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Head Coach Doug Marrone Press Conference Trancript (Oct. 4, 2010)
“Welcome everyone back from the bye week. We had a good bye week, practicing Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We had some things we need to improve on and we looked at some things we need to be a better football team as the season goes on, some new things from a scheme standpoint.
“Going into this week we play South Florida and everyone understands that since South Florida has joined the BIG EAST you can argue that they’ve dominated us. They have a new coach in Coach Holtz, who is coming off back-to-back Conference USA championships (as the East Carolina head coach). He knows how to win and how to get the team ready to go. They have an all-star staff. I know most of the coaches on that staff. Defensively, Coach Snyder, I’ve known him since he was at Youngstown State and Ohio State. He was also a head coach at Marshall. I know he does a great job on defense. Rick Smith is a veteran coach who coaches their defensive backs. I’m very impressed with Kevin Patrick and the way their d-line is playing, I actually think their defensive line is playing better this year than they did a year ago. On special teams they have Vernon Hargreaves. He is a guy from Connecticut who always does a good job. Offensively, I have a lot of respect for Todd Fish and what they do. They create some problems for you. They have an all-star quarterback, a great quarterback in B.J. Daniels, a very dangerous player. Peter Vaas I’ve known for a long time and he is an excellent coach who is working with B.J. and you see it with his discipline, technique and what he has been able to do in the passing game. Coach Shankweiler, when we took over at Georgia Tech he was there and I wound up working with the line after he took them over and he does a great job.
“They’re coming off their most complete game against Florida Atlantic where they played well on offense, defense and special teams. They’re playing better than they played a year ago. They’re running to the football with more discipline, more hustle and they have great athletes on the field. They have dominated us from the 2005 season on until last year. First downs, they have 31 more first downs than us in that time, which is 6.2 per game, rushing offense they’ve had 814 extra yards than we’ve had, which comes down to 163 yards per game. Total offense they’re averaging 209 yards more per game than we are, 3.4 sacks per game more than we are, almost two turnovers per game that we’ve been giving up against them. We seem to turn the ball over more against this team than any team that we’ve faced. Finally they average 24.2 more points per game than us, obviously at the end of the day you want to have more points than the other team.
“We’re faced with a great challenge going down there and it is one we look forward to. We know we have a tough road ahead of us in going down to South Florida.”
On whether he will address the team about the disparities in the programs:
“It is a fact, they know. We’ll talk to the players about it, we’ll start today. We haven’t addressed them yet about it but they know what has gone on here probably better than I have. Most of the players, we have players who have been here since 2005.”
On whether USF seems to grasp Coach Holtz’s scheme:
“I look at a team that has been to four straight bowl games and knows how to win, then when you go ahead and incorporate a coach who has won championships and it is a pretty good recipe for success. I don’t look at it in the same way as I do the situation here. I don’t know what Coach Holtz thinks about his situation, so I can’t speak for him. This isn’t any disrespect for the coaches last year, I’ve only seen them one year, but I do see them running to the football and doing a lot of good things technically. I’m very impressed with Coach Patrick and what he has done with the defensive line and Coach Hargreaves who coaches their defensive ends. I feel they’re better than they were a year ago. That is my personal opinion.”
On USF’s offense:
“They have a couple of good running backs, a receiver or two coming back for this game. You watch the game against Florida and turnovers hurt them, but they got off to a fast start. They have a lot of weapons on that field. You pick your poison, the quarterback can take the ball to the end zone any time he touches it, they have three good running backs that I see and they have some good wide receivers who are coming back that we haven’t seen a lot of film on yet. (Dontavia) Bogan has been a solid player for them. He is playing very well. They’re a dangerous football team.”
On keeping (quarterback) B.J. Daniels in the pocket:
“Whenever you have a quarterback like that, you try to make sure that you have someone who can contain him. The one thing about B.J. Daniels is that he can make plays from within the pocket, he has an excellent arm, he can throw the ball a mile and throw it on target. When he gets hot, he’s tough. One thing, for sure, you know because it’s on film, when he gets out of the pocket he’s dangerous in two ways— his eyes stay down the field, he can make big plays down the field and his receivers do a real good job of getting open, and If you don’t contain him and stop him, he can easily make someone miss and run for 20, 40, 60, or 80 (yards). He’s a dangerous player and one that you have to make sure you contain.”
