Meet the Press: Coach Wannstedt Discusses the USF Game

Nov. 19, 2007

Dave Wannstedt

South Florida Week

November 19, 2007

Opening Statement:

Before you even ask about the last play of the game, it is what it is. I have my opinion; I've addressed the people - as far as how I feel about it - in the league office and I'll just leave it at that. I'm tired of talking about it, to be quite honest with you, and everybody can just make their own evaluation about it. I just sent everything in this morning. I wanted to double check everything and obviously we couldn't mail anything yesterday. We wanted to be sure about my thoughts and we sent in our officials report this morning. I would hope to hear something back in the next couple of days, but like I said I'm kind of tired of talking about it -- with my kids and my wife and dog and everybody else to be honest with you.

There were some outstanding efforts, some outstanding performances in that game (against Rutgers). Scott McKillop being named the Defensive Player of the Week in the Big East Conference was well deserved. Obviously he played outstanding and I've coached a lot of great linebackers on all levels. You can read all the stats and numbers. I've always had the coaches grade our players and then we evaluate them by participations. In other words, a kid might play 50 plays and have a sack and caused a fumble and that may be a huge play in the game, it may be the difference in a game. But if that's the only play that he participated in, that's one out of every fifty plays that he's involved in our defense. An outstanding ratio for linebackers, H.B. (Blades) used to be one in five, one in four; Zach Thomas was always about the same. Scott (Saturday) was one in two. It's tough to really comprehend that. One out of every two plays he was involved in somehow, whether it was a tackle, assisted tackle, fumble, knocking a pass down, doing something to pressure the quarterback - that's really how you evaluate defensive players across the board. It's not how many plays or how many big plays they had, but how many times are they participating in relationship to the number of downs that they play.

I thought that overall Rutgers has done a very good job coming into our game as far as protecting the quarterback. They had given up six sacks coming into our game and we were able to get three sacks, so we, for the most part, played pretty good. That one pass play is inexcusable and we have to get that corrected. We've given up two big pass plays the last two weeks and that will get you beat quicker than anything, so we have to make sure we get that corrected and go from there. Special teams, I thought we were okay. Nothing really happened on either side from a special teams standpoint. Conor (Lee) is not going to make every field goal. We'd all like him to make every field goal, he'd like to make every field goal, but that's not going to happen. Overall special teams was solid. And offensively, I think I summed it up after the game. After watching the tape, we had a lot of opportunities to make some plays and we're just not in sync enough on offense as a unit to go out there and execute long drives and put the ball in the end zone. That's disappointing to me, it truly is. I'd like to think that we would be better at this point, regardless of who was playing. Right now we're just not and the only solution is to keep practicing hard and keep working on it and see if we can take a step forward this week.

It'll be a big challenge this week with South Florida. They have a lot of talent, we all know that. They have some outstanding players, one of the best quarterbacks in our conference, maybe the best defensive lineman in our conference. This will be a big challenge for our team.

On the status of Kevan Smith:

Kevan was a lot better today. We actually practiced yesterday and he was somewhat limited, but I expect him to be ready to play Saturday.

On who will be the starting quarterback:

We'll see. I probably won't name a starter until Saturday. We'll practice both and rotate both. We'll see how Kevan is, we'll see how Pat (Bostick) bounces back and make a determination come Saturday.

On Kevan Smith's shoulder injury:

It was not a separation. It was not a separation, he just got banged on it and, like I said, he was out there yesterday and he was limited, but I would expect him when we get back to work tomorrow to be a part of it. So that was good news.

On his apparent improvement from earlier in the season:

Kevan and I talked about it yesterday because I asked him the exact same question. I said, `You didn't look like the same guy that played earlier in the year.' And he said, `Coach, I was just more confident with what we were doing on offense. Things just happened faster.' And when you watch the tape, that would be the way to describe it. His drop was quicker, his release was quicker, when he didn't want to throw it, he tucked it and ran. Everything just happened faster with Kevan (Saturday) than it had previously in the first two of three games that he played.

On Pat Bostick:

He had a great week of practice (leading up to Rutgers). I think the pressure got to him a little bit, and by pressure I mean pass rush pressure - they were in his face. He is a very accurate passer and when he did get away from the pressure, he missed two or three throws that I have not seen him miss since he's been here. That was probably the most disappointing thing, that when he had opportunities to make throws - because he normally hits them - he missed some throws early that might have been first downs and, who knows, at least kept drives going. To go in at halftime zero for six in third downs, one for eight in third downs, one for seven in third downs, you can't score points doing that. We have to be able to convert on third down and it's very difficult to run the ball and convert the third down. You have got to be able to throw it. I thought we had some good schemes for what they were going to do. It was a combination of some pressure up front at times - they did sack us five times. A lot of times with sacks, we have to get rid of the football. We can't sit back there, particularly against a high pressure team like (Rutgers). It's just a learning curve. He came out yesterday and had an excellent practice so I expect him to bounce back.

On Bostick's performance on that last drive:

I think that says a lot for his mental toughness. It says a lot for his character, to jump back in there with two or three minutes to go in the game when we have to score and really put together a decent drive. He got us down there in position to win the game, and when you're behind and you start talking about two-minute drills, the goal in a two-minute drill is to get yourself down there close enough so you have three or four plays to score and win. Most of the time in a two-minute drill you're not going to score on one big play and we're down there on the nine-yard line with plenty of time and one timeout to win the game. That should be enough to get it done, to be quite honest with you.

