Question: Will the open week make the upcoming games sloppy or will it be a psychological thing?
Rocky Long: “I think it will be sloppy because of the open week. Most everybody practiced last week, getting ready for whoever they were going to play. Baylor did, we did. All of the way up until Thursday we practiced getting ready for New Mexico State. We didn’t start practicing on Baylor until Sunday night. So you get ready to play a game and you don’t play a game. This time of year you are afraid to scrimmage because you don’t want to get anybody hurt, so you’ve had a bye week very early in the season and it is like a first week game again. Most first games are a little erratic and sloppy at times.
Question: Was the routine different than a normal bye week?
Rocky Long: “Yeah, if you would have known it was going to be a bye week you would have given the kids a couple of extra days off and spent two or three days working on the opponent. In our case, we spend three days where we actually work on the opponent 10 days from the game. Then we give (the players) the weekend off and go back to work on Monday. But as I said, we worked all the way through Wednesday on New Mexico State. On Thursday we went out and worked on fundamentals and let the non-travel squad scrimmage. Friday, we started working a little bit on Baylor, but we did mostly fundamentals and let the non-travel squad finish their scrimmage. Gave them Saturday off and Sunday night started working on Baylor. Thursday and Friday were more like training camp than they were like game preparation.”
Question: Was their anything positive out of what happened in terms of you preparation?
Rocky Long “We weren’t very beat up, so it’s a positive for some teams who had a lot of injuries. We only had one of our travel squad guys who would have missed the New Mexico State game, Brian Penley, who’s a tight end. He the only one who would have missed the game, and he is probably back for this one. As far as health goes, it didn’t help us any but I am sure it helped a lot of teams get well.”
Question: Is there an advantage because Baylor’s only played one game and you guys have played two?
Rocky Long “I can see both sides. It’s a plus that they’ve only played one game and we’ve played two, but both of us getting a week off can make it like the first game of the season. The negative part of it is that they’ve got two films to watch on us and all of last year’s tapes because we have changed very much. They have a lot more to study and game plan than we do. Their defense is a lot like it was last year so we have one game and all of last year’s film to study and develop a plan against their defense, but their offense is brand new. They just put it in spring ball. So we’ve got one film on them and 80 plays on them. That’s the only thing we’ve got on their offense to try to develop a game plan. It is very, very difficult to do, so for our defense it is a lot like playing a first game. They’ve changed. Last year they were a two-back set most of the time, and they ran it and play-action passed it. This year they are a spread offense a lot like Texas Tech. Them being able to watch our UTEP game and Texas Tech game, they have a heck of a lot better idea of what they do than we know of what they do. In that case, they have a huge advantage.”
Question: Do you anticipate them to throw the ball a lot like Texas Tech did or not as much?
Rocky Long: “I think we determine how much they throw it. If we’re going to blitz the heck out of them then that means they’re going to throw it a heck of a lot, because they won’t have enough room to run it. If we’re going to play soft that means they’re going to run it a lot. Like Arkansas State did. Arkansas State played them pretty soft and they ran the ball better than they threw it. But Arkansas State was dropping everybody in coverage. Unless they scare us out of it, it’s hard to run the ball against us in spread offenses because we put enough guys up in there blitzing because it’s hard to block them all. Now, I am not giving away our game plan. If we decide to play them soft, there is a lot better chance for them to run it than throw it.”
Question: Do you think they have a running back and an (offensive line) where they are confident enough to run the ball more than normal?
Rocky Long: “The offensive line is very experienced. They’re big, but everybody we play is big, so that’s beside the point. They have three starters that have (a lot of) experience as starters. They have gone to a one-back set. They have a wealth of running backs on their depth chart. They list a fullback and a tailback, but they don’t have a fullback and a tailback anymore. They have running backs, so they have four guys who have played quite a bit and have been pretty successful. Two weeks ago when they played Arkansas State, the best one was listed as their full back. He had a pretty good game. And then they have a couple of real good wide receivers who are big play threats. The quarter back was a very highly recruited kid out of high school. He’s 6-4 and can throw it very, very well.”
Question: (On Baylor QB Greg Cicero not having a good opening game against Arkansas State)
Rocky Long “He missed most of last year with a broken collar bone. I think he was probably a little rusty, but I think most of it was Arkansas State. Arkansas State was dropping everybody in coverage, and they had to run the ball. Eventually they did and it won the game for them (Baylor). I think they went into the game realizing the offense was new and it was supposed to throw it around so I think they forced a lot of throws. Because they felt like they had to throw it for his sake and everybody’s sake that they were going to spread it out and throw it. So, they threw into a lot of coverages. I’m surprised they didn’t get more intercepted, they got one intercepted but they didn’t get more. When the game was tied at 3-3 in the 2nd quarter they said, ‘OK we’ll start running it ,’ and they ran it right down (Arkansas State’s) throat. Then Arkansas State started putting more guys in the box and Baylor started completing more passes.”
Question: Can the Arkansas State game gauge where (Baylor) is right now?
Rocky Long: “No, because I don’t know how good Arkansas State is or how bad Arkansas State is. I went back and watched an Arkansas State game from last year but they lost 15-17 starters so you don’t know how good Arkansas State is or if they’re any good at all. I think (Baylor) will be a middle of the road Big 12 team, a lot like Texas Tech.”
Question: Is this a good opportunity to get a road win under your belt?
