ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Lobo head football coach Bob Davie held his weekly press conference on Tuesday in the U.S Bank 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 nationally-ranked Colorado State on Saturday 11:38 a.m. on ROOT Sports.
Bob Davie: I am impressed with Colorado State. They have done one heck of a job. They’ve beaten Colorado and Boston College, two BCS schools. Beat Boston College in Boston, and one of my best friends, Steve Addazzio is the head coach there who was with me at Notre Dame. They are impressive, they really are. They have one loss at Boise State so it’s a big challenge. They are 9-1 and a team with a lot to play for. So we all know what it is. I think the thing that makes them so difficult is their offense. Their quarterback is really a good player. Schematically they all do an unbelievable job. Dave Baldwin has done an unbelievable job. He is a guy that has coached in a lot of different schemes. He’s a lot like Bob DeBesse in that he has been around a lot of different offensive systems and he always finds a way to do what his personnel allows him to do. They’re a school that has traditionally had the big offensive linemen and big tight ends. They went and got the running back from Alabama that has definitely come in and been a major factor on their football team. He graduated from Alabama and has come in and made plays. They have another running back, No. 3, that I am really impressed with, and he’s a junior college player. They have a good scheme on offense and really good players on defense. On defense they play hard and play a lot of man to man coverage. They will be a 4-down team against us. We have been able to move the ball some against them. You look at the last two weeks playing Boise State and Utah State, two really good teams, and we are averaging over 500 yards a game the last two weeks. It’s going to be a situation where offensively they are going to be a handful for us to try and contain. I give them a lot of credit they have done a heck of a job there and they deserve all the credit for it.
Rick Wright, Albuquerque Journal: Did you know Jim McElwain prior to coming here and what does he bring to CSU?
Bob Davie: I hadn’t known him well. I met him really one time. I did an Alabama game one time for ESPN at Alabama and Jim was the offensive coordinator and his daughter was working in the football office there at Alabama. That was really the only occasion we had a chance to meet up to that point, so I don’t know him well. I think number one, the offensive system that they brought is really what Alabama is, a lot of running, a lot of play action with deep shots down the field. They have a lot of different formations than you see on a normal basis. I think that is probably Dave Baldwin’s input to it. They do a lot of flipping, a lot of shifting, a lot of window dressing. It’s a very well conceived offense where they don’t take sacks because they run the ball well. They use the play action pass and it’s a well conceived offense. I think schematically the offense they brought really fits where they are. It is the kind of players that you get at Colorado State, traditionally. Big, strong, physical players, big quarterback, big tight ends. What he has done is he has put a system in at a place that gives him a chance to have long term success. It’s really what I think we have tried to do here. I think it’s interesting to just put some context to it. They have done a great job.
[00:06:28] JP Murrieta, KOB: Coach you are a run-first offense obviously. What do you kind of tell your receiver to kind of keep them in the groove.
Bob Davie: What we have done is there have been weeks where we continue to practice the passing game over and over. There are times we don’t use it in the game but instead of saying that was ever wasted time, all you are doing is making more of an investment. You are investing more in the bank and then eventually you’ll get back what you put into it. You’ll get the interest off of it. I think last week we did. We played Boise State where we didn’t throw the ball much because we didn’t have to throw the ball. But, last week when we did have to throw the ball we were able to. So it’s not like we are making an investment where you will never get the interest back. You just keep pounding that for us to be successful, it’s the next step, and it’s not time wasted. I think our team understands that. I talked to Lamar Jordan about that today on the practice field quite honestly. I said we all know the next step for us offensively is to be doing what we are doing right now in practice so just keep doing it.
[00:07:43] Van Tate, KRQE: Were you encouraged by the passing game last week?
Bob Davie: Anytime we complete a pass it’s like we won the Super Bowl (laughter). I was encouraged against Utah State particularly because there were some third downs where Utah State flipped the switch and went really to a pass defense mode which they are really good with their blitz package, as good as anyone in the country. We picked up a couple critical third downs, one to Tyler Ducnan where he makes the catch and spins out for the first down and another one to Jeric Magnant over in front of our bench in a 3rd-and-9. So for us on third down situations or when we get behind in the game where we have to throw it I think we have made some progress. The play action piece of it is another part of it. We had some shots that we didn’t quite take advantage of but the biggest piece that I was encouraged about was when everybody in the stadium knew we had to throw it and we were able to throw it against a good Utah State team. So I think there is some encouragement out there moving forward. It’s probably too early to say this but we have a young receiver on our team Matt Quarrells that we are redshirting that has just drawn the attention of everybody on our football team and coaching staff. He looks like he can be what we have played against. He looks like he has a tremendous future here. Once we get this all together that has to be there and that eventually will pay off for us.
[00:09:26] Scott Stieger, Lobo Radio Network: Talk about Lamar a little bit, and last week’s game. Correct me if I’m wrong but it seemed like there were some underthrows. Not the outs but the one’s down the field…is that technique or arm strength?