On how the secondary, which was a question mark during pre-season camp, has been performing:
“They’ve done a great job. Some people would’ve been put in the mix— Ri’Shard Anderson was having a really good camp for us. Mike Holmes has played well and Merk (Da’mon Merkerson) has played well for us at corner. Shamarko (Thomas) has done a nice job. We have some depth— Jeremi Wilkes has been playing in our whole Okie package and he’s been solid. Keon Lyn has been coming along, which is going to help us. Olando Fischer is coming along at safety and we have Max Suter back there. I feel pretty good about where we are from a secondary standpoint. We have enough players and we have decent depth back there, more so than some of the other positions on our football team. When we get everybody healthy, which won’t be until next spring, maybe not until next fall because you can’t really count on that, but we’ll have a good group of secondary players.
On how the bye week has helped with bumps and bruises:
“The one thing about this team that I’ve been able to say is that my job is to get the players to the game, so how do you work on tackling and contact and being a physical football team. I give credit to the players and coaches because we’ve been practicing a lot better in helmets and shoulder pads, when I say helmets and shoulder pads it is pretty much we have everything on except pants, because we wear the girdles. The kids have been staying up and it’s been good contact. When we need to take someone to the ground then we put the pads out on the field and go rather than going in full pads and creating a large distance for large impact. That can be a higher level of injury. I work closely with the coaches and we explain to the players what we need out of each practice and what we need to do. They have done a very good job of that because what is tough for us now is that we’re one of two teams in this conference that doesn’t have another bye week. It is a situation where you’re in a long stretch and you’re playing a bunch of physical teams, especially for us in this month. It is back-to-back-to-back through an eight-week stretch and we have to be smart about what we do with our players.”
On the BIG EAST thus far:
“I talk about the team and it is very difficult for me to talk about the league, and I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the league. I just look at the history, in the past we’ve done well. Last year we were the second best conference in all of football non-conference schedules and overall the last four years we’re third. What is going on this year? I couldn’t tell you about the other football teams. I do know this, for us, my concentration has been on this football team. I’m not worried about the non-conference schedule because we haven’t won enough games in conference to be even part of that conversation.”
On the SU offensive line against the USF defensive line:
“It is going to be an extremely difficult task. People will remember South Florida and remember they had two great defensive ends last year but you look at them this year and they look much better. Technically, they’re using their hands, they’re relentless to the football. Depending on what we’re doing, if we’re throwing the football, we’re going to need to protect and they have pressure in what they do so we’re going to have to win those one-on-one battles. In the run game we’ll need to make sure we stay on the blocks and keep our feet going in front of them and just cover those players up to give us some opportunities to create some holes. It is a big challenge for us. This group of defensive linemen really step it up from a standpoint of athleticism and I give them a lot of credit. They go 110 percent the whole time.”
On the strength of the SU offensive line:
“The combination of all five who play well. It is the combination. I always used to joke that if you have 11 players on defense and 10 make a mistake and one makes a play then it is a good play. Offensively if you have 10 players doing the right thing and one makes a mistake it can be critical. Offensive line goes hand-in-hand, all five have to play well for there to be production. If one of them doesn’t play well and is getting beat in a one-on-one battle, then that causes a lot of problems for the whole game. You can look to do some things formationally or chip players to get him help somehow, but then it is a little tougher because you’re not concentrating on moving the ball down field or scoring touchdowns, you’re more concentrated on now having one or two people screw up the tempo with what we’re doing offensively. That is what I’ve talked about with the level of play of Chandler Jones. You hope that his level keeps going the way it is going and people have to decide how to get help to a player or stop him from causing havoc.”
