University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Head Coach Jeff Bower's Press Conference Comments
8/30/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Head Football Coach Jeff Bower's Press Conference Comments
HATTIESBURG, Miss.? Southern Miss Head Football Coach Jeff Bower met with media members today, for his first weekly press conference.
Opening Comments:
?We?ve still got a few weeks before we play, but practice has gone well so far. Overall, I was pleased with our scrimmage on Saturday. Some areas were good and some areas need improvement. We managed to accomplish a lot with our scrimmage. We rehearsed a lot of game-type situations and worked in the kicking game. The effort was good, but we got tired towards the end of the scrimmage, which caused us to lose some of our fundamentals and we weren?t as aggressive. We?ve got to keep our intensity consistent throughout a scrimmage, game, or practice. We accomplished a lot.
We will start working more on our
We?re getting some injured guys back healthy. We need to know if DaRon Lawrence can play, and he will practice today. We?ll see how his knee holds up. LeVon Pears will return to the field today as well. Otho Graves has an infected tooth and will have a root canal, and he won?t practice until Wednesday. Greg Taylor will have knee surgery today. He has a meniscus tear, so he will miss 10 days to two weeks. Other than that, we just have some minor injuries, but nothing that will keep anyone out of practice.
This is an important week. We?re going to practice Monday through Thursday and condition hard. Then we?ll take a few days off and resume our
On Learning Anything From
?I hope we do. We?ll talk to some people and hopefully we can get a tape of the game. We?ve looked at the Oakland Raiders offense, and there are some similarities in some of the things that we do. There will be some carry over there. Defensively, they are a four down defense. We see a lot of different schemes from our defense. I?m not sure we can see much more. We?ve had to simplify our defense because of our secondary. I think we?ll have a good feel after this week about what we?ll see from
On If
?We?ve done some work on the
On Kenneth Boley?s Shoulder Injury:
?He will eventually need surgery. We may be able to get him through the season, I?m not sure. He is playing with a harness to stabilize the shoulder. He is going to see his army doctor today, and we?ll go from there. He?s been a warrior and a tough guy. He gets out there in practice and gives us a great effort every day. He?s mostly on our scout team, but he does a tremendous job.?
On The Defense?s Improvement:
?We?ve made progress. We need to play better with our defensive line, because we?re really thin there. We?ve had some guys out. We?ve got Chad Ruffin back and he makes a difference for us. I don?t think we played well there in our scrimmages.
On Not Playing This Week:
?It feels so unusual. We?ve been here three weeks, and we?ve got less than two weeks until we play. Maybe in some ways it has been good, because we?ve been able to bring some guys along. I don?t know if we will scrimmage again, but we?ve had some good scrimmages. It has given some guys who haven?t played a chance to gain some experience.?
On Feeling Confident About Where The Team Is At:
?We?re getting there, but we need to condition well this week. We?ve had some guys that have missed time, and they need to catch up. We?ve got a few guys that we?re trying to get their weight down, and give them extra conditioning. I think we?re on schedule. Every day is an important day. There are a lot of things that we need to work on to get better.?
On Being Satisfied With The Offense So Far:
?We?re going to have to stay healthy. Otho Graves is going to have to stay healthy. We?re going to have to stay healthy at the wide receiver position, because we have so little depth there. If we manage to do that, we?ll be ok. We haven?t thrown the ball well during the last week. Maybe some of that is because we?re moving some of our receivers around, and we?ve got guys doubling up at two different positions because of our lack of depth. We have to make some improvement. I?m pleased with the way we?ve ran the football. We?ve got to get better throwing the ball. We?re not making some good decisions at times, and that is a big emphasis for us this week. That?s why it?s so important to get DaRon Lawrence back, and I?m looking forward to getting Chris Johnson back on Thursday.?
On The Back-Up Quarterback Position:
?Damion Carter is our back-up right now. Jeremy Young did not have a good scrimmage on Saturday. He struggled somewhat. We?re going to start working our true freshmen a little bit. Jeremy?s got to come on. Damion did some good things. He played about seven snaps at receiver, and we probably need to get him some more reps there, but that is a tough call right now. He?s obviously our back-up quarterback, and we have to give him more attention there than at receiver.?
If Being Hesitant To Use Carter At Receiver If He?s The Back-Up Quarterback:
?We?ll have a plan. He?s got a lot to learn at receiver. He?s worked more at quarterback than receiver. We?ll look at our situation at that time, but the plan right now is to play him some at receiver. That may change, but it depends on our personnel.?
On If He?s Ever Had A Player To Play On A Torn ACL:
?Yes. Roy Magee did. Everybody?s make-up is different, but it?s unusual. I hope DaRon can do it. I think he?s having a tough time getting used to the brace. We really need him. He?s been favoring the brace, and I?m not going to put him on the field until he?s mentally ready. Today won?t be a scrimmage situation, but at some point we?ve got to find out about him, and he?s got to find out about himself.?
