Quotes from UNM head football coach Rocky Long, quarterback Rudy Caamano and defensive end Brian Johnson from Tuesday’s media luncheon.
Head Coach Rocky Long
Question: What do you know about UTEP?
Rocky Long: “Off of last year’s film, they were very, very good on offense last year.They have a player that is probably more talented than the All-American tight-end they had last year. They’ve got their best receiver back and most of their offensive line is back. All of their backs return, so it probably depends on how well their quarterbackplays to determine how well they do on offense.
“On defense, they’ve got several of their starters back. They’ve got a question mark at linebacker, but they’re real, real good in the secondary with two all-conference corners and a starting safety coming back.
“Their kicking game, they’ve got most of their guys who cover kick-offs and protect their punts back, but they’ve got a new kicker and a new punter, a true freshman. I am sure they are nervous about their kicking game as far as kickers go.
“They like to run it out of two tight ends, that’s their favorite formation and they’ll keep the same personal in the game and they’ll give you every formation known to man. One back, to no backs, to three backs and they use their tight ends as receivers in slots and motion.”
Q: Is (senior Wesley Phillips) going to start at quarterback for UTEP? What do you know about him?
Long: “That’s what Ive read. Weve watched the plays he got to play in last year, but he was hurt most of last season. He is a fifth year senior so he’s been in the system and is very comfortable with the scheme of the offense but he hasn’t played a lot. We haven’t seen him on film much. We know he is tall and according to newspaper reports he throws the ball very accurately. He has a couple of real good weapons to throw it to.”
Q: Are you settled on a tailback yet?
Long: “No, all three of the tailbacks will play in the game. Holmon (Wiggins), Javier (Hanson), and Dontrell (Moore) will all play in the game as long as they’re completely healthy. All three are hobbled a little bit but I haven’t seem them today. They have had a couple days off so hopefully they are whole lot better right now.”
Q: So Dontrell (Moore) is not going to red-shirt?
Long: “If Dontrell is healthier than he was the other day, he actually practiced some the other day so we are anticipated he is going to be healthy, he won’t red-shirt. If for some reason he has a relapse and that injury lasts for two or three weeks he will probably red-shirt.”
Q: What have you seen from him that makes you want to go that route because we’ve always heard you say that you would like to red-shirt all of your freshmen?
Long: “We think he is the third-best tailback, and running backs get beat up pretty good so you are probably going to need three of them during the season. You want your three best and he is the third best right now.”
Q: Is (true freshman safety Gabriel Fulbright) in that situation too?
Long: “Fulbright hasn’t progressed. His injury hasn’t gotten any better and he hasn’t practiced since he hurt it. He tried one day and couldn’t do it so however long his ankle problem lasts depends on whether he will be red-shirted or not.”
Q: Do you have any interest in scheduling (UTEP) beyond the next two years when the contract is up?
Long: “I think it is a natural rivalry. The schools are close enough together that there could be big crowds for both schools, but if they don’t want to play us it is not going to kill us. I’d just assume play them though because it is a regional rivalry.
Q: Given the fact the you’ve got four non-conference games and New Mexico State is one of those, does it limit you scheduling UTEP?
Long: “It does a little bit but I have a philosophy that we don’t play anybody unless they come here and play us. There still are a lot of teams that want to play us. It doesn’t limit our scheduling possibilities because in the next two years you can have 12 games in 14 weekends.”
Q: What are your thoughts on the ticket sales for the opening game?
Long: “I think there is some interest there because of the expanded stadium and the scoreboard. I think the best thing about that is that if they all show up and we play well they will come back next game. The excitement that surrounds the new look or feel of the stadium is a very positive step for the program.”
Q: What are you hearing from the players?
Long: “I think our players are in game week mode. I think they have been excited to this point on that, but I think now they are concentrated on the game coming up. It will be fun for them to run through the tunnel but after that they had better forget it.
Q: Have you made any changes for this game?
Long: “Oh no, we’re not changing our defense. Our defense is to blitz and stunt and come after the quarterback. Now, we assume that the teams that have played against our defense and have had some success, especially with an inexperienced quarterback, they max protect and we can’t get to him. Their coaches do a great job and we assume they are going to protect him, but that doesn’t change our philosophy.”
Q: How has the secondary progressed?
Long: “Scott Gerhardt is starting at lobo (free safety) and Terrell Golden is starting at one of the wolf safety positions. Those guys have played a lot of football and they are very experienced players. The other wolf safety is David Hall, a junior college recruit who was here this spring and is very talented. We hope he will play well Saturday, but it is a new experience for him and we expect him to make some mistakes. The corner hasn’t been completely decided yet, but another junior-college transfer, David Crockett, will play. He will probably split even time with Dante Childress. It will be interesting to see how they perform, too. Our defense has two spots, the corners, that aren’t any fun to play. It is a huge challenge because they are man-to-man most of the time and they don’t get any help. How well they play has a lot to do with our success on defense. As soon as you have to start protecting them, if they are not playing well, it takes the pressure part of our defense away and makes us just like everybody else. As long as our corners hold up all right, we are different from everybody else.”
Q: Does (cornerback Stephen Persley) take the best receiver every time?
Long: “No, we play left and right. Offenses have become so complicated that when you start flipping people there is a whole bunch of ways they can get a receiver on who they want him on. They can put him in the backfield and motion him out and do all kinds of things where you can’t match him. The pros try to match personnel to personnel, that’s why you see so much shifting around. You won’t see that too much against us. Plus, we think all 11 guys should make plays. We expect all our DB’s to tackle, too.
