Coach Pasqualoni's Press Conference - September 27, 2004
On Tanard Jackson:
“Tanard is doing fine. We don’t know how long he will be out. My sense is he will probably be out this week. Then we will see how he does. He tried to avoid what happened and it is fortunate he was not hurt any worse than he is. We just hope for a speedy recovery and for Tanard to get back to football and school. He will be released from the hospital today. There was some type of conflict and I think the kids (Tanard Jackson and three or four other guys) tried to resolve it. I think they thought they had it resolved and as they were walking back to there cars to leave, they were confronted again. Before they knew what had happened, Tanard put his hand and felt some blood. He did not realize it had happened. The other kids drove him right down to Crouse Hospital. I think it is encouraging that the kids were trying to do the right thing. I don’t think this was a group of kids out looking for trouble. It was just the opposite and I hope we can portray this accurately. I think we have a responsibility to do that here. I give Tanard credit for what he did.”
“After every game we encourage them to use good judgment and to do the right thing. This is a part of their growing up and being an undergraduate student. I think he did use good judgment, it’s just unfortunate that it turned out the way it did. I wish he was in bed, but college kids aren’t always in bed at two o’clock in the morning. That is a part of their growing up.”
On who will be the starting cornerback this week:
“We will look at a couple of combinations. We will look at Marcus Clayton, Dowayne Davis, Thomas Whitfield and Terrell Lemon. We will have a rotation going on and probably make a decision toward the end of the week. We practice those guys and they rotate in and out a great deal. We will treat it like an injury and put the next guy in and move on. That’s what you have to do.”
On Steve Gregory (who missed the last two games with a knee injury):
“That’s a day-by-day thing. He tried really hard last Wednesday and practiced pretty well. Then it got a little more swollen so we had to back off it again. We will have to wait and see. We are being cautious about so we don’t make it any worse. That is why we backed off it after Wednesday. We would love to have him. Virginia did a good job of preventing the big play, and they did that with double-coverage.”
On the X-plays (Big Plays):
“You have to stop the x-plays. There are two things turnovers and x-plays. Both teams did a pretty good job protecting the ball. Then it comes down to x-plays, they had seven plus one on a punt return and we had one. So they beat us eight to one. X-plays – that was the game.”
On how to stop the X-plays:
“We practice very hard against it. We practice all the little things that it usually requires. The thing with this game is we would get them in second and third down, where we wanted them, and we lost the contain. That is something that we worked on. We hit people in the backfield and didn’t knock them down, that should be a five-yard loss. That was tackling and we work on that every day. We have to tackle better. Some of the players just made great plays. When we lost contain, we wanted him to come back into the middle where the coverage was, but he breaks it outside and goes down the sideline. That is a great play on his part and is hard to defend. They have some pretty good backs and they broke some tackles. My sense is that this week when hit those tackling drills the volume will be turned up a little bit.”
On some great tackles:
“There were some great tackles in that game too. You have to be able to do it every play for 60 minutes. Jerry Mackey had some plays and Diamond Ferri had a couple of really good tackles. Ryan LaCasse chased the quarterback down, and made some nice plays. Kelvin Smith made a really great play on their quarterback. He made a really sure tackle, he wrapped up his legs very nicely.”
On Kellen Pruitt’s injury:
“What we should have done on Saturday is given Kellen a little more rest with Luke Cain. I think Luke went in twice. If we had it to do over again, I think we would have done it a couple more times. Luke went in, he is fast and he’s a good player. We probably need to do that until Kellen is 100 percent again.”
On the quarterback situation:
“I always said we would not hesitate to play Perry, so it’s not surprising that he is playing now. There is a sense of urgency there, there is competition. Competition breeds an increase in production. Joe Fields is great. He is a team player. He is over on the sideline rooting for Perry. Xzavier Gaines is over there telling Perry things he sees. It is a great thing to see and to be around on the sidelines.”
On Rutgers’ Brian Leonard (full back):
“Brian is a very good, big back. He plays the fullback position in certain situations and the tailback position in short yardage, goal line and in their tight end offensive formations. He catches the ball very well and has good balance. He is a very productive player.”
On Rutgers and the first conference game:
“I think because this is the opening game in the conference that it is a big game, regardless of who it is or what happened in the past. Conference play in this era of college football is what everybody looks forward to. This is a very exciting week. Rutgers defense is playing very well, they played good last season. Their offense is a very multiple offense with Ryan Hart as an established quarterback. They have a great offensive line, their tight ends are very nice and they have a nice core of wide receivers. They have a very good group of people, they play very hard.”
On Joe Kowalewski:
“Joe had a very nice day catching the ball (at Virginia). I think it showed that he is pretty tough when he gets the ball and runs after the catch. He gets that big body rolling down the field, he is a pretty tough runner. Joe is developing into an all-around tight end. Last week, he had a breakout week catching the ball.”
On throwing the ball deep:
“We have taken some chances. We did not have many opportunities at Virginia. The one chance we had we just over-threw it. But we are taking shots for a big play. A big play will obviously help our offense get going. We have to be patient and take what the defense gives.”
Senior Offensive Tackle Adam Terry
Opening Statement:
“After the Virginia game, we come away with some positive and some negative. The positive is that we can sustain drives. The negative is that we can also kill ourselves and negate some of those drives. I think we ran the ball effectively. Perry Patterson played well and I think he is starting to come into his own. The offensive line just needs to be patient and cut down on mistakes. Holding penalties have been drastically reduced, but we did have some offsides. The wide receivers made some key catches. Jared Jones made a couple exceptional catches and Andre Fontenette made that tightrope catch along the sideline.”
On the performance of SU’s running backs:
“As long as he (Walter Reyes) runs well in the conference and throughout the rest of the schedule, then I can’t fault him for the first couple games. And it is not necessarily all his fault or Damien’s (Rhodes), there are some breakdowns on the offensive line that need to be cleared up. We also have to look at perimeter blocking. I don’t see any decline of talent from either of them. I am pretty confident that the offensive line is very tough and we are almost there.”
On Rutgers:
“It is not revenge. I am just looking forward to playing another game in The BIG EAST Conference.”
Sophomore Linebacker Kelvin Smith
Opening Statement:
“I am very proud of our offense. I like what they brought out at the game. I have a positive outlook about the game. We are getting ready for the BIG EAST and that is the way I feel about it. I felt that the defense did not come through on Saturday. We missed our opportunities to get them off the field. And we gave up some big plays, but we were playing with the best of them. The score doesn’t really represent what happened in the game, we gave a lot of effort. I remember playing against (Virginia tailback) Wali Lundy coming out of high school in Governor’s Bowl. He is a good player.”
On the big plays:
“We try to prevent them, but sometimes they just happen. It is frustrating, but you just have to learn to bounce back from that. We try and make our own big plays, like we did against Cincinnati. We try and get the ball, a fumble recovery or an interception.”
On being afraid to make mistakes:
“I don’t think we are afraid to make mistakes. We are way past that. I think the Purdue game is probably a game where we were afraid to make mistakes. I think now we just want to make the big play ourselves.”
On Rutgers:
“I think it is the bigger picture. I am not really worried about the revenge factor. Right now, I want to jump into this BIG EAST and take everybody out. So I am not worried about the revenge. They are just a part of what we are trying to do.”
On Tanard Jackson:
“I just hope he gets better. I hope we will have him back soon and everything will be alright.”
