Montana State charges into Saturday's game at Idaho State with a better bill of health than in recent weeks
Photo by: Kelly Gorham
Rob Ash Press Conference Transcript - October 26, 2010
10/27/2010 7:40:41 AM | Football
A look back at MSU's win over UNC and forward to Saturday's game at ISU
Below is the transcript from Montana State coach Rob Ash's weekly press conference on Tuesday...
TUESDAY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
October 26, 2010
BOBCAT HEAD COACH ROB ASH
What did you tell the team about Saturday's win?
“I told them I was really happy with their performance. We won, bottom line is winning, get back on track, and still be in a position where we knew we were going into the game, to control our own destiny from here on out. It was a positive meeting on Sunday, we know we have some things to clean up, we always talk about that and know we have to work on that, but right now we're happy with the 'W' and we have just one game to think about, no more, no less, and that's what we're going to do.”
Is Denarius 100% this week?
“I don't know if you'd call it 100%, but he's a lot better, he did well in his rehab, I thought he did way, way better this week than the week before. So, we're making progress. Jordan Craney played well, got back out there, he's improving rapidly, and he'll be ready to go. Of course, he won't miss this one. It's his hometown.”
Do you like the fact that we have football weather now?
“You can't worry about the weather. The good thing is that we don't have to worry about what it will be like on Saturday because we'll be indoors.”
What are some of the things you'd like to see cleaned up this week?
“Starting with the defensive side, we have to get our coverages more precise. That's something that worries me a little bit, just our leverages on man-to-man, our drops in zone coverages, our reactions to underneath routes, just some things in our coverages. And a lot of that has come from being unsettled in the secondary throughout the year, with injuries, moving positions around, guys in and out, some youth and inexperience that's had to come in and play, so that's something we need to work on, particularly. On the offensive side, (we need to work on) the ball security. I don't know that you really practice that, although we do, how you carry the ball, the five points of pressure, the two hands in traffic, all the coaching points, we're going to really work on that, too, because we can not win games if we're minus-four in turnovers.”
After the defensive lapses of the last couple of weeks, what do you and Jamie and the defensive coaches talk about?
“Jamie and I have coached together for a long time and he played for me, so we have a relationship. It's never adversarial or accusatory or anything like that. We just have a conversation about how we can fix things, how we can get better, and after a conversation and watching tape we made a list of things that we thought we needed to improve upon, which I'll keep to myself, but that's what we thought we needed to do, so we're addressing very specific situations with our defense which we can improve on, technical things that'll help us get better.”
Do you have a clear idea of personnel you'll be using in the secondary going forward?
“The biggest thing is to get our seniors back out there, Jordan Craney and Arnold Briggs. That's where our experience is, those guys are our veterans, that'll fix a lot of our coverage issues right away because those guys are veterans that know what they're doing and have the skills to execute what they have to do. Beyond that I think the other guys are very talented and just need reps and practice time and coaching and turns out there. They'll get better as they go along, too.”
Do you see the youngsters playing more or less as the season goes along?
“A lot of it still depends on how long the other guys can go that have been banged up. Arnold is still struggling a little bit, Jordan is still struggling a little bit, Mike Rider has had sore knees all year and he's kind of beat up at this point in the season, so there's a combination of things. You want your good guys to be out there, your older guys. At the same time it's nice to have fresh legs at times, too, so we have to rotate some so by the time we get to the fourth quarter we're still fresh and ready to go.”
With this Idaho State team do you think this might be an opportunity to rotate guys in and out and rest some guys?
“I'm not approaching this game that way at all. I think Tavoy Moore is a scary football player, and they have some other competent, good players. They played really hard and really well against Weber State in their last game, and they've had two weeks to prepare for us. I'm anticipating a very tough, hard, difficult, close game on Saturday. That's how I'm looking at it.”
Tavoy Moore is obviously a great player, is he kind of the Devin Hester of the league this year?
“I use the word ridiculous in a positive way, that's just how he is. It's crazy what he's done, all the returns he's had for touchdowns, the plays he's made, the tackles he's broken, the people he's made miss on film. It's a nightmare to watch. I'm trying to run special teams so this is my personal nightmare for this week. He's a great football player, and they're also using him more on offense now. He played running back against Weber State, they had not done that earlier in the season, so now he's going to touch the ball a lot more times during the course of a game, which is even more scary.”
It's three straight weeks that the team has fallen behind early, is it important this week to get off to a good start?
“We've been talking about that, trying to get off to a good start, and maybe this week we shouldn't talk about it, then maybe we will (get off to a good start). I think teams have come out with their best shot against us, they've played well early, and they've hit some big plays early, admittedly they have. I think that would be the key, and one of these days we're going to get into a game and the other team won't hit that big play against us early and maybe we will and we'll get off to that good start. But we're certainly conscious of it and would like to do that.”
Rory Perez has done a good job punting this year, do you just not kick to Moore, or try to kick it as high as you can?