Rocky Long: “I think there is always an opportunity to win on the road. I don’t know if I’d feel any better about our chances this week as I did two weeks ago. I thought we had a good chance against Texas Tech. We didn’t play as well as I thought we would. It all comes down to players making plays and players playing well.”
Question: How do you feel about the next three games being on the road?
Rocky Long: “We’re not going to make a big deal out of it. We’re going to handle it like we always do. I think it is very difficult to win on the road. I think starting the league schedule two weeks on the road in places like Utah and Wyoming makes it very, very difficult for us to start the conference schedule off well. If we can start it off well we have five of six games at home after that. There’s a silver lining to everything, but we’ve got to play well on the road, too.”
Question: “Did you lose some of the momentum you gained from playing well in the 4th quarter of the Texas Tech game due to what happened last week?
Rocky Long: “I don’t think so. I am a firm believer in that if you practice well, you play well. Our kids, even last week when they weren’t into, practiced well. Ever since training camp started our quarter back has looked good in practice and sooner or later he is going to look good in a game. To see him throwing it a little better in the 4th quarter gives you some confidence. But my confidence has nothing to do with it. It’s him having enough confidence to perform well that’s more important how my confidence is. Hopefully that will give our offense some momentum going into this game. As long as you practice well it shouldn’t matter if you have a few extra days. In fact it should help.”
Question: “Talk about Baylor’s defense?”
Rocky Long: “They’re very, very physical up front. They’re hard to block. They do a lot of the same things we do on defense. Now, playing against our offense is completely different than playing against their offense. They put a lot of guys up near the line of scrimmage and they play a lot of man coverage. Making it harder to run the ball. Which means you’ve got to be able to beat them once in a while or scare them enough with the pass that they back off a little bit and that allows you to run it. Or you’ve got to be more physical than them and run it no matter if they’re up there or not. They’re big and physical so we’ve got to threaten them enough with the pass so they don’t put nine guys up there to stop the run.”
Players:
WR Dwight Counter – Sophomore – Lancaster, Texas (Lancaster HS)(on the need for UNM’s offense to be balanced):”I think we can run on just about anybody but we have to open it up to beat some of the better teams we play.”
(on how to improve the Lobo passing game):”We have to work on our timing, even if it means we have to stay after practice for a couple of days. Sunday, we had a real nice practice.”
(on the two-week layoff):”I think it depends on who you are. If you are a person who was playing well, I think you probably wanted to play last week. If you were kind of banged up a little bit, you probably wanted the week off to rest up your body.”
(on the decision to postpone last week’s games due to the tragedies in the East):”I think there are more important things going on than football, and I don’t think everybody’s mind and heart would have been into it if we had played.”
(on Baylor):”They play in a very good conference. Their quarterback (Greg Cicero) got hurt early last season, so they were shuffling quarterbacks. The first game (of 2001), they played an average team, so I didn’t really get to judge them that well. I’ll just have to judge them Saturday when I go against them.”
RB JARROD BAXTER(on the UNM offense):”The first two games I thought we needed to be balanced (running and passing the ball), and we weren’t able to get that done. Because of that, against Texas Tech, we came out with an ‘L.’ We need to get our balance taken care of in the preseason though, we need to get it straightened out before conference play (Sept. 29 vs. Utah).”
(on UNM’s need to establish a passing game):”We need to be able to throw the ball. I am confident in our offensive line and I know we can run the ball on anybody, but that is only going to go so far. We need to be able to throw over their heads, which we can do.”
(on UNM’s game plan against Baylor):”We need to dictate the tempo of the game. We can’t let their defense know that they can just stockpile the line. We need to come out and set up the line of scrimmage, put together some good drives early, instead of having to wait for the third quarter.”
(on the two-week layoff):”I don’t think it hurt. I’m not so sure how much it helps because it was a surprise off-week. Even though we didn’t play last week, everybody is still in the rhythm of practice and the mindset of what is going on and what we have to do to have a winning season.”
(on Baylor):”Their conference is tough, I am sure they expect to win more than they did last year. I noticed a couple of games last year they should have won, they had a chance to win but didn’t pull it out. I hate to look at it like they were 2-9 last year. I like to look at it like they are trying just as hard as we are to bring their program back up. They have had great players go through there and sooner or later they are going to have another one. Hopefully we can go down there and take care of business.”
(on having to play three straight road games):”If we don’t win this first game, the next two road games are going to be terrible. It is already bad enough being away from home three games in a row. If we get a win this week, it will be a whole lot easier. We need to get guys comfortable with winning on the road.”
LB Charles Moss – Junior – Dallas, Texas (Lincoln HS)(on playing near his hometown of Dallas):”I am really excited. A lot of my friends and a lot of my family are coming down to see me play and I am really excited because I never get to go this close to home and play.”
(on Baylor):”I know they pass the ball a lot. From the Arkansas State tape I saw, they definitely pass the ball a lot, but they will run the ball too out of spread out formations. I think we will see about 50-50 run-pass.”
(on the Lobo defense):”We have a lot of confidence going into the game. I feel that we are going to go out there with the same philosophy we have always had, get to the quarterback as fast as we can and as hard as we can for 60 minutes. After that 60 minutes, the outcome, hopefully, will be good for our side.”
(on playing again after last week’s cancellation):”I am sorry and I feel bad for all that happened back East. But for me to stay sane and for me to be all right, football is what I need to do. That is where I have my fun, that is where I get my mind free of everything, by going out and playing the game that I really love.”