Transcript From Football's Weekly Press Conference
Nov 4, 2014 | Football
Video of Tulane Football's Weekly Press Conference
NEW ORLEANS - On the heels of a 38-14 home loss to American Athletic Conference foe Cincinnati, 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 Bearcats - which saw freshman running back Dontrell Hilliard become the third player to run for 100-plus yards in a game this season while redshirt-freshman quarterback Tanner Lee tied the school's freshman touchdown record with his ninth scoring toss of the campaign - before moving on to the upcoming road trip to Houston A complete transcript of Tuesday's presser is below.
Kickoff for the Tulane/Houston contest is slated for Saturday, Nov. 8, at 2:30 p.m. (CST) in the new TDECU Stadium and will be televised live nationally on ESPNU. In addition to the television coverage, Saturday's contest will be broadcast 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 The Lone Star State, the Green Wave return to action on Saturday, Nov. 15, when they play host to Memphis in a Homecoming contest at 2:30 p.m. in Yulman Stadium.
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
"Thank you all for coming out. Just remember today and your civic duty. You've got to go out and vote. It doesn't matter your candidate, as long as you speak your mind. That's why we have America. Many people died for this country and this is something we all should do."
On Friday's loss to Cincinnati
"Last week, we played on Halloween night. I thought it was a good crowd and good weather for football. We didn't play very well defensively. There were some spots there where we did. Edward Williams had another very good game and so did Parry Nickerson. Some of our guys just didn't tackle well. That was the biggest thing. We didn't tackle. The Tyler Gilbert deal, I don't know if it was intent of the rule, but it was the correct call. That kind of set us back a little bit defensively. Offensively, we got Tanner Lee back. That was one of the bigger surprises - to see how well he played against that caliber of a team. Throughout the game, we lost Sherman [Badie] early and then we lost Lazedrick [Thompson]. That really kind of got us in a little bit of a funk, I would say, and we lost X [wide receiver Xavier Rush] earlier in the week. When I look out on the field, it was all freshmen playing. Tanner was a veteran out there - he's a redshirt-freshman - and there were a bunch of true freshmen out there playing. I thought they played hard and did the best that they could. Sometimes when you go up against an experienced bunch like [Cincinnati], you get that. They out-experienced us more than anything offensively. The special teams didn't hurt us at all. We had the one play with Teddy [Veal], but we just have to get these young kids to understand the 10-yard rule."
On the start of this week's practices
"We're looking forward to getting back on the field. We had a good practice this morning. I looked over on the sideline and I saw a couple of guys out who I really depend on. Other than that, the defense ran around well. I think we got their attention."
On how the team feels in comparison to last year and how well their maintaining their spirit
"I think they're in good spirits. This is a totally different team from last year. If you look at last year's team, we had six or seven guys go on and get opportunities to play in the NFL and I think four or five of them are still there in some kind of capacity. This is a totally different mindset and with totally different leadership qualities. We had some older guys. When we needed a play made, Julius Warmsley would go out and make a play. Chris Davenport made a big, big impact. Ryan Grant was there to make a play all the time. We had some guys a year ago with tremendous leadership. They were older guys who understood, and the league was a little bit different. These kids, they're attitudes are great. Sometimes I don't think they don't know what they don't know. We're playing against guys that are 21- and 22-year olds. I think they're trying to get lined up right, trying to get their assignments right, trying to get to the right gaps on defense because a lot of them are first-time players. I think the attitude is pretty good. We're losing, but they're really playing. I don't know that they're focusing on the wins and the losses. They're focusing more on, `I'd better get this one thing correct.'"
On concern with the health of his running backs
"It's always a concern. You get a guy like Sherman [Badie], who is our most dynamic player on offense, and he's out. They your most physical offensive player [Lazedrick Thompson] is out. I would say they're our older players on offense because they're not true freshmen. One guy is a redshirt-freshman and the other is a sophomore. It's a huge concern about those guys. Hopefully [athletic trainer] David [Gombel] does a good job this week and we can get those guys back in some capacity. I thought Dontrell [Hilliard] played tremendously for a freshman. Coming into an environment like that and to rush for as many yards against that defense - that defense was a well-prepared defense - and all we need is protection. Tanner [Lee] only got hit four times and two of the four was his own fault. One was on the scramble. Dontrell did an excellent job. Hopefully we can find a [Sergio] Medina or find a Marshall Wadleigh in this crew."
