MSU coach Rob Ash looks back at MSU's win over Portland State and ahead to the NAU showdown.
Rob Ash Press Conference Transcript from October 12, 2010
10/13/2010 8:36:14 AM | Football
A look at MSU's win over Portland State and ahead to Saturday's showdown at NAU
Montana State head football coach Rob Ash looks back at Saturday's win over Portland State and ahead to the Bobcats' showdown at Northern Arizona
TUESDAY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
October 5, 2010
BOBCAT HEAD COACH ROB ASH
“I've got a quick statement here. Denarius McGhee suffered a foot injury in the game on Saturday and has had some difficulty recovering from that. So far he's going to be day-to-day this week. He won't practice today. He's still got a chance to play on Saturday, it's just going to be a question of just how quickly he recovers.” When did he hurt it? “In the game, in the game, and he did a great job of finishing the game, probably the last 10 or 12 plays or so of the game that he had that thing, so we think it's something he can come back from but he won't be out there at practice today.” What kind of injury is it?
“We're calling it a foot sprain, and that's all we know.” Did you know he was injured? “We knew that he had done something, but he was able to continue. We took him out not because of the injury but because it was time to let Cody get a few plays. Really, none of us knew, even Denarius, that it was going to be significant until Sunday, the day after, it started to bother him.” Is he limping, is he having trouble running on it, what's the extent? “He's not going to practice because he can't run on it. So that's why he's not practicing.” Does your game plan change at all with Cody Kempt? “No, it'll be a good day today for Cody, he'll work with the ones, and he'll have the opportunity to get freshened up on everything. Of course, he's been working with the twos and doing an excellent job. If Cody has to play he'll do great. He's an outstanding player, he throws the ball beautifully, and he knows our offense inside and out. He'll be terrific if he gets a chance to play.”
Does the field at NAU speed the game up more than regular turf?
“No, it's pretty good turf, if I remember right. We were there two years ago. I think it's got a little bit longer fiber, ours is really close-cropped and theirs lays down a little more, it has a little more cushion, maybe. It's a good track to play on. I like this surface fine.”
Their defense is always known as one of the best in the league, what do they do defensively that makes them so tough?
“They make a lot of big plays with their defense. They put a lot of pressure on you, they dial up different blitzes every week and bring pressure from a lot of different places. They get you out of a lot of drives and get negative plays with their pressure, and they're very sound fundamentally the rest of the time. It's a good combination where they can play base and play solid and they can dial up the blitzes and bring the pressure and make the big plays. They are a very good rushing defense team. They make it tough to run the football and they have enough negative yardage plays that their rushing totals are usually among the top in the league and frequently the top in the country.”
Your rushing offense has always had some struggles against NAU, what makes their defense so different to run on?
“They load you up in the box historically and what they've done in the past is they've covered all the offensive linemen down so that there's no combination blocks, no double teams, no angles for pin-and-pull and off-tackle and so forth. Now this year they've changed their format a little bit, they're not looking exactly the same, they've gone away from the flex and gone to more of a traditional 4-3, so it's a little bit more of a look like what we see from other teams. Two years ago when we beat them down there we had an excellent running team and Demetrius Crawford had a big game, and I still think that's the key to playing NAU or really any team throughout the course of the year, you have to be able to run the football. So that'll be a priority for us, like it is every week, to try to run the ball.”
What's the health of the offensive line these days?
“Well, actually better, each day. Conrad Burbank got cleared to practice today, so he'll be out there working to see how he's moving around. Alex Terrien is still bothered by his ankle injury, but he played the whole game on Saturday and he'll practice today. Everybody else is in pretty good shape, so we got one back.”
Do you anticipate CJ and Orenzo splitting the work load again?
“I think a little bit depends on who gets hot, what style of run game is going to be the best for us in the game. Orenzo has those quick moves if there's a lot of congestion at the line of scrimmage. He can be effective there. And CJ's a little more powerful running through arm tackles maybe at the line of scrimmage. And they can both get out and go. We just need to keep both of them fresh so they can get out and run hard and hopefully get some daylight at times in the game for either one or both of them.”
Does the game plan change at all with the possibility of Michael Herrick being dinged up?
“We're assuming that Michael Herrick will play. He's listed on the two-deep as the starting quarterback and I'm assuming that he'll play. He's a very good quarterback, and Chasen Stangel, the backup, came in and did a nice job in the second half against Eastern Washington, and (he) throws the ball and does a lot of the same things that Herrick does. So the game plan will be the same for either one of them, but we think Herrick will play. I think he's one of the finest quarterbacks in the country at FCS, so we're going to have our hands full.”
Do you prepare at all for Chasen Stangel?
