Walt Harris Press Conference
10/2/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Walt Harris Press Conference
10/2/2001
Walt Harris Press Conference Oct. 30, 2000 North Carolina
Opening Remarks: For those that were at the game or watched it on televison. I thought we had just a tremendous battle against obviously a good football program and a good football team. I thought our players played extremely hard, very focused. I think we gave them everything we had to give, unfortunately it wasn't quite enough. We're excited that we have the ability to play the top teams toe to toe, blow for blow. We just have to learn how to finish the game and how to execute at a higher level. I know our players will work hard this upcoming week and the next four weeks that we have to play.
On the status of Ramon Walker's injury and how his absence affected the team: Rob Blanc does not think he will need surgery. It's basically a week to week thing for us right now. Ramon is an all-conference player and one of our best football players. Corey Humphries who came in for him did a good job as well, but Ramon is a special player for us. Cory is a good player, a little bit younger. I don't think we had a big drop-off in terms of execution, but we lost one of special players so there had to be some affect.
On the play of the offensive line: I thought we were solid at times. One guy here, one guy there in the run game. I remember a couple times we had second and three and ended up third and five or third and eight. I remember one time we had first and ten and ended up second and seventeen. Those weren't all linemen problems. One was on an option where we didn't execute the option at quarterback very efficiently. I thought our line was solid. John, who is here visiting us, our quarterback who is such a strong competitor, which is one reason why he is our starter. One reason why he is getting better, but there is a fine line of knowing when to get rid of it. There is really a challenge about learning that position because sometimes it is the hardest position to compete at. Sometimes the harder you compete the worse you do. There is a fine line. Sometimes John fought his way, competed his way, and then all of a sudden found an opening and would run for a first down or good yards in this last game as well as some others. So there is a real fine line. I think sometimes we've held onto the ball a little too long. Sometimes they've just defeated us. They are pretty good too, they wouldn't be in that situation if they weren't. We know when you are playing against a nine man front team, which is what they are, you are not going to run the ball very effectively on a consistent level. Hindsight is always fifty-fifty. You could always look back and say well we should have ran more or call it like it is, I should have called more. We also came into the game with a plan that we were going to try and throw it more than we ran it on purpose. We like what our receivers do. We like our concept that we had against them. We like the way our quarterback was getting ready to play. Anytime you lose to a field goal with fourteen seconds left you are going to second guess, wonder, and question. All in all, I think we have to continue to upgrade our performance and upgrade our execution. That has to do with play calling as well, not just the players. It is all of us. All of us have to continue to upgrade and I know our players are real committed to get this thing over the hump.
On the possibility of the passing game being more dominant over the running game in college football today: That is a tough question. I think it just depends. Florida State, one of their aces is their defense. I think when you are great on defense every week then you can be much more free wheeling on offense. I'm sure if you were playing cards with someone else's money you would be much more free wheeling on how you would play. I'm not trying to be disrespectful of Nebraska's defense or anyone else's defense. When you play great defense you can be much more free wheeling than if you are not playing great defense. I don't know much about Oklahoma other than it must have been a fantastic victory for them. They are throwing and they have a quarterback that must be pretty good and they must be playing good defense as well. They must have some athletes over there that play good defense. I believe, in order to get to the top games, you've got to have a real good running attack. In the top games, you are up against great defenses. So therefore you have to be able to throw it. That is what I think. You don't necessarily run to get there, but running is a big part of how you get there, even if your quarterback and your passing game is executing at a high level which might be sixty-five or seventy percent. Still, thirty percent of the time you have an incomplete pass and the clock stops. Here we teach how to be a high percentage passer. One thing I've learned from my perception of Bill Walsh's system is that he tries to run the ball before passing. I will say this, linemen are the hardest guys to get. The type of guys that are going to move the line of scrimmage and make holes for your backs as well as places like Florida State. We just got done watching them play against North Carolina, and they have got some great runners. You could run it a ton with their backs and be very successful. They also have fifth year seniors and Chris Weinke, plus he is older. In fact, I pulled out some plays and I want our quarterbacks to watch him operate. He is impressive. I'm not saying he is a great player, but all the little mechanics, his faking, how he audibles, all the stuff he does you could tell the experience. That is the difference between John Turman last year and this year. It is remarkable. If you all knew what he has to do mentally to call a play in the huddle you would be in shock. He has improved himself tremendously because he had approximately seventy-five or eighty pass plays where he has to negotiate the formation. We don't do a lot of signaling on the side lines. That means a guy has really got to get it. We'll give maybe one or two tips as to what the play call is. To spit it out in the huddle and get all this started in twenty-five seconds is really remarkable. That is why it is great to have an older quarterback and someone who has been in the system a while.
