Marshall University Athletics
Quotes from Doc Holliday's Nov. 11 Press Conference
11/11/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Opening statement
Captains for this week on defense will be James Rouse and Corey Tindal. On offense, it will be Chris Jasperse and Rakeem Cato. We have Rice coming in here this week. I know our players are excited to have the opportunity to get back home and play in front of our fan base. They are looking forward to the game. Rice will be a tremendous challenge for us. We have great respect for Rice. David (Bailiff) has done a tremendous job there. They have been pretty good the last two years, of course they won the conference championship a year ago. They have really good players. If you take a look at that team, they play extremely hard and are extremely well-coached, they are extremely physical and they have playmakers who can make plays. They have that one wide receiver Jordan Taylor, who is a good NFL guy. I remember him from a year ago and I remember that we had problems with him a year ago. Driphus Jackson is their quarterback and he is a little more athletic than they had a year ago, he runs a little better and throws just as well. It is the same story every week, we are going to face a quarterback that beats you with his feet as well as his arm. Bryce Callahan is that corner. They had a corner a year ago that is playing in the NFL right now, and this guy is just as good. That have good players. There is a reason they won six straight because they are well coached and they have players that play extremely hard. They will come in here and play extremely hard against us. We are going to have a great week of preparation and get ready for this game.
On circling this game
I don't know about circling a game. I hope every game is circled. For nine straight games, our kids have a great job just preparing for that particular team and understanding that the preparation is the key. As long as you prepare during the week that is more important than anything else. The way you prepare on Tuesday and Wednesday. I always talk about the game is won on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and by the mental preparation that takes place up until kickoff. Being able to do that for nine straight weeks and this game is no different. They are a tremendous team. It is a great challenge for us. We should prepare the same way we have always prepared. That should not change. We have to go out there today and have a great Tuesday because if we don't we have no chance.
On Rice stopping the run
The other thing too is they were beat up early. They lost the Old Dominion game but they had a lot of starters out of that game. I think they had six starters out on defense. They have their guys back healthy. To answer your question, yeah they do play great defense. It always starts with starting and running. They do a great job at that. As I mentioned before, they have guys on secondary that are skilled guys that can make plays too. Offensively, that quarterback, it is his first year starting. He played a lot a year ago. He played against us a year ago. He is getting his feet under him. They also didn't have that big-time receiver the first three games. He has gotten back now and he is big time. He can run and he is an NFL guy.
On Jordan Taylor
They line Taylor up everywhere. They line him up in the slot and they will throw bubble screens to him. He is a load. You have to get him on the ground. He will split brackets, he will run vertical, he ran by us a year ago. He is a tremendous player. You have to know where he is. I think he had nine catches this past week. They make a concerted effort to get him the ball and I am sure they will do the same thing here on Saturday.
On Rice/Baliff
They are located in the state of Texas, right there where there are an awful lot of players. David is a tremendous coach. He has coached in Texas a long time. He started at TCU and was at a couple other Texas schools there. He has ties there and recruits well. They do a great job at evaluating talent and there are an awful lot of players. Within a couple hour radius of that campus they can get an awful lot of players who are good football players and they got them. Those two ends do a great job pressuring the quarterback. The thing is you watch that team play, and this is probably the best compliment as a football coach that you could get, is how hard they play. They are going to come in here and play extremely hard and it is going to be important that we are, too.
On walk-ons
If you look at us, we have a lot of West Virginia kids that walk on, and not just West Virginia kids. Look at what (Trevor) Mendelson is doing and Chris Jasperse. There are a lot of great football players out there, especially in Texas. You can imagine, the number of players who are in the state of Texas, where football is really good and is important to those schools that can walk on and develop and can become really good players. It doesn't surprise me that they have a lot of them.
