Transcript From Football's Weekly Press Conference
Nov 18, 2014 | Football
Video of Tuesday's Press Conference
NEW ORLEANS - On the heels of a 38-7 Homecoming loss to American Athletic Conference-leading Memphis, Tulane University head football coach Curtis Johnson took the podium to address the local media during his weekly press conference on Tuesday afternoon in the multi-purpose room of Yulman Stadium.Johnson reviewed his team's performance against the Tigers - which saw the defense post a season-high 12 tackles for loss, recovered a pair of fumbles and held Memphis to a 2-of-14 performance on third down - before moving on to the upcoming road trip to East Carolina. A complete transcript of Tuesday's presser is below.
Kickoff for the Tulane/East Carolina contest is slated for Saturday, Nov. 22, at 2:30 p.m. (CST) and will be broadcast live nationally on ESPN3. In addition, Saturday's game will be carried on the flagship radio station for Green Wave football - WMTI 106.1 FM "The Ticket" - and the radio call is available on the web at www.TulaneGreenWave.com via the All-Access Pass. Live game stats are also available on the official website of Tulane Athletics for free courtesy of GameTracker.
Following the trip to Greenville, N.C., the Green Wave will enjoy a week off before closing out the 2014 season on Saturday, Dec. 6, when they play host to Temple at Yulman Stadium. Kickoff time and television coverage has yet to be determined.
For tickets to that game, as well as future Green Wave events, contact the Tulane Athletics Ticket Office at (504) 861-WAVE (9283). The Tulane Ticket Office is located on the first floor of the James W. Wilson, Jr. Center and is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets can also be purchased on-line at the official website of Tulane Athletics - www.TulaneGreenWave.com.
TULANE HEAD COACH Curtis Johnson
Opening statement
"First off all, it's a pretty sad day for us and I want to send my condolences to the Scelfo family for the passing of their son, Sam. It's very tragic and it's near and dear to me. I have three sons of my own and it's always hard to preceed the family [in death]."
On last week's game
"I thought our defense played outstanding, for the most part. [Memphis] had a couple of runs in there where they did well, but I thought we really matched up with them well. This is one of the best teams in our conference and they came out like gangbusters. Our true freshmen, and I feel for them, had some growing pains and you have to go through that. As good as they played against Houston, that's kind of as bad as we played against Memphis. It was just unfortunate: the three picks by Tanner [Lee] - two pick-6s - and Dontrell [Hilliard] had two fumbles. We did some stuff that we just can't do. I don't think a lot of our guys played very well. The one thing we did do is we ran the ball well. It was good to see Lazedrick [Thompson] come back and get into the lineup. Sherman [Badie] is still a little bit gimpy and it's unfortunate that we didn't play better. You just want those guys to always play better, but I understand the youth of it. We never talked about bowl games, ever. It's unfortunate that we're not in one, but we'll be back in a bowl game in the not-so-distant future."
On committing five turnovers against Memphis
"The differential is the thing. We're getting turnovers. We're creating them. When I first took this job, and everybody I talked to told me I was crazy, but all the coaches who mentored me, I listened to them and they said, `C.J., build your defense first. Whatever you do, build your defense.' Every player we got, every defensive player and every player who could play a lick of defense, we went out and signed them. Our offense has suffered a little bit, so now this is the year where it kind of rears its ugly head with all of these young kids playing - especially playing all at once. For that, I'm more at fault than anybody. More than just turning the ball over, turnover differential is our No. 1 stat. That and the ability to run the ball will create wins for you. We've been doing a great job of turning guys over, but there's no way that you can play Pop Warner football and if you turn the ball over five times, I don't think you're going to win. The score should have been worse."
