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University of Minnesota Athletics
Tim Brewster Press Conference - Sept. 8, 2009
9/8/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
COACH BREWSTER: Well, it's great to be 1-0. It's great to go on the road in a tough place to go play and beat a good Syracuse football team. Tough environment.
Really proud of the way our players responded. It's been a long time since Minnesota has gone on the road and beat a BCS opponent in an opener like that. Again, we found a way to win the football game. We didn't find a way to lose the game. That's obviously significant for our program and our team.
Again, really proud of our defense. I thought that defensively, you know, other than a stretch there in the second quarter, we played outstanding defense. Obviously to hold them zero points and very few yards in the second half was a tremendous performance by our defense. I thought our coaches can a really nice job at halftime of not panicking, not flinching. You know, you're down 20 to 14, and what we did is we gave our guys some things to improve in the second half.
Again, I thought that our temperament defensively was excellent. You can see that we're a faster more physical defensive football team. Again, just overall proud of the effort defensively.
Offensively there was some good things there. We made plays when the game was on the line. You know, a lot different people have talked to me about Adam Weber not being as sharp as we would have like him to have been. He was outstanding when the game was on the line. When it was time for us to go win a football game in a tough place to play, Adam Weber rose up and accepted the challenge and did what really good quarterbacks do, and that's lead your team to victory. That's exactly what he did.
Level of inconsistency obviously offensively. We're a little bit hit or miss. Obviously we had the great start. We put 14 points on the board very quickly and then we sputtered some, obviously. We strive for more consistency offensively. I think we'll certainly improve from week one to two.
A number of crowd induced penalties in the first game, you know, flinches with their offensive linemen. Again, we want to be more consistent on the offensive side of the ball, and I certainly think we'll make good improvement from week one to two.
I thought that our special teams' play was really solid. I was really proud, other than the long kickoff return we gave back or gave up, I thought that our units did a really nice job covering kicks, covering punts.
Obviously a very important kickoff late in the game. Did a great job covering it and pinning them back. The story line, obviously Eric Ellestad, young kid who since three years of age he's coming to Gopher football games with his family. Nobody probably that family, the Ellestad family loves the Gophers, and that young guy has dreamed about being about a Minnesota Gopher for a long time. He got his opportunity.
To see him go out there under those conditions in that situation in his first collegiate game as a kicker and absolutely drill the game winning field goal in overtime is really impressive. Really pleased for Eric and his development as a kicker. I think he's got a chance to be really good. He's got a really strong leg.
But to handle the pressure like he did and not only him, the operation on the field goal was excellent. The snap was excellent. The hold was really good. Our protection was very good. So really pleased with that part of it.
Danny Orseske, I thought, was solid. There's gonna be some inconsistency with a true freshman punter at times, but I thought Danny held up extremely well for the most part. Averaged 42.3 yards a punt, and so I think he's gonna be a plus. Again, our coverage units I thought were really good. I thought we did a nice job overall in the kicking game.
As you look at it from the Syracuse game, and you'll have to bear with me a little bit, I think it's really significant the awards we give out each and every game after a game. These guys work extremely hard, and we recognize them. The offensive MVP of the game is Eric Decker. Obviously nine catches, 183 yards. Again, he was big when he needed to be big. When the game is the tightest and the flame is the hottest, he's gone play and he's gonna play well. Obviously I think that there's probably not enough superlatives out there for Eric Decker. He's just an outstanding player who played really great in game one.
Defensively, our most valuable player Lee Campbell. Lee Campbell had 11 solo tackles, five assists, and one solo tackle for a loss and half a sack. He played the middle linebacker position about as well as you can play it. He plays with just tremendous passion and pride. He's the spearhead of our defense. He was running from the beginning of that game to the end of the game. Just played outstanding. Obviously he was recognized as the Big Ten defense player of the week. Tremendous award for Lee, and very deserving.
Special forces, I think it's quite obvious that we named Eric Ellestad the special forces player of the game. Very consistent with everything that he did. It was unfortunate that he had a kick blocked. Obviously there was a little bit of a rush there having a guy get back on the field. But overall, I thought, again, he was just he was outstanding kicking in the game.