If there's more pressure on Tanner Lee if top running backs are out
"I want him to be better, but I don't want to add more pressure on him. I want to be able to do the same things that we've done. I want to add some stuff for him and get him in situations where he can really succeed - if it's two-receiver routes or if its reading one side of the field. We've done some of that and we're going to continue to do that, but I don't want to go wild and willy and put the game on a redshirt-freshman. That won't be fair to him and it won't be fair to us. We've got to do what we do with our offensive line, we've got to be able to run it and continue to do what we've been doing..
On this weekend's opponent, the Houston Cougars
"I would say this quarterback is a very fast kid. He can run. He's a jitterbug. He's not very big but he can sure run. He throws it decently and they have some very speedy receivers. They're very quick, but they don't throw it much. They've got this back, No. 35 [Kenneth Farrow], who is a really good, physical back. They're very similar to us. They've got this No. 22 [Ryan Jackson], who beat us a couple of years ago. Offensively, they have a lot of kids that can play well. Defensively, they're going to bring pressure. They're going to play coverage behind their pressure. They've got a good defensive line. One kid transferred from Texas A&M, so he's a good player. The linebackers are good players. They lost one of their better linebackers and they lost one of their better guys in the secondary, but they've got a lot of guys. They're a very good football team."
On playing on the road
"It's always hard to go on the road, especially with a team like this with a bunch of freshman. I don't think any of these kids have even seen their stadium, and neither have we because they have a new stadium. They haven't gone to Houston. This is going to be a good experience for us and it'll be a good-experience game for us. I like some of our matchups against them, though."
On why he feels Houston has given Tulane so much trouble over the years
"This week, they'll give us problems because they are an older, experienced team. When you look at some of the players they've had in the past, one kid [D.J. Hayden] was a No. 1 draft choice when we played up their last time - a first-round draft choice with the Raiders. They've got guys on their roster that are very good football players. They've done it the right way. They've recruited their city, like we're beginning to do. They've got a bunch of players from the Houston metropolitan area and out of Dallas. They've stayed within the state of Texas. They're a speed team and that's what we're working on. We're working on getting speedier guys. Whenever you're a speed team, you're going to cause problems for a team that hasn't had the tradition of being more of a speed or a physical team. And where they are logistically with their program, they're a little bit further advanced - not in the years of coaching experience but because they have some tradition going there."
On how freshmen have been helping each other out this season, like Jones' touchdown catch from Lee
"You can see the athleticism of a Charles Jones. Besides Jimmy Graham, I don't know if David Thomas would have caught that. I know [Jeremy] Shockey wouldn't have caught that his last couple of years there. But you see a guy jump up and turn over. It was a back-shoulder throw, and I know why Tanner threw it like that. If you see it on film again, the wind kind of grabbed it a little bit and Jones reached and reacted and caught it. It was a great catch. It's where our program is now and it is what it is. You look up and Trey Scott makes a catch. Dontrell [Hilliard] runs for 100 yards. Leondre [James] catches a couple of them, and [Teddy] Veal does the same. [Terren] Encalade had one of his better games. It's where we are now. We know we have some guys banged up and we have to count on freshmen. We just have to count on them, continue to coach them and get them better."
On how much better Tanner Lee's decision making was after sitting out
"Nick Montana helped him so much, just sitting and talking to him - him and Devin Powell just communicating with him. Those guys are classic teammates. I think the decision making is outstanding know. If you go back and watch it, I don't know if there was a bad read. There was some stuff that was bad athletically where we weren't as good at some spots just yet, but I don't think there was a bad read in that game. The worst thing he did was on that fourth-down play. We had the play, the corner usually crashes, and he didn't hide the ball. It kind of cost us, maybe a touchdown. But if he would have hid it, I don't think the corner would have seen it. The corner said it afterward. He said `I saw the ball the whole time in his hand.' Those are the little things that freshmen don't do. I'll tell you this - he'll never make that mistake again because he's not a habitual-mistake maker."
On the competitiveness of the conference and how Tulane measures up
"The biggest difference in the conference overall is in the lines. From a year ago, I think the skills are about the same. I think the lines - the d-line and the offensive lines - are better than a year ago. We feel comfortable talent wise. We look at our talent and our tight end, but we've got to look at it two years from now. When Charles [Jones] begins to get good and Sherman and all of those guys become good players, they'll be looking at us and say `This team is talented.' There isn't a coach that doesn't come up to us and says, `I can't believe how many freshmen you're playing' before the game and after the game they say, `Man your freshmen are talented' or `I'm glad that No. 3 didn't play because we had some concerns about him.' We're getting their attention, but right now we're just not ready to take the next step. I think we're moving in that direction. When you look at what we did offensively the other night, we really moved the ball well against a Cincinnati team that is a very good football team."
