Head Coach Doug Marrone Post-Game
Syracuse vs. Rutgers
November 21, 2009
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
Head Coach Doug Marrone
Opening Statement:
“I appreciate everyone being here for out last home game. Obviously we’re excited about the win, but we’re even more excited about this experience for our seniors. We’re talking about a group of kids who have gone through a lot of adversity. I know a lot of you have written articles on them and what they’ve gone through here, and to give them this joy and excitement is something I know I wanted for them. Last night when I spoke to them, I apologized for not being able to give them the type of season that they probably all envisioned when we were first together, but I’m glad to see they really stood the course with what we’re trying to do with the foundation of our football team. An example of what we’re about was today. We’ve been through a lot of injuries and people have stepped up and made plays. Our players went out there on the field and played for each other. I was happy with the outcome of the game. It’s a very good win for our team. It’s a good program. We beat a top 25 team. Rutgers is a good football team and we did a nice job today.”
On whether it’s a breakthrough win for the program:
“No, I don’t look at it that way. I know that all the wins feel good, and all the losses feel twice as bad. I don’t look at it as a breakthrough win. I think it means a lot that we won a game and we won a game in the BIG EAST. That’s how I look at it. We won a game and the direction of this football team is heading the right way. I think that we can all be proud of the players who are playing for us and the players who are exiting the program.”
On the difference in the linebackers:
“It’s a big difference between last year and this year. I don’t say that to talk down about last year. Our sacks per pass attempt is very high compared to last year’s statistics. We’ve been an aggressive defense, and at times, we’ve been too aggressive with what coverage we’re playing behind. Today, we did a nice job of mixing that up and today we did a nice job of going after it and winning upfront. We got to the quarterback, which was obviously a goal of ours, and forced him into passing situations and stopped their run, which our defense did.”
On whether the team takes inspiration from Syracuse basketball’s win against North Carolina:
“I think we take inspiration from all of our sports programs. When our field hockey team goes out and wins the BIG EAST (Championship), when our women’s (basketball) team goes out and beats Alabama State, when our (men’s) basketball team wins against California and goes and beats a North Carolina team – we’re all in this together. We’re pulling off each other and we feed off each other and that’s what’s great about being a part of this athletics department.”
On the meaning of dominating the time of possession and whether he has ever been a part of a game when it was dominated like today:
“It’s big being three-and-out and being able to do that and control the ball and really trying to make a play and try to stay up two scores. (Sophomore running back) Averin Collier has really done a nice job for us to put him in the game. It’s not a matter of Averin not doing well for us, it’s a matter of when do we get him in the game? He got in and made a big play, which enabled us to go up by three scores. Time of possession is big and being able to control the football is obviously what you like to do on the offensive side of the ball. Defensively, we had problems where a lot of our defensive players, because of our lack of depth, played a lot of plays. When you control the ball on offense and you have the ball defensively for 20 minutes that helps your defense quite a bit.
“I’d have to research that to make a statement, but it’s something we should be proud of the way the players went out and executed.”
On whether the team is re-energized after the adversity they’ve experienced:
“I don’t know that. What I do know is that this team has been through a lot of change from the first day I came through the door. Everyone understands that. What I spoke to our players about, and I’m going to give everyone a little insight into the meeting on Friday night. We came in here and obviously the players go through a lot of change. We go through a lot of change as coaches and we’re trying to instill in our offense and defense an attitude of the change of culture. We’re working our tails off to do that and the players are working their tails off to respond. One of the things that gets lost in all of that is the ability to communicate as a team because of all the change. I really see us doing a better job of communicating with each other – coaches with players, players with players. They’ve been trying to all year, but now it’s starting to come together for us. We have to keep it going and we have a big game next week, but I want our players to enjoy this game.”
On whether it was a surprising win for him because it was surprising for the public:
“I’m the opposite. When I come in for a press conference and we haven’t executed, I feel like I’ve let the team down. I always expect in my mind to go out and win. I feel very comfortable with our plan and we did some things today that we haven’t shown. I thought we can create some adversity for our opponent and be able to capitalize on it. They’re a good football team and we made some changes and we were lucky to capitalize on it.”
On whether changing the quarterbacks so much and running the option helped in the win:
“Our quarterbacks have been going in and out all year and the packages have been growing. Obviously we’ve run option in the past and we’ve run it out of a certain personnel group in a certain formation. We added more to our package. At the end of the day, I’m not going to get into the schematics of what they do defensively and what we did offensively in trying to get them out of their coverages. They made adjustments and then we had to make adjustments. Rutgers is coached well, and we feel that we do a good job coaching. Our players executed well today.”
On how he makes sense of the win:
“It’s probably hard for the people who are on the outside of the program. It’s not hard for me because I go in there every day and I fight and I battle to get us to become a better football team. Our players go in there and they fight and battle to become a better team where they can execute well. People may not see this coming or whatever they want to say on the outside, but I can’t stand here today and say that I didn’t see this coming. I won’t do that because I’m not going to discredit what this team has been working so hard for and trying to get done for this community and this University and what we’re about. In my mind, like I said before, today we executed, today we made plays. The players played hard and they were enthusiastic for each other, and you saw that on the field. All the things that we’ve been preaching, all the things we’ve been trying to get done with our players, I said the last thing that’s going to happen to our program, unfortunately, without sour grapes, is wins. Now you can see what we can do when we execute at a level and play the way we should play.”
On what the game shows the visiting recruits:
“I don’t know about today’s efforts because I think we had good effort throughout the year. I can’t be any more proud of our students, the faculty, the University administration that has come out and supported this program. Our crowd, and I’ve said this from the beginning, prior to even having the job, makes a difference. There are third down situations that they were struggling with on the opposing team and that’s the type of crowd that we need to be successful because they make a difference. As far as the support, we’ve always had good support. We have good support from our Chancellor, our athletic director, our community. There’s not a place I go that someone’s not excited. Letters do come in and some people are disappointed, but I try to respond to as many as I can. I’ve always been big on the communication. I want to make sure our community knows exactly what we’re doing with our program.”
On the ability to take care of the ball:
“I’m very careful about words – blunders, that is not one I use. What happened was a lack of execution. When you have lack of depth, the first thing that’s probably going to go is your special teams. We have to keep doing a better job of finding a player who we haven’t tried yet. We’ve tried a lot of players and we have to execute to get it done. There aren’t many things you can do. You just have to kick it. You can kick it out of bounds or do a lot of different things, but eventually you have to go down and cover.”
On how Syracuse did not commit any turnovers:
“That’s what we try to do every week. It’s about execution. We probably did more things today. Obviously when you’re running the option that’s a big thing when you flip the ball and we were able to execute. We worked hard on it all week.”
On the blocked field goal and how the players responded:
“I hope they responded to the leadership of the team and the response of the coaches. We were still up by 14 points and we still needed to go out, stop them, get back up and try to make it a three possession game at that time of the game, which was critical.”
On how much the win gives him a push to the Connecticut game:
“To be honest, I want to enjoy this with our players. I’m not going to look at UConn. We have a big recruiting weekend. We’re moving forward and I haven’t watched them.”
On the swing passes to sophomore running back Antwon Bailey:
“I think you need something in your offensive scheme where you make sure the defense gets lined up quickly. They did it to us. I think every offense has it built it when teams are having a tough time and they’re getting the calls from the sideline. You just have to get the ball out there and try to force the team to line up quickly.”
