Opening statement
"That was an interesting game. Started and a lot of different things happened. It’s a good win for our team, coming here and playing is not easy, as everyone knows. A lot of different things happened during the game. Our team was very resilient. We had a number of guys that had to step up and play because other guys were injured. We talk all the time about how you have to be ready, you have to practice hard, you have to compete. It’s not easy. I told the team ‘if you know you’re not a starter or you’re a guy that’s not going to get in much in a game, it’s difficult to practice hard and get prepared to play.’ We had to play guys today that thought they weren’t going to play much today. Obviously that had to. I told them we appreciated their commitment to the team. Obviously we rushed the ball for almost eight yards a carry. You run the ball that much, you give yourself a really good chance. Offensively, to be able to finish drives in the fourth quarter and to finish the game isn’t something we haven’t done in a while, but we’ve been better the last three or four weeks. Obviously we were really good at it today. Defensively we played good with the exception of in the first half we couldn’t get off the field on third down. We gave up too many third downs. In the latter part of the game, the quarterback got loose on us a couple of times. We even had a contain rusher on him and he still outran us and got loose on us. Overall, we won the turnover battle. We have a few things in special teams that we need to clean up, things that are very uncommon for us with some mistakes we made today. We have to clean up in the special teams area and a few too many penalty yards. Other than that, it was a really good win for our guys and they competed. I was proud of the way they continued to battle back, but it’s the way it is. It’s college football. There’s no telling what’s going to happen week-to-week. With all of the parity out there, these games are going to be fourth quarter games pretty much every week."
Who did you play that you weren’t expecting to?
Leon Johnson played. Shettron was playing more than normal then he went out. (Jason Brooks) went out so (Cole) Birmingham went back in. (Taylor) Miterko had to go in and play some. (D.J. McKinney) went out and at one point we moved him to outside linebacker…Played a lot of different corners and safeties in this game. We held up okay at defensive line it looks like, and at linebacker.
What did you call on the fourth down towards the end of the game?
"Bryan (Nardo) and them made a good call. They had a defense called where they could penetrate inside and force the quarterback to keep the ball. They put Kendal on the quarterback. Obviously he ran and made a really good play. They were 0-for-2 (on fourth down). Knock on wood, but we’ve been very good on fourth downs this year. We put Kendal on the quarterback. We knew we had to put someone on him that had a good angle because he’s so fast. They felt like the quarterback would be activated in the run game on that down and distance."
What has Ollie Gordon been able to do after the bye week?
Before we played Iowa State, I told you we’d kind of settled on a different package in our running game. I was hoping that would be it moving forward. I told our offensive staff this is what we’re going to do and we’re not changing anymore. We’re into five or six weeks of it now, counting the open week. Essentially we want to get him going downhill. He’s that type of runner. We just wanted to get him going downhill, make cuts and use his strengths. The other guys are doing good with it also, but we’re so fortunate because he’s so big and strong that he can stay in and get a lot of carries. He had 29 carries.
What do you tell him after he scores four touchdowns, three of them in the fourth quarter?
I haven’t talked to him yet, but my message would be to stay humble. He’s been hungry for a month and a half and he’s playing good. I was concerned about it last week and I told him, ‘Ollie you need to stay humble. You’re only as good as tomorrow. You’re only as good as your next practice. You’re only as good as your next game. Cincinnati could care less what you did.’ Last week I said the same thing and I think West Virginia could care less what he did. He needs to stay humble and stay hungry. If he does that, he’ll be fine. As soon as he starts thinking that he’s arrived, it’s just kind of karma, man. It doesn’t work out well, that’s my opinion. That would be the message.
Did Ollie have any injury in the first half?
He was down for a while, but then they said he was OK so I didn’t even ask what it was.
You muff the punt early and they muffed the punt with the lead later in the game. How big was that to get the ball back?
It gave us life on the road. They had stopped us. Crowd and momentum was on their side. We were skateboarding uphill a little bit and when they dropped it, it gave us life. At that time, I think it was tied…I was thinking, if we can use the clock and kick a field goal, I feel good. That was 21 points later. We ended up with 48. That was a huge momentum lift for our team because we had lost momentum at that particular time. It was a big deal for us to get the ball back.
When Ollie is running like he is, how does that open up other things, like the option pass touchdown to Presley?