Brian Klitzke was a kid that showed up for the first time. Brian is a young guy who hasn't played much, and he goes and makes two tackles. Did an outstanding job on special forces.
Our hard hat hit of the week, a guy who just absolutely ... again, overall, our linebacker play in the Syracuse game was as good a linebacker play as I've seen since we've been here at Minnesota. To be quite honest with you regardless of where you're at, our linebacker play was stellar when you look at Lee Campbell .
The hard hat hit of the week goes to Nate Triplett. On the scramble early in the game, he's playing hole coverage, he's deep in the middle of the field, a scramble situation. Paulus goes, and he comes back and he hits the tight end. It's a critical third down earlier in the game, and Nate Triplett covered about 40 yards and he hit the tight end and it was just an outstanding hit. A tremendous hit. He gets the hard hat hit of the week. Again, like I said, the linebacker play including Simoni Lawrence and Keenan Cooper was just excellent.
We call it the lunch pail award winner, the guy that just does things kind of under the radar but really played well was John Hoese. He's an excellent fullback and he did some excellent things in the game.
The extra effort play on the first touchdown of the game, Troy Stoudermire. We ran a zone play wide, and it's a read, crack where he's gone push the corner and crack the safety. The little guy went in there like a missile. Blew up the safety, ended up blocking the linebacker who was in a fold position over the top. He blocked two players. Duane Bennett was untouched into the end zone solely because of that block. It was just an excellent play by Troy.
We give out a great teammate award. That award goes to Nick Tow Arnett. Nick is a guy that doesn't say a whole a lot, but he works extremely hard and does a great job. Again, like I said, I think he's one of the better tight ends that you're gonna see in the Big Ten.
Again, very important, the scout offensive player and the scout defensive player of the week. Scout offensive player of the week is Eddie Olson. Coming in, he did a great job of helping of helping our defense prepare for Syracuse. And then the defensive scout team player was Aaron Hill. Aaron Hill's a young kid from Missouri, and has really come in and really done a nice job for us. So all these guys won awards for the week. Again, well deserved and really pleased.
As you look at the Air Force game, we'll have no depth chart changes going into the game. Our depth chart will remain the same as it was for the first week. As you look at Air Force, you look at their head football coach I think first and foremost. Troy Calhoun. Troy is a guy that I worked with the Denver Broncos. He's an outstanding person and football coach. He's at his alma mater. He was a quarterback at Air Force, and he's done an excellent job at the Air Force Academy. They've gone to bowl games the past couple of years. They've got a good football team.
As you look at their football team, the finest men in this country play football and go to the Air Force Academy, and so we're gonna play a group of men that are extremely dedicated, discipline, and focused. They're an outstanding football team for a reason. Those guys are extremely smart, they play extremely hard, and they do it all for 60 minutes.
Offensively, very disciplined precision offense. We've got a tremendous challenge defensively to try to slow down their offense. The quarterback is an outstanding player, and they've got a great fullback. They've got more skill players.
Troy's done a good job of recruiting skill players the past couple years. They've got more speed on the field than they've had in the past. Again, their quarterback is the key to it all.
A little different defense. They play a 3 4 defense. You don't always see a rarely do you see a 3 4 defense in college football. You see some three down nickle looks, but you don't see a 3 4 defense versus a base offense very much at all.
So that's a little bit different for us to plan and prepare for a 3 4 defense. Their kicking game, again, they give tremendous effort and desire. They do a lot of things very well at the Air Force Academy. I think that's pretty much what you would expect. They are probably the finest conditioned football team in America. They play at 7,000 feet. They condition at 7,000 feet, both in the military and on the football field.
They're gonna give a tremendous effort for 60 minutes. I think that our goal and what we've got to do is be able to match Air Force's discipline and be able to match their focus for us to play well in this football game.
Obviously TCF Bank Stadium is a huge storyline. The dream of the state of Minnesota was to bring the Gophers back home, back on campus. The dream will be realized on Saturday night. Again, that's a huge storyline.