On whether he is looking forward to league play as a whole or just the USF game:
“Just this game, I really do. We break everything down in quarters, I think I’ve said that before. We have four quarters to the season, we’re into the second game of our second quarter right now and that is really what our concentration is on. We look in the past to see how we can improve in the future, but really we don’t look beyond today, actually. When we go out we have certain objectives that we want to try and get accomplished and this way when we walk off the field we feel we’re a better team.”
On whether Saturday’s game will have more of an effect on the teams confidence going forward:
“Every game is equally important, we could have had the same conversation last week for Colgate and that is how I look at it. Nothing against how other people look at games or season but for me it is the same level. The talk may be different or what people say may be different but it is the same thing, we need to go out and play well. That is important every week, we need to go out and win football games and we haven’t done that. Our concentration with the players and the players among themselves is the same way. Is it important? Yes, it is extremely important. Is it the most important game? Yes, only because it is the game we’re playing, it is the next game. It isn’t because of who it is, or where we are or what is going on and that is just how I talk to the football team, being as honest as I can be.”
On whether the health issues of other football coaches has caused him to reassess or reevaluate things:
“To give you a little bit of background, I was very fortunate to be around Sean Payton and Sean Payton was very fortunate to be around the New York Football Giants. One of the things that Sean talked about to me was, when we went to New Orleans, he wanted to get a full scale physical of all the coaches. We as coaches, most of us think we’re invincible, we’ve played, we’re fine, we’re in great shape, but that was big for Sean and we all had to go and get these physicals. At the end of the day the people who were most appreciative of us getting those physicals were our families and our wives.
“We have implemented the same program here, so every year as a coaching staff we go and get physicals to see where we are because it is a very stressful occupation, but it is one we know. We know this occupation when we enter it, the stress level. I’ve always wondered if they ever put a stress monitor on a coach during the course of a game I wonder what those readings would be because of the level of what goes on during a game and even during a week.
“You just have to be in a good routine. When I first went into the NFL, a coach who had coached for more than 30 years told me I was never going to last with how I was doing things. He said I had to get into a routine and get my sleep here and get my sleep there. When you get into a routine, then it is better for dealing with stress. People talk about coaches with stress, but I go back to my wife and family and the coaches wives and families. We may be in a stressful environment but at least we can control some of that, we can actually do something or be part of the winning and losing. Our families, our wives and children, they’re on the outside and really don’t have that type of control of what goes on and they have to live how we do as coaches. Same with the players, there is a lot of pressure on players, a lot of stress on players. We see it in the NFL recently and it is in college football. There is a lot of stress on these kids from an academic standpoint and their families and communities. Playing athletics is stress but it is part of it, if you don’t understand that, then you’re in trouble.”
On whether beating USF will help recruiting in Florida:
“I don’t know if it has extra meaning but it does help. It helps our exposure that we do play down there. As far as recruiting, we’re refocusing and getting back to a foundation that has been good to our program for a long period of time. Syracuse is well known in that area for a lot of reasons. Obviously, the Miami rivalry when Miami was part of the BIG EAST is big. All the players that we’ve had from the state of Florida have been very successful both on the field and in the classroom here at Syracuse and that has helped us that a lot of those people have gone back to their communities and done well for themselves, which helps us from a recruiting standpoint. I’m not going to be naive and say if we don’t win this game we won’t get our share of players from down there, but if we win the game we may get in on some kids we may not have before, that is a possibility. Anytime you play a team that is in a recruiting area for you, if you win you get benefits from that, if you lose then you’re fighting a little uphill battle.”
On the advantages of having an extra week to look at USF:
“There are a couple ways to look at it. I look at it from a standpoint of its all how you handle the week. If you handle it from the standpoint we have where we’ve had players with nicks and bumps and have gotten them healthy, that has helped us where normally you can’t do that during a week. You might see a little extra film, but my philosophy is different. My philosophy is you don’t want to start implementing the game plans too early because they get stale. Our focus right now with our football team is to make sure we come out and have a good Monday night practice and build going into this game on Saturday. I don’t want this football team ready to play this game right now, I want to make sure we build it up during the week, which will be a challenge for myself and the players.”
