Bowling Green State University Athletics
Gregg Brandon Press Conference Quotes
October 12, 2004 | Football
Oct. 12, 2004
Gregg Brandon Press Conference - October 12, 2004
Q. Any concerns about not getting a lot of rushing yards at Central Michigan?
A. No, because they were playing a front that was tough to run the ball against for what we do. We would have had to attach a tight end, and that wasn't in the plan that week. Especially when you are playing an odd front team that plays with overhang players and shows you seven in the box all the time. You don't know where they're coming from. The idea is to get them to get out and cover, and to open up some running lanes as well. They didn't come out and cover, obviously, and Omar exploited that.
Q. Thoughts on finally having a home game?
A. It's Homecoming and it's a great time to come home after four weeks on the road. I am anticipating a great crowd. I'd love to see 30,000 here. I know our people have really been working on promoting the game and getting the fans out. It's just going to be a great atmosphere.
Q. Advantages of being at home?
A. When you're in your own environment, your team has a degree of comfort level. And a veteran team really draws from the home crowd, and that is why I really need to see the brown and orange come out and support our team. Our players deserve that...the fans, the thunderstix, and the whole deal to get cranked up for Homecoming. It's a great college football atmosphere and that is what it's all about. We have seven fifth-year seniors and I really hope that this is the greatest Homecoming experience that they have been through. When the fans show up and support us and then we play well, it all ties in together.
Q. Ball State is a generally young team. What are their challenges with taking a young team on the road?
A. Coach Brady Hoke is going through a rebuilding process. That is evident when you watch them on film because they're playing a freshman quarterback and a freshman running back. The thing that I like about Ball State is that they play hard and they're well coached, and if our team lets their guard down they will bite us in the butt. So, we need to prepare for Ball State just like we prepare for any MAC West team, whether they're coming in here or we're going there. We've got to get after them from the opening kickoff, and that's what I tell my team every week. Especially when you get into MAC play, we can't afford a letdown. I would anticipate our guys would come out ready to go.
Q. Do you prefer to play a team that has more experienced guys that you have seen on film and you have a good idea of what you're going to get, or would you prefer to play a more inexperienced team?
A. As a coach, you obviously like the experience, but the young players that Coach Hoke is playing, such as their quarterback, are talented players. Their quarterback [Cole Stinson] is a big, strong kid, he's got a great arm, and I like the way he throws the ball. Their running back [Adell Givens] is elusive, and we need to tackle. We've faced two of the quicker backs in the league in [Jerry] Seymour and [Garrett] Wolfe, and we weren't bad tackling Seymour. We didn't tackle Wolfe at Northern Illinois. We need to tackle Givens and you can't let him out.
Q. A freshman quarterback, in particular, could struggle and make mistakes, or could have a great game...
A. Yeah, and we've to anticipate the latter because, quite frankly, when we went to Northern Illinois I thought [Phil] Horvath had the game of a lifetime. He didn't throw a pick, he managed the offense, there were no penalties, and he was accurate beyond belief in my opinion. He had not shown that, and he played the game of a lifetime at just the right time. And we don't need to let Ball State's quarterback come in and do that. We've got to harass him, mix up the coverages, and put pressure on him. We've got to get a pass rush, and we started to get a little bit better at that against Central. We got some pressure on their two guys and we hit them and knocked them out of the game, and that's what we need to do. We need to find out who the backup guy is...because there's a reason he's the backup.
Q. Ball State's pass defense is ranked last in the MAC. How much of that in your eyes is the personnel that have and how much of it is playing games against Purdue, Toledo, etc.
A. Well, I think it's a combination of all of that. Any time you are a facing a high powered offense like Purdue, you just hope to slow them down. They didn't slow Purdue down. The secondary always takes the hit when you're giving up passing yards, but they're not getting the pass rush that Coach Hoke would like to have. I heard him earlier in the week on the conference call, and he challenged his D-line to step it up. When a quarterback can stand back in the pocket comfortably, offensively that is what you want, but defensively you have to pressure the guy.
Q. That is exactly what you have gotten from Omar Jacobs and your offensive line. Is that a combination of good line play, etc?
A. All of those things. Omar is getting rid of the football, our receivers are getting open, and we protect. All those things tie in to the low interceptions and the low sack ratio.
Q. You talked about Omar playing as well as Josh Harris. Could you expound on that?
A. I think Omar is playing as well as Josh played. Obviously, Josh was a great leader for us and a great quarterback his senior year. Omar is not there yet. The statement that I made probably implied that he was. He's not there yet, but I tell you what, he's not far off. He's thrown with a great completion percentage; he's taken care of the football and not turning it over. And the thing that I like about him that I see every week is that he's maturing as a leader. That's why Josh Harris was great for our football team, and that's where Omar is growing and maturing into position. Mick McCall, our quarterback coach, has done a great job with him. Is he as good as Josh? We can argue that forever. Josh was a great quarterback for us and Omar will potentially be better.