As a football team, as a staff, our focus has got to be on Air Force. It can't be about the opening of the stadium. Obviously there's gonna be tremendous hoopla and talk about the stadium. It's an amazing stadium. We're thrilled to death.
But we've got to do a good job this week of trying to limit the distractions the best we can and focus on playing a really good Syracuse football team and not get too emotional about the fact that we're back on campus and playing in a beautiful new stadium for the first time.
Questions.
Q. Is that easier said that done? You said it's gonna be a very emotional day. You'll be out there for the victory walk and there will be thousands of people.
COACH BREWSTER: I don't know if I'd say hard. We've got to do a great job in our preparation this week. We can't be concerned about tickets, Gopher victory walks. We've got to be concerned about preparing to play Air Force. We've gotta do the best job we can of putting blinders on and focusing on playing a really good football team.
Obviously I think the emotion of the night and the stadium is a really plus for us. I think it'll give us a tremendous lift playing in front of over 50,000 fans dressed in maroon and gold. I think that will be an exciting thing for the football team, kind of a 12th man.
Last week at Syracuse they had the first sell out in over ten years. Extremely hostile, loud environment, and we like to have the same thing obviously here.
Q. Air Force has a reputation for excellent special teams. Talk about where they've impressed you.
COACH BREWSTER: I just think across the board they're an excellent football team. Troy has really done a great job. His staff has done a great job. He's got really good coaches. The willingness of their football team to totally dedicate themselves to the task at hand allows them to do a lot of different things.
They've got a lot of smart football players. And most importantly, they've got a bunch of men that love football and love what they do. So you see the precision in everything. The precision is in everything they do.
Q. Is this offense set up to have quarterbacks run much, or will it be mostly in scrambles?
COACH BREWSTER: Jim, it's a designed triple option offense, and so obviously the first phase is the dive. You've got to do a great job of taking the dive away, taking the fullback away. They get a ton of yards handing the ball off to the fullback.
As the quarterback pulls and goes into phase two of the option, this kid is a very athletic kid. He's an outstanding athlete. When I look at their explosive runs, more of them come from the fullback and the quarterback than anybody else. They don't get near as many explosive runs on the pitch.
So we've just got to be extremely disciplined with what we're doing defensively and taking away the dive, and to me, phase two of the triple option.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH BREWSTER: Again, just utilizing our players the best we can at trying to simulate. That's the really hard thing, you know, is simulating somebody else's offense and trying to do it with the speed and precision that they do.
I don't think there's any possible way that we can simulate the precision of what they accomplish up front with their offensive linemen in all the chops, cutting. That's not be gonna be something we do to our own players.
Again, we're gonna have to do a great job with our defensive linemen this week of understanding what exactly they're trying to get done with their own linemen, using our hands and doing a great job, because they do a nice job with their scheme.
Q. Which defensive unit has the most important assignment on your team in this triple option?
COACH BREWSTER: You know what, I think it's all 11, to be honest with you. On the back end where they get you to relax a little bit, you're thinking, run, force, run, force, and the next thing you do, they sneak a receiver by you on a play action pass and they throw a 65 yard touchdown pass.
So, you know, the discipline of your inside guys being able to handle the dive, and then how exactly and I don't want to go into exact detail how we want to play the quarterback but obviously the defensive end forcing the quarterback to kick the ball, and then linebackers really running to the football on the pitch.
Your corners are really important if you're gonna play a two deep coverage and really run support with the corners. More than anything else, it's just 11 guys being totally focused and disciplined for 60 minutes. Because if you just relax a little bit, they're gonna hurt you.
Q. It's a cerebral game.
COACH BREWSTER: It is a total it is a very cerebral game defensively. It is much more cerebral than it is physical against that attack.
Q. The triple option offense has time consuming drives, as you know. Does it test your defensive depth probably more so?
COACH BREWSTER: You know, what we've got to do is we've got to try to combat that. They have a stated goal of trying to limit the opposition to six possessions or less offensively. We've got to do a great job of staying on the field offensively. That's absolutely critical to our success in this game. We can't have three and outs. We've got to be able to stay on the field and be able to chew the clock some and kind of play the same type of brand of ball that they play a little bit.