When that started happening in the end of the third quarter, start of the fourth quarter, — I’m not the smartest coach in the world, but I said ‘We gotta lean on Ollie.’ We have to make them stop Ollie and pound him. We did. We found different ways to run the ball, but still allowed him because he was rolling. It was interesting — they were playing three over two on our two receivers the whole game. The ball was cutting back to the back side where there was no support player. I was a little surprised with that.
In this three-game win streak, there have been a lot of big plays allowed on defense, but the defense has hunkered down at the end of games. Who is that a credit to?
Defense played good in the first (half), we just have to get off the field on third down. The one that they threw on Cam Epps over his head, that’s a Cover 2. He’s a Cover 2 safety. He could have been all the way in North Carolina and should not have been run by. Nardo had a great call, we just didn’t run it right. Again, they’re freshmen. When you’re playing with freshmen, they’re going to make some mistakes. Unfortunately, (Cam Smith), (D.J. McKinney), (Epps) and (Dylan Smith) are going to learn on the run. The drive they went down and scored before they onsided, we fell into the trap of what teams do every Saturday all the time when you get up by multiple scores, there isn’t much time in the game, you start playing soft, you rush three people, the quarterback runs around, throws the ball down the field and they go 75 yards in a minute. Then we always come back and say, ‘I don’t know why we did that. We should have just played defense.’ But we kind of shot ourselves in the foot doing that. Three man rush against him, as active as he is, is difficult. It gives him a lot of time. That’s something we can improve on.
What was your impression of the way the defense played against Garrett Greene?
We felt like they want to run the ball and we needed to stop the run. This is the fourth week in a row for us where we’ve played a team that would prefer to run the ball, in our opinion. Neal is a really smart offensive coach, but his history over a long history of time is about 67% run. So we knew that we had to stop the run going into the game. We did a good job with that. He got loose on us a couple of times, as I said. I wish it wouldn't have happened because he rolls pretty good. He gets outside and he’s hard to get down. He covers some ground pretty quick.
Is Ollie Gordon a running back that gets stronger as the game goes on?
Yes. Some guys do that. Keith Toston used to do that. Keith Toston was better in the fourth quarter than he was in the first quarter. You’ve been to every game, if someone were to ask if he gets stronger, you would have to say yes.
"That was an interesting game. Started and a lot of different things happened. It’s a good win for our team, coming here and playing is not easy, as everyone knows. A lot of different things happened during the game. Our team was very resilient. We had a number of guys that had to step up and play because other guys were injured. We talk all the time about how you have to be ready, you have to practice hard, you have to compete. It’s not easy. I told the team ‘if you know you’re not a starter or you’re a guy that’s not going to get in much in a game, it’s difficult to practice hard and get prepared to play.’ We had to play guys today that thought they weren’t going to play much today. Obviously that had to. I told them we appreciated their commitment to the team. Obviously we rushed the ball for almost eight yards a carry. You run the ball that much, you give yourself a really good chance. Offensively, to be able to finish drives in the fourth quarter and to finish the game isn’t something we haven’t done in a while, but we’ve been better the last three or four weeks. Obviously we were really good at it today. Defensively we played good with the exception of in the first half we couldn’t get off the field on third down. We gave up too many third downs. In the latter part of the game, the quarterback got loose on us a couple of times. We even had a contain rusher on him and he still outran us and got loose on us. Overall, we won the turnover battle. We have a few things in special teams that we need to clean up, things that are very uncommon for us with some mistakes we made today. We have to clean up in the special teams area and a few too many penalty yards. Other than that, it was a really good win for our guys and they competed. I was proud of the way they continued to battle back, but it’s the way it is. It’s college football. There’s no telling what’s going to happen week-to-week. With all of the parity out there, these games are going to be fourth quarter games pretty much every week."
Who did you play that you weren’t expecting to?
Leon Johnson played. Shettron was playing more than normal then he went out. (Jason Brooks) went out so (Cole) Birmingham went back in. (Taylor) Miterko had to go in and play some. (D.J. McKinney) went out and at one point we moved him to outside linebacker…Played a lot of different corners and safeties in this game. We held up okay at defensive line it looks like, and at linebacker.
What did you call on the fourth down towards the end of the game?
