ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Lobo head football coach Bob Davie held his weekly press conference on Tuesday in the Zia Level of the football press facility as a part of UNM’s weekly fall sports media luncheon. Here is what the head coach had to say about this week’s game with UTSA on Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. Mountain Time. The game will be played at the Alamodome.
Bob Davie: A couple things just going on around the country that you always keep one eye on, as this game changes. Certainly the Michigan situation with the injuries with the injury to the quarterback has got everyone’s attention and having been in television…first of all I think our protocol is outstanding. I think Bob Waller does and unbelievable job. We have ten people on the sidelines that all have an ear piece in. Constant communication … it’s divided up between who actually watches everyone during the play. Who watches the ball thrown down the field. We have certain people who all they do is watch the line of scrimmage and watch the quarterback after the ball is thrown and other people watch down the field. So certainly I think our protocol is outstanding on just monitoring injuries during the game. I mean there’s 10 people on the side lines watching that. But I think there’s one thing I saw being in television is the NCAA probably should … just about every game is on television. And I think what people fail to understand sometimes in defense of Brady Hoke, I can see all these things happen. In that television truck there’s probably 30 angles of replays on that huge screen on that television truck. And let’s not kid ourselves the angles and the views that you get in television are much, much easier than the views you will ever get on the sidelines. Maybe moving forward that you should have an unbiased person in the television truck representing the NCAA to watch all those angles to see if he detects anything that you don’t detect on the sidelines. Because I can see how you can get in that situation down there with 150 people on the sidelines. Number one you sound silly when you say ‘hey I didn’t see the kid get hit’ but when the ball is thrown most of the time your eyes go down field to see where the ball was thrown, so we’ve got that issue going on. I feel really comfortable about what we do but I can still see where a mistake can be made during that.
And the other thing going on, I’m sure you all notice the North Carolina State situation, and this kind of relates to us where North Carolina State’s coach accused Florida State players of faking injury to try and slow down their tempo. We’ve certainly been in three up-tempo games the last three weeks. And to give you an example of where that happens when all of a sudden you look up and maybe your can’t get the substitutes or you see a coach on the field. No excuse for how things happened when that ball’s in the middle of the field or towards the other hash there really is no way for a defensive player to get off that field. We had that happen the other night. We had one of our guys completely exhausted, seeing stars, seeing stars. Tried to come off the field and had no way to get off the field other than us or him turning around and calling time out.
Now maybe he’s not injured but he is so gassed that he is seeing stars. So things like that happen and I think as we move forward in this game in my opinion we will adjust with it. And we have adjusted with it. We are not Neanderthal. We will adjust to it as we go. It’s become a point where if a player can’t come off the field, I’d never tell a player to fake an injury but what’s the alternative? When you got a young man out there that is so gassed that he can’t get off the field and they’re up there right now ready to snap that ball because they didn’t change personnel, what is it? You just start using timeouts every time a kid gets winded to that point? So, you know the game itself is creating more complicated things than it ever has. But it’s interesting. It’s interesting. North Carolina State had 550 yards against Florida State at home. Arizona State had 690 yards on UCLA, a game I believe they lost. Ohio State, fast tempo against Cincinnati a good football team had over 700 yards where they just put the hammer down tempo. Oklahoma State and Texas Tech played the other night on Thursday night both teams had over 550 yards in the game. And we’ll adapt to it and we are adapting to it. You see the problems that become inherent to all of this as we just go rapid-face moving forward, it’s a complex, complicated deal. And it’s really exposed when you have youth on the field. And it turns into a really pretty ugly thing, and it’s going on all across the country. For instance and just so we’re all on the same page, we’ve got some liabilities on defense right now as we move forward. Markel Byrd started his first game and played 75 snaps at free safety, a freshman … I’m sure you all noticed that. Ricky Bennett’s behind him is a freshman. We had two freshman free safeties. Ryan Langford gets hurt and Kimmie Carson’s in there as a freshman played 70 plays the other night. I can keep going.