Because if we leave our defense out there too long, eventually there's gonna be issues.
Q. When you train at 7,000 feet and then you come here, do you feel like you have a conditioning advantage?
COACH BREWSTER: You know, I lived in Denver, and understand the elevation. Denver had the best winning percentage at home of any national football league team. I think altitude is real. Altitude training is real. They are a finely conditioned football team. You can see they get stronger as the game progresses. They don't get weaker.
They're a stronger football team in the fourth quarter than they are in the first. I think a lot of it has to do with their conditioning. I think we're a really good conditioned football team. We played in a hot, stuffy, indoor dome last week, and I thought our kids really held up well.
So, again, we’ve got to do a good job from our end. But is it an advantage? I think it really can be.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH BREWSTER: Yeah, I really did. He's an extremely bright, articulate guy. He does a great job coaching. I just really think the world of Troy. Like I said, you spend so many nights at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning with a guy talking ball and formulating plans and doing different things. I just really got a tremendous amount of respect for him. He's really good.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH BREWSTER: No, I think he's doing what he feels like he's gotta do to be successful at the service academy. Now you look at most of the service academies now, I think all of them now are running a triple option offense. With Army now running a triple option, Navy obviously is running the option and gave Ohio State all they wanted last weekend, and then obviously Air Force doing the same thing.
So with the linemen not being as big as maybe some other schools, you know, they've got to do what they do.
Again, like I said, they do it really well.
Q. You didn't play a lot of the youngsters. You said that you're gonna have packages for MarQueis. Do you see his playing time gradually rising?
COACH BREWSTER: I do. I see him playing and getting more comfortable each week. We've got to do a good job of making sure of what we're asking him to do and really giving him a chance to be successful. I think that's the biggest thing with MarQueis, is making sure he goes out there with a level of confidence in what we're asking him to do and just be able to go out there and execute. But, yes, I do see us progressing him more and more into what we're doing.
Q. Does the quarterback have many design runs in your new offense?
COACH BREWSTER: Not really, no. We have a couple of quarterback draws, but we don't have much in the package. We have a couple things obviously for MarQueis. As far as just are we like we have been the past couple years in the spread offense, no.
Q. Lee Campbell was obviously really busy last week with career high tackles. Should we be ready for more this week with the offense you're facing?
COACH BREWSTER: Lee Campbell is really good. He loves football. I mean, he's gonna show up each and every game and play with tremendous passion and energy. To be honest, I don't know the significance of this week is maybe more than last week. He was huge last week, and we need for him to be huge this week. I've got great confidence that he will be. He just takes so much pride in his preparation and his play.
Q. Sherels, Stommes, Bennett, they're okay?
COACH BREWSTER: You know, know, they're day to day right now. I don't think anybody has anything too major. They're day to day. We hope all of them to play in the football game.
Q. What was your reaction when you saw that 72 to 0?
COACH BREWSTER: You know what, obviously impressive. You know, I don't care who you're playing, you score 72 points, that's a heck of a day. And then even probably more significant than the 72 is the 0. A defensive shut out is a heck of a deal regardless of who you're playing.
They're a really good football team. They've played everybody really well. Doesn't matter who they played, each and every week Troy does a good job having his team ready to go. I like to say it's an all day deal with these guys. It's a 60 minute battle with Air Force. You know, I mean, I think they would give everybody a hard time.
Q. With the honorary coaches coming back for the first game in the new stadium, are they gonna be speaking to the team at all? Any role with the football game, or more just kind of in the background?
COACH BREWSTER: They'll be able to have an opportunity to say words to our football team and be a big part of it. Obviously the honorary captains in this game are a great group of people, so it's gonna be great for our team to get an opportunity to meet some of the honorary captains and hear them say a few words.
Yes, that'll play more than just the role of the coin toss.
Q. How are you keeping your own emotions in check for the weekend?
COACH BREWSTER: Just focused on the task at hand. The task at hand is preparing our team for Air Force, and understanding what a significant challenge it is. And so you just watch a little videotape of their offense and defense, and it makes me think about staying up at night and formulating the plan as opposed to getting too caught up in opening up the new stadium.