Bob Davie: Technique all the way. You know it’s something we saw on high school tape. It’s something that he knows is there. What he does is when he throws the football his back foot comes off the ground too early. There is that thing of whatever you do in sports you need to be in balance and exchange of weight which generates velocity on anything starts with the feet. If you watch Lamar throw, a lot of times his back foot comes off the ground before the ball is thrown so he’s not getting the full transition of weight. That is something that he knows we know. Hopefully it’s something that can become correctable. Right now in the heat of battle it’s like all of us, we can go out on that practice tee or we can go out on that driving range and our mechanics are pretty good, but as soon as it’s execution under duress you always revert back to what your safety net is or your comfort zone is and if you watch Lamar his back foot comes off the ground and that ball dies. You can go put the San Diego State tape on. The exact same thing so that is the next step. He has a glitch there mechanically. He has plenty of arm strength. It really starts with his lower body.
[00:10:59] Stiegler: Are any of your other quarterbacks farther advanced than that, even the guys that aren’t playing?
Bob Davie: I think so. I think if we look at our two younger quarterbacks, JaJuan Lawson right now would be a pretty good thrower. Patrick Reed is right now probably the most athletic. He’s taller with a strong arm but he has some mechanical issues. I think JuJuan Lawson is a guy whose dad was a High School coach that grew up doing it and is mechanically a little bit farther along throwing the ball. It’s a difficult thing, it really is. You go back to Tim Tebow and as much as Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen worked with Tim Tebow he still had some glitches once all the dust settled and thats why he is with ESPN right now and not with the NFL. At some point it’s on the person as much as he is coached and as much as he is drilled. Some guys take it and run with it and some guys never get passed that point but that’s definitely what you are seeing. It is exactly right he loses velocity on the ball because he doesn’t transition his way through.
[00:12:18] Marty Watts, 101.7 The Team: Coach with that said, is our championship quarterback on this roster right now or is it someone you have to go recruit?
Bob Davie: I am excited about what we have. We are sitting there with Cole Gautsche coming back for another year. Lamar Jordan comes back. It’s been Boise State and Utah State the last two weeks and we have averaged over 500 yards a game. Lamar Jordan a year from now I think has a chance to be really good. We have two young quarterbacks here that we are excited about that we just want to get through this year and make sure the redshirt stays. Also there are a couple of quarterbacks we are looking at. I am still not overloaded on that roster. There are still some scholarships out there. But we will be very selective and careful with whom we bring in, both from a chemistry standpoint and also we have to have a guy that potentially is better. We don’t need just another guy. If we put more pieces around them I think that will help.
[00:13:25] Van Tate: With being encouraged, can you see calling more pass attempts to end the season?
Bob Davie: It’s hard to say. I think we are a little more comfortable that we can throw it. A lot depends, and you know what i am going to say, on just the flow of the game. I think we do have more confidence in our passing game right now then we had since I’ve been here. It’s interesting looking back to Colorado State in 2012. B.R. Holbrook playing in that last football game in Fort Collins came off the bench and made some big time throws. He hit Jhurell Pressley on a wheel route for a huge touchdown to put us ahead with about three or four minutes left in that game. You look at him making some throws to Carlos Wiggins but I still think overall right now our passing game be probably have a little more confidence than we had in the past.
[00:14:23] Orlando Sanchez, KOAT: Talk about Romell Jordan and the big play he had on Saturday. Is that what you have been looking for from him?
Bob Davie: Yes I think you guys have heard me. We’ve talked about Ridge Jones. Ridge Jones is getting close, when is he going to break through. I think he had a little bit of a breakthrough moment out here against Boise State and even against Utah State. He secured the pitch on 3rd-and-10 even on a bad pitch and made a first down. We’ve been talking about Romell Jordan. We see something there and I think it’s going to come and he broke out with a 72-yard touchdown run, which will do wonders for his confidence. You know he is a redshirt freshman, but we saw it happening and I think it’s kind of indicative of our team where some pieces there that haven’t quite got put together yet. I think that Ridge Jones and Romell Jordan are two guys that are kind of what you see with our team.
[00:15:35] Murrieta: With two games left you have some seniors that will be trying to prove that they can play at the next level. Who do you see as a guy that has the best opportunity.
Bob Davie: I think that it’s going to be a free agent situation if we are totally candid about it. Then you look at what are some of the unique skills that it takes to be able to be a free agent and have all the intangible things it takes to make a team. I think we have some players on our team whose best football is still ahead of them. I look at Jamal Price and what Jamal Price has done here, the improvement he has made, certainly there is an upside to Jamal Price. He is getting better and better and I’d love to have him another year. I think SaQwan Edwards is a guy that we all know his path of what it’s been to get here. He does have some mobility and he does have some ball skills and he is a taller corner. Lamar Bratton he has all the intangibles, every intangible there is, but he is a little bit undersized. What is in Crusoe Gongbay’s future? I’m going to do everything I can to give Crusoe an opportunity to go make a team somewhere or at least get in camp. He is a hard-nosed good special teams player. Brett Bowers plays his butt of for us but probably undersized. I can go through all of them I may be leaving someone off there but obviously I think it’s a free agent situation for all of the above named. We did have Dillon Farrell go make the 49ers 53-man roster. It’s doable. I think there are some guys whose best football is ahead of them.