The two true sophomore corners start the game. We had Donnie White, a true sophomore, start out as outside linebacker. Dakota Cox, a true sophomore, started as inside linebacker. Nik D’Avanzo, a true sophomore, starting defensive end. Cole Juarez with no spring started as nose guard. I can keep going with youth but all these things are more complex and complicated because of the fast tempo just snap the ball as fast as you can. And we are continuing to build a core of guys. A core of guys that will be able to handle this moving forward and that’s what this whole thing is about. And so it kind of takes me to UTSA. I think they’ve rally been a model quite honestly. They have 36 seniors on that football team. Thirty-six seniors. I guess Larry Coker, this starts his sixth year there. The first year all they did was practice. The second year they played two or three games. The third year they did a little bit more … the fourth year, the fifth year. And they built that thing up. It started with no culture at all. It started with an eye on the future. It started with what can the program be? They didn’t have the negativity going through of playing games right away with a brand new roster. And in our own way that’s what we have to do. There’s a couple way to look at you won eight games. You can say man that’s negative. Or you can keep one eye on the future of what it can be because I promise you if Larry Coker would of played some games those first two few years they might not have won eight games. So as we build this I think there’s a lot of similarities in our program and I’m not sure what’s easier. I know what my opinion is to build a program with no culture with positives in the future or build a program with negativity and apathy and have to go play Mountain West Conference games as you build it. You guys decide what’s easier. I know what I think is easier. But none of that matters. What matters is what can we be as we move forward. And we are in a very similar way of building a program and I think there are so many positives right now that while we are in this storm, while we are giving up yards on defense, while we turned the ball over early with a redshirt freshman quarterback in here against pretty good teams that we keep one eye on what it can be. I promise you it can be pretty darn good. We will be pretty darn good. Will it be easy? No.
So I’m kind of giving you an overview of the complexity of college football right now. One thing we do have to address here as we do move forward as we talk about winning this conference. We have to address the fact that the last two weeks the other teams’ offense has snapped the ball 48 more times than we have. Twenty-four times against New Mexico State and 24 times against Fresno, their offense snapped the ball more than ours. Those snaps … if you just take five yards an average play. four yards an average play, that’s a bunch of offense.
So as we move forward what’s our niche as to getting the ball snapped more? Obviously it’s playing better defense and getting the field … that’s the obvious solution for everyone. But as these things continue to go at breakneck pace, how does our offense … our offense puts in a place to be competitive every week. Really, in most weeks since we’ve been here. It’s given us some tremendous advantages as we build. As we get more personnel we get better on defense, which ties hand in hand. How do we now become snapping the ball as much as other teams because that’s where the game is headed. I always keep one eye on what’s out there and the big picture of things and what’s going on in the future. Now what do we have to do in our specific position. Our specific situation to win here. And there’s a clear plan to do it. Developing those core of players. And man I’m excited about that. There’s a core of really good players that do all they can all the time. Now we have a core and that starts to multiply a little because that’s who the other guys follow. There;s a lot of good young players here and now it’s about the core getting bigger and multiplying and we put ourselves in a position to do that its really kind of exciting.
Last year along with Utah State, UTSA was a team that kind of shut down your offense. Four man front, big inside. Point of emphasis this week?
Bob Davie: They did. I think honestly going into that game a couple of things. I think we thought we were a little better than we were offensively going into the first game of the season last year. With that said they are probably as good a technique team as we will play all year and they are going to give you absolutely nothing. They are going to line up in the same defense they’ve been playing for six years now and that’s why they are good. They are going to make us earn everything. I don’t think we played as well as we are capable of level of playing last year. They certainly had a lot to do with it. And a lot of people have taken what they did last year through this last year and a half and kind of copied what they have done. So we’ve seen a lot of that look now. Just about everybody we play, plays us in a four-down, safety in the middle kind of look week in and week out. Fresno was the one that did it a little bit different because that’s what there defense is. I think we are better prepared. But again they are coming in there very confident that they can stop our offense but certainly they shut us down. But the very next week we went down to UTEP and rushed for 500 yards or something. They did a good job.
Coach defensively, what’s the coaching staff doing to improve your product defensively? You mentioned the offense and trying to keep up with the Joneses…
Bob Davie: It’s more of the same. It’s again doing what you choose to do with efficiency. Regardless of what you choose to do on defense it comes down to being efficient. And players playing their gap and playing after down after down after down doing what they are supposed to do and in our case doing what they know how to do. It’s the constant pressure being put on young guys down after down after down, week after week after week. And I talked about it last week it’s about developing some guys kind of like the “Seal” mentality. That’s what it is now to play defense you better be a Navy Seal and it is about that.
Injury-wise who do you expect to be out, who do you expect to be back?
Bob Davie: Yeah, I guess I’m one of the few guys that really talks about injury. ESPN was in here last week and said coach you’re probably the only guy in the country that talks about injuries but there’s certainly nothing to hide. That’s another thing I think we should do across the board, say what it is. I think Cole Gautsche will be ready to play. I think Carlos Wiggins will be ready to play, I think Teriyon Gipson will be ready to play, Chris Edling won’t be ready to play. Richard Winston I doubt will play. He’s given it a good effort but I doubt he plays. Ryan Langford won’t play and I.B. Brown won’t play. So the will linebacker position is very young. It’s Kimmie Carson and Jeff Smelser, a walk-on that we really are high on along with Trajuan Briggs. Cranston Jones will probably start at corner for I.B. Brown but we will shuffle some guys in there.