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Really proud of the way our players responded. It's been a long time since Minnesota has gone on the road and beat a BCS opponent in an opener like that. Again, we found a way to win the football game. We didn't find a way to lose the game. That's obviously significant for our program and our team.
Again, really proud of our defense. I thought that defensively, you know, other than a stretch there in the second quarter, we played outstanding defense. Obviously to hold them zero points and very few yards in the second half was a tremendous performance by our defense. I thought our coaches can a really nice job at halftime of not panicking, not flinching. You know, you're down 20 to 14, and what we did is we gave our guys some things to improve in the second half.
Again, I thought that our temperament defensively was excellent. You can see that we're a faster more physical defensive football team. Again, just overall proud of the effort defensively.
Offensively there was some good things there. We made plays when the game was on the line. You know, a lot different people have talked to me about Adam Weber not being as sharp as we would have like him to have been. He was outstanding when the game was on the line. When it was time for us to go win a football game in a tough place to play, Adam Weber rose up and accepted the challenge and did what really good quarterbacks do, and that's lead your team to victory. That's exactly what he did.
Level of inconsistency obviously offensively. We're a little bit hit or miss. Obviously we had the great start. We put 14 points on the board very quickly and then we sputtered some, obviously. We strive for more consistency offensively. I think we'll certainly improve from week one to two.
A number of crowd induced penalties in the first game, you know, flinches with their offensive linemen. Again, we want to be more consistent on the offensive side of the ball, and I certainly think we'll make good improvement from week one to two.
I thought that our special teams' play was really solid. I was really proud, other than the long kickoff return we gave back or gave up, I thought that our units did a really nice job covering kicks, covering punts.
Obviously a very important kickoff late in the game. Did a great job covering it and pinning them back. The story line, obviously Eric Ellestad, young kid who since three years of age he's coming to Gopher football games with his family. Nobody probably that family, the Ellestad family loves the Gophers, and that young guy has dreamed about being about a Minnesota Gopher for a long time. He got his opportunity.
To see him go out there under those conditions in that situation in his first collegiate game as a kicker and absolutely drill the game winning field goal in overtime is really impressive. Really pleased for Eric and his development as a kicker. I think he's got a chance to be really good. He's got a really strong leg.
But to handle the pressure like he did and not only him, the operation on the field goal was excellent. The snap was excellent. The hold was really good. Our protection was very good. So really pleased with that part of it.
Danny Orseske, I thought, was solid. There's gonna be some inconsistency with a true freshman punter at times, but I thought Danny held up extremely well for the most part. Averaged 42.3 yards a punt, and so I think he's gonna be a plus. Again, our coverage units I thought were really good. I thought we did a nice job overall in the kicking game.
As you look at it from the Syracuse game, and you'll have to bear with me a little bit, I think it's really significant the awards we give out each and every game after a game. These guys work extremely hard, and we recognize them. The offensive MVP of the game is Eric Decker. Obviously nine catches, 183 yards. Again, he was big when he needed to be big. When the game is the tightest and the flame is the hottest, he's gone play and he's gonna play well. Obviously I think that there's probably not enough superlatives out there for Eric Decker. He's just an outstanding player who played really great in game one.
Defensively, our most valuable player Lee Campbell. Lee Campbell had 11 solo tackles, five assists, and one solo tackle for a loss and half a sack. He played the middle linebacker position about as well as you can play it. He plays with just tremendous passion and pride. He's the spearhead of our defense. He was running from the beginning of that game to the end of the game. Just played outstanding. Obviously he was recognized as the Big Ten defense player of the week. Tremendous award for Lee, and very deserving.
Special forces, I think it's quite obvious that we named Eric Ellestad the special forces player of the game. Very consistent with everything that he did. It was unfortunate that he had a kick blocked. Obviously there was a little bit of a rush there having a guy get back on the field. But overall, I thought, again, he was just he was outstanding kicking in the game.
