Syracuse Orange College Football Pregame Quote, 09/16/2019

First of all this weekend is military appreciation day. With all of the things that have gone on and the things that are going on in the news, and with 9/11 recently passing, we always appreciate what the service men and women have done for us , we’re looking forward to having a fantastic crowd and representing them in that honor. The game last week was obviously a difficult game and I thought there was some parts of it that were exciting and they [Clemson] gave us an opportunity to win. There was obviously some parts that we didn’t do so well in. Our opponent this week, Western Michigan, last year gave us a really close game at their place. It was a game of two halves, one half went our way and one half went their way. I am looking forward to playing them again, knowing Coach Lester knows a lot about this place and I believe there is four or five guys on the team now that were hear when he was here. So, I am ready for questions.‚Äù (0-1:15)

On Sterling Hofrichter’s growth and improvement on how the team evaluates it:

Well we do evaluate that, and like I said I’ve got a special team’s coordinator’s background. When I saw Sterling when I first came in here – you rate guys off of previous experiences – and the first thing I said to him was ‚ÄòHe’s not very tall,’ and I remember Coach Kauffman, the special teams coordinator at the time, say ‚ÄòCoach, this guy is good,’ and I said, ‚ÄòHe’s not good until I say he’s good,’ and he [Hofrichter] kicked three balls and I said ‚ÄòCoach, this guy is good’ and he’s been that way ever since. I’m glad you [the reporter] brought this up, he’s a great guy to talk about. I mean he’s a kicker, but he’s a great guy to talk about. He can do a lot of things well. He can rugby, he can move, and he’s more athletic than what he looks like. But, he’s so talented and you want to do everything with him because he can and we need to do less with him because he’s so good and this year we’re trying to do less. That doesn’t mean we won’t rugby, that doesn’t mean we won’t do anything. But, when we let him sit back and be an NFL kicker, and punt the football that’s exactly what he is, he’s an NFL kicker. Some of the hang time that he got on some of those kicks. OMG! Google that if you know what I’m talking about. He is a weapon in the game and he really helps give us an opportunity to win, so he’s an easy guy to talk about.‚Äù (1:26-3:10)

On the offense’s biggest issue right now:

Inconsistency. Break downs at different spots and different times. Again, it goes all the way back to when I talked to you guys for the very first time and didn’t have my voice. There are just some things we need to take care of. And we’re going to go back and I’m going to review [how we do things]. I’m not throwing anybody underneath the bus, this is how I operate. If something happens once it’s a happening, sometimes stuff just happens. Don’t freak out. If you’ve been around for a long time, you’re a little long in the tooth, don’t freak out, it’s just a happening. When something happens twice you got to look into it and see why this is consistently happening. This is the second time in a row we’ve lost guys to soft muscle tissue injuries, and we can’t have that, whether that’s the way we train, whether that’s the way the medical people handle that, whether that’s the individuals themselves taking the day off from the mental aspect. There’s certain injuries you can push through and then there’s certain ones that the medical people won’t question and the coaches won’t question. The longer you are in the game, you kind of get what those are. And I’m not throwing any of those groups underneath the bus, all I’m saying is we’re going to make sure we are not talking about this again in year five, six, seven or eight. I’m just not going to do it. So, we need to evaluate what we’re doing and see if we can solve the issue.‚Äù (3:15-4:55)

On Tommy DeVito’s decision making in regard to his three intercepted balls this year:

I’m not throwing Tommy underneath the bus at all, I’m going to describe all three of those interceptions and you guys can all look back at the tape. With the first one at Liberty, the ball was tipped. Whether it should have been thrown or not, the ball was tipped which means it changed the trajectory of the flight. The second one against Maryland, you guys saw what happened, you’ve seen the tape. Ok interception. This one, again, when something happens once it’s a happening, it happens twice it’s an issue. When this one happened, I was not happy. I went back and watched the tape and I’m completely satisfied that it won’t happen again and that it was a happening. You guys didn’t see it did you? You want me to explain what happened? There was a guy covering the running back, I believe the running back was Abdul Adams. The guy fell down at about the five or the six yard line. Abdul Adams goes into the end zone and he is absolutely open for a touchdown, by the time Tommy breaks out of the pocket and sees Abdul it looks like a touchdown, there’s a guy close to him, but you got to make a good throw to get to him in time. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s capable of making that throw and I want him to make it and the second he pulled the trigger the guy that was laying down stood up. And maybe you’re going to say: Well maybe he should have seen that guy laying down. I can’t tell you how many trick plays we have in our offense where we tell a guy to lay down to the ground and get back up. When you are on a football field with guys and everybody’s hunting like being in a den with a whole bunch of tigers and lions, they’re all hunters and they’re all hunting. The last thing you want to do on a football field is look down and drop your eyes because you may be waking up in the hospital. Your eyes are always on the horizon. I’ve ran plays on special teams and kickoffs where we’ve had guys go down on kickoff return and had a guy throw the ball all the way across the field. We did it at UCLA to Matthew Slater who now plays for the Patriots. Now it got called back because it was called a forward pass, but Matthew Slater ran it in for a touchdown in the dog gone Rose Bowl. Those plays have been in football for a long period of time and it has to do with how guys don’t look on the ground on the football field because you have to look up to what’s going on. That is a ‚Äúhappening‚Äù play for Tommy, and when I saw the tape, I was like ‚ÄòI see it.’ And I actually got excited because I said okay, he has handled it he has grown. It’s not going to happen and it was a happening. That’s not the way I felt at the game, but it’s definitely the way I feel about it right now.‚Äù (5:08-8:00)

