Bowling Green State University Athletics
Gary Blackney Press Conference
September 11, 2000 | Football
Sept. 11, 2000
What is the state of your team heading into the third week of the season,and what challenges does Temple bring to your team?
Blackney: With our young offensive line and young wide receivers, we are just trying to get our feet on the ground and find out what we can do. There's no question that we are a lot more limited without Gerling and Alexander than we would be and we're trying to work in a junior college guy who's only played two games in his whole Division I career. The other guy that showed up a little bit is Andre Pinchem and he's a redshirt freshman, so he's a young guy. Then, with the offensive line, we try to get the run game going to take a little pressure off our defense, and we're very inconsistent there.
Defensively, I thought our defense against the run was terrific. We got a lot of pressure on the passer. We forced four fumbles and recovered three. Under normal circumstances, our defensive effort, at least against the run, is probably good enough to win. I'm hoping that maybe with the exception of Marshall, we're not going to see wide receivers like we've seen the last couple of weeks. We've probably seen four guys who are going to be in the NFL, and we're just not matching up with those guys.
Our kicking game for the most part has been good. Fleming shanked one punt. We had a penalty on a punt, which is one of the things we talk about all the time is not to have penalties in the kicking game. We had a couple penalties on Saturday in the kicking game, which gave Pittsburgh really good field position. But then again, our defense came on the field and held us in. We just need to get the offensive line playing better together. We need to get them more physical. We need to run the football because of our wide receiver situation. It will be very difficult for us to open up the offense with two brand new wide receivers or try to get into 3 or 4 wide receiver sets. I mean we're not going to abandon that. But, we really need to try to get our run game in gear. That's pretty much a summary of game one and two.
What about David Bautista's performance?
Blackney: I think his confidence level is very high. I think he is very appreciative of being here. Brian Jenkins had been recruiting him at Eastern. So, Brian knew a lot about him, cause obviously we weren't headed to the junior college routes. And Brian really believed in David and stood firm on his beliefs that he could come in and help our program. I think that David really has an appreciation because he wasn't highly recruited. There are so many skilled athletes out there. I think David really appreciates being here. I think that he's really trying to show that appreciation on the football field.
Did you feel comfortable with giving him the ball and having Andy put the ball in his hands very often?
Blackney: Yeah, we almost don't have any choice. He's responded. I think even at the Michigan game, even though he dropped a couple of passes, he showed a lot of poise and a lot of composure and confidence. He's got good hands. He's demonstrated that. He's a real heady guy. He understands the game. He runs great routes. I don't know how fast he is to be honest, because he hasn't been here long enough for us to time him. Probably his greatest asset is precision route running.
To me, if you boiled Saturday's game down and I've thought about this for a long time. Basically you eliminate the rushing game. The sacks are even. We got more turnovers. The biggest point of departure is their wideouts against our secondary. If you isolate everything, that's the composite part of the game. They've got 3 or 4 great wide receivers going against our corners. And we're without our wide receivers to counter, frankly. I mean that's how I analyzed the game.
Any changes in the place kickers? I see Turano came on.
Blackney: I'm gonna try Turano. There's no question that Knapp has been the most consistent in practice. Again, I want our kickers to be solid from the 25 yard line in which is a 42-yard field goal. I think they've gotta be 90%. When we get in the red zone under normal circumstances, we've got to come away with points 90% of the time, whether it's a field goal or a touchdown. I know he's got a good snap and I know he's got a good hold. I'm gonna try Turano and see what he can do.
Temple has been pretty tough against the run. Their first game against Navy, they kept them under 100 yards of offense. Anything you are going to different offensively to try to get something going on your end there. They were pretty tough against Maryland too?
Blackney: Yeah, their defense is outstanding. They're not real big, but they are very athletic and they have a lot of quickness on their defense. They play a defense that is very similar to Toledo's defense. Their two strong safeties and their two outside linebackers are like strong safeties. They're actually an 8-man front. They're like a 4-4 defense. They're very quick, very athletic. Joe Klecko from the Jets, his son is a very good player there. He's an inside player in the defense. He's a good player. Overall, I think defensively, they have better team defensive speed than Pittsburgh.
As you look at that and prepare for that, do you consider using some more wrinkles?