Coach, what do you guys have to do to have some success out there?
Bob Davie: I think we have to continue to improve each week which actually we have. If you look at the tape I think we are better right now than we were when we started this season. I think on defense what they are, because of their time together, quite honestly and the continuity of their staff. Their staff has been there all six years too. There’s a combination of a lot of things on offense. You know a lot of these spread teams really do one or two formations because they get lined up so fast and there’s really no motion against spread teams because they just want to snap the ball and they don’t want to motion. This team is a multiple, multiple set team. They do a lot of things one or two times. Very seldom do they do things over and over and over. So on defense it is probably more of the same of don’t break, don’t break and don’t bust and make them earn everything and that’s been our single biggest problem. On offense it really is how do you get big plays against them because they are pretty consistent with what they do. But big plays come in different ways. Nobody thought we’d get a 60-yard gain in handing the ball to Crusoe there in the game against Fresno, special teams once again they are all really good. They are all seniors, their punter, their kicker, their returner. They are all a part of that original group of guys. They are a well coached well-oiled football team. They are going to stand there and execute the whole game and they are not going to give you anything, so we’ve got to go take it and earn it.
And that should be a big challenge defensively knowing they do so many different things on offense.
Bob Davie: It’s a challenge right now for anyone we play right now on offense with our defense right now. I think too, we are going to San Antonio, Texas … we’ve got 26 players from the state of Texas. They have a 100 from the state of Texas we have 26. This is a big game for our kids. It’s a big game going back to Texas. You know San Antonio is what 190 miles west of Houston and 200 south of Dallas? It sits there right in the middle of the state. The Alamodome … there’s been some great games played there. They average well over 30,000 people. They got great support there. Really a good game-day atmosphere, I saw it on television against Arizona. They are wearing some different jerseys at home. We are going to wear red on the road. It’ll be a really good atmosphere.
Regarding San Antonio and concussions, I know Johnny Vizcaino would love to play against his hometown team … what’s his status?
Bob Davie: Johnny’s out. He’s back out running now. He’s entering into the protocol phase or whatever that is. He’s back out there but he won’t play this week.
Is Cole Gautsche starting?
Bob Davie: You know what I don’t know. We will know later on during the week. When we know both of those guys and know probably all three of them will play. It’s not something at the top of our list to make a major decision on whose going to start and who is going to come in second. I think Lamar Jordan, I do think it has been a bit of a benefit for him to be on the headsets. Kind of the reason we didn’t start him quite honestly against Fresno. It is kind of settling as a young quarterback to be on that head set other than DeBesse starts screaming pretty loud and starts losing control. I’m sure that’s unsettling for him. But you can hear all of the communication and you can hear all the exact checks early on in the game. That way when you go in maybe it’s a little easier on you as a young guy. That’s really the reason we started Clayton Mitchem against Fresno just so Lamar could kind of hear it.
Regarding the free safety, is there anything wrong with Brandon Branch
Bob Davie: I think Rick it’s time for us to move forward. We have two safeties that are freshman Ricky Bennett and Markel Byrd, and actually there’s a third. He’s a sophomore a kid named Kenneth Maxwell, number 35. He’s going to play this week as well. He’s a transfer from Priarie View who is immediately eligible because of special NCAA circumstances. He’s going to be a good player. He has three good years of football left. We are moving ahead with Maxwell. It’s not so much what Branch didn’t do. It’s what these young guys I think are capable of doing. And again I think it’s that core of players who will do all they can do all the time and that’s not directed at all at him. It’s just directed as to where we need to go as a program. And we need to get the guys on the field that we can go win this championship with in a couple of years. And I think those guys are those guys. But there is some youth there at a critical position.
Coach you said on your postgame interview that the speed of the game, the pace of the game is faster than what your defense can play. So who should be taking the responsibility for that?
Bob Davie: All of us. That was pointed at me, starting with me first. We all saw the thing where we had a coach out on the field. That was when the player was trying to get off the field who was gassed and he was out there saying ‘stay out there stay out there they are going to snap the ball’. It’s all of us, it’s all of us with the speed of the game. And honestly if you look around the country and you watch as many games as I’ve watched on Saturday, everybody has that problem. I mean its chaos right now. And I guess that’s good for college football. I really guess that’s what people want to see. Just players not being able to get on and off the field, coaches on the field, kids faking injury, bubbles screens coming out left and right. I guess that’s good for college football and I guess that what’s we are going to move forward to and adapt to.