On what he’s seen from Ifeatu Melifonwu from last year and going into this year:

You know, he had a PI call on him that was very interesting, but he’s battling, he’s doing a lot better. We still need him to be a lot more physical, but as far as his coverage skills and things he’s doing in the coverage game, he’s doing some really exciting things. Now, he left the game with an owie and I haven’t had an opportunity to find out where he’s at with it right now, but hopefully he’ll be ready for the game.‚Äù (8:11-8:40)

On Sam Heckel and McKinley Williams injuries:

I would imagine that Sammy would be in the same situation [as last week. Day-to-day]. I don’t know about McKinley. It’s funny because we all call him Bear, I’m not sure on him yet, I have to wait and see so on McKinley and then the rest of the guys I haven’t had the chance to talk to. They have to see the doctors and the trainers and we usually get that information later in the day on Monday unfortunately.‚Äù (8:49-9:13)

On being creative offensively:

We always pride ourselves on finding ways to get it done. Our philosophy is: There are always enough players to win. And that is what coaching is for – finding ways to put them in the right spots. We take a lot of pride in it, Coach Lynch takes a lot of pride in it as do I, and we’ll keep working. I don’t think we are that far off. The guys that we were playing [referring to Clemson] were really good, and some people were like ‚ÄòYeah you guys have played them well before.’ Yeah we have and I thought we played them well for three quarters on Saturday. Our defense did a nice job, our special teams did a nice job, we just didn’t score enough points. We tried to find ways to create points. We tried to take chances to score points. We had to score some points to make them feel the pressure that we had a chance and it just didn’t work out that way. We’ve been 23.5 dogs before and won here at Syracuse University, I’ve been 21 point dogs and won before at other universities. 27.5 was just a little too much this year. Just a little too much this year, we’ll see how it goes from here on out.‚Äù (9:30-10:48)

On what he attributes the recent run-game issue to:

Playing three good football teams who stopped the run and made us force the pass. I mean if you are going to play us right now, there is no reason for you to let the passing game get going. You are going to take away the run and that’s how the smart coaches are playing us right now.‚Äù (10:58-11:16)

On defense from last week to this week:

There’s two touchdowns that didn’t even have to go on the board. They played at an extremely high level and I am very proud of them, the defensive coaches, and Coach Ward, and how they bounced back. You look at the scoreboard and might say ‚ÄòHow you can say that?’ but that’s not what they felt and that’s not how I think the 50,000 people in the Dome felt. And I think they played good enough for us to win based after three quarters and I am just really disappointed that we couldn’t find a way to score more points on their defense.‚Äù (11:30-12:04)

On where team’s confidence is:

I think we’re fine, I think that we have an opportunity to win every game we have from here on out. I think the big thing we need to be aware of is that Clemson can beat you once but you don’t let Clemson beat you twice. And the opponent that we are playing [Western Michigan] is capable of scoring a lot of points and they are not afraid of us and can get into a shootout. And they’re going to be coming in here and their head coach has a lot of experience playing in this place, so he knows the positives and negatives he needs to get his team ready. We expect a very hungry and an opponent that can beat us and we better come ready to go and we better be ready to play a very good football game.‚Äù (12:18-13:05)

On the younger players’ confidence:

Young guys in the family, young sons, young daughters in the family – they don’t get a vote. They just get in the back seat and we load up the car, and we go. So they are part of the family and they will be in the car and they’ll be ready to go.‚Äù(13:10-13:24)

On the empty sets and blocking the blitz:

Anytime you go to an empty-set situation, there are two things that are going to happen. This is football 101. You know how Coach Leach coaches that class in Washington State. Either they are going to rush four or less and play drop-8 or drop-9 and drop into coverage. Or they are going to rush one more then you can handle and make you get rid of the ball right away. And in doing that, that means the rest of their defense is spread out and everybody is on a guy – they call it cat coverage. I got that cat, you got that cat, you got that cat. And all you need is one throw, one catch and one missed tackle and you have a big play or you have points. You’re definitely putting something at risk because they are going to bring one more guy and try to hit your quarterback. You got to sort it out and try to find a way to make a couple throws into that and it’s a way to get some easy touchdowns if you can handle the pressure and handle the stuff. The receiver has to run the right route, the offensive lineman has to turn loose the right guy. We can move it around, but we need those guys to separate, we need to make a play and need to make a throw and it’s going to be some heat on you. So, we’ll get there, we understand what was going to happen, the quarterback understood what was going to happen, the receivers understood what was going to happen, the line understood what was going to happen, we just did not make the play. (13:37-15:20)

On relationship with Tim Lester:

Really did not know him, [but he got] an opportunity at a function on the West Coast. It was really a Coach Tomey function, and he had passed away before the function and I had already committed to go, so after I went to the funeral I still went to the function and Tim was there, so I got a chance to meet him and his wife. Got a chance to meet Coach Hugh Freeze and his wife there as well, and at a function before that it was Coach Loxley and his wife I got an opportunity to meet. So I was three-for-three on the beginning of this season. Nice people, seem very nice. They were very complementary and he was really excited with how Eric Dungey had finished and I thanked him for recruiting him. I said we were glad he was here, seems like a nice guy and he’s doing a nice job at Western Michigan.‚Äù (15:30-16:28)