MEET THE PRESS: Fritz Previews Cincinnati at Weekly News Conference

NEW ORLEANS - Listed below is the complete transcript from Green Wave football head coach Willie Fritz's weekly press conference leading up to Tulane's matchup vs. Cincinnati on Saturday.

Opening Statement
"We have a great team coming in here this week. I believe it's the highest ranked team to come to Tulane's stadium in a long, long time. This is our fourth ranked team we've played, and I think the last time that occurred was in 1971, which kind of segways into the guys we are honoring this weekend. They played on the '71 team, the first black football players to play here at Tulane. I've gotten the chance to know a couple of the guys and we're excited about honoring them. They're going to visit with the team on Friday night and between the first and second quarter we're going to have something out on the field for them as well. Those guys are excited to come back and I know all of their teammates, quite a few of them from the '71 team, are coming back as well. So that will be something neat and educational for our student athletes."

Can you update us on Michael Pratt?
"We're not sure what's going to happen with him right now. We're hoping he's going to be able to play and there's a couple more days of protocol that we have to follow and he's following that protocol right now. We will see him in the later half of the week."

The fact that he had a couple days because it was a Thursday game, does that help?
"That should help him. One of the things we do here is we're very blessed with a great medical staff and they make all the decisions related to guys playing or not playing. We're putting it in the hands of Dr. (Greg) Stewart and his staff and we're going to do what is best for Michael."

Going back and looking at the video, did you think the hit was clean?
"They gave a penalty on the play so that's part of it, there was a penalty. By the letter of the law with targeting, that may not be the case. I haven't watch it in slow motion and studied it and done all that stuff. We've moved on to the next game and are worrying about Michael's health, but I know there was a penalty on the play."

Can you be specific about the protocol?
"I'm not going to say it's different for each guy, but each case is different. There are times where each guy has to do some cardio and you get him out and do some football related activities. He's got to feel good, that's part of it. He has to have a conversation. There's a test we do at the beginning of each year and he retakes that test and there's a score they have to fall within. I've never been there for the test, I let them take care of everything. Time is the key element here and we want to make sure that he is 100% ready to go to be able to play the ball game."

How has Kai Horton developed during the year?
"Good, Justin Ibieta tore his labrum and has been out for about a month now, so Kai has been getting a ton of reps with the second group. He's got a lot of experience, he led Carthage High School to two state championships, so he's played on a big stage before if we have to go with Kai."

If you don't have Pratt, how much harder is it without him?
"You never know, this has happened before in my career. As I've said after quite a few of the games, we all have got to play better and we've got to play better over four quarters. It's not just the quarterback. The Saints had a big win last night and it was everyone playing we. On both sides of the ball they crowded the ball out, had a good kicking game and played fantastic defense. Everyone has to play better."

Defensively going into the game, what has been different this week?
"We're simplifying a little bit. We want to make sure we're correct on everything, and you can't be so simple that they know exactly how you're lining up every play, nowadays that's a recipe for disaster. But we want to make sure we're doing a good job and that our guys understand their assignment, do their job and carry it out. There's going to be occasions where you get out on both sides of the ball. What you don't want to have is a lot of minimal mistakes, where you aren't at the right gap or two guys are at a gap or you're getting guys behind you when you're supposed to be playing over the top. I challenge all my coaches on it every week, I challenge them on it again this week. Let's get this game plan earlier so we can practice it often over the next few days."

Over your entire career have you ever had a season like this?
"No, I haven't. It's obviously been a difficult year. Our guys are fighting through it, the coaches are fighting through it and I'm fighting through it. Having been in this predicament before all I know is that you've just got to keep after it and keep grinding and stay as positive as you possibly can. We're not going to sit around and hold hands and sing songs all day either, we have to point it out when guys are screwing up and we're doing that as well. But you have got to stay positive with it. I've met with the captains a few times and we're changing some things, but not a ton of things. I think sometimes people do that, they get into bad times and change a whole lot of things. We don't want to do that, we just want to stay on the grind and understand that we want to be in season heroes. We're in the midst of it right now and we need to put as much effort as we possibly can into it. The guys have had a great attitude and they'll continue to have a great attitude."

What kinds of challenges do you think (Desmond) Ridder brings?
"He's a big guy, 6'3 or 6'4, 220 lbs. He's got a lot of experience. I watch a lot of TV games and sometimes you hear about the work he's done getting his lower body in sync with his upper body and you can see that in his passing mechanics. He runs the ball well, has excellent speed, and he's probably going to be a high draft pick. He's an excellent football player."

Nick Anderson played as well as advertised coming back, do you hope his performance might rub off on some of his teammates?
"He's back and not only is he an excellent player but he's a great leader. It's super to have him back out there, not just on the field but in the locker room, travelling, in the meeting room, all those things. I was sitting in his meeting this morning and he asked 10 really good questions. Some guys ask questions just to ask questions and hear their own voice, but he asks real questions that I think are beneficial."

Do you do anything about the slow starts?
"We're trying. I'm doing the same thing this week that we did last week: opening our openers and practicing it every single day. A lot of times you practice your openers a couple days before a game; you hit it on Thursday or Friday, Saturday morning. But we're hitting them every single day and it's something that I told our coaches I wanted in and I wanted to work on it. We're even doing a bit of it defensively, so we've put a lot of thought, time, effort and energy into our openers and the kids have to know them. You can work those against a variety of different fronts, coverages and plays defensively. It's one thing I've always done in my career and is one thing that we are doing."

I know you've had this discussion with Michael Pratt about sliding before, are you going to have this discussion again?
"He's a tough kid and he actually did slide on that particular play which is why the penalty was called. It's something that we work on in spring ball and a little bit in preseason, and it may be something that we do need to work on in season as well. It's a hard thing to replicate, exactly when you do it. When you do it a split second too late is when you have problems. And sometimes you go too early — this happened to us earlier in the year — it would have been a first down and instead we ended up having a fourth-and-1, and we had to convert it. It's something that we have to practice and over time you get better at it, but that's something that makes Michael a really good football player. He's very competitive."

How are you handling practice right now? You don't have very many arms at quarterback.
"We've got a couple other guys who have been playing over there. We've got Josh Coltrin and Christian Daniels. Both of those guys were really good high school quarterbacks and they played quarterback in the past."

MEET THE PRESS: Fritz Previews Cincinnati at Weekly News Conference

Players Mentioned

Nick Anderson

Josh Coltrin

Christian Daniels

Kai Horton

Justin Ibieta

Michael Pratt

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