On the frustration of repeated missed opportunities on the goal line late in games:

Four (times it has occurred). At Michigan State we were first-and-goal at the nine. If we're keeping track, which I am and I know you do too. We've had three in the last couple weeks and if you throw the Michigan State game in, that's four games where we've been first-and-goal with an opportunity to score and we don't get touchdowns. You'd like to think that if you're 50 percent, that's two more wins. We work red zone every Sunday. We come out the day after a game at practice and go full speed red zone and two-minute offense every Sunday and Thursday. We get that twice a week. So it's not a lack of effort on the players' part or the coaches' part. We just have to be more efficient.

On Jovani Chappel's performance:

He did fine. He's going to play a lot this week; Ricky Gary is going to play a lot this week. We'll start K.C. (Kennard Cox) and he's aware that, just like we rotate some of those defensive linemen, we're going to play a couple of those corners. We have to.

On South Florida Quarterback Matt Grothe:

The guy has 970 yards rushing. It's not too often that you come into a game where the quarterback is the leading rusher on the team. He's 30 yards away from 1,000 yards. A lot of it is designed runs, a lot of it is scrambles. From the game last year, it was probably the one game last year where I thought we came out of the gate not ready to play. Even the games that we lost last year, we came out and started fast. That was the one where we didn't. If you remember we kicked the ball out of bounds and they ran a fake punt on us. (Grothe) made two big plays in that game scrambling. We had our arms around him once or twice and he spun out and one time went for 30 yards and another time went for over 20. He's very athletic, very tough. It's amazing as many times that he gets hit that the guy's still the starting quarterback. That doesn't happen. (West Virginia quarterback) Pat White doesn't get hit much, but even Pat White has been banged up and has had to come out of a couple of games. This guy has carried the ball as much as Pat has. He's a tough guy. He's a tough football player.

On South Florida's Defense:

They're a 4-3 team. They have two corners, so they're being a little bit more aggressive this year with their pressure package than they were a year ago and I think it's because they feel good about the coverage on the outside. I expect a lot of pressure on us and for them to try and lock us down. We'll see if we can make some throws into tight coverage, that's what it's going to come down to from a passing standpoint. They're not going to sit back and just play zone and let us catch the ball.

On George Selvie and what needs to be done in order to limit his production:

You need to know where he is all the time. Most of the time he's lined up on the right side. I will say this: I feel good about our two matchups. He'll either be matched up on Jeff Otah or he's going to be matched up on Mike McGlynn. For the most part, we have two guys there who will be ready to play. We'll do some other things from how we attack them run-wise, how we attack them pass-wise to try and help ourselves out a little bit too.

On the offense's "jumbo" package and Rutgers' response to it:

They were trying to slap the ball and jumping offside. It's a smart thing. You'll see it happen on a short inches situation down on the goal line. (The officials) were penalizing (Rutgers) and were moving them a few inches and Rutgers wasn't worried about it. If they would have timed it up right and stopped us without the penalty, the chances of doing that outweigh the penalty, because you're moving the ball. We used the same package up field, if you remember, with Kevan Smith and it was fourth and about a half yard and we made about two-and-a-half. Obviously they weren't going to do that up field and give us the automatic first down. So it was because of where the ball was that they were just taking a chance. There was a surge, you have to be able to make a half of a yard and that's something that we'll work with Pat (Bostick) on in the spring. He's just not real comfortable with the ball in his hand when he has to move, as simple as that sounds.

On where his defense is now compared to where it was after the Virginia game:

I know we've gotten better. Nobody has wavered from what our goals were and how we were going to do it in training camp. The coaches stayed with the same plan, the players bought into the plan early and stayed with it, nobody collapsed during the two or three tough games we had. I think in most of those games you don't ever use it as an excuse, but you also tell the guys the truth. I think for the most part our guys were understanding that because of field position, whatever it was -- onside kicks, kick returns, turnovers -- that teams weren't lining up and having 99-yard drives against us. It was short fields and they were kicking field goals against us and anything that was happening early in the year, from a turnover standpoint, could be corrected. There's no uglier feeling on defense than to feel helpless because physically you cannot stop an opponent and that has not happened to us for a lot of different reasons. It's real encouraging to keep taking a step and a step and another step. This week will be a huge challenge. We have to come out and create some turnovers and come out like we did against Rutgers, to be quite honest, to give our team a chance to win.

On whether success on one of those earlier failed drives inside the 10 would have led to future success:

I don't know if one win does it, but it sure helps from a confidence standpoint. And we have to be real about this, even in the Syracuse game, which we won, we were down there first-and-goal and we don't score. Let's not stick our head in the sand; We have to get better at this, we have to address this. I'm just being very honest with you, I talked to our offensive coaches and our offensive players and we have to get better. We won a game, but if we score on that drive who knows what the end result is. It gives our defense a chance to play with a lead and that changes the whole complexion of the game. That's an area that we have to get a lot better at. You'd like to be balanced down (near the end zone). We've probably been a little heavy with the run, primarily because of the change and inexperience at quarterback. We're trying to be smart and not throw interceptions down there either. We're not doing everything that we'd like to do schematically, but we just have to keep working at it and get better.

Meet the Press: Coach Wannstedt Discusses the USF Game

Players Mentioned

Pat Bostick

Jovani Chappel

Kennard Cox

Ricky Gary

Mike McGlynn

Scott McKillop

Jeff Otah

Kevan Smith

Related Videos