Blackney: You know, with our wide receiver situation, what we tried to do on Saturday was go to a little bit more 2 tight, 2 flanker, one back type sets to force a defense to balance up on that type of set. They are less likely to give you more blitzes. It does take away your power game because you take your fullback out of the game. For every game you have, there is always a deficit attached to what may be a benefit. Obviously we're going to have to try maybe a little bit more 2 tights. That always helps when you're going against a 4-4, because usually those outside linebackers are more athletic, they're smaller guys, they can run. 6'1, 6'2, 200 pound type guys instead of playing against a 235-pound linebacker. So, we're definitely going to look to see if we can formation them and get some personnel mismatches. That's what we're working on right now. The other thing we have to do is protect for Andy even if we have to hold some more people in. He can't keep taking the beating he's been taking the past two weeks and survive the season. I think he's a durable kid and he's hung in there and he's such a positive kid that there's no discouragement on his part. He's so optimistic about everything.
Does that boil down then to the case of which tailback is the best blocker then? Because, the one drive Gibson really got it going up the middle I thought for a while against Pittsburgh. Is Alls a better blocker than Gibson?
Blackney: Is Alls a better blocker? No, Gibson probably has a better feel for blitzing. They sent a couple of safety blitzes that he picked up pretty nicely. The one thing we didn't do, they were rushing hard up the field and we were trying to get away from the inside rush and sprint Andy out, and we weren't getting that guy cut down. Consequently, they were sending the big end up the field and Andy had to duck under that guy to be able to throw the ball. Technique wise, we're supposed to cut that guy down. Cut him down and get Andy on the corner with the tailback coming around as an escort blocker. And we just didn't get that done on Saturday.
Did you look to use Gibson more then, when you were trying to run the ball against Pitt?
Blackney: Yeah, I mean right now Gibson and Alls, I think on that drive late in the second quarter, I think they both ran the ball really well. I think that hurt us coming out of that situation without points. Even if we could've got three on the board, going down 17-6 down at halftime, we're two scores away. That was disappointing.
What about Temple's offense?
Blackney: Good skilled people. Their quarterback is a good player, he's very athletic. They run a little bit of option to keep you honest. I wouldn't say they're an option football team, but you'll see it 4, 5, 6 times a game. Their wideouts are skilled. Their skilled people are quick. They're not as big as Michigan's or Pitt's. They have a wide receiver who is 5'8, 160. They're tailback is 5'9 174. Very shifty, very elusive. They're not the A-train, they're not like the Kevin Barlow's, the Antonio Bryant's that are 6'2, 6'3. I think that's the biggest difference. I think they have the same kind of speed and quickness, they probably don't have the same kind of size as a Pittsburgh would have.
Have they thrown much in the first two games?
Blackney: They like to throw the ball, but they're not throwing the ball as much as they did three years ago, when they led or were second in the Big East in passing. I think they are trying to achieve more balance, they're trying to run the ball. I think Sharps is a good tailback. He's not very big, but I think he's an excellent tailback, he's very shifty.
He's carried 51 times in the first two games?
Blackney: yeah, he's a durable kid at his size. He doesn't give himself a good shot at him, because he really is shifty. He's like a scatback. I don't know what happened to their other quarterback, he went out with an injury. -sprained knee. Not sure if he'll be available. Frost got hurt against Maryland-
You're going to practice here Friday afternoon instead of leaving in the morning. Any reasons for that?
Blackney: We just don't want to lay around in the hotel all day Friday and then 6 o'clock game, all day Saturday. It's just not this game. We did it for Michigan, we did it for Pitt. We're trying to keep our Friday routine as close to regular as we possibly can when we're traveling. And also that way, we won't miss any class time. We'll eat our Friday night meal here, which will be different, but then again we've done that for this will be our third game. We'll fly into Philadelphia and get into Philadelphia and probably by the time we get into the hotel, it'll be maybe 8:30, 9:00. We'll watch a little film, have a snack and put them to bed. There won't be all that lag time like when we use to go out at 11:00 in the morning. Then Saturday, we'll get up, we'll have breakfast and then probably go downtown. It's a historic place and a lot of our players probably haven't been downtown. Just to get them out of the rooms, off the beds, watching whatever they watch: The Jetsons or whatever they watch. Football too. Seriously, yeah, you get a game probably starting at 12:00 and so we're gonna try to get them out and get their mind off that kinda stuff. We started doing that last year against Toledo and it seemed to work, so we'll see for night games.