Brian Klitzke was a kid that showed up for the first time. Brian is a young guy who hasn't played much, and he goes and makes two tackles. Did an outstanding job on special forces.
Our hard hat hit of the week, a guy who just absolutely ... again, overall, our linebacker play in the Syracuse game was as good a linebacker play as I've seen since we've been here at Minnesota. To be quite honest with you regardless of where you're at, our linebacker play was stellar when you look at Lee Campbell .
The hard hat hit of the week goes to Nate Triplett. On the scramble early in the game, he's playing hole coverage, he's deep in the middle of the field, a scramble situation. Paulus goes, and he comes back and he hits the tight end. It's a critical third down earlier in the game, and Nate Triplett covered about 40 yards and he hit the tight end and it was just an outstanding hit. A tremendous hit. He gets the hard hat hit of the week. Again, like I said, the linebacker play including Simoni Lawrence and Keenan Cooper was just excellent.
We call it the lunch pail award winner, the guy that just does things kind of under the radar but really played well was John Hoese. He's an excellent fullback and he did some excellent things in the game.
The extra effort play on the first touchdown of the game, Troy Stoudermire. We ran a zone play wide, and it's a read, crack where he's gone push the corner and crack the safety. The little guy went in there like a missile. Blew up the safety, ended up blocking the linebacker who was in a fold position over the top. He blocked two players. Duane Bennett was untouched into the end zone solely because of that block. It was just an excellent play by Troy.
We give out a great teammate award. That award goes to Nick Tow Arnett. Nick is a guy that doesn't say a whole a lot, but he works extremely hard and does a great job. Again, like I said, I think he's one of the better tight ends that you're gonna see in the Big Ten.
Again, very important, the scout offensive player and the scout defensive player of the week. Scout offensive player of the week is Eddie Olson. Coming in, he did a great job of helping of helping our defense prepare for Syracuse. And then the defensive scout team player was Aaron Hill. Aaron Hill's a young kid from Missouri, and has really come in and really done a nice job for us. So all these guys won awards for the week. Again, well deserved and really pleased.
As you look at the Air Force game, we'll have no depth chart changes going into the game. Our depth chart will remain the same as it was for the first week. As you look at Air Force, you look at their head football coach I think first and foremost. Troy Calhoun. Troy is a guy that I worked with the Denver Broncos. He's an outstanding person and football coach. He's at his alma mater. He was a quarterback at Air Force, and he's done an excellent job at the Air Force Academy. They've gone to bowl games the past couple of years. They've got a good football team.
As you look at their football team, the finest men in this country play football and go to the Air Force Academy, and so we're gonna play a group of men that are extremely dedicated, discipline, and focused. They're an outstanding football team for a reason. Those guys are extremely smart, they play extremely hard, and they do it all for 60 minutes.
Offensively, very disciplined precision offense. We've got a tremendous challenge defensively to try to slow down their offense. The quarterback is an outstanding player, and they've got a great fullback. They've got more skill players.
Troy's done a good job of recruiting skill players the past couple years. They've got more speed on the field than they've had in the past. Again, their quarterback is the key to it all.
A little different defense. They play a 3 4 defense. You don't always see a rarely do you see a 3 4 defense in college football. You see some three down nickle looks, but you don't see a 3 4 defense versus a base offense very much at all.
So that's a little bit different for us to plan and prepare for a 3 4 defense. Their kicking game, again, they give tremendous effort and desire. They do a lot of things very well at the Air Force Academy. I think that's pretty much what you would expect. They are probably the finest conditioned football team in America. They play at 7,000 feet. They condition at 7,000 feet, both in the military and on the football field.
They're gonna give a tremendous effort for 60 minutes. I think that our goal and what we've got to do is be able to match Air Force's discipline and be able to match their focus for us to play well in this football game.
Obviously TCF Bank Stadium is a huge storyline. The dream of the state of Minnesota was to bring the Gophers back home, back on campus. The dream will be realized on Saturday night. Again, that's a huge storyline.
As a football team, as a staff, our focus has got to be on Air Force. It can't be about the opening of the stadium. Obviously there's gonna be tremendous hoopla and talk about the stadium. It's an amazing stadium. We're thrilled to death.