[00:17:28] Henry Tafoya, KDEF: You are so close. Is the difference maker on the offensive side of the ball, or the defensive?
Bob Davie: We are close. I don’t know that we are as close as maybe what we’d like to think. I do see the piece of where people can put the hammer down on us and we don’t have enough to stay with it. I really do. I look back to Arizona State at half time of that game and all of a sudden bang. I look at Fresno State and the second half bang. San Diego State was a 10-7 game. I look at Boise State getting the ball back at the end of the game and we can’t stop them. Look at Saturday with Utah State getting the ball back. Teams still have another level on us, another gear. There is just more in the tank for different reasons. I think again I want to try to solve that in the next two weeks. I talked to our team this morning about that. I clearly see what it takes and what we have to do to get this thing turned around long term. I am more worried about the next two weeks. I want the next two weeks. I don’t want to say well it’s about next year yet. I think we owe that to our seniors and I think we are close enough. Obviously the first thing is on defense. Obviously we have to play defense to win here. The next thing is to become a little more balanced on offense. But the bigger thing is to get more gas in the tank overall as a program through recruiting and through player development. We need more of those nine guys that Steve Fairchild recruited four years ago (at Colorado State) starting on defense for us. We can all sit here and say well they are closer look at the scores next to last year. That’s not what just happened. Everybody else is doing the same thing too. But I do truly in my heart believe we can do it. But we have to go recruit some more guys and we got to have these guys that are coming back. I’ve talked about the core players that have to multiply. It has to multiply because to me we have underachieved right now. I know people might be looking and a lot of our opponents might be saying we are over-achieving. I think we have underachieved because we don’t have a big enough core of the guys that 24 hours a day are doing everything they can do across the board everything they can do with a fanatical effort for us to win. We don’t have that the core is not big enough yet so that is one thing. So it’s a lot of things but man it is fun to do. It is fun to get down and try to get it accomplished.
[00:20:36] Wright: When you have gotten into the obvious passing situations, the 3rd-and-9s, how have your protections been?
Bob Davie: It’s actually been better. Garrett Adcock is a guy that is always going to struggle a little bit because he is pretty short and he doesn’t have very long arms but he has learned to be a little bit more of an aggressive pass blocker. A guy that retreats a lot is going to have a hard time. Our protection actually has been pretty good. We are not overwhelmed as much as we were at times in the past. It is a little bit better, and a part of it is we have practiced against each other each day and every day. Just picking up different blitzes that our defense does that our opponent may not even do. In totality we are a little more efficient so our protection is a little bit better it really is.
[00:21:33] Thomas Romero-Salas, Daily Lobo: What’s the outlook for Pressley, he just played a couple of snaps last week?
Bob Davie: He played the first snap and it wasn’t in his best interest or our best interest to keep him going. Jhurell Pressley is actually back home right now as his grandmother passed away, so he flew home last night and he is supposed to get back tonight. I talked to him this morning. Things are delayed a little bit. I think he is going to be healthier and I think he is going to be pretty close to letting it rip.
[00:22:09] Murrieta: What about the other injuries? Do you have some key players that might come back?
Bob Davie: When we headed up to Utah State it’s the most injuries we have had here by far since I’ve been here. We had nine starters that had started games for us that did not make that trip. Ten if you count Tabannah as the starting nickel. We had 10 guys not make that trip, not to mention Geoff Smelser, Greg Wortman, and Kenneth Maxwell. Three walk-ons that are on special teams for us that didn’t make the trip. Randy Williams also, so that is 14 guys that have played in games, nine of 10 of which had started but didn’t go. I mean a year ago we might have had to wave that white flag so we have a few more guys. Randy Williams is back. Tabannah is back which is big just because of the nickel piece. Maxwell is close but I doubt that he will play. We have a bunch of other ones. Carlos Wiggins is still having problems with that ankle and that hurts us. You look at the little #9 from Utah State taking over that game up there and that’s our Carlos Wiggins and we have not had him much. We have not gotten much out of that this year because of injuries.
[00:23:47] Tafoya: Coach on a fourth down play…a fourth and two, are you better off running a dive play, or do you have confidence that your option can get it?
Bob Davie: That’s a great question. We have two 170-pound dive backs in Teriyon Gipson and Romell Jordan with Pressley not playing. David Anaya also has an ankle. I think it’s more schematic all the way. It’s totally schematic. My first response is to dive that ball up in there but it’s all based on scheme and what you are expecting to get.
[00:24:31] Watts: With that said are you going to go recruit a big back for those kind of situations?
Bob Davie: We are going to try and get a big back. I think that’s a fair question it really is. That’s a priority for us. We have three spots open mid-year, one of them is going to be a running back and that’s part of the equation. We need a bigger back to come in because right now on paper we have Pressley, Romell Jordan and Teriyon Gipson back with David Anaya and the two young backs Tyrone Owens and Diquon Woodhouse. We have pretty good backs, but we do need a bigger and stronger back I agree.