On the difficulty of calling a running play when the passing game has been so effective: No, not at all. I can't wait until our running game is clicking, because that only makes our passing game better. The more our run game is executing, the better our passing game will be. Now you might not have yards, but you are going to be efficient, and that is what we have to fight to be. We have to score, but we also have to keep the ball. Just like our defense not only has to keep them out of the end zone, but they also have to turn the ball over and get us good field position. It's not just scoring points, it's not just shutting them out. On offense we have to control the ball and keep our defense off the field. In this last game, we had two short drives and I couldn't be more excited. If you analyze the play calling when we got those turnovers, we went after them. We were very aggressive all the way up to the end of the game. I'm not talking about the last drive because there was only ten seconds left. We were going for it the whole time. We did not plan to play Virginia Tech with our hands in our pockets. We planned to go after them with the first shot. That is the way our offensive and defensive staff wanted to be. We wanted to be aggressive which we thought would give our players the best chance to win. From the hindsight looking back at it, that is our job as a coaching staff to give our players an opportunity to win. Looking back, I thought we gave our guys a chance to win. We were awfully close.
On the possible tendency of the players to look past this non-conference game: I pray not. The one thing about this team and this program is that we work hard. We work hard for eleven Saturdays. We've worked long and hard this past winter, spring, summer, and we only have four more chances. I can't believe this football team will look past anybody regardless of their record. All they have to do is turn on the tape and look at some of these athletes run around. I hope that they will bring their "A" game to this game. We also have good leadership with our seniors and our underclassmen. That is one advantage of playing young players. Some of those young players have gotten older now. They've got a lot of football under their belts. Just like I told you going into the Rutgers game. I did not think that following the victory over Penn State our team would not show up. The fact that we showed up and had seven turnovers proved the fact that is team showed up. We just had some carelessness that we haven't had since.
On the present mood of the team: I think our team was quiet. I think our team took the loss hard, they should. It was a tremendous effort. I don't know how many people in this room would give us a chance. You don't have to tell me, but I don't know how many people in this room thought we could get that close. We were hurt. We were really hurt, but we also have goals and a lot of good football left. We know we have a big game this weekend and a chance for us to get to six wins which would give us mathematically a winning season. It would give us a chance to possibly give us a chance to play a twelfth game. There are not that many of our players who were born before 1980. They know what it is like to play in front of ex-football players. I think they realize the responsibility we have to those ex-players who were on that Gator Bowl team. They are not coming here to see us lose. I think they know who will be there watching them. I'm sure with all the fanfare that is getting ready to erupt around here, I'm sure they will be more and more aware. I think they have a good grip. We know what our job is. Nobody will be satisfied, including ourselves, unless we are able to get the job done. As I told them before, the good football teams prepare. We have to have emotional and physical effort just like we had last week.
On the North Carolina team: They are a little bit like us, not able to get over the hump. You look at their schedule and I think they feel like they have three games that they have an even up chance of winning or better. That is all good football players need is confidence that we can make this happen and turn in a successful season. You are going to see two teams that are hungry for victory. That is all I know.
On the Pittsburgh team lacking confidence: No, I don't think that. I think the only thing missing is us finishing games. We have to make it happen. We have to finish the football game regardless of overtime. Now you're talking about excellence too, so it's not like we are purposely not finishing games. In the critical games we've got to find a way to win. We've had two hard fought football games that got down to late in the game and we didn't finish them. It is easy to have the clicker and run it back and forth saying we should have done this, we should have done that. We have to be a little more consistent. I've said after both games I am tremendously proud of the way our team has played. There is nobody perfect. I'm far from perfect and I contributed to some of those setbacks as well. I could have called a better play, been more upbeat on the sidelines, or maybe let mistakes go a little easier.
On the frustration factor of seeing Virginia Tech run the ball consistently: They have four seniors on the offensive line and they've been to seven bowl games in a row. This will be their eighth. That says their program is a lot further ingrained than our program. We are playing a lot of young football players. I wish we weren't, I wish they were all redshirt juniors or redshirt seniors, but they are not. Someday, as we get this program squared away, we will have more of that. We have eleven seniors this year. We are playing with ten right now, that is not very many. That is why I am very proud and gratified with the effort that our players and coaches have given. We have five new coaches. We are just close. A coach, a competitor like I am, I wasn't a very good player, but at least I was a competitor. It is just hard to handle getting close and not getting it done. We were very close to a team that is recognized nationally as one of the best football programs in America and right now one of the best teams in America. We were very, very close, it was hard, but that one is behind us so lets move on.