Q: Does it surprise you to have three junior college players starting on defense?
Long: “We knew we had a need there or we wouldn’t have recruited them. It is not surprising that they are starting.”
Q: You are still going to have a heavy rotation on defense aren’t you?
Long: “We are going to try to. The secondary is a little deep. At corner we can rotate up to five guys. At safety, I am not sure we can. In the defensive line we are going to rotate eight, maybe even nine guys. At linebacker we are going to rotate maybe six guys. There will be new bodies and fresh bodies rolling in all of the time. The only spot that is a little shaky is safety as far as depth is concerned.”
Q: Is this as comfortable as you have been for a season opener?
Long: “I have got confidence in the team because this is the hardest working team I have ever been around, ever. No question, I have never been around a team that has worked this hard. I also see some of our deficiencies talent-wise. There is no question in my mind that they are going to play extremely hard and fight it until the end. We have to have enough players to make enough plays in critical situations to win the game. It is going to be a close game Saturday. I will be pleasantly surprised if it is not (a close game) and in our favor, and I will be shocked if it is not a close game and it is in their favor. I think that it is going to be a close game and to this point we haven’t proved that we can make the plays to win close games.”
Q: Has (wide receiver) Joe Manning’s play surprised you?
Long: “No, it hasn’t surprised us. Joe Manning is a tremendous talent that has been inconsistent most of his career, but in the last week or so he hasn’t been inconsistent. I am hoping to be surprised and see it the same way on gameday. I haven’t seen receivers be consistent in a game since I have been here.”
Q: How big of a deal is coaching continuity?
Long: “I think it gives you a better chance to be successful if you can keep a coaching staff together. Our kids have a chance to perform much better Saturday than if we would have made a coaching change, becuase they are comfortable with what they are doing. Our veteran players understand where they are supposed to be, how they are supposed to do it. They know what time practice starts, they know when they are supposed to be in class, so it makes it easier on them and more comforatbel for them. I have been taught that makes the learning curve much better than being stressed.”
Q: From a conference standpoint, how important was BYU’s showing last week and Air Force’s showing against Oklahoma this week?
Long: “I think it was a tremendous asset for the league that BYU crushed Tulane like that. The Mountain West is one of the two leagues in the country that is being considered as a BCS contender. It is us and Conference USA. Conference-USA has a step up because they have more major metropolitan areas like Cincinnati and Louisville and New Orleans. They have population areas that give them an advantage to move them into the BCS deal. All of the coaches in this league have upgraded their non-conference schedules in the hopes that they win 50% of their games and show the BCS people that we belong. Even if they go to one of the play-off systems, you have got to be one of the elite leagues to make sure you get arep in there. For us to get a chance to go to a $13 million bowl game we have to be a BCS team. The next league they are going to let in is either the Mountain West or Conference-USA…So the Mountain West and the head coaches have gone out to play supposedly big name teams in the hopes that we win the games to get into the BCS. In the overall picture it is important for our league to play a good non-conference schedule and play well. UNLV playsArkansas on Thursday. San Diego State plays Arizona, Arizona St., and Ohio State. Every team in our league has tried to go out and schedule BCS teams. We have two of them on our schedule in Baylor and Texas Tech of the Big 12. Wyoming has Texas A&M at home for their first game. To me that shows you the caliber of coaches in our league that are willing to do that.”
Junior quarterback Rudy Caamano
(on Saturday’s season opener versus UTEP): “We’re all pretty anxious to get going. We’ve been looking forward to this day since January and we can’t wait until Saturday.”
(on the UNM wide receivers): “I have total confidence in our receivers. I think a lot of people judged us by what they saw in the scrimmage because we had some drops and I threw some bad balls, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I’ve seen them play consistently throughout the spring and fall practices and I’m confident they’ll make plays when it’s time to make plays.”
(on improving the Lobos’ deep passing game): “We can go deep as much as we need to. It’s not smart to go deep too often because your chances of completing passes are not good, but we’ll do it when we have to. We’re going to go down the field a lot more than we did last year and we will be more of a deep threat this season.”
(on facing the UTEP defense): “We’ve kind of hit a wall practicing against our defense everyday, it gets very repetitive. Since we’ve been working against UTEP’s defensive scheme I’ve felt the offense improve over the last few days. The UTEP defense will be a little confusing for us because they have a new defensive coordinator and we’re not sure exactly what they’ll do. They have a lot of good players returning and I think the defense will be the strength of their team. We’re expecting them to put a lot of guys in the box to try and stop the running game, so we’re hoping our passing game will put us over the top.”
Senior defensive end Brian Johnson
(on the game Saturday) “We’re all excited and ready to get this thing underway. We’ve been waiting to play this game for awhile and it’s finally close. We just can’t wait to run out onto the field and hit some guys in a different colored uniform.”
(on UTEP) “We know that they are a very good team, so we know that we have our work cut out for us. They went to a bowl last year and they are very confident. But, we are very confident too. It should be a good game.”
(on the stadium and the crowd) “I’m excited to see how many fans we can get in here on Saturday. I hope that we sell it out and they make a lot of noise. It would be nice to have a definite home-field advantage.”
(on UNM’s defense) “We are pretty confident as a group. We have a lot of guys back who played last year. We have a lot of quality athletes there. We just need to keep up the same attitude and intensity that we showed on defense last year.”