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Tulsa Head Coach Steve Kragthorpe Press Conference Quotes
8/29/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 29, 2006
Tulsa, Oklahoma -
Tulsa Head Coach Steve Kragthorpe Press Conference Quotes:
Opening Statement
Obviously, we're excited to play. It's been a long time since we last stepped on the football field. Our guys are prepared and ready to play from a mental standpoint and a physical standpoint. We'll put a few finishing touches on it this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon. It's Wednesday for us. We'll play 12 games on Saturday at the University of Tulsa. It's Wednesday morning for us, and our guys are, in terms of game preparation, have treated that was at practice. We're excited to get on the football field on Saturday night, which for all the fans is Thursday night.
Is your team is ready to go?
I think we are. Obviously as a coach, I don't know if you ever feel totally ready. I came to that summation last night about 2:30 in the morning when I was staring at the season thinking what about that, what about this. There are a lot of little things that you try to go over and want to go over during a mock game. I know a lot of teams have already had their mock games and we had ours last Friday night. There are a lot of little things that you want to get covered, but there's always one more little thing that you want to address one more time. I think we have a confident team right now. To me, confidence is a byproduct of preparation. I think we're a prepared team right now. I think we're a team that's ready to play a game and excited about playing a game. We're tired of practicing and we've been practicing for a long time, since the first of March. If you want to throw in the weight-training sessions, it's been since January 10. Our guys are excited to get on the field, put the pads on and play some football.
Talk about the growth of this football program in your four years.
It's unbelievable that this is our fourth time to do this. My wife Cynthia and I went for a walk and we were talking about it. Four years, it seems unfathomable that this is our fourth season at TU. It's been great. We've made a lot of progress, but we feel like there's still a significant amount of progress left for us to make to be the kind of team that we need to be. That's being a consistent performer, not just game-to-game-to-game but seasonally too. I'm excited about this team. I like this chemistry on this team. I'm as excited as anybody. I'm as intrigued as anybody to get on that field on Thursday night and see where we're at and see what adjustments we have to make. There's always the challenge of the first game. You're not certain what they're going to do. We're not certain how some of our guys who haven't been in major roles in a game before are going to respond when we put some tails in the seats and play for real.
How much is still up in the air regarding the two-deep?
A lot of those decisions have basically been made in terms of our two-deep chart. The two-deep chart will change every week. It may change if someone plays really well and moves ahead of a guy. It may change based on trying to put the best 11 guys on the field in every snap which is our philosophy. When we walk out on an offensive snap, a defensive snap or a special teams snap, we're going to try to find the best 11 available players. Through injuries, through guys performing well, maybe their role will increase. We'll continually look at it from week to week. We're also looking at the style of defense or offense or special teams that their going to implement, and then we're going to match our best players to counter that and hope that we're successful.
How much more physical and competitive were preseason practices this year?
It has been a tremendously physical camp. It's been a tremendously competitive camp. The reason for that is because we have more depth. Depth does two things for you. No. 1, you have more available guys on game day that you can put into a game and secondly, it facilitates some very competitive practices. We've had as good a camp as we've had in my four years here. It's also been a tough camp with the heat and humidity. In the mornings, it was so humid and guys were losing more water than they would in an afternoon practice. I'm driving home at 10:30 at night and it's 99 degrees at F&M Bank. You couldn't miss. The only time you could miss it was at 4 in the morning.
Can you talk about some of the rule changes?
I think it's certainly going to change the game. I think we're looking at 10-12 snaps that are going to be taken out of a football game.
One of the rule changes that will facilitate a few more plays is the kicking tee. We're going to go to a one-inch kicking tee, which the NFL uses. They decided to do that instead of moving (the ball) back to the 30 like the NFL. I think that's going to increase the number of kickoff returns in a game because it is harder to kick off that one-inch block instead of two. Then again, with the timing being what it is, there's going to be a few less plays because starting this season, when the ball is touched by the kicker, the clock starts. Normally, it was when the returner possessed the ball. I think that'll change it a little bit.
