University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Head Coach Larry Fedora's Weekly Press Conference Transcript
12/1/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 1, 2008
Opening Statement:
“Looking back at the SMU game, it probably wasn’t a pretty game, especially in the first half. We were probably a little too tight as a team going into it. At halftime, we really made no adjustments, offensively or defensively. It wasn’t the plays being run or the defense that was being called. It was just a little bit of an attitude problem for us, so we just changed our attitude at halftime. We came out and played much better in the second half and we felt fortunate to be bowl-eligible.”
On feelings of the team’s success and improvement over the past four games:
“I’m extremely proud of this football team and its coaches. We were 2-6 at one time, and everybody had written us off and probably the only guys in the room that still believed it could be done were the players and the coaches. They just kept their blinders on focused on what they needed to do. I can’t tell you how proud I am of them because their character was revealed at that time, and we found out a lot about this team.”
On if there was a particular moment that turned the team around:
“There’s really not one thing that I could pin it on. We didn’t change anything; we just kept doing things the exact same way because we felt as a coaching staff that the things we were doing were the right things to do. We just weren’t making the plays we needed to make, and from (the UAB game) on, our guys started to make plays. Defensively, (during the winning streak) we gave up less than 7 points per game. When you do that, you’re going to win football games.”
On thoughts of a bowl opponent:
“It doesn’t really matter who we have. We have no control over it, so we’re just happy to be bowl-eligible and to be playing in a bowl and we’re going to be fired up anywhere we go.”
On who the staff is targeting during recruiting trips:
“Great players. We’ll take them at any position.”
On his most rewarding part of the season:
“Watching this team come from the bottom, watching them fight back, watching their character be revealed. Finding out what I thought was there was really there. That was big because I thought it was there. You never know how people are going to react when people are in that position, when you’re on the bottom. Everyone can do it when you’re winning, but the ones that can claw their way back up from the bottom are the special ones.”
On his biggest learning experience as a head coach:
“I learned that you can’t do it all. I’m very fortunate because I had a really good staff of coaches. I had to learn how to delegate things and let them do what they are really good at. It took me a while to learn that, to be honest with you, and I still have trouble with it every day. I’m very fortunate to have the guys that I have.”
On DeAndre Brown’s status for the bowl game:
“He is eligible to play in a bowl game. He can start. We talked to the conference office today, and he is good to go. All I know is the way it ended up is that he was not ejected (from the SMU game) for fighting.”
On the changes of the defensive play:
“The main difference was, one, no matter what was being said, those guys believed it what was being said and believed in those coaches. They saw that they were just (a small amount) away, and all we did from that point on was just ask for that much more from each and every person in the room. Each player, each coach, myself, everybody. And I said it before, you put that much more together a bunch of times and you can do a bunch of things with it. We started making plays. That’s what we did defensively. Where we were maybe apprehensive, waiting, not making those plays, that far too late on a tackle, or that far too late on a pass breakup. We turned it loose and just started playing, and they saw that they could make plays. Obviously as your confidence grows, you start making more and more plays and I think that’s what happened.”
On any off-field moments that may have turned the team around:
“There wasn’t any one moment. The seniors called a meeting, and we talked about it, we could pack it up or we could keep fighting, and they wanted to keep fighting. I just wanted to know that they wanted to keep fighting. Then the seniors had a meeting with the team and said, ‘This is what we want to do.’ Whether that was the turning point, I don’t know. I never questioned how hard they were working. I never questioned their effort in the game. It didn’t matter. Every one of those games we lost, whether it was Auburn, Boise State, any of them, we played to the end. I mean, we played to the final buzzer in every single one of them. That was a good sign. If it was the other way, then we would have had to worry about it, but they were playing hard the whole time.”
On bowl game preparations:
“My plan, in the early practices, is to get as much time with the younger guys as possible. The guys that are redshirting or the freshmen that are playing, get as much time as possible with them. I still want to keep the older guys polished, but I really want to focus on improving the younger guys. Depending on how many days we get for bowl practices, we’ll lock in on the opposing team and go from there.”
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