"Bryan (Nardo) and them made a good call. They had a defense called where they could penetrate inside and force the quarterback to keep the ball. They put Kendal on the quarterback. Obviously he ran and made a really good play. They were 0-for-2 (on fourth down). Knock on wood, but we’ve been very good on fourth downs this year. We put Kendal on the quarterback. We knew we had to put someone on him that had a good angle because he’s so fast. They felt like the quarterback would be activated in the run game on that down and distance."
What has Ollie Gordon been able to do after the bye week?
Before we played Iowa State, I told you we’d kind of settled on a different package in our running game. I was hoping that would be it moving forward. I told our offensive staff this is what we’re going to do and we’re not changing anymore. We’re into five or six weeks of it now, counting the open week. Essentially we want to get him going downhill. He’s that type of runner. We just wanted to get him going downhill, make cuts and use his strengths. The other guys are doing good with it also, but we’re so fortunate because he’s so big and strong that he can stay in and get a lot of carries. He had 29 carries.
What do you tell him after he scores four touchdowns, three of them in the fourth quarter?
I haven’t talked to him yet, but my message would be to stay humble. He’s been hungry for a month and a half and he’s playing good. I was concerned about it last week and I told him, ‘Ollie you need to stay humble. You’re only as good as tomorrow. You’re only as good as your next practice. You’re only as good as your next game. Cincinnati could care less what you did.’ Last week I said the same thing and I think West Virginia could care less what he did. He needs to stay humble and stay hungry. If he does that, he’ll be fine. As soon as he starts thinking that he’s arrived, it’s just kind of karma, man. It doesn’t work out well, that’s my opinion. That would be the message.
Did Ollie have any injury in the first half?
He was down for a while, but then they said he was OK so I didn’t even ask what it was.
You muff the punt early and they muffed the punt with the lead later in the game. How big was that to get the ball back?
It gave us life on the road. They had stopped us. Crowd and momentum was on their side. We were skateboarding uphill a little bit and when they dropped it, it gave us life. At that time, I think it was tied…I was thinking, if we can use the clock and kick a field goal, I feel good. That was 21 points later. We ended up with 48. That was a huge momentum lift for our team because we had lost momentum at that particular time. It was a big deal for us to get the ball back.
When Ollie is running like he is, how does that open up other things, like the option pass touchdown to Presley?
When that started happening in the end of the third quarter, start of the fourth quarter, — I’m not the smartest coach in the world, but I said ‘We gotta lean on Ollie.’ We have to make them stop Ollie and pound him. We did. We found different ways to run the ball, but still allowed him because he was rolling. It was interesting — they were playing three over two on our two receivers the whole game. The ball was cutting back to the back side where there was no support player. I was a little surprised with that.
In this three-game win streak, there have been a lot of big plays allowed on defense, but the defense has hunkered down at the end of games. Who is that a credit to?
Defense played good in the first (half), we just have to get off the field on third down. The one that they threw on Cam Epps over his head, that’s a Cover 2. He’s a Cover 2 safety. He could have been all the way in North Carolina and should not have been run by. Nardo had a great call, we just didn’t run it right. Again, they’re freshmen. When you’re playing with freshmen, they’re going to make some mistakes. Unfortunately, (Cam Smith), (D.J. McKinney), (Epps) and (Dylan Smith) are going to learn on the run. The drive they went down and scored before they onsided, we fell into the trap of what teams do every Saturday all the time when you get up by multiple scores, there isn’t much time in the game, you start playing soft, you rush three people, the quarterback runs around, throws the ball down the field and they go 75 yards in a minute. Then we always come back and say, ‘I don’t know why we did that. We should have just played defense.’ But we kind of shot ourselves in the foot doing that. Three man rush against him, as active as he is, is difficult. It gives him a lot of time. That’s something we can improve on.
What was your impression of the way the defense played against Garrett Greene?
We felt like they want to run the ball and we needed to stop the run. This is the fourth week in a row for us where we’ve played a team that would prefer to run the ball, in our opinion. Neal is a really smart offensive coach, but his history over a long history of time is about 67% run. So we knew that we had to stop the run going into the game. We did a good job with that. He got loose on us a couple of times, as I said. I wish it wouldn't have happened because he rolls pretty good. He gets outside and he’s hard to get down. He covers some ground pretty quick.
Is Ollie Gordon a running back that gets stronger as the game goes on?
Yes. Some guys do that. Keith Toston used to do that. Keith Toston was better in the fourth quarter than he was in the first quarter. You’ve been to every game, if someone were to ask if he gets stronger, you would have to say yes.
