Syracuse Orange College Football Pregame Quote, 09/02/2019

We have a very interesting opponent this weekend. Maryland is a team with a lot of good football players. Coach Locksley, ex-offensive coordinator from Alabama, does a nice job recruiting the DMV, an area that we also recruit. We have a lot of kids from that area and we have a lot of alumni from there and we need our alumni to come out. It’s going to be one of those games where the amount of fans for us in the stands will be a key contributing factor in whether we win or lose. It’s going to be a very close contest and we are definitely going to have our hands full.

Any update Sam Heckel or Airon Servais?

Sam has an upper body injury and right now, we are continuously monitoring his progress to see whether or not he will be available for the game.

Hopeful he starts this week?

I’m always hopeful.

Is Sam Heckel practicing to start the week?

We do not know that until practice starts. We did not practice today or Sunday.

How impressed were you with Josh Black against Liberty?

Josh Black got our defensive game ball. He did a fantastic job. Moe Neal got our offensive game ball and Tyrell Richards got our special teams game ball and he did a fantastic job. Those three young men had outstanding games. Before I forget, on Sunday, Otto Zaccardo was put on full academic aid. He’s done a fantastic job for us on special teams.

What have you seen from Maryland so far and is it any different based on last week?

It’s really hard to tell. Obviously, they had a fantastic outing. I think that they set all kinds of scoring records with the shutout. We wish we had an outing like their offense had and like their defense had. So, you can’t take anything away from them. They did exactly what they were supposed to do and maybe even put the icing on the cake with that opponent so to speak. So, our eyes are wide open and based off of how we played and how they played, I can see how people would have them favored and they are probably very excited to play us based off of what they see.

How much of the apparent miscommunication in the passing game is on Tommy (DeVito) or the receivers and how do you tackle it this week?

To me, this is two-a-days. This is guys being hurt, not hurt, not in and throwing off the time in the passing game. All we have to do is get it back. I saw it happening, I mentioned it to you guys during two-a-days and I wasn’t really happy with it. But there’s only so much you can do. If a guy is hurt, he’s hurt and he can’t go. The throwing game is so delicate and when you start taking pieces out and moving guys around, it changes everything and I think that’s what you saw. And I talked to the team about it after the game. On our defense, outside of the one injury we had, we didn’t have a single guy on defense miss a snap of two-a-days. We didn’t have any of our major special teams guys miss a snap of two-a-days. And Sean Riley practiced all the way through two-a-days except for one scrimmage, so he really did a nice job as well out of the veterans. But other than that, we had some guys missing and that affects the throwing game. The running game can still be okay, but for the throwing game, we still need all of those guys. So, we need to get that timing back.

What traits stand out to you about the secondary this year?

They’re good. I think Alton (Robinson) probably created about four or five sacks and he ran by the quarterback about six or seven times. It was like he was running by and saying, ‚Äúboo‚Äù and the guy would move somewhere and someone else would get the sack. And on the back end, for Ifeatu (Melifonwu) to get a turnover, those guys were playing ball and I really thought that those guys could play better. I was constantly talking to some guys during the game and I thought that their concentration was wavering a bit. But, from a defensive standpoint, if you can get a shutout in today’s college football against any opponent, it is an A, excellent, great job. The word ‚Äògreat’ is greatly overused, but not in this case.

Is there an emphasis in the secondary this year on being more physical?

I wouldn’t say that. I think that ever since we had our game two years ago in the Dome where we had somebody rush for a lot of yards on us, we changed our mentality so that if you’re not going to tackle, you’re not going to be physical and you’re not going to play. And I think that the biggest difference between good defenses and bad defenses is how the back-end tackles. You can normally get enough tough guys in the front seven. But if you get some tough guys in the back four, then you have a real defense.

How is McKinley Williams doing? Is there any chance we see him at Maryland?

I think it’s a little bit too soon for him.

Is there a chance that McKinley Williams’ absence goes beyond the Clemson game?

I’m not going to say that. I think he’s right on pace, but I don’t think we’ll see him this week.

Is the running game shifting to more of a running-back-by-committee system?

