Transcript From Tulane's Weekly Football Press Conference
Sep 27, 2011 | Football
Sept. 27, 2011
Video of Tulane Football's Weekly Press Conference
NEW ORLEANS -
Bob Toledo
Tulane University Head Coach
Opening statement
"Let me start by saying that as far as last Saturday's game goes, we obviously grossly underestimated Duke's ability. They were very physical - something we didn't expect them to be - and obviously they out-executed us on numerous occasions. What I told our team after the game was, `Hey, Duke on Saturday was better than us.' On that particular day, Duke was better than us. Unfortunately, we let them get off to a great start - a fast start - and then we never did slow them down from there offensively or defensively."
On Duke's hot start last week
"I'll just go through a couple of series real quick. You look at the first series, we get the ball on the kickoff. We have a one-yard run, a three-yard run, the quarterback scrambles for a one-yard run and we punt the football. They get the ball, they go 15 yards on the first completion, 19 yards on the next completion, seven yard run, 44-yard completion, a one-yard run and a touchdown. So on five plays, they go 76 yards and a touchdown. The second series, we run the ball and make three yards, we have a completion for one yard, get another completion for 23, run the ball for nothing, incomplete, incomplete, I believe there was a penalty in there, and we punt the football. So Duke gets it, they throw an interception, we get a pick-six and it's 7-7. The third series, we kickoff to them, they complete the ball for 19, they run for 11, incomplete, they run for 20 and a touchdown. So on four plays, they go 65 yards and now it's 14-7. We get the ball, we run the ball for one yard, complete a 16-yard pass, run the ball for one yard, incomplete and punt the football. Then they get the ball, they run for eight, they complete for 38, they run for one, they get an incomplete, they complete it for 13 and a touchdown. So it's five plays, 61 yards and touchdown, and now it's 21-7. We get the ball, we go down the field and kick a field goal to make it 21-10. I'm sure some people asked why I kicked a field goal. Well, that made it a two-score game at 21-10 early in the game. I would do that every time. If I knew they were going to score as many points as they did, I probably would have gone for it. But we weren't running the ball very well at that point. I don't think I need to go on. It was the same way all day.
On the difference in the game at Duke
"They controlled the line of scrimmage. Like I said, they were physical and we were not. We didn't block very well. We didn't tackle very well. We didn't execute very well. And they did. That's why we lost the football game."
On next week's opponent, Army
"As far as Army is concerned, they're 1-3. It's the most difficult week of the season for us a staff and I say that because what Army does is something that we never see. They're running a wishbone offense. They're running a double-eagle flex - the old Chicago Bear defense where they're attacking you. We just don't see it. We've got a lot of preparation this week to get ready for a football game. They've hurt us the last couple of years. The fullback has hammered us. The quarterback, it's his third year playing against us. We've got to stop that fullback and we can't let them just run it down our throat."
On Tulane's game captains for this week
"Julius Warmsely, who transferred back from Army and who is doing a great job for us as a defensive tackle, will be a captain along with Dezman Moses. Dezman is from New Jersey so it'll be a nice opportunity for him to go back home in front of family and friends."
On preparing an option offense while building a defense to stop more wide-open C-USA offenses
"That's the most difficult thing. You've got to have a completely different game plan than you do the whole rest of the year. It's because of what you're facing. You can't go in with the same type of things that you're doing. That's why they do it. Them, Air Force and Navy all do it. It's just tough to get ready for it. They cut you. They get at your legs. They get splits that are five- and six-feet wide. They really stress you on both sides of the ball. And they run that flex defense. It's something that I'm familiar with because their head coach was at Arizona. He's the one that brought that Desert Swarm defense to Arizona. When I was at Oregon and UCLA, I had to go against that Desert Swarm with some Tedy Bruschis, Chuck Cecils, Salavez, those were some great players. We've run against that defense but I'm not sure if I have an answer to it. It's really difficult."
On if Tulane will have to adjust its defense to try and stop Army's option attack
"That's the problem. In this game, you can't play as many defensive backs. You won't be playing nickel backs and stuff. We're going to be playing more bigger guys, more linebacker-type people, to take care of that offense. Defensively, it gets down to their big guys. They're not real big up front defensively, but as you know Army never gives up. They never quit. They fight their tails off. That makes it kind of tough to because they never give up. They're not real big, but they're active. That defense gives them the opportunity to hit gaps, move around and create bad plays for the offense."
On a North Carolina newspaper report that a Duke safety knew every play Tulane was running last week
"When you win, you usually make those kinds of statements. Everybody has tendencies. Everybody has certain things they do out of certain formations. You've got a system and you have to live with that system because you rep those plays and you rep that offense or defense. It's like anything else. It's easy to make that comment. We came out with three different formations. Were they watching practice? I don't know. We didn't play good. It had nothing to do with the plays, trust me. It had to do with us not blocking people. It had to do with us not separating from people and catching the ball. It had us on defense with defensive guys not doing the right things. The first play of the game, we drop down in a three-deep zone and our safety runs with a guy man-to-man. They put a guy right where he was supposed to be, they throw him a ball and he made 15 yards. It was a zone coverage and he was running man. It was mistakes. I can tell you what the Saints are going to run too, but they execute those things. Everybody has tendencies. I think that's overstated. When you win, it's easy to make those kind of comments."