On the evaluation of John Turman: John, I think, had his best two games back to back. I don't have to worry about his head getting big. He is very humble. I see him improving game to game which is very gratifying. He has a high degree of "want to get better." He is an intense competitor. He believes in our players. He made some fabulous big time throws in this last game. I mean big, big time throws. He made some real important runs and ran the show for us. He was the field general, got us in the right plays, called the formations without any problems. He had one protection problem. He just really played how I expected him to. He is getting most of practice time now and it shows. It shows in the way he is playing. He is developing more and more confidence in what we do and also more and more confidence in those guys he is throwing to. He needs us to run the ball better and he needs to throw it away quicker so that we don't get them all excited when they sack us. Reflecting back on the game for a minute, we were stuck down there against the wind. I think that second and third quarter lasted forever. We were punting against that wind, kicking into the wind. We had horrible field position for offense and for defense. That just made it harder. That really restricts a lot of the things you do in a game. When you don't have a long field to defend that makes it hard. I think that contributed to our problems. It was funny, there were times when they had the ball the wind died down. I looked at those ribbons hanging from the goal posts and the wind died down when they were going against the wind. I don't know what Frank Beamer's got going for him, but we sure didn't have it.
On the starting punter: We are going to continue to practice and compete. A great example of unselfishness on our football team, as well as the character of the Junko's, is when Andy Lee got that punt off Jay Junko was the first to congratulate him when he walked off the field. That is another example of why we coach. We coach because life is all about being respectful of your teammates and caring for the success of your teammates. That is exciting for us.
On the continuing increase of popularity in the passing game throughout college football today: You talk to any defensive coordinator, he will say you've got to stop the run and control the pass. The pass is hit and miss. I'll be the first one to tell you that. I think I know a little bit about the passing game. The games that we were able to run very well, I bet we threw very well. That is our goal, we've got to run the ball very well. Sometimes that might not be fifty times, it could be thirty times. When we run the ball well, the passing game will be more effective. Some teams are throwing it all the time and being very effective. I didn't grow up that way. I grew up as a defensive coach and basically a very conservative guy. That is why John Turman is not being coached by an offensive coach. He is being coached by a defensive coach that is coaching offense. That changes how I go about doing things; therefore, he has to go about doing it that way. If it is not open you better not be throwing the ball. I don't want a quarterback thinking he can throw it in there every little hole. If it is not wide open we try to move down in progression, take the high percentage and punt.
On receiving any complimentary phone calls: My mother, that is very big. I'm not out in the public, I'm isolated. I'm here, don't see anything. When I'm driving to the office it is dark and when I'm driving home it is dark. I don't see anybody, talk to anybody, or sense anything. I don't have time to return hardly and of the phone calls I get. I sense there is some excitement about what is going on. I'm gratified by that because everyone involved has contributed to this momentum. We are getting to the point where we are right there. We just have to kick the door in and finish it. I'm optimistic that it is going to happen. I hope it happens this season. I think everyone is excited by being in this beautiful environment and this beautiful building. I think everyone has had the opportunity to get more interested in us, and we've been getting them interested as well. I got a call from our chancellor, Mark Nordenberg, and he told me that they shut down some of their alumni functions until the game was over. So that is the biggest name besides my mother who called me.
On going back to the drawing board on Rod Rutherford: Rod is a redshirt freshman. The games have been real tight. I tried to get him in the game plans, but the games have been real tight. I think John is running with the ball so to speak, and every time Rod is in John is not. We sometimes jump offsides when Rod is in there, and that is disconcerting to everyone involved. I think we have run the option quite a bit with Rod and Virginia Tech was ready for it, even though one time we should have had a big play. We didn't execute it right. Going back to Rod, we are back to the job of finding his spot in the game plan.
On Rod Rutherford being the cause of the jumping offsides: The way I have been taught is the second and third quarterbacks need to have the same cadence as the starting quarterback. Someone asked me several weeks ago, "How do you feel about David Priestley now that John is the starter?" I told them I was more concerned about John and how John is doing than David. It's the same mind-set. The other quarterbacks' cadence have to be exactly like John's because John is the one that they hear the most. They have to be like his, and I think that Rod's cadence is obviously not quite the same as John's. So Rod has to get more towards John's cadence. And who knows what the reason was. The two were linemen and one was a wide receiver. The wide receiver is never supposed to jump offsides because he is not listening to the cadence, he is supposed to be watching the ball. The bottom line is it happens. That is frustrating for Rod, it's frustrating for everybody. We still recognize he can contribute quite a bit to our game plan. We just need to find the right niche.
On the possibility of seeing Rod Rutherford at wide receiver: I think it just depends on how we decide we want to attack North Carolina, and what is the best spot to put him. I am not saying at all that he won't be a quarterback. Not at all. It is just hard on the road. Plus, he has been hurt and hurt is just not as easy. There is nobody else, because really Rod is a third team player for us. In my mind-set, we are the only team in America that is playing a third team player. We think that he is important enough because of his talent and what he can contribute to our football team.