On if there is more competition at deep snapper and running back in this week's practices
"Here's the thing about the running backs. I love them all. These kids, they'll play and they'll be the reason we win the conference one day. Every one of them are good players. We have to do it by committee because guys are banged up a little bit and because we have packages for certain guys. We try to accent what they can do. A little thing about Dontrell [Hilliard], he's probably trying to do too much as a true freshman. With Sherman [Badie] being out and Lazedrick [Thompson] being out, there's probably a little too much on his plate. But it's good to have a learning experience. At deep snapper, we're just going with [Michael] Lizanich again. He made the one bad snap, but I thought the other snap hit [holder] Peter [Picerelli] in the face. All he had to do was catch it and put it down."
On if Lee may become gun shy after throwing two interceptions returned for touchdowns
"You always worry about that and those types of things. The thing about this kid is he has an uncanny ability to put stuff behind him. The things I love about him are, number one, he never blames anyone else. Secondly, he always knows his mistake. And thirdly, he acknowledges it. We were showing it to him on film and he said, `Coach, all I should have done was that.' When you're doing those types of things, you have a lot of confidence in him and, again, I have to remind myself that he's a freshman. Last time he threw a ball [before the 2014 season], he was at Jesuit High School two years ago. Secondly, this conference is a little bit tougher than he anticipated. He thought it was going to be a lot easier. But it's good that it's not easy because now he's going to prepare harder. He is preparing harder and he's really, really going to work at it."
On if he is still looking at this year or looking more toward building for 2015
"We've got to play the games ahead of us. What we're going to do is we're going to play the hardest that we can and we're going to play the best players that we can. We've got some young kids and we've been looking at young kids all year long. We want to go out and we want to win these games. We want to create some momentum. If you win five games, it looks a lot better than winning three. It looks better in recruiting. What you want to do is you want to continue to play hard and continue to win. The one brand that we do have in this program is that we play hard and we never quit."
On the offensive production being attributed to inexperience or if there needs to be a reevaluation of the scheme
"I think the offense is on the track with exactly where we want it to go. We talked about what we wanted to do when I got here. The first thing we wanted to do is we wanted to run the ball. I think we're doing that. For two years, we hadn't done much running the ball. Schematically, we're doing it. We're doing a great job of running the football and we're averaging over 150 yards a game. Secondly, in the passing game, we hit, we miss, we hit, we miss. Last year, we had a receiver who caught the ball for over 1,000 yards and he's playing for the Washington Redskins. Now, what it is is just continuing to get together and continuing to get this thing to where we want it to be. There's a lot of things that we want to do that we're not doing. I'm looking at some of these quarterbacks, these three- and four-year players are playing outstanding, and I think we'll be there."
On if it's harder to recruit to the style of Tulane's offense
"No, I don't think that's a problem. What happens to those kids when you look four or five years down the line? Look at the receivers and quarterbacks from spread offenses. Hardly any of those guys are successful in the NFL. That's why I love what Stanford is doing, I love what Notre Dame is doing, I like what Florida State is doing. Look what Alabama did. They went to the NFL to hire Lane Kiffin...I'm out of this thing a little bit after Stanford. Offensively, they struggled early on when they got there. Once they got their offense down and knew what they were doing, the reason why they beating people is because they're playing what I call a smart-man's offense. Once you get older kids in and they become older guys, and it also attracts great quarterbacks. There aren't many good drop-back quarterbacks that are playing in the spread. All of those guys are getting hit and they're getting hurt. The best spread quarterback was [Johnny] Manziel and he's not playing in the NFL. If I were you, I'd be like [Zach] Mettenberger. I'd be a drop-back pro quarterback. I watched him last night and he played pretty well."
On this weekend's opponent, the East Carolina Pirates
"They're outstanding offensively. The quarterback, [Shane] Carden, is one of the best players. They've got a couple of receivers. This little receiver [Justin Hardy] , he gave us the blues last year. He had 17 [catches]. They've got a big, physical offensive line. Defensively, they've had their struggles, also, similar to us on offense. They've got a whole new bunch of guys on defense. They play together and sometimes they're a little inconsistent. They're athletic on defense. Just where they are, they're going to get athletes on defense. This team is a really, really good football team. They have experience on offense. That's why they score against everybody. The one thing we have to do is our defense has to come to play. We've got to get to them and shut these guys down a little bit."
