan that they put together. I think it was unbelievable to go out there and execute the way that we did. To hold that Army team to only 14 points after scoring 70 in their last outing. Bringing the quarterback and many pieces to that puzzle back. I think 14 points was the least that they scored since they scored seven at Ohio State in 2017.

Again, it’s a testament to our kids. I’m really proud of them for doing that. We had guys making plays all over the field. One that you couldn’t help but notice was Antonio Montero. He led us in tackles with 11 and was there sideline-to-sideline. He was a guy who I heard every single play. I heard the motion on the field and even when he was on the sideline and out because we were in a different package. He’s a voice that I heard on every play. He was an emotional leader for our team that night.

I thought our (defensive) line was awesome. I thought they really did a great job of coming off the ball. We talk about needing to keep swinging all 12 rounds and I thought they did that. I take my hat off to Myles Adams, Trey Schuman, Elijah Garcia and JaVante Hubbard. I thought they all played really well and made it really dirty up front.

Offensively, going into the game, I wanted to match their style of play. I didn’t want them to be able to hold the ball for 40 minutes. I wanted to be able to have a pretty even time of possession, which, at the end of the third quarter, it was really close. I wanted to have a chance to win it in the fourth quarter by taking it into deep water. That’s exactly what we had. We had a drive to go down and score. I told the team that I had no intention of kicking an extra point. We were going to go for two because we were there to win the game. I wanted that opportunity and I believed that we were going to have it until the ball hit the ground with 53 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. Obviously, we’re disappointed again by the result but I’m so proud of our kids and I’m proud of the progress because the progress is real.‚Äù

Another place that you saw that progress that I’m talking about is up front. The offensive line played a really, really good game. They kept the quarterback clean all day long. Also, they handled Army’s movement. They created holes. I thought our running backs, both of them; Aston Walter and Nahshon Ellerbe did a great job. Nahshon had a great day statistically. He averaged over 10 yards a carry. In his first game back, he was the Nashon Ellerbe that I heard about. In my tenure, this was the first time that I’ve gotten to see him full speed. I really never got to see it last year as he was still coming back from injury. I’m just so proud of Nahshon. He’s a great leader. He’s a heartbeat of our football team and I appreciate everything that he has done the whole time I’m been a part of this program. But, now it’s great to see him produce on the field as well.

Special teams-wise; we were pretty dang good coverage unit-wise. We did a great job covering all of those kicks. A guy that stood out and really took over where Jack Fox had left off was Adam Nunez. He had four punts inside the 10-yard line and three inside the five. It’s pretty spectacular. It makes a team like Army go the long way. We made them work for everything. I thought that was great. The negative side of special teams was the two kicks that we missed. They were very costly. One was a chip shot field goal and one was a little deeper as the result of a successful two-minute drive at the end of the half. We have to make those. In college football, when you line up to kick them, they have to go through the pipes. That’s the kicker’s job. We had a good conversation with Will Harrison. Our team has his back. We’re trying to get him to do his job and be confident that he can do his job. We’re really trying to get his confidence back so he can be the kicker that we know he can be this week. We’re going to need it.

This past Sunday, we challenged the team; really challenged them to have the same focus and preparation and we prepare for Wake Forest. We’ve got to know our assignments and we’ve got to earn our confidence in practice in less than half the time that we prepared for Army. That’s the challenge; is getting a whole game plan in and getting it in a normal game week cycle as opposed to having the last two weeks of training camp to really get it instilled. So, that’s what we have to do. Wake Forest is another great opponent. An ACC team that went to and won their bowl game last year and beat an 11-win Utah State team last week as well. It will be a great challenge for us this Friday in our home stadium.

On Myles Adams:

I can’t say enough about him. He’s a great leader as well. To me, any time your peers elect you as a captain, that speaks volumes. His play and his leadership the other night was outstanding. I don’t think he was going to allow anybody to not keep their gloves up and keep swinging. Again, he’s a guy that keeps advancing our culture and I appreciate Myles. But his play on the field was really good too.