But we've got to do a good job this week of trying to limit the distractions the best we can and focus on playing a really good Syracuse football team and not get too emotional about the fact that we're back on campus and playing in a beautiful new stadium for the first time.
Questions.
Q. Is that easier said that done? You said it's gonna be a very emotional day. You'll be out there for the victory walk and there will be thousands of people.
COACH BREWSTER: I don't know if I'd say hard. We've got to do a great job in our preparation this week. We can't be concerned about tickets, Gopher victory walks. We've got to be concerned about preparing to play Air Force. We've gotta do the best job we can of putting blinders on and focusing on playing a really good football team.
Obviously I think the emotion of the night and the stadium is a really plus for us. I think it'll give us a tremendous lift playing in front of over 50,000 fans dressed in maroon and gold. I think that will be an exciting thing for the football team, kind of a 12th man.
Last week at Syracuse they had the first sell out in over ten years. Extremely hostile, loud environment, and we like to have the same thing obviously here.
Q. Air Force has a reputation for excellent special teams. Talk about where they've impressed you.
COACH BREWSTER: I just think across the board they're an excellent football team. Troy has really done a great job. His staff has done a great job. He's got really good coaches. The willingness of their football team to totally dedicate themselves to the task at hand allows them to do a lot of different things.
They've got a lot of smart football players. And most importantly, they've got a bunch of men that love football and love what they do. So you see the precision in everything. The precision is in everything they do.
Q. Is this offense set up to have quarterbacks run much, or will it be mostly in scrambles?
COACH BREWSTER: Jim, it's a designed triple option offense, and so obviously the first phase is the dive. You've got to do a great job of taking the dive away, taking the fullback away. They get a ton of yards handing the ball off to the fullback.
As the quarterback pulls and goes into phase two of the option, this kid is a very athletic kid. He's an outstanding athlete. When I look at their explosive runs, more of them come from the fullback and the quarterback than anybody else. They don't get near as many explosive runs on the pitch.
So we've just got to be extremely disciplined with what we're doing defensively and taking away the dive, and to me, phase two of the triple option.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH BREWSTER: Again, just utilizing our players the best we can at trying to simulate. That's the really hard thing, you know, is simulating somebody else's offense and trying to do it with the speed and precision that they do.
I don't think there's any possible way that we can simulate the precision of what they accomplish up front with their offensive linemen in all the chops, cutting. That's not be gonna be something we do to our own players.
Again, we're gonna have to do a great job with our defensive linemen this week of understanding what exactly they're trying to get done with their own linemen, using our hands and doing a great job, because they do a nice job with their scheme.
Q. Which defensive unit has the most important assignment on your team in this triple option?
COACH BREWSTER: You know what, I think it's all 11, to be honest with you. On the back end where they get you to relax a little bit, you're thinking, run, force, run, force, and the next thing you do, they sneak a receiver by you on a play action pass and they throw a 65 yard touchdown pass.
So, you know, the discipline of your inside guys being able to handle the dive, and then how exactly and I don't want to go into exact detail how we want to play the quarterback but obviously the defensive end forcing the quarterback to kick the ball, and then linebackers really running to the football on the pitch.
Your corners are really important if you're gonna play a two deep coverage and really run support with the corners. More than anything else, it's just 11 guys being totally focused and disciplined for 60 minutes. Because if you just relax a little bit, they're gonna hurt you.
Q. It's a cerebral game.
COACH BREWSTER: It is a total it is a very cerebral game defensively. It is much more cerebral than it is physical against that attack.
Q. The triple option offense has time consuming drives, as you know. Does it test your defensive depth probably more so?
COACH BREWSTER: You know, what we've got to do is we've got to try to combat that. They have a stated goal of trying to limit the opposition to six possessions or less offensively. We've got to do a great job of staying on the field offensively. That's absolutely critical to our success in this game. We can't have three and outs. We've got to be able to stay on the field and be able to chew the clock some and kind of play the same type of brand of ball that they play a little bit.
Because if we leave our defense out there too long, eventually there's gonna be issues.