Another thing is at the end of possessions, when the offense takes the field, the ball will be blown ready for play and the play clock will be wound. Normally, it was when the 25-second clock was wound. It'll minimize some plays. You'll have to be ready to go. Probably the biggest amount of difference is in the two-minute offense or defense at the end of the first half or the second half. If there's four seconds left and you intercept a pass, you have to run your offense out to snap the ball in four seconds or you have to run your field goal unit out in four seconds or block unit in four seconds. It's going to be challenging. We've worked on that.
I'll go on record as saying I don't like it. I'm not for shortening games. I think you can shorten games in other ways. I don't like taking plays out of a football game. I don't like it. Of course, I'm an offensive coach and I want to snap it as much as I can.
How important is it to get off to an impressive start?
Last year is over. You don't see me wearing any Liberty Bowl paraphernalia, I put all of that stuff away. Last year is over. This is a different team. This team is ready to go out and play their first football game. Certainly, some of the guys that we have on our team have been able to benefit from the course of the last three years. An 8-5 season., 4-8 season and a 9-4 season. They can draw off those seasons ... guys like Nick Bunting, Paul Smith, Jeff Perrett, Nick Graham ... they understand the fine line between winning and losing and how much of a preparation mode you have to be in Division I football. It's very competitive. We talked about our non-conference schedule and it's challenging.
You start with Stephen F. Austin. They're a good football team and well-coached. One of the things you look at as a coach. Dan Henning, my old boss, said you always look for always and nevers as a coach. Do they always do this? Do they never do this? And one of the things I've found in looking at Stephen F. Austin is you may find a weakness that you want to exploit, but then you fast-forward the tape in the next series and it's gone. They've fixed it. They're a talented team. All you have to do is look at the I-AA football players playing in the National Football League. I got a chance to be around one of the best receiving backs in the NFL, Larry Centers, when I coached at Buffalo for two years. W hen I was an offensive coordinator at North Texas, we went into Oklahoma State and threw for 380 yards and four touchdowns and lost 36-34 on a last-second field goal. A 47-yarder. Stephen F. Austin is a talented team and a well-coached team. To me, there's not a huge difference in the talent between Division I and I-AA football, other than the scholarship limitations.
Look at some of our players. Ask Nick Bunting how many Division I scholarships he was offered. Nelson Coleman, Chris Chamberlain -- two outstanding linebackers -- had Division II scholarships, not a Division I scholarship. Paul Smith - Tulsa and Harvard, a non-scholarship program. I think I have some pretty good football players on this team. Guys that I won't trade for anybody and they weren't highly recruited.
Talk about the excitement in the community about TU football.
It has been absolutely tremendous just to walk into Quick Trip or just to go into a restaurant and see people wearing Tulsa paraphernalia. When I got here four years ago you couldn't find a Tulsa t-shirt or hat but now you walk in to Academy Sports, the bookstore, the airport, Wal-Greens and you can find TU gear. It's awesome, it's great. The way people have embraced this program has really been great. It is awesome for our guys to be able to see that people appreciate how they play. Not necessarily whether you win or lose a game, but the way the guys go out and play hard.
I challenge people to find a better entertainment value than coming to Skelly Stadium because win or lose or draw I have had very few people walk out and say that that wasn't fun or entertaining. Our guys are going to play hard. There are very few guarantees that I can give you, I'm not going to guarantee that we're going to win a game, any game, all games, no games but I am going to guarantee you that our guys will go out there and they'll lay it on the line and play hard.
How nice is it to have an experienced QB like Paul Smith?
It's great to have two experienced quarterbacks. I feel comfortable that we can win with Paul Smith and with David Johnson. I think both have proven that in the times that they've been able to play.