On finishing and what he’s like to see more of from the offense:

It’s very simple. I love averaging six yards a carry. I love protecting the football and with the way our defense is playing, I think it’s a formula that can win a lot of games. But, we need a couple of more points on the scoreboard. That’s the bottom line. So, what I’m talking about when I say finish is simply finishing drives. We had a very costly holding penalty at the end of the third quarter that we were going to have first and goal and the eight. We’ve got to find a way to make sure that we don’t put ourselves in a position where an official can call that penalty. When the defense gives us a gift with the ball on the 15-yard line, we can’t come away with zero points. Those are things that, again, we’ve got to keep improving (on). We’ve got to finish drives in the end zone. This was not a normal game and we knew it wouldn’t be. We had nine total drives. We scored a touchdown on one. We had field goal opportunities on two others and a fourth where we were in field goal range at the end of the game and don’t convert fourth-and-one. We say we’re going to convert every third-and-one. Period. That’s who we are. That’s what we believe. Just like Army. When they stuck their chest out on fourth-and-one on the 15-yard line on the first drive of the game, they’re so confident in what they do. But, again, how cool is it when our team has them third-and-one on the 15 and sends them back. Then they bring out their offense one more time on fourth-and-one and we stuff them again. That’s just the difference in a year ago. I don’t know that our defense would have bowed their neck like that a year ago. Right now, these guys didn’t see another option. They were going to do it together. It was awesome.

On how Wake Forest is going to test the secondary as opposed to Army:

They got tested in other ways. They had to step up and they had to set edges. So, I thought our secondary played well. I left them out because they weren’t as prevalent, maybe, in some of those plays. But, all of the perimeter stuff. They were coming up and taking on blocks. They were setting edges. So, it’s a completely different game plan here. This is going to be a tempo, RPO outfit. They’re doing a great job. Their quarterback (Jamie Newman) threw for over 400 yards the other night. He’s playing at a really high level. Cade Carney is a very good running back, especially with their scheme and the patience with which they run it, he gets the ball at the line of scrimmage and goes forward. He’s a plow. He’s about to be a 2,000-yard rusher in his career. So, the offense is really a big shift, especially when you talk about they had 107 snaps the other night in their game against Utah State. It’s the fifth time in the last two years they’ve had over 100 snaps in a ballgame. So, it’s a very different challenge. Once again, they’re a very deep offense with what they do. It’s a great challenge for our guys. The other challenge is that I heard it’s going to be Houston Hot on Friday. They’re saying 102 degrees. So we’re going to prepare for that as well. So we’re going to go out in it today and tomorrow and we’re going to be battle tested. We’ll be blessed with the Houston heat today.

On what improvements he’s looking to see in the passing game:

First off, we all need to understand that I grounded the ball (against Army) because I thought it was the best way for our team to win. It was to make sure that Army didn’t have the ball for 42 minutes and our defense wasn’t out there for an eternity. Our defense did their part by getting off the field on a few of those drives as well. When you only have 14 opportunities to throw the ball, your margin for error is really small. When we did drop back to pass it, we either dropped balls that were catchable or we didn’t make throws that we should make. That’s what you saw. A 7-for 14 performance with two of them being bubble screens. Again, nobody is going to be happy with that. We don’t want to be a 50.0% completion outfit. But, in the flow of a normal game, we’re going to have more possessions. Maybe we’ll throw a ball on possession-and-10, the first play of a drive, which we did zero times on Friday night on purpose. We’ll have more opportunities and, hopefully, find more of a rhythm. But, we have to make the most of every opportunity in the passing game.

On how to combat Wake Forest’s offense:

There’s still the ball control element that we want to do as an offense. In addition to scoring points, we have to sustain drives. We want to have the discipline to do so and possess the ball. Because I don’t know what anybody’s defense looks like after playing 107 plays. What can the defense do? They can get off the field because with up-tempo offenses, if they throw three incompletions, now they’re off the field in 17 seconds. So they can be off the field really quick too. Which is fine. We’ll take the ball and ground-and-pound it. Have some success and play great team ball.