OPENING STATEMENT:

“One of the things that I talked about after the game was consistency. After watching the film and as I told the kids earlier today, we’ll start winning when we become more consistent in all three phases and just doing all the little things correctly. As I say that, I can see we are doing some of these little things better than we were at the beginning of the year. For us to be able to beat the teams we are playing, right now we have the fifth toughest schedule in the NCAA and it doesn’t get any easier the next two weeks with Cincinnati and then Memphis, but if we are going to give ourselves to beat these kinds of teams that we are playing, then we need to be able to control the things that we can control. Offensively, we had turnovers again. We continue to leave points on the board. We continue to make some mistakes when we have people open down the field and couldn’t get the ball delivered early in the game, as well offensively. It was one of those things where we had different guys making those mistakes. As soon as we control the things we can control and guys working harder, putting more time in on their own, to understand football and be really well-versed in situational football, we’ll give ourselves an opportunity to win the game.”

“Defensively, it’s mind-boggling. They had 78-plays yesterday and they gained 636 yards. 67 plays, they only gained 232 yards, an average of 3.5, but then 11 plays they gained 404 yards. When you look at those 11 plays, it was guys not controlling the things that they can control in terms of being in the right gap, basically just doing their job. Even though we are doing some things better defensively, we aren’t going to give ourselves a chance to win when we are giving up that many plays for that many yards, it just doesn’t work.”

“Special teams’ wise yesterday, we had our punter, Luke punted the ball very, very well, but we didn’t cover those punts. In that game, especially against Syracuse, who’s a good football team, they have some speed that we don’t have, so we have to be right in the things that we do. If guys just do those things, then at least we give ourselves an opportunity to beat a team like that. We just didn’t do that yesterday. There are things that you see that you are close to giving yourself a chance to win if you do those things. It’s one of those things where you go back and take a look at yesterday and these kids have to grow up. I told them they aren’t freshmen anymore. We started 8 freshmen and 3 sophomores I believe it was. What we did to get more speed and athleticism up front helped us. Those are some of the things that we are working on and we’ll keep getting better at. We’re showing them the film, letting them know that if we want an opportunity to beat a team like this then those are the things we need to correct and we need to get better at.”

WHEN YOU SAY YOU NEED TO BE MORE CONSISTENT, IN WHAT WAY IS THAT LACKING?:

“It’s everything from the meeting room and understanding things, it’s in their everyday lives, it’s not just football. Kids have to be consistent in everything they do in life. If they aren’t consistent getting up in the morning, being consistent with academics, their personal life and football, it’s just not all of a sudden going to turn over with football. I’m talking about consistency in everything they do, which then carries over to the football field. For us, it’s about doing things the right way, all the time and controlling the things that you can control, putting in the effort in things that you can do to make yourself better in every single situation. Make yourself better in the meeting room, make yourself better in the weight room, then go out and practice that way so it becomes a habit and you only know one way to do things. That’s the big thing; we had a young man yesterday who wasn’t paying attention on the sidelines, wasn’t out on the field, he had to go out later, he goes and gets a penalty. It’s those little things. That young man has some of those same issues off the field as well. That’s the stuff that we’re dealing with, trying to break habits that some of these guys have had for 17 years. We’re trying to get these guys to understand these are the things you have to do if you’re going to be successful on the football field and then teach them the things that will make them successful off the field and then once they leave here with a degree. That’s the consistency I’m talking about. If you’re not consistent, you don’t have a chance to be successful in anything that you do, which is what I believe.”

NOT TO GET INTO SPECIFICS ON INJURYIES, BUT LB IS BECOMING A BIT OF AN ISSUE:

“I thought I mentioned last week that Marshe Terry would likely be an extended situation. We probably won’t have Marshe’ for at least a couple of weeks.”

SANTANA GOT IN AND RYAN GILMARTIN AS WELL, DID THOSE GUYS MAKE STRIDES?:

“The one thing is we have Hunter Webb as well. We have a plan for what we want to do, which you’ll see on Tuesday as we move forward. Santana has moved into that middle LB spot with Kevon Jones. I like how we are handling that situation. We’ll have time on Monday to look at what Cincinnati does and then go forward with what we think will be the best option available to us as we go into Cincinnati as we start to practice on Tuesday.”

SEVERAL MISSED TACKLES EARLY IN THE 1^ST QUARTER, DID YOU LIKE HOW THE TEAM TACKLED AS THE GAME WENT ON?:

“I did. I thought we settled down. I think what happened was early on, Syracuse came out with a game plan where they just wanted to go 10-personnel, spread us out and go as fast as they could by going after some of our young guys who couldn’t get lined up. We went with a different way that we tried to line up and then we made an adjustment. After we did that, about the 3^rd series, I thought our guys were sound and started playing better. I think early on we were having some problems with guys getting lined up.”

RYAN FINES DIDN’T PLAY, ANY INJURY THERE?:

“No. As I said, we decided to make some moves and do some things that helps us to play the people that I feel and we as a defensive staff feel that gives us the best opportunity to be where we want to be in terms of speed, athletic ability and quickness up front with those eight guys that we played. That’s the way I see us continuing to go, continuing to get those guys better. With these offenses that we’re facing, those kids are as green as can be, but the only way they are going to get better is by getting repetitions and seeing all these things. Lwal [Uguak] might not be the most perfect defensive tackle, but there are some things we can do as a coaching staff to help him. It gets our best people, in our opinion, on the field.”

OVER THE LAST TWO GAMES ON 3^RD DOWN DEFENSIVELY, ONLY GIVEN UP 4-OF-17 CONVERSIONS, HAVE PERSONNEL CHANGES BEEN THE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR TO THAT SUCCESS?:

“I think the personnel thing has been better, we’ve gotten a little bit of a pass rush on third down by doing what we did. Yesterday, we did a better job than the week before, but we still didn’t do a good enough job of getting them in as many third downs as we’d like to. I do think that what we did in terms of changing personnel has helped us in that area.”

MATT SCHONVISKY / SITE CREATOR