On the team struggling last week against the run
"It was missed tackles. We missed a lot of tackles. If you watched the game, that's what shows up. That's why I mentioned it. They didn't really knock us off the ball as much as we didn't wrap them up. We made some hits and then the guy just keeps running because we never did a good job of bringing them to the ground. We've got to continue to work on fundamentals of tackling, tackle people and get off blocks. One of the things I've done (in practice) is run an ally drill where we go one-on-one, we take people on, we've got to get off blocks and tackle somebody. Because of the 13-game schedule and for concern of injuries, we haven't done it until today. We're going to do it again today. Sometimes you try to protect your players so much that in turn maybe you don't get them as ready to play as you need to. It's a catch 22 again. That hurt us, tackling."
On if Army's fullback is a huge concern
"It is a big concern because against us last year, he ran for about 1,000 yards. That's a big concern. He's a big old guy, he's tough. Again, their splits are as wide as this room and it creates a lot of problems for you. We've got to stop the fullback. We say that every year when we play them. But two out of the last three years, we haven't stopped their fullback."
On if he is still searching for answers at safety
"There have been some mental (errors) and physical. It's mental thing, just not lining up right and doing the right thing. We've got safeties that have to support and you can't line up 17 yards deep. When you're in a zone you don't cover a guy man-to-man. It's nobody's fault. Renaldo (Thomas) is great player for us, but he missed all of fall camp and he hasn't really played that well to date to be honest with you. But he's going to be a great player. It's not his fault. I don't want to blame a person. He's not playing as well as he needs to play right now to be a starter, and neither is anybody else who's not starting.
On Sam Scofield being inserted in the starting line-up at strong safety
"He's made some plays in practice and he deserves a chance. He's been through all of fall camp. He's been to every practice. He understands. When he went in at the end of the game, he made some nice plays. He really did a nice job in the 10-12 plays he was in there. So he deserves an opportunity to play. If you see him in practice, he's made plays. He's had more interceptions than anyone on our football team in practice. He's always around the ball and he's an athletic guy. He's fast. He can jump. He's a good tackler. We're going to give him a chance."
On Orleans Darkwa not producing like he did a year ago
"I think it's a combination of, No. 1, he didn't go through fall camp. He never got tackled. He should start being ready to go by now. He's put on 20 pounds. He's a little heavier. He's about 218 pounds. He's just matured and got bigger by lifting and all. I think it's just the reps. He hasn't had as many reps in practice or in a game to do his thing. Hopefully now it's at a point where we can afford to give him the ball more. But again, it all starts up front. We've got to block better. (Duke) moved and slanted a lot. They created some confusion and problems for our front and made some tackles for losses because of it."
On if he felt his team fell into a `here we go again' attitude
"I didn't feel it coming and I didn't see it coming, and that's probably what is disappointing. You look at Duke, they're an academic school, but they're in the ACC and in a BCS conference and all that. We looked at them and said, `Hey, we can compete with them' and we should. But we didn't and that was probably the disappointing or discouraging thing. We didn't compete with those guys. What happened was they made plays early. We started on offense, didn't do anything and punted the ball. They go right down the field and score. We don't do anything and they throw an interception. And we don't do anything and they score again. It's like we couldn't stop them and we couldn't get anything going. First and second down were horrible for us. One of the things going into the game was we wanted to see if we could make some yards running the football because we felt there were some play-action pass opportunities where they were vulnerable. But we never got into the situation where we could do that because it was always third-and-long."
On if a problem with Army recently has been not scoring enough points early
"That's an interesting conversation. Last week, they were down (35-0) so you thought they were going to start throwing to come back. They threw four passes in that game. You're not going to get them out of their game plan. They're going to run the ball and throw a half a dozen passes at you. That's their system. They're not going to throw the football that much. Now they're probably come out and throw it against us, right? But the point is they were down by a bunch of points and they came back. They scored three touchdowns at the end and did some nice things running the option and pitching the ball. They were way behind and were still running the football. Yes, you need to get ahead of them quick because what happens against them is you don't get many possessions. Usually, we get 12 to 13 possessions a game. Now people are getting that against them because they've been turning the ball over. But if they don't turn the ball over, they make two, three yards, four yards. On fourth-and-one, they're going for it and they make it and they keep the ball away from you. So you get impatient as an offense and you think we've got to score quick and we've got to score every time we've got the ball. Sometimes that works against you."
On Tulane being up and down to date this season
"I'm as frustrated as anybody else. I think we're ready to play. I think we practice hard. I think we're doing the right things. Then we get in a game and some things happen and it snowballs one way or the other. Again, we didn't make a lot of mistakes. We only turned the ball over really one time so it wasn't that. It was just that we couldn't stop them and we couldn't generate any offense. In turn, the game turned out to be the way it was. I don't think it was because we weren't ready. I don't think it was because weren't intense. They just executed very well. They did what they had to do very well."
On if Army comes on the schedule at the right time
"That's a good question. I thought Duke was coming at the right time. I don't know. I don't know which team is going to show up. I'm hoping it's the one that wins the football game. If we can come back being 3-2, that would be a relatively good start for us. Not what we wanted but at least it keeps us in the hunt. It's a big game."
On if it has come to a point where the players need to motivate each other
"That all comes from leadership. I think there's something to that and I think some of players are starting to realize that. Some guys are starting to step up a little more and become leaders. It's like Moses. After the game, Moses was really upset with that football game. He showed some leadership. We need guys to hurt a little bit more. It's got to hurt to lose. I hope that some guys do step up. I can't keep yelling and screaming and getting after them. They've got to do it themselves. It's like I tell them, `It's your football team. You guys have to go out and perform. We can't play for you.' I hate to say those things. It's like making excuses. I don't want to make excuses. We're all in this thing together and we've got to play better."
