Coach Herm Edwards
Opening Statement
“Well as I say every time I sit before you, another Pac-12 game anything can happen. That’s what we anticipate this week, we play a tough opponent in Utah. They haven’t lost any conference games in the south, they’re kind of sitting how we’re sitting right now. Very physical football team, in all three phases of football, they’re very well coached, there’s a blend of young, talented players on both sides. They have some really good running backs, big powerful guys. I think the quarterback is giving them a spark, he does a nice job of running with the ball at times, throwing the ball down the field. Their defense is very stingy with points, they’ve always been really good defensively. They play well in the red zone, well on third down, it’s a tough place to play. They have a nice fan base, I anticipate it will be loud and we will make sure we work on that this week as we have worked on it since we left BYU so hopefully it will help us.”
On the offense’s second half play, and what he saw on postgame film:
“I saw some things that we got in our own way, as far as going backwards a couple times. We didn’t have a lot of fouls, the fouls ended up, actually, in the last series. But, I just thought we missed some opportunities and Stanford is a good football team. We said that. We said they play methodically, they keep the game in reach and that’s kind of how it unfolded for us. I think our defense did a really good job of not allowing them to score points, taking the ball away I think was big for us. When you take the ball away that many times, you can run the football and that gives you a chance. We just hung in there and were able to score enough but we left some stuff on the field, we missed a field goal, we went for 4th and 1 on the 19 and didn’t make it, a great job by Stanford defense but you look at those two situations and all the sudden maybe you score some more points but I think anytime you can win a game, a Pac-12 game, whether it’s on the road or at home, it’s a good thing because it’s very difficult to win in this conference. I think the more we look at it, the more we realize that could be a true statement.”
On beating Stanford as a former Golden Bears player, and what his favorite game memory from his college days are:
“I actually played in two and I’m 2-0 of the big games and I actually got interceptions in both of them. I remember my first one, I was a freshman and playing against Stanford and I was playing safety then at Cal and I got an interception, I was excited. Then, my next time I was a junior up there and I want to say Tony Hill was one of the receivers and I was fortunate enough to get an interception against him but it is a rivalry, that big game, it’s quite unique, like ours here, obviously against Arizona. This one’s probably been going longer but it’s the same deal. It’s a lot of fun playing rivalry games in college football because it goes back from generation to generation to generation. So, a lot of fun.”
On the confidence the team has with success running the ball:
“We’re hopeful, we can run it. We know we go over 200 I think our record is 11-1 or something like that, but that doesn’t mean you’re always going to run it. I mean people try to stop us from running. It’s a collective effort by our offensive line, starts at our offensive line, the offensive line coach as well as Zak (Hill) trying to put in a good plan, and then being patient with the run. I think sometimes when you run the ball, running is not like passing. I’ve always said you can go back and throw a ball and it goes down the field 20 yards you’ve completed and everybody’s excited. Sometimes a two yard run, it’s like, “I've only made two yards, eh.” A lot of times people give up on it, I think what we’ve been able to do is we don’t give up on it. We continue to try to run and eventually if you do that it’s going to pay dividends for you. That’s just my history with it, being a former player, in the league, and then coaching in the league, you realize that. I just think that the more you stick to it, it’ll pay dividends for you and thus far this year it has.”
On playing with emotion, and how it affects play:
“I can’t speak for them, I can't speak for the team, their situation, I know I’ve been in some situations like this as a former player with teammates, and I think it brings a different side to it for everyone. You can reflect, I think it brings a lot of reflection as you personally as well as the team. I think they’ve done a great job of really handling this. Hopefully today they’re going to get some closure. Coach has done a really good job of really being the voice of speaking to young men and that’s important when you get in situations like this. I think they’ve handled it well and we’re all praying for them there’s no doubt about that. We’ll just see how it manifests but they’ve done a really good job, I think, of dealing with a lot of things when you talk about something like this.”
On Elijah Badger:
“He’s talented as far as when the ball’s in his hand, when he can run with it now. Obviously, he hadn’t been in position in the middle of the field to catch it and do that. We’ve been forcing it two times and he’s two for two. It’s pretty good, that number, you know average anyway, two for two but he’s talented, there’s no doubt. As I said before, he reminds me a lot of Brandon (Aiyuk) with the ball in his hand. When he (Brandon), had the ball in his hand he can make people miss and I think when you have a receiver like that, you want to get him the ball and you have to find a way to get him the ball al little more in the passing game but again it’s hard because when I look back at that game we ran it for almost 44 times or something like that. It was one of those games and we’re not saying we don’t want to pass because we have a really good quarterback and we feel like we have some really good receivers and the tight end position is playing well. Hodges (Curtis) is playing as well as he could have ever played here and it’s just hard to spread it around sometimes and I always say you have to get more plays. When you get more plays, you get more opportunities and sometimes we’ve hit some big plays so we don’t get as many opportunities. So, we’ll just see where it’s at.”
On the updates of the injured players: Michael Matus, Evan Fields, and Chase Lucas:
“The update is that we’re hopeful that they will return and they’re getting treatment. They felt good yesterday but we’ll just see where it’s at come game time.”
