Bowling Green State University Athletics
Gregg Brandon Press Conference Quotes
November 02, 2004 | Football
Nov. 2, 2004
Can you start us out with injuries and changes to the depth chart?
"John Lanning is hurt and Jon Culp is now the backup center. We moved Pete Winovich to linebacker. He isn't going to play much tight end this season and he's played on every special teams. We have used his redshirt year because he is a good special teams player and we had to play him at tight end because of Steve Navarro's health and as it turned out, to get the most out of Pete, I think we are going to give him a look at linebacker because I think he is a defensive player. He's a tough kid and he'll strike you and he can run well and change directions and we need some linebackers.
Does it seem like Lavell Sharpe and Terrel White were in the mix as your top six guys at linebacker?
"Terrel White has always been in that mix and Lavelle needs to be in that mix. He needs to keep coming on and playing well, this is his fourth year in the program and he needs to be in that two-deep. You can't have enough of those guys because they all play on special teams and it is a physical position."
Is there one particular position at linebacker that Winovich would play?"
"Right now we are working him at MIKE the middle position but he can play WILL or SAM whatever. Coach Beckman had to move some guys there to make them interchangeable. There are similarities between SAM and WILL, the MIKE is more of an in the box guy. He can move a guy from outside to outside but outside to inside it gets a little bit trickier."
What about your running game at Eastern?
"We had a running package for Eastern that we hadn't used in the past few weeks, in fact we hadn't used it since Northern Illinois. We ran the ball effectively against Northern Illinois, but since that game we have thrown the ball well and averaged 40 points. So, we got into a heated discussion about why to run the ball when you can't score. I would rather score a lot of points put the game away and then run the ball. That is kind of what happened Saturday, we were up 34-20 early in the 4th quarter and we started to run P.J, and they couldn't stop it. P.J. rushed for 93 yards against Northern Illinois in the first half. We decided to use that run package and it was successful in the fourth quarter when we needed to drive the ball. . We wanted to run the ball and run the clock.
You had onepenalty against Ohio, but a few more against Eastern?
"If you had the same refs for every game you could evaluate it on that. But what one guy sees as a hold one week, another guy may not see it as a hold the next week. To me, some of those calls have or have not been called by other crews throughout the season. A couple of those interference calls seemed very marginal to me. Keon did block the punt, he said he got a hand on it and I have to believe him but the ref didn't think he did. You stress to your guys to be penalty free. Those are all judgment calls and judgment varies from week to week and that is just the way it is." - What adjustments will you make defensively?
"We need to communicate better. There were six plays called explosion plays, long passes that got us. There was one where the guy ran right by Jelani. Most of those were communication errors. There was one instance where the pass rush didn't get there and it didn't matter because we can't cover forever. For the most part the pass rush was there. When you hold a team to 47 yards rushing, 16 of which came when the backup guy was in the game. I think that is impressive to hold a team that comes in and is rushing the ball for 187 yards a clip. The long throws, we can correct those thing. We were doing things to stop the running game. We were moving our line bringing in an extra guy to stop the run and when you do that you are vulnerable. Their quarterback did a nice job."
On the gadget play with Cole, where was the throw supposed to go?
"It was the same play we have called five times, it went from red hawk to blue hawk, we thought it would get the jinx off and it made it worse. It was the same one we threw to Craig Jarrett at Ohio State. The same one Cole threw at the Motor City Bowl that got picked, the same one Cole threw to D'Monn Baker at Kansas that bounced off his helmet. And the same one that Cole threw to Joe Alls down in the corner against Miami and he stepped out of bounds. For some reason we can't get it to work."
This Saturday you have Western. What are they like?
"Western is a talented team. They have talented players on both sides of the ball. They are playing a lot of kids in defense, which would indicate that they are trying to get the right chemistry on that side. Offensively they can light you up at the drop of a hat."
On the line, specifically I was looking at Andrew Hart and Andy Grubb, do they just kind of go about their business and get their job done without much fan fare?
"All five of them are like that. You don't see too much fan fare with the offensive line. They just quietly go about their business. Our offensive line has dominated the last five teams. Really, running the football and throwing the football we dominated Northern Illinois. The only team we didn't dominate was Oklahoma. We just didn't score enough points against Northern. Our offensive line really played well this season. We have stayed healthy and that helps."
In the case of Hart has there been any talk about getting him an extra year?
"Yeah, I think there is a lot of paper work that needs to go through."
Do you have a nickname for that group?
"Yeah, but it is not printable."
Back to the Western game, is this a game where you guys put a little more emphasis on just running the ball with PJ and saving the playbook for Marshall?
"We are not saving anything. We have got to score and score often. Whatever it takes to beat Western we will do. We are not saving anything. If we can run PJ for 200 yards we will run him for 200 yards."
What is the teams mentality going into a game like this especially with possibly your two biggest games coming up at the end of the year?
"Well this is a big game too cause if we don't win this one then those last two games don't mean squat. We talked going into Eastern Michigan about this being a four game season. We need to win all our games the rest of the way cause they are all MAC conference games and if we stumble we won't have a chance at the championship and that's evident. We need to continue to play well. We have a shot at the championship. The problem is that we don't control our destiny that way. We can still take care of business and hopefully the bowl people will pay attention to what we are doing and we will be happy campers in December."