“That's been our plan all year, I don't think it's been any secret. Rory Perez has tremendous hang time and our opponents have had to fair catch by far the majority of all the punts we've executed this season. That's going to be our plan again. And indoors the big thing for Rory is just to make sure he doesn't out-kick his coverage, because it's easy to do in a dome – no wind, perfect conditions to kick – and I think sometimes that's worse, to kick a longer punt is worse. So we're going to try to get him to be very accurate, to hit his high punt so that it's high enough that when it comes down out of the sky our defenders are standing there waiting for it.”
Talk about the role of tradition in building a program?
“Somebody called it once in recruiting the magic shirt. You're a coach and you walk into an office and you have one shirt on from, let's say, Oklahoma. That same person could walk in the next week and have a shirt on from Iowa State. The recruit's going to hear the same guy talking and have a different idea about what the message is. So sure, representing a school that is a winning school that has good support like we do and has a tremendous history and tradition of success, I think that makes it a lot easier, no question.”
You coached at Drake in a state several larger Division I schools, how do you carve out a niche for yourself in that kind of a market?
“What we did at Drake was, we talked to families that wanted to go to a private school. We had to recruit a wide geographic range because it was kind of a needle in a haystack, but when we did find a family that wanted a private school education then we weren't competing against Iowa or Iowa State or Northern Iowa, we were Air Force Academy and Harvard and Yale, and sometimes we would win those battles just by geography or price or whatever. You just have to find your niche and you have to have a big enough pool of candidates to end up with successful results.”
Do you suppose it's tough to recruit at Idaho State with Boise State and Idaho in-state?
“I'm sure it is. I'm sure it's very difficult. You have Boise State, and Idaho's also at the FBS level and those two programs I'm sure make it difficult for them. The bottom line is just finding a big enough pool of guys, and when you look at a Tavoy Moore, when you look at some of the good players they've had, their good receiver from last year, they've had some very talented players. If they keep working California like they have, and continue to work hard, I think they'll get over the hump.”
Does the recipe for success change with how the defense has been performing?
“I think our defensive guys will just get better and better as they go along. I think there are guys on our defensive line that are young guys that have the potential to be great players. When you look at even a Dane Fletcher, when he was a redshirt freshman he was playing primarily on special teams and later on in his career he's a dominant Buck Buchanan finalist and an NFL guy. I'm hopeful on our defensive side we guys that will develop into that kind of playmaker.”
Are you confident in the approach you and Jamie will have this week, I know last week you were looking for more zero-yardage or negative plays but with that screen play you had to retool a little bit?
“That's exactly what happened. We had to retool a little bit of the game plan. Northern Colorado had a very good answer that they had prepared during the week, so that was hats off to them. We had to move on to some different concepts. This week will be the same thing. We have to study what we did last week and know that's what Idaho State's preparing for and find some different solutions.”
Do you give yourself a pat on the back for how well your kicking game is performing?
“Recruiting is a big part of success in football and we've recruited well at those positions. We've used some of the kicking services to help us identify good kickers, and Cunningham and Perez both came through the same kicking service that we've used. I think that's a big place to start with it. Also we've been able to get some better return personnel in our game. I think the biggest impact I've tried to make is I've tried to motivate get the guys that are in what I call the core, the guys that run down on kicks, the guys that protect on kicks, to be motivated to play. We've got a great group of core guys that never get their names mentioned that play on all these special teams and do a great job for us. That's been a big asset for us this year.”
Would you say that the punting game helps win the field position battle and Cunningham has won a couple of games for you?
“I definitely think so. I think the special teams in general have kept us in games and have helped us win. We take Jason Cunningham for granted around here, and that's just not fair because he's so automatic, even at great distances, on his kicks. We assume we're going to get those points, and not everybody can do that. We're very fortunate.”
Where did Rory Perez come from?
“We worked very hard throughout the winter to find a punter and we had a couple guys ahead of Rory, before we ever found Rory Perez. At the very last minute we lost our top punter out of California, he went to a WAC school, so I was back to square one, a lot like I was with Cunningham, at the end of the recruiting period. I called my contact and got a couple names and watched Rory's tapes and I picked him to be the guy I wanted because of his hang time, and he had the academics. We got him, actually a week after the signing date. We signed him late.”
In your experience do teams usually come out harder after the bye week or add wrinkles you haven't seen?
“I think sometimes it helps. I think a lot of times teams are fresher, they get a guy or two back and they're not as banged up from the game the previous week. The only advantage you have against a team that's had a bye week, sometimes they try to do too much, they try to put too many things in and they get their game plan a little too busy. So we'll have to hope that happens.”
Is Dustin O'Connell going to practice this week?
“Dustin is going to practice this week. He's still not cleared to play this Saturday, however. It's going to depend on how it goes this week. He's got a chance but it's not definite. We'll have to see how it goes.”
Would he have a reasonable chance to get back by Weber?
“Oh, I would think so.”
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