Q. When you train at 7,000 feet and then you come here, do you feel like you have a conditioning advantage?
COACH BREWSTER: You know, I lived in Denver, and understand the elevation. Denver had the best winning percentage at home of any national football league team. I think altitude is real. Altitude training is real. They are a finely conditioned football team. You can see they get stronger as the game progresses. They don't get weaker.
They're a stronger football team in the fourth quarter than they are in the first. I think a lot of it has to do with their conditioning. I think we're a really good conditioned football team. We played in a hot, stuffy, indoor dome last week, and I thought our kids really held up well.
So, again, we’ve got to do a good job from our end. But is it an advantage? I think it really can be.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH BREWSTER: Yeah, I really did. He's an extremely bright, articulate guy. He does a great job coaching. I just really think the world of Troy. Like I said, you spend so many nights at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning with a guy talking ball and formulating plans and doing different things. I just really got a tremendous amount of respect for him. He's really good.
Q. (No microphone.)
COACH BREWSTER: No, I think he's doing what he feels like he's gotta do to be successful at the service academy. Now you look at most of the service academies now, I think all of them now are running a triple option offense. With Army now running a triple option, Navy obviously is running the option and gave Ohio State all they wanted last weekend, and then obviously Air Force doing the same thing.
So with the linemen not being as big as maybe some other schools, you know, they've got to do what they do.
Again, like I said, they do it really well.
Q. You didn't play a lot of the youngsters. You said that you're gonna have packages for MarQueis. Do you see his playing time gradually rising?
COACH BREWSTER: I do. I see him playing and getting more comfortable each week. We've got to do a good job of making sure of what we're asking him to do and really giving him a chance to be successful. I think that's the biggest thing with MarQueis, is making sure he goes out there with a level of confidence in what we're asking him to do and just be able to go out there and execute. But, yes, I do see us progressing him more and more into what we're doing.
Q. Does the quarterback have many design runs in your new offense?
COACH BREWSTER: Not really, no. We have a couple of quarterback draws, but we don't have much in the package. We have a couple things obviously for MarQueis. As far as just are we like we have been the past couple years in the spread offense, no.
Q. Lee Campbell was obviously really busy last week with career high tackles. Should we be ready for more this week with the offense you're facing?
COACH BREWSTER: Lee Campbell is really good. He loves football. I mean, he's gonna show up each and every game and play with tremendous passion and energy. To be honest, I don't know the significance of this week is maybe more than last week. He was huge last week, and we need for him to be huge this week. I've got great confidence that he will be. He just takes so much pride in his preparation and his play.
Q. Sherels, Stommes, Bennett, they're okay?
COACH BREWSTER: You know, know, they're day to day right now. I don't think anybody has anything too major. They're day to day. We hope all of them to play in the football game.
Q. What was your reaction when you saw that 72 to 0?
COACH BREWSTER: You know what, obviously impressive. You know, I don't care who you're playing, you score 72 points, that's a heck of a day. And then even probably more significant than the 72 is the 0. A defensive shut out is a heck of a deal regardless of who you're playing.
They're a really good football team. They've played everybody really well. Doesn't matter who they played, each and every week Troy does a good job having his team ready to go. I like to say it's an all day deal with these guys. It's a 60 minute battle with Air Force. You know, I mean, I think they would give everybody a hard time.
Q. With the honorary coaches coming back for the first game in the new stadium, are they gonna be speaking to the team at all? Any role with the football game, or more just kind of in the background?
COACH BREWSTER: They'll be able to have an opportunity to say words to our football team and be a big part of it. Obviously the honorary captains in this game are a great group of people, so it's gonna be great for our team to get an opportunity to meet some of the honorary captains and hear them say a few words.
Yes, that'll play more than just the role of the coin toss.
Q. How are you keeping your own emotions in check for the weekend?
COACH BREWSTER: Just focused on the task at hand. The task at hand is preparing our team for Air Force, and understanding what a significant challenge it is. And so you just watch a little videotape of their offense and defense, and it makes me think about staying up at night and formulating the plan as opposed to getting too caught up in opening up the new stadium.
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