University of Memphis Athletics
Coach Tommy West Press Luncheon Quotes - September 29, 2008
Sep 29, 2008 | Football
Sept. 29, 2008
Full Press Conference Video Feed
Opening Statement
I'll talk first about Arkansas State. I felt like that was by far our best performance of the year as a group, and to finally play sixty minutes and finish a game. I felt like offensively we got done what needed to be done and that was run the ball. We had to try to control the clock and keep their offense off of the field, but I knew in some third down situations at the end of the game, those are times when you need to be able to run the ball. That's what I've been talking about since week one. We need to be physical enough to run and run the ball well enough to win the game. We have to continue to improve that. We certainly weren't perfect, but we were better than we've been in probably two to three years running the football.
Curtis Steele played outstanding, Charlie Jones played extremely well offensively. Steven Black, I felt like at wide out gave us what we needed. The disappointing thing offensively was that when they did play man coverage and made it hard for us to run the ball, we have them where we wanted them, especially in some third down situations, we weren't able to convert with our passing game. I'm really disappointed with how we threw and caught the deep ball. I told them at half time we would have to complete a deep ball in the second half to win the game. Duke (Calhoun) made an unbelievable catch to make me right on that one and it might have been the difference, but I really didn't think we threw and caught the ball especially the deep ball as well as we'll have to in order to continue to win.
Defensively was as good as we've played in a long time. We finally finished a game. It's been coming, you could see it, we've been getting better, we're learning how to run this system and it takes time. Like I've said before, this is not a real simple system. It's a pretty complicated system, but I think we're starting to get it better than at any time. As we get it, we can start to add a little bit to it. We played extremely well. Our goal at the beginning of the year was to improve this team, improve this defense on third down. We've been really bad the last two years on third down and they were 3-13 on third down. We're now under 40 percent on the year defensively with third down situations. Again, in a game, Tim (Walton) made some adjustments during the game and our kids got it. Our kids picked it up like they did for Nicholls when we made a couple adjustments. I bragged on them then and they did it again this week.
Guys that played extremely well-obviously Clinton McDonald. I thought he was everywhere and I thought that he played as well as we've had a defensive lineman play maybe since I've been here. He was very, very active in the game against the run and the pass. D.A. Griffin was the other guy defensively. I wish you could see the tape. He blitzes from corner, hits the running back, quarterback, goes up inside, takes off and 17 yards down the field he catches the quarterback strips him and causes a fumble. Just a tremendous play. He is an effort and tough guy. D.A. Griffin is becoming a really good cover guy and has played really well for us and is kind of giving us a boost out there at that one corner position. Of course, Vinny (Zaccario) came in and did everything that we asked him to do.
On the short week
I told them yesterday that we have two goals, one is to try to get them better at what we do, to try to find a short week to improve them, and two is to get them fresh legs. When we go on the road we have to have a lot of energy to play.
On Charlie Jones' impact of the running game
Charlie (Jones) has been tremendous in the red zone. We've scored 18-21 times in the red zone. That was an area that we targeted coming into this season and Charlie is a lot of that. Charlie is really good down there because he's powerful. He gets his pads under other people's pads.
We're going to work extremely hard at our passing game this week because we have got to get more big plays out of our passing game than what we're getting. That's two games in a row that we're not getting what we need out of the deep ball and that's starting to get on my nerves because we should be good at that. That's what we do. I understand having to work extra hard at the run game because that's not what we do first. I don't understand not connecting on those deep balls.
On problems with the pass game
It's kind of been spread around a little bit. We haven't been extremely accurate. We have to get better at giving our guys a chance. That's what we live for, for somebody to walk up there and have somebody try to play us man. We have to beat them deep and break them off on curls and outs and make it extremely difficult on a corner to cover us man to man. We have to get better there and we have to become a little bit more accurate. We can't throw it out of bounds, we can't overthrow them, and we have to give our guys the chance. If we give our guys the chance, they'll make most of them.
On playing Thursday games
I kind of like them really. I like the change up. It's a short week, but it's the same for them (UAB). I'll tell you what I like, I like during the season at some point, having a Friday, Saturday, Sunday when you're not playing. I kind of recharge my batteries and I think it does your players. We'll be six games, halfway. I think that's a good time and we don't play again until next Friday. I don't mind it at all really.
More on Saturday's game against Arkansas St.
I thought they would make us run the football, I really did. I had anticipated that coming down the road again. That's why we did what we did against Nicholls and they did. We came into this game and from the start of the game they said you're going to run it and you're going to prove to us not only that you can but that you will. At times we've showed a tendency to where we really don't want to run it because we'd rather throw it. That's just what we're comfortable doing, but with a rookie quarterback that's why I've been on this running game thing. If you have a fourth year quarterback it's a little different, but we have a guy that's in his first year and we have to take some pressure off of him.
About UAB
When I watch their offense, they've played good on offense. Coming into last week, they were second in the league in rushing offense. They have the same quarterback that can run. He's a big, tall kid, who is a good player. He's another runner. He can throw it, but he loves to run it. They have the same kid at running back. He's a kind of small guy, but really quick. He's a jitterbug type of a guy. They have the wide out that we tried to recruit, Frantrell Forrest that I really liked because he's a good player. They have some skill players offensively that they've been trying to build an offense around. Defensively they're building a defense. They've become a more of a blitz team in the last couple of weeks. They bring a lot of people. So if they do that again and they decide that they're going to blitz us, our passing game has to take over. So I hope that's what they do. We're going to work really hard this week at throwing and catching it this week. I hope we're able to throw it and get some big plays, but we have to start making those plays.