On the overall health of his team coming out of the Memphis game
"This was a pretty tough one for us. Charles [Jones] was injured. Lazedrick [Thompson] still hasn't practiced. Sherman [Badie] is gimped up again. We've got a bunch of guys that are injured, but they'll all play because it's this time of year. It was a physical game. I thought Memphis was physical. They played hard, they played tough and they're older than us. Last year, it was the same deal [to us this year]. They won three games with younger kids. Now they've grown up. If you look at their roster, they're all seniors."
On if Lee can relax knowing he won't be taken out of games when he makes mistakes
"I think you just have to know the player. Tanner is a player who is really hard on himself. He's really demanding of himself. Those kinds of players, you love for them to work through it. You want to see them work through it. The biggest thing he did in the game was every time he got knocked down, he got right back up again and we began to move the ball. He'd hand the ball off, he'd make a couple of throws here and there, and he threw another pick. On that one drive down the field at the end of the game, [Memphis] still had their starters in, he drove us down and got us in the endzone. That's the kind of stuff that you love because it would have been very easy to throw it up, throw another pick and say `forget about it.' He cares about what we're doing, he's starting to understand what we're doing and I think he's excellent at what he's doing."
On the `freshmen' mistakes and how to stop turning the ball over 10 games into the season
"I thought we had that figured out the last couple of games. I don't think it's freshmen mistakes anymore. I just think it's being careless. These guys aren't freshmen anymore. We're 10 games or however many games in. It's just careless. I would say this about Dontrell [Hilliard] - there's too much on his plate. On Tanner's first pick, I thought he was overconfident. He saw the look, the corner kind of took two steps back and drove on it. He should have checked it down and threw it to the back like he did a week ago. It's just things like that. When you see it on the film, it's glaring.
On middle linebacker Edward Williams
"This kid reminds me of what we did with D.J. Williams [at Miami]. I always tell [co-defensive coordinator] John [Sumrall], and John gets frustrated with him, it's hard for him. He's an outside linebacker learning to play in the middle. There are things he didn't see. You have to see the tackle box. But the more he plays, he continues to get better. When we were at Miami, D.J. didn't hit anybody for two years. All of a sudden, he's a first-round pick. I saw the other night that he was playing for the Bears. He reminds me of that type of athlete. He's big, he's physical and he can run. He's playing better and better each week."
On what he saw after watching the film that he didn't see during the game
"The one thing that I would say is they brought pressure with their corners, which was a run blitz. I didn't see it - they only did it about two of three times - I didn't see what they were doing behind. They were basically playing a zone. They were basically playing a cover two - bringing the corner fire and the middle of the field was wide open. The one thing that we could have done better was to get our speed down the middle of the field. Charles [Jones] was hurt and you're relegated to doing some things differently, and that's why you have to continue to get that speed. I would have loved to put Sherman [Badie] down the middle of the field on them, but we didn't have Sherman in the second half."
On how much can getting a few more wins make a difference in recruiting
"Like I said, five looks better than four. The wins would be absolutely fantastic, but I think kids are going to look at if we play well, how we're matching up and what we're doing. We had a bunch of kids at the game and afterwards, they were like `Man, you guys played hard.' There were some mistakes, but they understand where we're going and what we're doing. At the end of the day, they're going to say, `Well these guys won three games,' or, `These guys won five games.' I want them to say we won five games and five games is promising with a bunch of young kids playing."
On special teams difficulties and whether that unit is a top priority in the offseason
"The one thing I do like is I think we've got our coverage teams playing pretty well. [Memphis'] return guys are some of the better ones in this conference. The one thing we have to do is we have to get the operation - the snapper, holder and kicker. We have to bet that taken care of. To [Andrew] DiRocco's defense, in the last few games he's been hitting them pretty good. We had the one bad snap that threw the timing off and on the other one, I just don't get what Pete [Picerelli] was doing. All he had to do was put it down and I think the ball would have been in. Hopefully, it's just snapper and holder."