“It's the same game plan whether (Herrick is) in there or Chasen's in there, so there'll just be one game plan.”
What is Clay Bignell's status?
“He's not going to practice today, the ankle's still bothering him. He tried to play last game and he just couldn't push off of it so we're going to give him a couple more days to recover and hopefully he'll be able to get it done.”
How do you stop NAU's running game?
“Our front guys have done a pretty good job against the run game throughout the year, I hope we can do that again. Aleksei Grosulak in the middle is getting better every single game that he plays there, and that's been a good thing, Jody Owens is playing tough, and our defensive line has been very good against the run. I do think they run the ball hard. They've got a good offensive line and their run game is very solid, so it's going to be a challenge. But we have to get up there and get it stopped, and if we have to get our safeties involved to get it stopped we'll do that. That's what you have to do in this game.”
Did you see any improvement on tape in the Portland State game from the Sacramento State game?
“I thought our defense played a good game, really. They had a couple big plays early, and then we went through a stretch where the score was 41-to-nothing, and that was a good stretch defensively through the whole second quarter, third quarter, with good stops, fourth down stops, turnovers, we got two fumbles. We made some big plays on defense. I liked that. I thought there were flashes of really good play. And then when we got to 44-18 I think everything just dulled after that and we just didn't play with as much emotion after the big fourth down stop and the touchdown after Everett's long run. I think everyone just thought it was over, and Portland State did a good job of just continuing to try to come back.”
How about Rider's hit?
“Rider's hit was looked at by the league and there will be no suspension by the league. They said it was a good form tackle and so we're clear on that. I thought it was a good play. In today's climate of the concussion danger that's out there in the game of football we have to be vigilant about making the game as safe as we can.”
Have you had any discussions with Coach Marshall about how you can limit those big plays?
“Big plays are usually all about technique and missed assignments, one of those two things. Technique could be a missed tackle, technique could be losing the cup and letting the ball bounce outside of our force player. On one of those long plays we had no safety in the middle of the field, both safeties dropped down, one of them was supposed to roll back, there was no safety in the middle and they hit the middle and it was pretty wide open. That was just a mistake. That can be corrected, most of them can be, and I think we'll be fine. We have some inexperience there, too. When you take the guys that are injured and look 'em they're all seniors, O'Connell, Bignell, Craney, even Ogden's been out some. Those are all seniors that have a lot of experience, so they're going to be better on technique and on assignments than guys that are younger. But our guys that are younger now getting experience, getting better, and I think they're going to be more and more often in the right position.”
Flagstaff is a tough venue and a tough place to travel to, is this your toughest road contest?
“Our aggressiveness is good, actually. We were very effective with our blitzes against Portland State. The dreaded draw play that everyone's talking about, we stopped that multiple times with good blitzes that got tackles for losses. You can't blitz every time or you get predictable, but our defense has done well when we blitzed.”
Flagstaff is a tough venue and a tough place to travel to, is this your toughest road contest?
“I think every game that we play is going to be our toughest contest, home or away, the next one's going to be the one. Especially because of where we are in the standings and how well we've played, everybody in the league wants us to lose now, so whether we're on the road or (no matter) who we're playing it's going to be a tough test.”
This NAU game has been a boom or a bust for you, talk about going back down there where you had some success in 2008.
“We have good memories from going down there, but no delusions of repeating history. We know we have to play well, we have to execute our game plan, we have to try to stay healthy and go down and play hard like we've been playing. I don't think the formula changes at all no matter the venue or what happened in the past. This team, as we've said all along, is very focused on this week, this game, just today, not last year or last week or two weeks from now. (They're) in the present, just getting the job done.”
How has NAU's run game changed?
“They've got a trio of running backs that's very good. Bauman's a very tough, hard-nosed runner, they do a good job of mixing, they always run the pin-and-pull very well. Now they're running a little more zone, and they're doing a good job with it.”
Everett seemed to have a breakout game Saturday, Elvis has had one, Julius has had one, how pleased are you with all the weapons your team has?
“It's nice to have a lot of different people who have some speed and the ability to make big plays. What's nice about this team is that it doesn't matter to them or to our quarterbacks or our play-callers who's out there. We know we've got people who, when their turn comes, when the ball comes at them, they're going to make a play, and that includes the running backs as well as the receivers. I think it makes us difficult to stop right now. It's not like we're trying to design plays for this guy or that guy. We're running an offense, and when the call takes us to a certain guy he's ready to make a play, and they've been making them.”
Is Craney going to be ready to play Saturday?
“Craney is not going to practice today. He's got an ankle injury from the game that's still bothering him, so he's going to be questionable, also.”
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