On if he is disappointed in the secondary's play as of late
"I was disappointed at Rutgers. [Last week] I was more disappointed in the tackling. I thought [Lorenzo] Doss played pretty well, along with [Parry] Nickerson. Both of those guys played very, very well. [Darion] Monroe and [Sam] Scofield didn't have the tackling games that they usually have, coming up and tackling. I don't know why. Maybe they were spooked or whatever. The secondary, besides the Rutgers game and maybe a couple of plays here and there at Duke, they've been pretty good. Parry gave up a big play against UCF, but I don't see a lot of wideouts completing a lot of balls on us. I see a lot of underneath stuff going on. There's a lot of crisscrossing and some of that stuff is that we have to get pressure. One thing that I've been concerned all year about is I don't think our defensive front is as physical as we need them to be in this league compared to a year ago. Our offensive front has gotten more physical, and that is what has enabled us to run the ball much better."
On the impact Royce LaFrance and Tyler Gilbert make on the defensive line
"Tyler was a big part of the gameplan with how we were trying to stop the running back and stop some of the stuff they were doing. So was Royce. When Royce went out, we had to play more dime. When we were 3-4, the match-up wasn't there and we went to a smaller personnel. We got out-physicalled somewhat in the game, but that was the best road to go in because we were missing a player who practiced a position all week and we didn't practice some other stuff. Our second answer was nickel and that's what we ended up playing."
On how thin the defensive line is and how that might have been exposed last Friday
"It's magnified. Not only did we lose a player, but we lost a senior and a leader. When you lose a guy like that, you go around and ask `What do you do?' Do you play another freshman or do you do what you've done in practice? You play some 3-4 stuff and hope that you can buzz around and do some things like that. We're not at the point in our program where you have a senior and you have a junior right behind and a sophomore right behind him. We go from senior to freshman."
On support from the coaching community
"In talking with Mickey [Loomis] before the game and the other guys who were there, they all say, `Hey, just keep doing what you're doing.' I haven't heard from Sean [Payton], and he'll probably send me a text sometime. The athleticism is there, we're just making a bunch of mistakes. It's just the little things that we're not doing and maybe that team is a little more physical than you thought. I get messages from coaches that say if you were in the other conference, you'd probably be at the top of the conference because you have some skill. Everybody likes our skill and they like us running the ball. We're just not quite there right now."
On if he thought this year could be a struggle based on the loss of key players
"In every meeting we talked about how after the first five games, we could be 5-0 or we could be 0-5. Every time we talked, we talked about that. There's a plan for being 5-0 and there's a plan for being 0-5. If you're 0-5, it's about what you tell the team and what message you want relay. The message that is being relayed is that we're going to practice hard every day. It's one step at a time. We're not looking forward to anything. We're not even looking forward to playing Houston right now. We've got to worry about ourselves and look forward to tomorrow's practice. That's our mindset, and it's kind of been like that all year. We just need to continue to get better, continue to better and continue to get better."
On how much pressure is on the offensive staff based on the lack of productivity on the field
"There is no pressure from me. When we got here, the one thing I talked about - and everyone thought I was a liar - is the first thing we're going to do is we're going to build this defense. We have to build this defense the best that we can. If we're going to survive in a conference like this, we have to play good defense. The next thing I wanted to do is I wanted to run the football. Then everybody said, `Well you're a receivers coach. Why would you want to run the football?' Here at Tulane, I think that's the best thing for us to do. We have to get more formations and more plays, but I don't think we're really ready for that. As an offensive staff, earlier in the year we were disappointed with the turnovers and the penalties. Last year was a little bit different. We had a different quarterback and we had to play the game for our defense. Last year, I knew our defense was good and we had to play the game where we really didn't want to mess it up. There were times were kids would say, `Come on, I've got them beat deep.' If it wasn't [Ryan] Grant, I didn't want to do it. That's what we were going to do. This year, it's a little bit different team and a little bit different year. We're growing as an offense together. Defensively, we're starting to understand this league. I've very impressed with these corners. They're really playing pretty good. We just need to get a little more physicality up front. We do it, but not consistently enough."