Q. When you run the no-huddle offense, how does that work?
A. We give him [Omar] a couple of plays, and then he looks and checks the defense out. Most of the time, we can tell if the play is going to be good or not going to be good. That's the whole reason why we put our guys up to the line, rather than in the huddle and guessing. And that's what I like about what we're doing. It was a concern that Omar could handle that, and he's done that. We're going to continue to do that and mix things up with tempo and those types of things just to keep the defense off balance...because if you notice in our game against Oklahoma, about halfway through the second quarter, every Oklahoma defender was looking at our bench and trying to get the signal. And we needed to do at Temple what we call a fastball. We needed to run up and run the play why they are standing around trying to pick up a signal. And that's the stuff that through the course of a game that we need to manage, and I think we saw a couple of those on Saturday. We had the ball on the 5-yard line and we ran a hurry up quick toss to P.J. Pope and he got down to the 1-yard line on that. So you have to mix the tempos up, and that is on the quarterback. That is what I was worried that Omar would struggle with because he had never played, and he's done a great job with it.
Q. Do quarterbacks make the system, or does the system make the quarterback.
A. That's a great question, and it's great for discussion. Both are true. You look at the years the 49ers were with Walsh and they were running the west coast system, and there were great quarterbacks that came through that. You could say the system made Joe Montana, Steve Young, etc. Would those quarterbacks have flourished in any system? Probably would have. I look at BYU in the 80's, when Lavell Edwards and Norm Chow were there, and I was really close to that system because I was coaching out at Weber State and I spent a lot of time with those guys. They ran a system and their quarterbacks, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, and Robbie Bosco, were all great quarterbacks in that system. Would those guys have flourished in another system? Probably. The big thing I look for in a quarterback is can he take you to the next level...can he win you a championship. I'm going to keep recruiting one that can take me to the prizes. Because if he can't, you better have a great back and a great offensive line because you're probably going to end up running it 50 times a game.
Q. What makes Keon Newson such a great player?
A. He's very instinctive...he's just a good football player. The play he made at Oklahoma when he picked the pass, he saw the signal and stole the signal. He almost made that same play in the first quarter, but he just anticipated too soon and [Jason] White pulled it down, and scrambled, and we got him for a loss. He's got a great knack for getting the ball out. He's great at stripping and getting the football out. He's a slippery little devil, he's hard to block and knifes in there on blitzes, and he plays great pad level, he's a solid tackler. He's just a very instinctive football player.
Q. Is he more valuable to this team as a safety or a cornerback?
A. Safety. Well, I like him to be the guy to front the ball up. A guy can never show up on the corner. Jelani Jordan had a good game last week because people threw at him, but nobody can tell you what the other corner was doing, who was playing on the other corner. He had a good game, but he was very quiet - Terrill Mayberry. He covered his guy. And corners don't lead your team in tackles. Safeties and linebackers lead your team in tackles, and Keon is probably our best tackler in our back end. To put him on the corner, you could just run him off all day and take him out of the game. We'd have to create some things for him on the corner, which is a lot harder to do.
Q. The Omar comment - comparison to Josh - would you have thought, six weeks ago, that you could say that?
A. I sure hoped I would. I had hoped that we would just be winning games, and Omar wouldn't be losing games for us. That was the key...any time you are playing a young quarterback, you don't want him to lose the game for you by throwing a pick, giving up a sack, etc. That's what is so encouraging about Omar because he's not doing any of those things. His confidence is growing with every game.
Q. Omar has played a pretty high level all season. Was there a game where you saw him take his game up a notch?
A. I think the last two weeks he has. I thought Saturday he was good, against Temple he was outstanding. I thought he played well enough at Northern for us to win that football game; we just couldn't score and take advantage of our opportunities against them. We just couldn't stop them in the fourth quarter, and Omar has nothing to do with stopping them. We just didn't make any plays late in that game, and they did and that is why we lost. I think every game he elevates. He does something to show you that he is maturing. And not always on the field either. His demeanor, the way he carries himself around the other players, particularly around the offensive players and the receivers. I always see him hanging out with P.J. Pope and the receivers and talking to the offensive lineman. He's become one of the boys.
Q. Newson is not really the prototype. Is mid-major the level where you see players like him excelling?
A. You see it in the Big 10 as well. I mean I coached at Colorado, Northwestern, and there are a lot of guys, fringe guys, guys that might not be big enough to play one spot and not fast enough to play another. It's not unique...they are probably more in the MAC than probably the Big 10 or the Big 12. But college football is college football. To me, there isn't much difference between our roster and Michigan State's for example. I just threw Michigan State out...it could be Michigan or Ohio State. Oklahoma, now that's a different animal.
