Marshall University Athletics
Doc Holliday
Quotes/Notes/Video from November 6 Press Conference
11/6/2018 9:34:00 PM | Football
Information below and right
Opening statement:
Captains for this week will be Ryan Bee and Malik Gant on defense as well as Jordan Dowery and Marcel Williams on offense. As we all know the game that we play every year, closest to November 14th, is the most important game we play all year. We do a great job of educating our kids of the history of this school and what it is all about. We bring in Keith Morehouse, who of course is here today, and a lot of people to explain what the history is to our kids. We want them to understand it and know the importance of it. It is so important that we go out and play our best football that we have all year on that particular date. I am excited as a football coach to have all of our ex-players come back and join us on the field prior to the game. This will be the first time we have ever done that and it will be a special deal. I want to encourage all of those to get back and join us. Help us go play a great game against Charlotte, a team who we all know Brad Lambert has done a great job with. If you look at them statistically, they are one of the top in America defensively. They held Tennessee last week to 20 yards rushing. Tennessee's offense scored seven points and the other seven came off of punt returns. They play great defense and do a good job at controlling the ball offensively. Like I said, to Brad's credit, he has done a great job and will have his kids well prepared. We have to make sure ours are as well. I know it is going to be a great day. The weather is going to be great and we are looking forward to a great crowd.
On the match-up:
There is no doubt that we are very similar teams at this point. I think we're playing pretty good defense as well. It's going to be a battle of defense. The biggest thing is finding a way to win that turnover battle. Every game that we have played this year and taken care of the ball, we have won. We are 5-0 when we take care of the football. It is important that we play that way again this week.
On Charlotte's progression:
Brad just does a tremendous job of coaching those guys up. They are extremely well coached. Obviously he has done a great job recruiting because he has some guys on defense, as well as offensively, that can really play. I am happy for Brad every Saturday except for this one. I am happy that he is doing well and has that team playing really hard but we have to find a way to beat them this week.
On Benny Lemay:
He is about 5-8 or 5-9 and about 230 pounds. He is a very physical player. I heard Coach (Adam) Fuller say when we were meeting last night with the defense, show me five times where someone has brought him down. He is similar to (FAU's Devin) Singletary. He's hard to tackle with just one guy. He makes the first guy miss so you have to rally to the ball, as we did with Singletary. It will be the same type of challenge we had there, but he (Lemay) is a little bigger and more physical.
On Marshall's quarterbacks:
Isaiah Green will be the starter this week.
On significance of this weekend:
They need to take pride in this game. We work extremely hard to educate these kids. When they come in here, a lot of them have seen the movie and that is about the extent of it. From that point on, we try to do a great job this week. Mark Gale does a great job and we have (Pastor Steve Harvey) and a lot of people that do something different each day of the week to make sure these guys understand the importance of this game and what it means to our community, our fanbase and our school. By the time the game rolls around, they have a good understanding of how important it is. This week will be no different.
On Charlotte's defense:
They have that safety back there who just makes plays all over the place. Their right tackle is an NFL guard. He will be a draft pick as a guard and he is playing right tackle for them. They have good players. He (Lambert) has done a nice job. They have nice facilities and are in a great location. Somebody told me, and it wasn't like that when I was at NC State, that they have 30 of 35 Division I prospects in the Charlotte area this year. That is a great recruiting area for them they have done a nice job of getting those kids to stay at home.
On Marshall's defense:
We had the fake field goal where (Brandon) Drayton had him covered and, unfortunately, we got the interference call there. To be honest with you, they had the jailbreak screen and reverse. That is about the extent of it in addition to the penalties. That being said, we have to eliminate the penalties and we have to take care of the ball. That is where that game was lost. We have to do a better job at doing those things.
On Tyre Brady:
We have to do a better job of making plays and putting him into position to make plays. Unfortunately, in that game, we did not make enough plays, offensively, to win the game. That being said, we have to do a better job of taking care of the ball and when they give us the opportunity to make plays, we have to throw it and catch it.
On the final minute of the first half of Saturday's game, Huntington and Marshall University:
There have been some things out there on why we did what we did (at the end of the half). I am sure everyone would like to ask that question. I will tell you why we did what we did at the quarterback position. I think, number one, we felt like we needed a spark. Offensively we were not getting done what needed to. We felt like we needed to make a change at that point. We felt like we wanted to be aggressive at that point, offensively. Hindsight's 20/20, knowing what we know now, it wasn't a great decision. If he would have thrown a 30-yard seam down there that had been completed and we kicked a field goal or scored a touchdown, it probably would have been the greatest decision ever made. If you go back to the Middle Tennessee game that we played, we had (the same situation) within five or six seconds on the clock. We were aggressive again offensively and in 17 seconds we scored touchdown. We went in 17-7 at the half, which was a great decision at that point. Number one, as the head football coach, there is no question, after the fact, it is easy for us to sit back and say we made a great decision or a bad decision. At that point, I will be honest with you, I feel terrible about that decision because it hurt our football team. I can assure you one thing. As the head football coach here I am responsible for all of those decisions. I can assure you that I love this University, I love this football team, and I love what this community is all about. We are going to work extremely hard to put these kids in the situation to win. That is all I care about. We are not perfect. We are on Mondays and Sundays but we are not perfect on Saturdays. Again that was a situation that we thought that was right thing to do at the time and it turns out it wasn't. That is on me. I take full responsibility for that. We are going to do everything we can possibly do to win football games around here, I can assure you of that.
