University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Coach Fedora Weekly Media Conference Quotes...Nov. 2, 2009
11/2/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 2, 2009
Southern Miss Head Coach Larry Fedora
WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Opening statement:
"After looking at the film, and breaking it down, obviously there were a lot of good things that happened in the game and a lot of bad things that happened in the game. Anytime you play a really good football team, you've got to get on all cylinders in all the areas and we didn't do that.
"Starting in the kicking game, you can't miss extra points and chip shot field goals. When you go out there, you've got to put the ball through the uprights. That's the job and that's what we've got to get done. On offense, obviously there were some drives we would have liked to have finished off. I would've liked to have seen what would've happened if we hadn't turned that ball over right before the half. We've got some things that we have to work on.
"I thought that (quarterback) Martevious Young played really well. I thought Gerald Baptiste had quite a few opportunities to make plays and he made plays. The style of defense they were playing, they took away some of our outside guys and gave us things on the inside and that's why our inside slots had some catches. We ran the ball like we thought we would be able to and thought we did a pretty good job of taking care of the football. Defensively, I thought we played well in the first half considering who we were playing. Third quarter we held them to three points. (In the) fourth quarter, we gave up something like 218 yards on eight plays. So, we pretty much fell apart in the fourth quarter. That was the game.
We've got some things to work on going into this open week. We've got to get our guys back mentally and physically. We're beat up. (We've been going without a break) for 13 straight weeks. That takes a toll on you mentally as much as physically. We've got to get those guys back and put enough work in this week to keep them sharp and get them prepared, but we've got to give them enough rest so that they are mentally ready to go."
On block extra points:
"Both [blocked extra points] were low kicks. There was no penetration on either one of them. They just jumped up on the other side of ball and blocked it."
On the possibility of changing kickers:
"We'll go through this week and next week and make an evaluation then make our decision. It's definitely up for grabs."
On the special teams play:
"It's a whole different ball game (if there had been no lapses in special teams play). You don't know what's going to happen, or what the dynamics of the ball game are going to be if you just take care of those little things. You can't miss extra points. Those will always come back to bite you."
On the attitude of the team heading into a bye week:
"If you go into it off a win, everybody has a lot of confidence and a great feeling. If you go in after a loss, especially the way we lost this game, it's difficult. Having a bye week late in the year like this, it's tough because you go for 13 straight weeks. We need the break. We really need the break."
On the drive for a C-USA East Division title:
"Every game is a playoff game now. We've got to take care of business and it all starts with Marshall. The great thing about it, there is only one team in the East that only has one loss and we still have to play them. In a sense, we control our own destiny and maybe end up playing Houston for the conference championship."
On winning on the road:
"I spent a lot of time yesterday dissecting what we do on the road and talking to the coaches to see what changes we need to do to shake things up on the road. When we really looked at it, we're doing the things that we think are right. I don't necessarily think that it was a road game that we came up short. They are good on offense and have good personnel. I don't think their crowd or their stadium had a thing to do with the outcome of that game, in my opinion. It was more about the way we played and we just didn't get it done. I know it's supposed to be hard to play on the road but I still believe the things we are doing are the right things to do."
On close losses on the road:
"It's frustrating. It's frustrating for the coaches, for the players, and I'm sure for the fans. We'll continue to work hard on it. We don't just tell them to work on one phase and say those other two phases are ok, so let's just emphasize this phase. That's not the way we do it. We emphasize all three phases each and every week. Believe it or not, we work on extra points. We actually do it every day. We just have to continue to work on it."
On defensive play in the fourth quarter:
"One of the biggest things was that we lost leverage on some of those crossing routes. When you lose leverage and a guy gets outside, you have everybody else in coverage and that guy is going to make a play. There were two runs that we gave up and six passes for 218 yards. If you jump in there a few times, (you stop that). We couldn't run with those guys that were running those crossing routes underneath. That's just a speed matchup. The times we kept leverage on them, we stopped the play. There's no magic to what they were doing. We just lost leverage, and you can't do that."
On defensive consistency:
"We've got to become more consistent if we're going to become a really good defensive team. We go through a lapse in each game that good defensive teams don't do. We've got to learn to play a full four quarters. That was a difficult game on the defense. The tempo that Houston goes at with their substitutions, the way they do things, they do a great job. Nobody has stopped them. They are the No. 1 offense in the country. It's not like our defense just went out there and fell apart. I thought they played fairly well in the first half and gave us some opportunities. We came back in the third quarter and held them to three points and they created three turnovers which is one of the things we said had to be done in this game. I don't know if we ran out of gas or what it was."
On Damion Fletcher:
"I'm sure it's been frustrating for him to have these nagging injuries that have kept him under 100 percent. I thought he played real well the other day. He did a nice job. The times they blitzed, both he and (Tory Harrison) did a heck of a job on protection. They tried to get to us and they never really did. Damion, I think, is still on track to reach a lot of goals he had coming into this season. I know the No. 1 goal was to win the East and that's still out there, and I think he's going to do everything he can to get us there."
On staying focused after a tough loss:
"It's still another thing we have to take care of. We have some guys that are down. They know we were in that game. They know we could have won that game. There was probably nobody out there that thought we could win that football game except the guys on our team. Our guys are disappointed. They can all pick out one or two things that if they would have done it better, or a little bit harder, or seen it on film one more time and reacted a little bit differently, they could have been the difference in that game. They're down right now. It's our job to get them back, and we will. We'll get out there today and have a practice and get this game put behind us. Tuesday, we start thinking about Marshall. I don't doubt that they'll get back and they'll fight just like they have every game"
On quarterback Martevious Young:
"He's given us a chance to win in each game that he's been a starter. He's taken care of the football and that was the No. 1 thing we said he's got to do. If he does that, we have a chance to win. Again (on Saturday against Houston), he took care of the football. He put the one ball on the ground, but he's done a great job of (taking care of the football). He hasn't thrown into coverage. He's done a good job of taking the ball where it needs to be taken and I'm proud of him for that."
