Eddie George Monday Press Conference Transcript (Kent State)

Eddie George Press Conference 
Oct. 20, 2025
Bowling Green, Ohio 

Question: What were you seeing penalty-wise out there?
Coach George: Yeah, undisciplined. Definitely some good calls there. In the midst of the game, you're kind of questioning well, this is uncharacteristic for us. We haven't had that many penalties at all this year, but definitely a lot of pre and post snap penalties that are very uncharacteristic for us.

We lost our composure sometimes. We got really frustrated and you just can't do that. We just felt like, it was just a really bad day for us. That's something we don't preach. We don't teach that stuff. It has been handled. We got to learn and grow from that.

Question: What were some of the corrective measures for the penalties? Was there a lot of running?
Coach George: There was a preparation period. I mean, we do certain things to remind ourselves that hey, we get penalties. There's some things associated with that. It's built for conditioning. It's built to remind ourselves this is not who we are. We are a disciplined football team, and we have to be mindful in those moments and have self-control and to control our emotions.

That's one thing that we've learned about this team is that you've got to learn to go through the ebbs and flows of a game, the ebbs and flows of a season, and treat both winning and losing the same. One does not outweigh the other. If it happened in the game, if we're down, that's not the time to be discouraged and say ‘oh, here we go again.’ It's the time to dig your feet in the dirt, stand strong and say bring it on. That's what builds championship teams. There are those moments. So, we we've got to learn not to be emotional. Just put our head down, go to work. Continue to do your job.

Continue to execute at a high level. Play fast, physical and with discipline, and let the chips fall where they may. Don't worry about the results. The results take care of itself. That's when you have to really trust in the process. You got to trust your training. You got to trust in the brotherhood you've created and that's what we're starting to learn to do and that's the takeaways that you take away from a game like that.

Question: How much was struggling with the run game on you versus Central Michigan?
Coach George: Both. We were putrid in our run game. We were putrid as an offense pretty much. We had an established drive earlier on, got to a three-point lead.

Really after the interception, we became really inept. We got to find ways to get better. I got to get better in terms of coaching. I've got to be better of simplifying things. Our coaching staff has been challenged to do just that regardless of who's the quarterback.

We've got to find ways to move the football. When you are one-dimensional, it makes it a lot easier for defenses to tee off on you. We were unable to find ways to move the ball balance-wise. This is where we are. This is who we are right now.
So, we got to, as coaches, find the best way to put points on the board, move the football and see what skill set best fits our players in terms of play calling, identity and so forth. So that's where we are.

Question: You say let’s chop wood and carry water, where does that come from?
Coach George: I read a book. What book was that? It was one of the leadership books I've read, I think it's called Chop Wood, Carry Water. That's the name of it. It goes back to fundamentals.

I've always believed in as a player, certainly as a coach, is go back to work regardless of what happens. How you win, even when you come off the emotional win that we had two weeks ago against Toledo. You got to come back to work, you got to get back settled and not get caught in what people are saying, the outside noise and what people are saying in terms of patting in the back and atta a boy and all of that. There's still work to be done. That was the focus. Hey, we found a way to win a ball game, but we're still not where we need to be. We still have a lot of work to do, and I think guys are starting to understand that. So yeah, that's always been my motto. I remind myself of that. When I start to go off the rails a little bit, try to overthink things, I go back to chop wood, carry water. That's what we do. That's the model.

Question: Challenges this week going on the road to Kent State?
Coach George: I've always known that the Mac schools are highly competitive. You don't look at the records; you don't necessarily look at what their statistics are. Rushing, throwing the ball, you’re going to play a competitive ball game every single week. So, we've got to come in with the right mindset.

First of all, come in with the mindset to come to work. To learn the details of our plays, to simplify things so we can play fast. To have confidence in what we're doing, what we're calling and how we're playing. To continue to be disciplined and not worry about the end of the season, championships, bowling, that does not matter. What matters is how we approach tomorrow and the rest of this week in terms of our preparation and get ready to play a competitive ball game on the road against a quality opponent. So that's going to be our mindset.

Question: What’s the status of Drew Pyne?
Coach George: He's still making progress. I can't give you an update in terms of if he's going to go or not this week, but he's getting closer.