Paul has played great football in the last four-five games of last year and I'm excited about the progress that he's made during the training camp. When I was talking about some of the guys earlier, he benefits from having the experience now. He's had the ball in his hands and taken a number of snaps in big games. He's improved from a standpoint of minimizing the number of errors that he's made throughout the season. It showed in the last four-five games of the year. It's continuing to show that trend, which is comforting to a coach. Paul is a guy that can have an excellent year for us. Paul is a guy that's 1/11th of our offense. He just has to do his job. He has to deal the cards and get the ball to the guys that can make plays. He has to throw it hot when they bring too many and audible when he needs to be putting us in a better play. If Charlie gives him two plays in the huddle and he needs to pick the best one, he'll pick the best one. His job is to simply manage the game.
How much have you thought about how you will use your challenge for instant replay?
That's a good question. We do have one challenge, they changed the rule and made it uniform where all of the decisions will be made upstairs and they will inform the white hat what the decision will be. I'm not for that. I'm going to the record saying that. I like the fact that we have instant replay. I was a proponent that if you won the challenge and you were right, not only did you not get a timeout docked and have the opportunity to challenge again. If you're right, you should be rewarded. If you're wrong, you should be penalized by taking away your timeout and you don't get a challenge anymore. I think it's going to be a feel thing. Is this a big enough play in the second quarter to challenge and, if later in the game nothing comes up, well, crap, I should have challenged that thing. That's another 3 o'clock in the morning conversation that I have with myself.
This looks like the most experienced team you've had, are you more comfortable about this team?
I don't think you are ever comfortable, that's not the nature of this job. I think for two reasons. Number one there are so many different situations that go into a game, just like we talked about, you have to be ready for, you have to practice and then secondly I don't like being comfortable. I operate best when I am not comfortable because that makes me think, it challenges me everyday. I don't particularly enjoy being comfortable unless I am at home with a clicker in my hand and I can second guess then.
I feel good about this team, I like the chemistry of this team like I referred to earlier. I think we've had a good camp, I think we're well-prepared yet there are some unknowns that when you flip the lights on. There are a lot of guys who can play in practices but there's not as many guys who can play when you flip the lights on. So I am hoping when we flip the lights on we don't look like cockroaches.
Is there a decision on freshman running back Dexter Taylor and other true freshman playing?
Dexter will play. We have four or five different freshmen that we feel like are ready to play. The way we evaluate that is the amount of impact that they have immediately in relation to the impact that they'd have on the back end. We're looking at playing Dexter and a couple of other guys. Dexter is probably a guy that'll definitely play. Charles Davis will definitely play. Anthony Egbuniwe is a guy that'll definitely play. Mike Bryan will definitely play and then a couple of guys that we're using the term green-shirt. I feel good about the young guys. They've come in and ready absorbed what we're doing from an offensive and defensive standpoint. They're talented guys that I think can come out and play. They have a chance to come out and maybe have an impact for us.
Has anything changed at running back?
You will see four running backs playing against Stephen F. Austin. Brandon Diles, Tarrion Adams, Courtney Tenniel, and Dexter Taylor will all play in the game. We feel like all four of those guys are prepared to play. They're well played and ready to go. That's one area where we feel like we have depth, but its also an area where we need depth because running back is a position that takes a lot of physical pounding, There's a lot of toll that is taken on your body and we're going to have to have guys down the stretch that can play. We need guys that can play week one and week 12 too.
How important is it not to be overconfident playing a I-AA team?
I don't think our players are overconfident. We're confident because we're prepared well. No matter who we're playing in week 1 or week 11 or 12. We can only control our attitude and our effort.
Stephen F. Austin has a number of D-I players that are on their roster. They have good football players and they have some guys that started out at Division I-A schools where it didn't work out. We were in that situation in 1994 at North Texas. We had six D-I transfers come in and they made us pretty good pretty fast. A couple of them were wide receivers and some of them were defensive linemen. Those are pretty key positions when you are looking for guys to step up and fill your roaster.