But it is. I’m not trying to … it makes everyone look bad. We’re down in Las Cruces and when you’re on the visiting side where the chains are and the chain guys are running down the sidelines trying to get set and coaches are tripping over the chain guys, chain guys are tripping over the coaches, the chains aren’t even set. We got the umpire over the ball as the ball is set because the ball couldn’t and we have the nose guard trying to get out of the way when the ball is snapped. I mean its chaos but that’s what the game is. That’s what the game is. And that’s why you need men on that field on defense. You need men because you’re not substituting. You’re not substituting. That day is over. So when you’re out there, you’re out there. And on defense you chase the ball every play. Those offensive line men block and all they do is go up to the ball for the next play. It’s what it is. But it’s all of us. It’s all of us. It’s all of us adapting everything we do. It’s all of our responsibility because that’s what the game is now.
Is that the million dollar question, how do you deal with it?
It’s doable. It’s not some Star Wars thing you know. I got enough good friends that are doing it. You know Tim DeRuyter is a guy that when he was at A&M he got burned by it in the Big 12. They gave up over 500 yards to the Texas Techs and Oklahoma States. And when he goes to Fresno that’s what he does. Now, their personnel is suited for that. I think three years ago before I got here that’s what UNM was wasn’t it? Wasn’t it a fast break four wide fast tempo trying to go up before I got here. (SID Frank Mercogliano intoned “well they attempted that and tried coach”)
I’m being honest there are different ways to dealing with it. We have our unique way on offense. Now with that said we’re not going to lose our uniqueness but we probably need to as we get better on defense and our personnel is better we need to pick up the pace. That’s the beauty of what we do and that’s why I’m so excited to get to do what we do is staying ahead of it a little bit based on what your personnel is and that’s the uniqueness of all these situation. We just need to continue to develop our players. The mental toughness piece. The mental toughness. And that why after the game it was exciting because I think it showed to a degree how far we’ve come. That was Fresno. That was the same Fresno that last year we couldn’t make a first down against or have a negative play on defense against. But it also shows how far we have to go. And to go you have to tighten it down even more. You got to be more disciplined and you got to be more mature across the board. That’s how you get to the next level, and that’s what we are trying to do right now. We are trying to tighten this thing down even tighter. And at some point we will be mature enough and talented enough and mature enough that I don’t care what they do on offense .
You care about developing players but I think there is a parallel that this team, right now is good enough to win games. You could be 3-1, and I feel like you could of won or maybe even should of won some?
Bob Davie: Yeah, but we could be 0-4. You know that’s what this is and that’s what we are. And honestly look down the rest of our schedule and that’s what it’s going to be. You know we are going to play a bunch of close games I really believe that. You know we played three of them already this year. And Arizona State if we could of played better in the second half. We had a chance at the end of the first half to get some momentum. That’s what we are going to be. That’s what we are going to be. There’s going to be a lot of close games. And there’s two ways to look at that. You can say okay progress has been made. That’s how I choose to look at it. Progress has been made because we are competitive. Now how do I as a head coach get this to where we win? It’s here’s my core of coaches and here’s my core of guys. And we squeeze even tighter and that develops. And that gets bigger because here’s what it takes to win. And that’s why I feel pretty good quite honestly about where we are right now. I really do. Charlie Weiss of felt that way at Kansas too. He may be feeling pretty good to that’s the reality of this profession.
Is it maturity finishing those games?
Bob Davie: Completely. Complete maturity. When we went into halftime did we really believe we were going to beat Fresno in the second half? Deep down in our gut did every player in that locker room think we were going to win that game? Or, because they scored so quickly at the end of the first half did we say ‘aw shoot they’re getting the ball back in the second half here we go again’? Right? Being honest. Not what we all said, everybody was jumping up and down … same thing at Arizona State. Our guys were jumping off of lockers coming out for the second half. But deep down were we really good enough and did we really believe we were going to win that game in the second half? I know those core of guys in there did, but that whole group? Probably not. So that core just has to get bigger and bigger and there’s no way to do it other than just (hits fist into his open hand) keep going, keep going. And I’m talking about going to class, sitting up in class, sitting up in meeting, taking hard coaching, and we’ve been great at that. We ever got to be better at that, because there is no margin for error now, and that’s what this is going to be. This is like a coaching clinic in here isn’t it? But what else would you rather be doing on your birthday?
Crusoe Gongbay, he carried the ball 28 times, obviously some of that was because of Gipson. Do you still plan on giving him the ball when he is gaining four, five, six yards every time?
Bob Davie: You want an example of maturity is? Number two and number six (Jhurell Pressley). What do we have eleven guys that have been around here four or five years? They are two o fthe eleven. Just look at them in that game. That’s what maturity is. Take the tape and watch LaMar Bratton, take the tape and watch Jamal Price. None on defense that have been around that long. Maturity. That’s why number two played the way he played. He’s been here four years, and he’s been through the ups and downs. He’s a man. He’s a man. That’s why he played. So yeah, I mean I’ll give him the ball 30 times. He’s coming on right now, he really is.