Question: How do you maximize Lucian?
Coach George: Well, that's the growing pains of a young quarterback. You’re going to have inconsistencies. That’s where you are with it, and he has to learn and grow. There are some opportunities that he left on the field, and I think he's taken to coaching and we just got to manage him as he goes. You've got to find ways to make sure he's successful. That's just a couple concepts here or there, and running four or five different concepts or less. That's what we're going to have to do and have to understand that it's going to be complementary football across the board. We may not be able to churn out sustainable drives and an efficient run game. It may be a situation where it's a game of a field position, playing great defense and the margin of error is slim when you play that way, but that's where we are. We have to learn how to play that way because that's the hand that's given to us.

Question: What was the message to Lucian?
Coach George: It's unfortunate that that happens. As a quarterback, there are certain things you’re coached to do in those situations. This shouldn't have happened. You should have earned it. You have to recognize that.

His eyes have to settle down. He's got to see the field better. He's got to see those opportunities; he has to anticipate better. His pre-snap reads are indicators of what needs to happen within the play, and I think he's started to learn and understand that.

So, we just have to continue to coach him and be better and we cannot put too much on his plate that he can't handle it. But everybody has to understand and rally around that, to understand that we have a quarterback that's young and going through growing pains. He's going to make great plays. He’ll make some bonehead plays. But we have to support that. To understand that, hey, we're going to support him, and we have to do our job. To put our head down, chop wood and carry water.

Question: Kent State’s statistics are skewed, is that why you don’t look too deep into them?
Coach George: It is. That's why I don't look into it.
When you play teams like Texas Tech, who’s ranked top of the country, top-25 Oklahoma, Florida State. Yeah, they played Toledo last week. We played them. So, you don't necessarily look at the statistics, you look at the quality of the team.

They’re well coached. They have some ballplayers on both sides of the football. Their defense, they fly around. They have some good athletes in the in the linebacking corps. They have a really good returner who's returned a kickoff so far.
So again, in the MAC you can almost guarantee, regardless of your schedule, regardless of your record, you will play competitive football every single week.

Question: Has the magnitude around these last few games been an obstacle?
Coach George: Well, I don't believe in excuses for that. That should never be an obstacle.
Again, it goes back to the mental toughness to fight against the human nature to, hey, we're riding high and this is a distraction.

Y’all, we got to settle back down, understand that there's more ball games to be played because winning is a deodorant. It covers up the stink of what's really going on and there was a lot there that we had to grow and learn from, from starting off fast to playing discipline football, to taking advantage of the opportunities that are given to you. There was a lot of o opportunities that we left on this football field that can go unmasked, go unchecked if we don't check it.
Our thing was to attack complacency last week. Clearly, I didn't do a good enough job of explaining that to the kids and putting that that urgency back into their mindset. Hey, we got to focus back down on what's important. Again, don't worry about the championship. Don't worry about we beat Toledo. We've got to focus on winning today, getting back to doing our job, playing fast, physical, and disciplined.

When I look back at the game, you try to find the silver lining in it all. What I found was in the fourth quarter, typically when teams relatively give up and quit, we still fought. Even though we knew the circumstances weren't in our favor.
There were some clips, certainly in the last couple of plays, I showed the effort was there. RJ Garcia running downfield on the interception, giving great effort. He didn't have to. There was no need. For him, he wants to compete.

Our defense was still playing hard against a team that will lean on you with their run game in the fourth quarter. I believe we only gave up 24 yards on 11 carries in the fourth quarter when we knew that we probably weren't going to win the game based off of our lack of offensive production. Lucian still threw the ball really well. Found some receivers wide open in terms of coverage.

So, we never got down, we never gave up. That was my challenge to the team going into the fourth quarter. No matter what the score is, I don't want to see the bad body language. Nobody's going to quit. We don't do that.

This is still a part of the process of becoming a champion. You're going to have results that are not going to work out in your favor. You're going to have circumstances that are not going to be great for you. Based off of everything that happened with Toledo and all of that, and pull those excuses out of the sky and say, oh, these are the reasons, but we're not going to do that. We'll leave that right there and say, hey, take complete ownership of what just happened. That's how we're going to grow from it. Like I took complete ownership of it. I'm not finger pointing on anything.

It comes back on me. I didn't have this team prepared to play well enough to win that ball game. For them to understand we could not have those type of mistakes. I've got to do better. I've got to identify better. I've got to get my coaches better. So, I have to get better this week so we'll be ready to play on the road at Kent State.

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