On any plays that went under the radar:
“The five-minute mark was big towards the end of the game… I thought our ability to just take the ball and just close the game out and that’s what you want to be able to do. When you get the ball in that situation and don’t allow the opponent to get it back, it’s called hammer time and you just have to end the game now. The offense has the ball and you don’t want to punt, you don’t want to kick, you just want to end the game and to me that’s always good to see, when you can do that. I thought our offense did a pretty good job of that to be quite honest. Like the previous week, when we stopped them (UCLA) on the one, then we went on a 99 yard drive. We had the ball at the end, we got the big interception and then five minutes and then we ran the clock out. That’s a good sign.”
On the team’s adjustments and consistently not allowing any second half points:
“Well there are always adjustments made, that's the key to football. At halftime that’s when all of a sudden the plan is this… going out in the second half, you either adjust that plan or add a little something to it and there’s always some things that you pull back and then going in to the second half before you go back in the ball yard and I think our defense has done a nice job in the second half of closing games out and not allowing them to score. When you’re only giving up about 16-17 points a game, you have a chance to be in a lot of football games and I think our defense realizes that. What I liked about them last was that they took the ball away and that’s kind of been our mentality since we’ve been here is, “can we take the ball away?” When you take it away and give it to your offense, you create possessions for your offense. Now we took one away and took it back and that’s always good. I think when you can take the ball away and keep the score down, you have a chance.”
On the production of the defensive ends:
“Coach Rob (Rodriguez) has done a really nice job, when you think about those guys, we lost two of our better players. (Jermayne) Lole has not played, we lost our defensive end as well about three weeks ago and a lot of young freshmen are asked to play along with some veteran guys and Coach Rob has done a nice job of coaching that whole group. The more they play the more confidence they gain. Tyler (Johnson) needed to play big for us, he’s played a lot of football around here and I told him I said, ‘You’re going to have a good game.’ I told him that before he went out there, I said, “you have to play good, we need you to play good.” I think in certain games, there’s about five or six players that I’m always going to talk to before the game. I just wait and I just kind of walk up to them and in a nice way, in a positive way, and say, “hey, it’s your turn now, you got to go tonight.” Not that they don’t go all the time but I just think it’s always good for them to know that okay it’s your turn now you got to go, you have to play good. Tyler did a nice job, a really nice job.”
On how the defense’s success affects the offensive play calling:
“It is nice to open it up but when you go three plays and you only take a minute off the clock, then the defensive coach comes out on me. It's great throwing all those passes but when you throw an incompletion and it stops the clock, you only take a minute off the clock. Now if you score and you take a minute off the clock that's one thing, but when you don't score those things can come back and get you. That's where for me, I have to balance that, I have to be the head coach, not the defensive coach and I think that possessions are important, you want to score with possessions or you want to change the field with possessions and when you don’t take a lot of time off the clock, and you don't score, that is not a good offensive possession. We had 10 possessions and we knew that going into the game, you weren't going to get more than that because that is how Stanford plays, it's a low possession game. Every possession is important and when you don't move the ball, then you create field position for them. If you move the ball and we don’t score, I can live with that but when we only take a minute and seven seconds off in a possession, that is a missed opportunity.”
On the emotional aspect of the game, and the feeling in the locker room:
“Really, emotion plays a big part of college football when you think about it, and you don’t want to be emotional, you really don’t. You see it every week. Teams get emotional and they put themselves in a bad way. Bad things happen, fouls, turnovers, all those things that lose games, you want to be passionate, but you don’t want to be emotional. I’ve always said that, when people get emotional, I back away from that because I know something bad is about to happen. You can have a conversation with somebody and all of a sudden, when the levels go up, you go, “okay, I am going to move back a bit because they are getting emotional.” It is the same way with football, it has always been that way, when you get emotional and you turn your emotional switch on, you are headed down the wrong avenue and there is a fine balance. It is always interesting when players go home and play, they go to a venue in which they played before, now in college football, no different than pro football, if you get traded, when you go to another team, and when you play against your former team. How does that all work? I have enough experience in that situation to know what to say to that player. And I do that and I wait to pick my time to say it, sometimes it is during the week, sometimes it is before the game, it’s just according to who the player is and how I can give him some advice to deal with it because everyone deals with it differently, but it is up to me to make sure they are okay because that is the job is the head coach, make sure your players are alright and so that will be dealt with and he will be fine, he will be excited about going back up there, you know he wants to play well, the way you play well is staying calm. Stay within your skill level, I always say stay within your skill level.”
On the mentorship within the secondary:
“It is an interesting group, it always has been, a bunch of eight personalities in that room now and they all function differently. I think the good part is as you mentioned, there are some young ones going out and getting some experience and playing experience. That always helps you, the more you can actually play, then you can coach them off tape of what they have done. When they don’t play, you can’t coach off tape, you coach them off of practice. It is different when you are going in a game and there is popcorn, people, and results. In practice, there is just music but there is no popcorn, no people watching them. They get in the stadium and now they have the uniform on, it is a different and I think the more they can gain experience and hopefully have some positive things happen to them, they get more confident, so that’s the fun thing when you watch all those guys, you are right, you have a bunch of young ones playing no doubt about that.”
