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University of Minnesota Athletics
Press Conference 9.2.08
9/2/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Weekly Football Press Conference
Game Week:
Head coach Tim Brewster
Opening statement:
“It's nice to come to the Tuesday press conference being 1-0. Our sole objective as a football team coming into this season was to be a 1-0 football team last Saturday night by about 9:00 PM. I know that some people aren't happy about how close the game was, but our football team is very excited about the victory. I'm very excited about the victory. I give a tremendous amount of credit to Jerry Kill and the
"Adam Weber took our football team down the field with a tremendous time-consuming drive in the fourth quarter I think we got the ball with a little more than five minutes left in the game and we gave them the ball back after we scored with :22 left in the game. We take a tremendous amount of pride in winning the football game the way we did I think it's something that we can really build off of. We've talked about being a fourth quarter football team to be honest, it doesn't matter who the opponent is, if you win in the fourth quarter it's a positive thing. We took a lot of positives out of the game on Saturday night.
"Defensively, we know that we have to be an improved football team to do the things that we want to do this season as a football team. We allowed 73 total yards rushing on 31 carries that's 2.3 yards per rush. Obviously, we haven't done a great job recently stopping the run, but I think we did an outstanding job stopping the run the other night. We had two sudden change' situations where our defense was put on the field after a blocked punt and after a fumble. In both situations, our defense came up big and didn't give up a touchdown that was one of our big goals this year. We had five three-and-outs on defense that's a 39% success rate and our goal is to force three-and-outs on 33% of drives. We had eight tackles for losses, we had zero defensive penalties. I liked a lot of things we did. Now, we did give up some big plays on defense and that's something we'd like to eliminate. I think we're headed in the right direction defensively and I think that people could see that we had a more athletic football team on the field the other night a faster team.
"Offensively, you just have to look at the opening drive: 18 plays and over 9:00 consumed on the clock. It's as good a drive as I've ever seen in football. You can see we've done that on a number of occasions where we've taken the opening drive and gone down and scored. For that, I give a lot of credit to our offensive staff and offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar for putting together a plan to attack the defense on the opening drive with tremendous success. What we're got to do is work on sustaining that momentum we had a couple of lulls during the game, but again, we saw explosive plays from Duane Bennett and Jack Simmons. [Simmons'] play the other night was just outstanding he and Nick Tow-Arnett finding room down the middle of the field is going to do nothing but help us. Eric Decker how good was Eric Decker? I've made the statement that I thought Eric Decker was going to be one of the best wide receivers in the country and a lot of people thought I was crazy. I think everybody understands now that Eric Decker is as good a wide receiver as there is in the country."
On
"Defensively, they're very solid as well. They'll play four down lineman in front most of the time and they've got an excellent safety. They've got a lot of talent, speed and athleticism on their football team. Greg Brandon has been there now for a good while and he's got a heck of a football program. It's going to be a tremendous challenge for us, in the second year of our program, to go in there to play at
On Barrett Moen:
“He was just done a fantastic job. There's not a guy on this football team that has done more than Barrett Moen to get bigger, stronger and faster. It showed up in that first game. He had two sacks and was very physical against the run. He's one of those guys who keeps his mouth shut and goes to work.'
On preparing for
“We always are preparing and working on our pass rush. If we don't get around their quarterback, apply pressure, and get him out of his rhythm, we probably won't be very successful. People that have had success with
On Duane Bennett and the running back position:
“I think that Duane is a workhorse kind of back. He a very committed kid, he's in very good physical shape. I'm not concerned about the number of carries that he gets. What I want to do on Saturday night is to get some of our other young kids involved. Last Saturday night was a great opportunity for us to have our young kids, our freshmen, to feel what a game day was like. I think that [the freshmen] are really going to settle in this week and will be ready to help out our football team against
On freshman kick returner Troy Stoudermire:
"He's got a chance to be an outstanding player. He's a fearless kid; he's a confident kid. I really see him helping a lot with kick returns and he may even get back on some punts. I could see him even working into our scheme defensively. We'll see how the week progresses and how he progresses. I like what I've seen from Troy Stoudermire.'
On Ryan Collado:
“Ryan Collado is really a great kid. He was in great position on each of [NIU's long touchdowns]. It's one play at a time, you live to play another play, you live to play another down. We're going to hug Ryan's neck and we're going to help him as coaches be a better player. Football is a game where sometimes when you're in that position and you're in man-to-man coverage, sometimes the offense is going to win, but how you respond is critical. If I know Ryan Collado, I know that he'll come out this week and work extremely hard. He's going to help us win games.'
On Tramaine Brock:
“It was an exciting night for Tramaine, playing in his first football game at the Division I level. I'm really expecting to see a big jump from week one to week two with a lot of our guys and Tramaine Brock is one of those guys. By no means did he play poorly, but there are a few areas in which we're going to need him to improve and I certainly believe that he will.
“He's an outstanding tackler. His run support is excellent. His speed and range on the back end is excellent. Overall, I think he's a really good football player.'
On playing
“They're going to have a certain comfort level playing at home after that big win on the road. It's a tough chore for us any way that you look at it.'
Senior LB Steve Davis
On how the defense played differently against NIU:
“First off, we stopped the run a lot more. We kept that under control and showed that you don't even need to be athletic if you're in the right spot at the right time. We made a couple mistakes that led to scores but if you look at the whole game, the defense took control.'
On going into the second game of the season with a 1-0 record:
“It's a lot different than last year. You're confident; you have a win under your belt. A win is a win and now we get ready going into the next game with more confidence.'
On the advantages of playing a team on an emotional high:
“I think it's a revenge year for us and we really want to go out and get a win. Because last year we lost a lot of close ones, we now have more confidence and expectations going into the second game.'
Senior TE Jack Simmons
On his touchdown reception against
“My foot is feeling a lot better now and I'm able to run better. It's nice to feel healthy and play good football without worry.'
On the team's attitude towards
“They're a talented football team, I believe 18 out of 22 starters are back from last years team. We have to prepare and work hard in the film room to get ready for them.'
On building confidence through the first game
“It's much better to start the season 1-0 than 0-1. Hopefully we can get a snowball effect going and get a bunch of wins and get on a roll.'
Sophomore RB Duane Bennett
On
“They're riding a high right now and they beat a good team, which shouldn't be overlooked. Right now we are just going to take it one game at a time and go in there and have a great game. If we go in and execute on offense and defense, then the game will be all about us.'
On role of running game this year compared to last year:
“I don't know how much better we are but I know we went out and executed well. When the ball was in the running back's hands, as a group we did what we had to in order to help the offense. You're not able to have the ball in your hands at all times so we just try to go out and help the team execute in any way we can.'
Sophomore QB Adam Weber
On playing
“They're coming off a big win, so they're going to have a lot of energy. Plus it's at their place so it'll be a very tough game for us. We'll have to overcome a lot of things but I think it will be a good test for us as a team to show exactly where we are. We have an opportunity to keep this thing we created last week going.'
On playing young players more this season:
“That first away game as a player is always tough. You're going into a hostile situation but hopefully they'll get the jitters out early and play a normal football game. Hopefully the veterans and leaders will step up and help lead. You have to get thrown in the fire eventually. They're strong enough and they'll learn quick. It will be interesting to see how they react but we'll just see how this week goes.