I wouldn’t say that, I’m really not into that committee thing. There is normally one guy who is better than the other guys and whoever is the better guy gets to play. I don’t want to get caught up in this because I remember this whole thing ‚ÄúIt’s not intramurals, everybody doesn’t get a participation trophy.’ You know, guys work hard to become the starter, and if you’re a starter you deserve to play as much as you want to play until you get tired or until you are so tired that you’re not helping the team, you’re hurting the team. Get out, let the backup get in, and then when you catch your breath, go back in. When our starters come out on their own, the coaches don’t even put them back in. They go back in when they catch their breath and get their water. We don’t say ‚ÄòOh no stay out now,’ we don’t do that. You pulled yourself out, so you put yourself back in. Now if you’re on offense, you better not break up the tempo, you better not run in and make the officials stop the game. Outside of that, you pull yourself out, you put yourself back in. Those guys work hard to be the number one guy, and they’re only here so long. I don’t really buy that committee stuff, if there are a bunch of guys who are good enough to play and there is time for them to play and the situation is right then they’ll get in the game. There is a reason why you have a starter and there is a reason why you have a backup.

What did you take away from your new offensive lineman Carlos Vettorello, Dakota Davis, and Ryan Alexander, what did you see from them?

I saw them battle a little bit. You know it’s kind of like a boxer in his first fight, you want to see him take a punch and give some punches, and they did that. Carlos had a couple of flags thrown his way and he needs to do a better job on that. One of the situations he got beat so bad that I was like ‚ÄòYou better have grabbed him, I mean that’s our starting quarterback, so you better have.’ I thought they did an okay job and now they have to get better. They can’t stay the same, they cannot stay the same for us to have the success that we want to have and they better get better. But I thought they were okay.

With the team you’ve got and the offensive line how important is it to have guys like Chris Elmore and Aaron Hackett helping out in the rushing game?

It’s big. Hackett knows what he’s doing, Elmo he knows what he’s doing. Those guys are critical to what we do and they help the run game go.

When you figured the fourth year was when this program was going to pop, a lot of people thought that is when the offense was going to take off. Did you think it was because your defense was going to be this senior defensive front and as good as you guys are today?

You know, no. The biggest thing, I think, is that more people are comfortable with each other. The bumps in the road really aren’t bumps in the road, you don’t feel them and really you’re able to adjust and adapt and handle different situations better. That’s why I just thought it would be the fourth year, but I am fired up about our defense. I tell people all the time it’s not about me, three out of the four years in college football I was a defensive player. I know about defense, I appreciate good defense. At three of my stops I was a special teams coordinator. I love special teams. I am constantly trying to get our players to play them so when they get to the NFL they’re going to have a better opportunity to make the National Football League because they have expertise in special teams, which is critical if you’re going to make that top level and get paid those salaries if you are not the top dog. So all those things are important, but that’s okay if someone’s going to tell me I was going to have a nice defense and a really nice special teams, and the thing that had to get better on was offense, I’ll play those cards.

Wanted to ask you about Cornelius Nunn, he’s in a loaded defensive backs group, I was a little surprised not to see him travel. What have you seen from him development-wise?

Now you know you’ll break them. You know I don’t like talking about guys because those guys are young and you’re calling them out by name. This is what I’ll say: I really like our young DB recruits and I think that a good year of redshirting and getting stronger and getting better, if we don’t need them this year, is exactly what they need. We are going to have massive graduations coming up on the defensive side of the ball and we need to keep as many good players as we can, young and redshirted, for all the guys that we have leaving after this year.

How many of those guys would be playing two years ago?

Oh, I’m not going to say that. It’s a good question but I won’t answer it.

The fact that your game Saturday was a little bit closer, and the Maryland game was kind of a blowout. The thought is not to look forward to the home opener, with it being closer, does that keep the focus of the kids on ‚Äúlet’s not look ahead, let’s focus on this because this is going to be tough‚Äù?

Let me handle this this way. The generation or the population that has the hardest time about not looking ahead is everyone else. We went out and played a football game yesterday and people got hit, people got hurt. Some people had success, some people didn’t, on both sides of the ball. Some people got better and some people got worse and we know how important it is to play it one at a time. We’re playing a Big Ten football team and last time I saw this football team on TV they had a different head coach, they had different coaches, and I thought they were about to beat Ohio State. That’s how good their personnel is and I don’t feel like they’ve lost that much personnel. They went and got a quarterback from Virginia Tech and a linebacker from Clemson and a linebacker from Ohio State and another wide receiver from Virginia Tech and another tight end from Buffalo. You know its portal transfer over there. They’ve reloaded with a lot of fantastic players on a team that already had a lot of players good enough to almost beat Ohio State last year. We have our hands full and we’re playing them at their place.

I wish you guys a blessed day and I need to get back upstairs and watch this tape and see if we can find a way to win. Thank you.