Oct. 30, 2006
Dave Wannstedt
USF Week
October 30, 2006
Opening statement:
It's good to get back at it after the weekend break. We had an opportunity to reflect, our players had a chance to get away from it and hopefully reflect upon what is left to be accomplished for the remainder of the season. Right now we're going to need every ounce of focus and every ounce of concentration that we can muster up to take with us down to South Florida. They're a very talented football team. Their young quarterback (Matt Grothe) is good. He's going to be one of the top guys. Right now he's in the top three in almost every category statistically in the Big East and he will continue to get better. He's a redshirt freshman, he's a very good passer, he's a very good runner with the ball in his hands, he makes a lot of plays, he's made pretty good decisions and I think that's been a real spark for their offense. Their running backs were hurt early on, now they're healthy, but I think their quarterback has really been the difference in the success that they've had on offense. When you look at the statistics in most of the categories they're very close to where we're at as far as total offense, total defense, scoring and so on. So this will be a game that they need to win as bad as we do. They're coming off a tough loss against Cincinnati and a week off as we had - and that should make it for an important ball game and a very good football game.
On the focus of the team:
I was encouraged last week with our workouts leading up to Friday. I think it goes back again to the leaders of our football team. There is a lot of football left, we have a quarter of the season left - two games on the road, two at home. There's a lot of things that can happen in a very positive way if we get back to that same mind-set that we had when we started the season against Virginia. So that will be the theme this week. We have to get back to basics, get refocused and make sure that we worry about one game and one play at a time.
On having a bye week after the loss to Rutgers:
We did get a few guys that were banged up back. But (on the open date) Saturday - I'm not good at watching games on TV and I'm really not good at doing anything around the house, so I might as well have been out there coaching. We were able to reevaluate things from a self-scouting standpoint. We took a good hard look at what's been good, what's been bad - offense, defense and special teams. We tried to put some emphasis on those areas. South Florida does run a little different offensive attack in what we've seen. They're close to the West Virginia read offense, so the extra day or two was good for us to get that introduced to the players and get started on that. So there were probably advantages in that way but as a coach you want to be playing every week. Coming off a tough loss, you want to have the opportunity to get out there and go prove yourself again.
On USF's offense:
It's a form of the option. The quarterback, he has the ability to keep it any time he wants - very similar to what West Virginia does. So I think that he makes good decisions. He ran a similar offensive attack in high school. Coming out of his senior year of high school he was a 1,000-yard rusher, so this is not something new to him. That's the biggest challenge - the last couple weeks, the teams that we've played - Rutgers, Syracuse, Central Florida - that wasn't their form of attack. It was the tailback and they were a running back oriented offense. Give the ball to the back and they (the quarterback) would only scramble when they had to. Part of their (USF's) offensive attack is for the quarterback to keep the ball and run, so that's what separates them and makes them a little bit different.
On the status of Ernest "Mick" Williams:
Mick (Williams) had (shoulder) surgery. He was operated on Friday afternoon and it was successful so he'll be out for the remainder of the year. (His situation is) very unfortunate because coming out of training camp I had him slotted as a starter for us. I thought he was really going to make some strides - which he was at the time. He and (Doug) Fulmer are two guys that were starters on our young defensive line that we really didn't get many opportunities to play them. That's tough. Both guys were redshirted a year ago, him and Fulmer. Doug played only (four) games before he was hurt and Mick was a spot player for us, so neither guy really had an opportunity to take advantage of that redshirt year - that's what bothers me.
On injuries at the free safety position:
You know what's funny is Mike Phillips a year ago, I looked at him as the playmaker back in the secondary. He gets hurt and, really, Eric Thatcher was playing better then he was. Eric Thatcher was making tackles, making interceptions, knocking balls down. Mike played better last week but he's still coming back from that injury and he'll tell you he's 100 percent and he's out there doing everything we ask of him but really it's still a work in progress.
On the performance of the defensive line against Rutgers:
I think you have to look at that Rutgers game and see we had horrible field position but we went into the locker room and had only given up six points. Those guys were playing pretty good, I was very pleased with our defense. It's a crying shame that the one big play turned the thing upside down. Did our defensive line make enough plays? No. They did not. They didn't play as well as they could have but it wasn't just our defensive line. Those guys didn't have anything to do with that long run. They did have chances to make plays and they missed a few tackles in the hole and we tried some movement stuff but we just weren't very effective.
On USF's performance against Rutgers:
The quarterback make a lot of plays, made a lot of plays on his feet. Rutgers turned the ball over, Teel, their (Rutgers) quarterback threw an interception and South Florida had a big punt return. So they turned the ball over - Rutgers did on interceptions - and their (USF's) quarterback really had a big day running the ball and they lost some valuable field position because of a big punt return.
On USF's football program:
We know that they're well coached. They're building all new facilities. Size-wise, it's a large school and they have a large base to draw from. If you look at their team right now there's probably four or five guys on their team that will be playing next year on Sunday's, so they've got talented players.
On quarterback Tyler Palko and offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh's relationship:
I don't think it was ever bad but there was a transition. Tyler's really had an advantage. He's got Matt now - who in my opinion is one of the better quarterback coaches anywhere on any level and he had Walt (Harris), who is one of the better quarterback teachers that you're going to find. So Tyler's really had an opportunity to be coached by two really good coaches that know that position. I think because Walt was good and Matt comes in, there are changes. There's a little bit of difference and I think it took some time to adjust. As a staff I think Matt got a better idea of what Tyler could do - what were his strengths, how we could best utilize what he could do to move the ball, to score points. The biggest thing with players is it comes down to trust. I noticed a change (in their relationship) probably somewhere in the second week of spring practice. I walked away from that spring thinking we made some progress. They both started seeing things the same way and Tyler is smart enough, he's very intelligent to notice that I have this guy in front of me who has coached (Steve) Young and some of the best quarterbacks in the league. I'm going to suck in what he's telling me and take advantage of it.
On bouncing back from the Rutgers loss:
We need to get back to doing what we did earlier, why we won. I'm not happy with where we're at, nobody is. You always see yourself as having an opportunity to get better but we have four games left and we want to play our best football at the end. So the key is to get back on track this week and pick up where we were when we started the season.
On Pitt's Florida players going back home:
We do have 21 players from Florida. It's going to be the same family members coming and the same excitement there (as was the case for the Central Florida game). Our guys know the importance of this game. All those things on top of going back home and playing give us a lot of reasons to be excited about playing, whether you're from Florida or not.