On getting himself hyped up for a game when he was a player:
“I talked a little bit to the receiver, you would never know but I did. I was just trying to push buttons, I was always one of those button guys, let me see what I can say or what I can do to go away. Is this guy crazy? I think between the time you do that and when you get in your stance, and it is time to play, then you just have to get back to now I got to play football. There are two sides to it, it is before the snap and then the snap and now I am back in. I have the ability to do that. I have always had the ability to do that since I was a young kid in athletics. I told you all before, I was a Muhammed Ali fan and whatever that guy did, I was like okay, “you know you talking about talking, I can talk talk talk.” When it came time to go play, I’m done, then in between, I could talk some more, I was done and some guys can do it, some guys can’t. I was always able to do that. I was always able to do that and not get to the emotional side of it. Be passionate, but not emotional because I knew eventually if I got emotional, and I have sometimes in my life, it doesn’t work out well, it’s a bad outcome and generally, it was a bad outcome for the person and I generally was dealing with more than anything else and then I felt bad because I went there and I don’t like going there. I had to apologize to a coach on the sideline because you know I lost my temper and I said something not nothing real bad, but I caught myself and said, “I can’t do” that because players see that I am the guy that wants to be caught in the players seat and I apologize to the coach then I apologize to the team yesterday I said, “hey I got a little bit over heated guys”, I didn't get emotional but I almost got overheated and I went ahead because the sideline is a unique experience when you are an athlete or a coach. There is confrontation and dialogue and at times it gets the volume up. If a player comes off the field doesn't do exactly what he is supposed to do and the player takes it personally and the coach takes it personally because you are coaching that guy and then there is this dialogue that happens and sometimes it gets going, it is like whoa man this things really going you know and I always tell the players and coaches, you can go on for five ten seconds then when it is done, it's done and it stays on the field, when the games over, we don’t bring it back in the locker room, we don’t bring it in the meetings, its over. I wanted to make sure Sunday, I explained that to the football team. I told them I had to apologize. Nobody saw it maybe but I felt it was the right thing for me to do because I am the head coach. It happened to me one time in pro football too on television too, my mom thought I went crazy, I kind of just snapped. I don’t want to go there, there is a different guy when I go there and it ain't pretty. For the guy when I go there, you have no shot at me if I go there and I don’t want to go there I don't…”
On his expectations of the team through the first six weeks:
“I think if you know me by now, it's not about my expectations. It is the team, it is their expectation. This belongs to the players; what do they want to accomplish? They are sitting in a position to do whatever they want to accomplish now, and that’s always a conversation I have with them. I am on the journey with them, I can give them a roadmap, they have to drive the car. I have never seen a coach go play. The coach gets them prepared, he does everything he can to get them ready to play and they have to actually play so it is whatever they want to do and this group of guys I know what their mentality is. They want to continue to win a game and the most important game is the one this week. I said that from the beginning and it never changes with us, it is always the next game… don’t get ahead of yourself, you don't need to because you can only play one game every week and then hopefully you get a bye and then you get to relax for a couple minutes or a couple days, you come back, play another game, that's so unique about it. We are in the Pac-12 play and every game is important, and there is not one bigger than the other one, that's you guys, you make them important, well that's not an important game, that's one they should win, you know how hard it is to win a game? Like really hard, it's really hard and sometimes people don't realize that you just walk out there and say, “oh because someone said we are supposed to win, you get to win.” You have to actually go do it, there are a lot of things you have to do right to win a football game and I’ve been there so many… I think we take it for granted when you watch teams and you go, “ wow they should win and a lot of things have to go right to win.”
On Zak Hill’s trick plays:
“It gives you a little bit of anxiety because you know you are hoping you can figure it out when it might happen but then you sit there the whole game you are yelling “trick play” you can’t do that because there are 60 plays, you’re just hoping you have done enough of it in practice to keep guys aware of it. There are certain parts of the field where you think this could happen or that could happen, that is just football. Second and one everybody in the world knows they might throw a go route on the second one because they are going to come back. Even on a third one right you figue they are already saying they are going for it on fourth so there are certain situations in the game where you think this could happen, anytime you cross the 50 or get to the 40, all bets are off. It's like okay, “this is when the stuff comes right?” A lot of stuff comes in the red zone, you see it in pro football, right in the red zone, ain’t no telling what they’re going to do. They run all kinds of stuff, and figure I have a field goal so now I can do some trickeration and get a touchdown that's just how the game is played. You have to understand that and you have to understand what it looks like. I don't know where they come up with this stuff, these guys are copycats on offense you know they kind of take a play from somebody else and they create another formation. You watch Kansas City, Andy Reid and those guys, it's like wow, they have stuff like last night, they did some stuff where three guys went under center before they snapped the ball and you watch it and you go and you wonder why you do it because they have fun doing that.. the players come up with stuff and you have be a creative enough coach to say we are going to try that and me as the head coach, I am not going to sit and say no you can’t do that. Just don’t mess it up.”