Captains for this week will be Ryan Bee and Malik Gant on defense as well as Jordan Dowery and Marcel Williams on offense. As we all know the game that we play every year, closest to November 14th, is the most important game we play all year. We do a great job of educating our kids of the history of this school and what it is all about. We bring in Keith Morehouse, who of course is here today, and a lot of people to explain what the history is to our kids. We want them to understand it and know the importance of it. It is so important that we go out and play our best football that we have all year on that particular date. I am excited as a football coach to have all of our ex-players come back and join us on the field prior to the game. This will be the first time we have ever done that and it will be a special deal. I want to encourage all of those to get back and join us. Help us go play a great game against Charlotte, a team who we all know Brad Lambert has done a great job with. If you look at them statistically, they are one of the top in America defensively. They held Tennessee last week to 20 yards rushing. Tennessee's offense scored seven points and the other seven came off of punt returns. They play great defense and do a good job at controlling the ball offensively. Like I said, to Brad's credit, he has done a great job and will have his kids well prepared. We have to make sure ours are as well. I know it is going to be a great day. The weather is going to be great and we are looking forward to a great crowd.
On the match-up:
There is no doubt that we are very similar teams at this point. I think we're playing pretty good defense as well. It's going to be a battle of defense. The biggest thing is finding a way to win that turnover battle. Every game that we have played this year and taken care of the ball, we have won. We are 5-0 when we take care of the football. It is important that we play that way again this week.
On Charlotte's progression:
Brad just does a tremendous job of coaching those guys up. They are extremely well coached. Obviously he has done a great job recruiting because he has some guys on defense, as well as offensively, that can really play. I am happy for Brad every Saturday except for this one. I am happy that he is doing well and has that team playing really hard but we have to find a way to beat them this week.
On Benny Lemay:
He is about 5-8 or 5-9 and about 230 pounds. He is a very physical player. I heard Coach (Adam) Fuller say when we were meeting last night with the defense, show me five times where someone has brought him down. He is similar to (FAU's Devin) Singletary. He's hard to tackle with just one guy. He makes the first guy miss so you have to rally to the ball, as we did with Singletary. It will be the same type of challenge we had there, but he (Lemay) is a little bigger and more physical.
On Marshall's quarterbacks:
Isaiah Green will be the starter this week.
On significance of this weekend:
They need to take pride in this game. We work extremely hard to educate these kids. When they come in here, a lot of them have seen the movie and that is about the extent of it. From that point on, we try to do a great job this week. Mark Gale does a great job and we have (Pastor Steve Harvey) and a lot of people that do something different each day of the week to make sure these guys understand the importance of this game and what it means to our community, our fanbase and our school. By the time the game rolls around, they have a good understanding of how important it is. This week will be no different.
On Charlotte's defense:
They have that safety back there who just makes plays all over the place. Their right tackle is an NFL guard. He will be a draft pick as a guard and he is playing right tackle for them. They have good players. He (Lambert) has done a nice job. They have nice facilities and are in a great location. Somebody told me, and it wasn't like that when I was at NC State, that they have 30 of 35 Division I prospects in the Charlotte area this year. That is a great recruiting area for them they have done a nice job of getting those kids to stay at home.
On Marshall's defense:
We had the fake field goal where (Brandon) Drayton had him covered and, unfortunately, we got the interference call there. To be honest with you, they had the jailbreak screen and reverse. That is about the extent of it in addition to the penalties. That being said, we have to eliminate the penalties and we have to take care of the ball. That is where that game was lost. We have to do a better job at doing those things.
On Tyre Brady:
We have to do a better job of making plays and putting him into position to make plays. Unfortunately, in that game, we did not make enough plays, offensively, to win the game. That being said, we have to do a better job of taking care of the ball and when they give us the opportunity to make plays, we have to throw it and catch it.
On the final minute of the first half of Saturday's game, Huntington and Marshall University:
There have been some things out there on why we did what we did (at the end of the half). I am sure everyone would like to ask that question. I will tell you why we did what we did at the quarterback position. I think, number one, we felt like we needed a spark. Offensively we were not getting done what needed to. We felt like we needed to make a change at that point. We felt like we wanted to be aggressive at that point, offensively. Hindsight's 20/20, knowing what we know now, it wasn't a great decision. If he would have thrown a 30-yard seam down there that had been completed and we kicked a field goal or scored a touchdown, it probably would have been the greatest decision ever made. If you go back to the Middle Tennessee game that we played, we had (the same situation) within five or six seconds on the clock. We were aggressive again offensively and in 17 seconds we scored touchdown. We went in 17-7 at the half, which was a great decision at that point. Number one, as the head football coach, there is no question, after the fact, it is easy for us to sit back and say we made a great decision or a bad decision. At that point, I will be honest with you, I feel terrible about that decision because it hurt our football team. I can assure you one thing. As the head football coach here I am responsible for all of those decisions. I can assure you that I love this University, I love this football team, and I love what this community is all about. We are going to work extremely hard to put these kids in the situation to win. That is all I care about. We are not perfect. We are on Mondays and Sundays but we are not perfect on Saturdays. Again that was a situation that we thought that was right thing to do at the time and it turns out it wasn't. That is on me. I take full responsibility for that. We are going to do everything we can possibly do to win football games around here, I can assure you of that.
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