Below is the transcript from the Bobby Wilder Press Conference.
Good afternoon everybody and thanks for coming. We are excited after a 36-16 win over UMass on Friday. We are also very grateful for everyone who helped allow this game to happen. We made the decision Wednesday morning after learning that Hurricane Matthew was coming right at us, so we wanted to be sure Massachusetts had time to get home safely. We were glad they did, as we broke from here at 4 p.m. on Saturday from watching film and that’s when Mother Nature reared her ugly head in a big way. Hopefully everyone in the area is safe and recovering from the storm, as there was a lot of rainfall and a lot of flooding.
We got off to a fast start in this game, going 71 yards in 10 plays for a touchdown on the first drive. Our defense gave up some yards on their first drive, which was probably the story of the night. We gave up some yards but stopped them. We got the ball back on our own six and made a pivotal drive, going seven plays for 84 yards and a field goal. That helped us from a field position standpoint that we got out of our end. Field position is something we have done really well with so far.
The fact that we got off to such a good start in this game showed me that the players handled the change in the week really well. You can generally tell if your team starts off the game well then they handled the adversity well. Adversity is a word we have used a lot around here the last few weeks, and I am very proud of how they have handled it.
Overall I felt like we were solid in all three phases in this game. It was really good to see Brad Davis make three field goals. It is not always going to be a touchdown in big games, so you have to be able to kick field goals in the red zone. Brad was actually four of four on field goals because there was a situation where they jumped offsides and we had to re-kick it. Reed Buce (long snapper), a guy who doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves, took it upon himself to hold the ball longer to draw them off sides, knowing that they had just blocked an extra point. That was great to see Reed do that because we want them to help coach and make suggestions like that. Bailey Cate had three punts for a 42.3-yard average. We also had some teaching moments on special teams that we will need to learn from.
Defensively, we allowed only 16 points, and the reason is we held them to only two conversions out of 12 on third and fourth downs. They had a lot of yardage, but our defense made critical third and fourth down stops when they got inside our 40-yard line.
On offense, we had tremendous balance. We had 274 yards rushing and 248 yards passing and another game with zero turnovers. That is huge because we are eliminating momentum for the other team. We are working towards becoming a team that can run the ball and play-action pass. The last few weeks we’ve been doing a really good job with that.
During the bye week we will practice today and tomorrow, but we will have off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This will be huge for the players’ bodies because they have just gone 60 straight days where they had to do something that was football related. We will use this time to get healed up, and the coaches will leave Tuesday afternoon to go recruiting. We will all regroup on Sunday.
Q: Is this the ideal time for a bye week?
A: Yes, this is the perfect time. We are banged up and some guys are hurting right now. They are not injuries that are necessarily keeping guys out of the games, but it is just your typical wear and tear. Being able to get away from football and focusing on academics for a few days is perfect right now.
Q: Assess where your team is now that we have reached the midway point of the season.
A: We are in a good place. Mentally, the players feel pretty good about themselves. The last 14 days we have been 3-0 in football. We have tried our best to help with some situations going on in the real world, too, so there’s been a lot going on. I like where our team is going, though. I like that we are a team that can run the ball, so we are making a lot of progress on the field as well. I also really like where David Washington is. In week one, he was trying to run over defenders, and now he’s sliding and protecting himself, which we really needed. Defensively, we are getting good pressure and haven’t been giving up a lot of big plays. We are making teams earn their points. On special teams, even after Chris Kirtley went down, I think we have made a lot of improvement. It is important to remember that the teams we have beaten so far were the ones who were picked near the bottom, just like us. Starting with WKU, we will be playing the teams that we weren’t picked to beat. All we can do right now is just focus on the process and practice situational football. We choose different game situations from around the country and practice them so we are ready for anything. I do feel like we are in a much better place than we were in the beginning of the season.
Q: What do you make of some of the surprising results from games around the league?
A: I can’t speak specifically to those games because I don’t know who their injury sits were, but I do know with respect to UTSA beating Southern Miss, Dalton Sturm played really well and put up good numbers. We were able to contain Sturm so much in the UTSA game that their coach brought in a different quarterback. Charlotte made a quarterback change, and he played extremely well in their win over FAU. Those are a couple scenarios that may help to explain those results, but I think the league is more balanced than some people probably thought at the beginning of the year. Our guys are excited about it, though. It made them feel better about themselves. I just tell them to focus on the process and maintain a good level of focus on why we have been playing so well lately. That is because the coaches and the players have prepared and executed well and nothing else.
Thanks again to all our fans out there for our 51st consecutive sellout and to Old Dominion for doing what they always do and getting it done!