Head Coach Doug Marrone Press Conference Transcript (Jan. 5, 2009)
Defensive Coordinator Scott Shafer Hiring Press Conference Transcript (Jan. 5, 2009)
Opening Comments (Head Coach Doug Marrone):
“First, I just want to wish everyone a happy New Year and I hope that everyone had a good holiday. (Hiring defensive coordinator Scott Shafer), the process that happens, when you're an offensive coach, the first thing you have to do is you have to evaluate the type of game you're going to play. There's a difference between football in the NFL and football in college. They're two totally different themes, in my opinion. One of the things you look at is what you have to defend. At the college game and the way the hashes are, the way the zone reads are, the different types of styles of offense, it was my goal to go out and get the best defensive coordinator we could. Someone who has experience and someone who has the same background as myself. I wanted someone who has worked his way up through the coaching profession and someone who basically has earned everything that he has received. A lot of times when you try and find out about people, you call around and the first thing you do is you start talking to the people who know you best. I was fortunate enough to be around people who have worked with Scott (Shafer). They were telling me, ‘You and he are the same type of guy. You and he have the same type of work ethic.’ Really, that's how it started for us to get together and form this partnership and get our program together. Through numerous phone calls and numerous accounts of philosophy and what we believe in and what I believe in and what we need to do to be successful, we were fortunate enough to get together later during the holidays and do what we as coaches love to do and that's to talk football. I'm excited about the direction we're going to be going in defensively. I love it because I'm just going to use one word: Attack. We're going to attack. That's what we're going to be doing offensively and that's what we're going to be doing defensively. Right now, I'd like to introduce Scott Shafter into our family."
Your primary background is in offense – how much influence did that have on this hire?
"That was the point I was referring to earlier. From a standpoint when you look at things, you want to know what's going to challenge you the most offensively. A lot of times, with all the different levels I've been at, most of the teams from the league I just came from, if it's a basic style of defense, well, they pretty much have some darn good players, such as Tampa Bay and some of the other top five defenses we've played against. But sometimes, when you play teams and you look at them from a standpoint of, let's say the Baltimore Ravens, they cause quite a problem for you from a scheme standpoint. When you sit down and everything's done in categories such as here's your base offense, your red zone offense, your third down package, and you look at those situations and you have to say well how are we accounting for this or how are we going to handle that. If you don’t get a good beat from an opponents' scout standpoint of the coverage, and it's all mixed up and everything's going on, then your level of play call becomes decreased. Not to get into it too much, but it's a basic formula. We're expecting a single high-safety defense, whether it's man or zone, 76 percent of the time. The other 24 percent of the time they're playing some type of two-shell. So, when we call that play, we'll call that play to attack. It comes down to percentages. When you're doing something you have to make sure you have answers for them. That's what defense Scott (Shafer) has. I've watched the film of the defense of two different places Scott (Shafer) has been. In my mind when I'm watching the film and saying, ‘I see that or in red zone he's doing that or in third-down, that's a pain in the butt, how do you prepare for that?’ The one thing in college that's different from the league I come from (NFL) is that you only have a certain amount of time to prepare, different than the other league where you have players all day long. They study at home and they don't have to worry about school. The more problems you can present, offensively and defensively, at this level, the more you take away from the other team's practice time. They have to worry about shifting in motion and how we're going to align to it. When they have to worry about what type of fronts and zone pressures or man-pressure we're going to be in, and they have to spend that time to get their players schooled up on it or ready for it, it takes away from the things Scott (Shafer) mentioned before – the little things like, taking a step with the right foot or making sure we're attacking by using our hands. Those are the things we're looking forward to creating. That's our philosophy on offense, defense and special teams."
What was it that sold you on Coach Shafer?
"The first person he mentioned who you asked who he looked up to the most was Coach Mallory. Coach Mallory was with us in training camp and I had the pleasure of Coach Mallory sitting in on most of my meetings at training camp when I was with the (New Orleans) Saints. He sat in and watched me coach and quite a few times he watched me on the field. I've always liked to talk to coaches who have had that type of success. So, the first person I called was Coach Mallory and he said, 'He's just like you.' I talked with Coach Mallory for a very long time and a couple other coaches. When you sit here and listen to coaches talking about it's the little things, putting players in the right position and respecting the game, respecting what we do and what our jobs are, that's exciting? We've worked so hard to be in this position to go out and teach young men to win football games. It creates a sense of responsibility that is just tremendous upon a coach. As long as you put that first as a coach, you'll have a chance to be a good football coach. Scott (Shafer) has done that and I've done that my whole life. That's why we're going to go ahead and we're excited about getting with these players and going out and practicing. I'm just excited."
You have a month left until Signing Day. What is your ultimate goal from now until then?
"My goal is to go out and sign the best players for Syracuse University. Not just sign players. I've said that before. I don't want to go ahead and give out scholarship numbers regarding what we're going to do or how many we're going to sign, because what happens in that is people can use that against you and people start counting. It's happened in some conferences and some of the schools we're recruiting against. They've signed 'X' amount of players and they only have so many scholarships. There are things like that that go on and I'm being honest with my answer there. We've pretty much stayed here the last two days, pretty much slept here, watching every single tape we have in this office, we've watched every little tape that we can get online, we've looked at relationships that our coaches have in the areas and developed throughout their years in coaching. We've called most of the coaches of kids who are either open or whatever 'soft commit' means. We're ready to go back in and see what we can do and to get the best players. I've told the coaches, and we're all on the same page, if we have 'X' amount of scholarships, we're not going to sign 'X' amount of players just to fill those spots. We're going to sign players who we feel could come in here and be successful, number one, academically, and number two, out on the football field. The first thing we look for in each player is character. It's the main thing that we want – we want to bring in high character people. We want to bring in high character people just like our coaches."
What is the timetable on rounding out your staff?
"Right now, the timetable has gone exactly right. I wanted to make sure that we had an operations person in place, which we do, and we have our defensive coordinator in place. Now, it is limited to we are going to talk to coaches and interview down at the convention. It's a very good place and you have a lot of coaches showing up at one place. We'll go there and continue the interview process there as we go. If I feel good about the person who we want to get to, we'll go ahead and make that hire and I'll go through Sue (Edson) in the proper channel to make sure it gets out to everyone as quickly as possible."
Are there specific positions you feel you've needed to address more than others?
"That's a good question and I'm going to tell you exactly how we've done this. A lot of times when you come in, there are numbers. For a roster of 85, there are ideal numbers. You want 'X' amount of quarterbacks, 'X' amount of receivers, 'X' amount at each position, and in the end, it equals 85. Really, for us right now, we need to go out and get the best players. So, we're going out and trying to get the best players for ourselves and for our University as we go, knowing that next year, we might have to start targeting those areas and those numbers. That's what I've decided, along with the staff, and that's what we'll be tackling these next couple of weeks."
