Bowling Green State University Athletics
Urban Meyer Press Conference
October 03, 2001 | Football
Oct. 3, 2001
"I think one of the most difficult things I've ever done is to walk into that locker room after the game. It was a great college football game, but it was a devastating loss to our program. I could say the typical coaches' answers "I'm proud of this, and I'm proud of that"...but I was very disappointed and I think our players were because Marshall won the game."
"It wasn't one of those games where we outplayed them and then somehow Marshall won. Marshall outplayed us at two areas that we've been very good at in special teams and defense. Their offense moved the ball against our defense and their kicking team was much better than ours was. I think that's a great effort on their part."
"If effort was an issue, then there's a lot of ways to handle effort. We were in full pads on Monday and we've been making use of that hill out there trying to get guys to give effort, but effort was not the issue at all. Lack of execution in the fourth quarter was an issue. The team that knows how to win finished the game knowing how to win. Give some credit to Bob Pruett and his players...because if nothing else, they know how to win...and they won."
"Now the challenge is we're facing a team that for some reason people think "Kent State?" Kent State is one of the better teams in this conference. This kid (quarterback Joshua Cribbs) is dynamic. He had 87 yards running against West Virginia and in the second half, Kent State played really good ball against WV. The first half they didn't play very well. Then they completely dominated Akron but they gave the ball away twice in the red-zone."
"Talent wise, this will be an evenly matched game...but we will be prepared for it. When I got here I heard "Kent this...Kent that..." and I know wins and losses haven't been there for them, but I know that program is headed in the right direction. Dean Pees is doing a great job because that is a good team that we're getting ready to play this week."
Does Kent become more dangerous than a team like Marshall since they don't have that Aura about them? Does that make them scarier?
"That's a great question. Understanding the challenge is key. If you flick on our tape, you see a dynamic quarterback, an excellent defensive line, and a team with a tough early schedule that completely shut down Akron. You don't have to be really smart to figure out that you will be loaded to the walls to play your best football."
How do you keep this loss, your very first one, from eating you up inside?
"I can't stand losing, I don't want anything to do with it. I'm extremely disappointed because there was nothing in that game that we didn't prepare for. I even asked our captains and seniors...that I need them now. Those kids are resilient. They are the ones who play the game, the coaches don't play the game. They are the ones who are going to have to match up with the talented team that's coming in here Saturday. The way I handled it was asking for help from our seniors and leaders."
Besides their quarterback, whom else at Kent are you going to concentrate on looking at?
"They have a good receiver corps. There isn't just one guy, but several guys who can really run. The key is the quarterback though. That guy is dynamic. Nowadays, athletic quarterbacks are the way to go. He scrambles. All of a sudden it's third down and six...he goes back to pass...everybody's covering...it's first down and ten because he scrambles for the first down. He ran 87 yards against West Virginia, and it wasn't because their #2's were in there. West Virginia is a fast team...and that scares me. I love athletic quarterbacks."
You touched on, after the Marshall game, about the difference between winning and losing being so fragile. What kind of approach do you take after the play that Sergio made where if the ball goes anywhere but straight up then the game is basically over. So how do you keep the players from thinking that that was a bad break and not just part of the game?
"One thing I am not ashamed of is to ask for help. I called coach (Lou) Holtz yesterday and I said I need help with this one, just like when I first met with the team on December 4. I asked for help just like I hope someday someone will call up me and ask for help. He was getting ready for another big game in the SEC and he went ahead and sat up on the phone with me for around an hour and we talked about how you handle this team in this situation. So many times' coaches get caught up in how you are going to run isolation or option and that's not how you win. How you win is to get guys to believe in what you are doing and play hard. Coach Holtz made a comment that there are four stages of developing a program, the first one is teaching them how to compete. I think that we have taught them that. There have been very few instances in the first four games where they have not competed. It's hard for me to really think of any, as a team. The second thing is teaching a team how to win. It started in the fourth quarter at Missouri where we hit the quarterback, intercepted the ball, and jammed the ball in for the touchdown. We continued to learn how to win against Temple as that game could have gone either way. The third step is can you handle winning? I am not sure that we can do that yet. I did not see the same coaching passion as before. I blame myself, the coaches and the players because we started 3-0 and you start getting nice things written in the paper about you and you start believing them. We were prepared but I saw mistakes happen in the game that I saw happen in practice and we cannot let that happen. The final stage is learning how to compete for a championship, which is where South Carolina is. Last year (South Carolina) learned how to win, but could not beat the good ones. Now this year they have taken the next step and started to beat up on the upper echelon team in the SEC and therefore I think Coach Holtz is exactly right."
In regard to you switching quarterbacks, is that your decision or is it Gregg (Brandon) or do you collaborate on that, because it seems that Andy Sahm was going good and so is that the reason you did not use Josh Harris as much?
"Gregg Brandon and Dan Mullen evaluate how the two quarterbacks are doing. We have great chemistry but this is a bottom line business and the quarterbacks need to be evaluated on their performance. Josh Harris is too good of a player not to play. So we played him but once Sahm got hot we had to play him. The way they were blitzing and the combination of the way we were running and how hot Andy got throwing the ball forced us to throw the ball down field. Josh got in there and had a good effort but he has to play more and that's why we are still going with the two quarterbacks. I think it is a nice dilemma to have, you got two guys you trust and we just got to keep getting better at that position."
The MAC came out with the athletic academic awards about a week ago and Bowling Green finished first in the league for all athletics. Coaches say that the players are student athletes first and that they want there kids to go to classes and graduate, so how gratifying is it for you to come into a program where it seems like that foundation is already there?
"I don't think I would have came here if that had not been in place. That's what Paul Krebs, Sidney Ribeau and myself are all about. We are not gonna recruit that way or let things slip. I think Darren Hamelton has done a good job, there is a nice little system in place here. Bowling Green is Bowling Green and we need to continue that. This is not a school that will recruit the kind of guy that is recruited by other schools that just continuously recruit, recruit, recruit. We are just not going to do that and that has been made very clear from the president all the way down to the head football coach. If a kid is slipping academically we are not going to turn our backs. We are very proactive and I think that is all coaches here and I am very proud of that. I think that is great to go sit in a parents living room and have a piece of paper in your hand where you can how them that student athletes are graduating at a high rate. I don't want to be in one of those situations where you have to make excuses for why players are not graduating from your program. I also don't want to be in a situation where you have to make excuses for why you are recruiting players that cannot make it in college and we are not going to do that."
