Below is the transcript to the Bobby Wilder press conference.
Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon to all our 12th Monarchs out there in Monarch Nation. Coming off a frustrating loss at North Texas this week. As I told our players right after the game, tough times don’t last forever, but tough people with good character do last forever and that’s what our focus is going to be on. Continue to have great character and continue to work as a team to improve in the areas that we are deficient. That’s what we will do, we will survive this and we’ll grow and get better from it.
We had three turnovers on offense in this game, we allowed 13 explosive plays on defense, which are either plus 10 yard runs or plus 15 yard passes and we had the two blocked punts, the one that led to a touchdown that was really the difference in what was a really close football game. We took the ball away twice, we had a beautiful interception by Joe Joe Headen early in the game that we needed to turn the momentum around. We had another strip fumble that Sean Carter returned and in both of those turnovers we had opportunities to score touchdowns and we didn’t, we only scored field goals. That’s a difference between 14 points and six points off of turnovers which we need to convert those to touchdowns.
We had two kickoff returns for touchdowns by Isaiah Harper that the first one was just a clinic rep on how well it was blocked by everybody on the field. The second one was just a tremendous individual effort by Isaiah Harper. He got pinned in on the right side, reversed, came all the way back to the field and with his sprinter speed outran everybody in that situation.
The frustrating part of the fourth quarter was the fact that up three points we had a sack and a fumble in a situation where Steven Williams was trying to throw the ball out of bounds he was in the grasp by the defender. He should have just taken the ball and gone down for the sack, but he was trying to throw the ball away and not lose yardage and one of their defenders came in from behind and hit the football. Great job by our defense in that sudden change holding them to a field goal, which kept it at 38 and then the big play was the fourth and one on our 48 yard line where we didn’t get the yard. We need to be able to convert those short yardage, we have to get better at that on short yardage on offense because that was obviously a critical play. North Texas took four plays to score after that to take the lead. We had another fourth and one on their 43 yard line where we just missed on the throw and catch to Melvin Vaughn. Then at the end of the game, the last drive where you’re in it you have to go for everything, we got stopped on a fourth and one on our own 32. Three critical situations that really decided the game at the end of the game.
On special teams obviously the two kickoff returns for a touchdown, we had a big fake punt in the second quarter that converted on a drive where we went 17 plays for 60 yards, that really got our offense going. A field goal that cut it to 12 at the half, those were big plays for us, but we allowed two blocked punts. On the first one we miscounted on an assignment off the edge and their guy came through clean to black for the touchdown. The second one we just missed a guy up the middle that we got to get a better hand strike on. We got those corrected, we were good the rest of the game, but obviously that can’t happen.
Defensively, early on we were playing more zone than man. Their quarterback Mason Fine who plays like one of the best quarterbacks in the league, the last two weeks between Mike White and Mason Fine we’ve seen two really good quarterbacks. He threw for a lot of yards in the first quarter, we made an adjustment and started playing more man coverage and then I felt like for the better part of the second quarter and the second half we played very good defense.
We held North Texas to 10 points in the second half and that was off of the turnover where they got the ball on our 23-yard line, we held them to a field goal which was a great job by our defense. Then, when they got it on our 48 when we didn’t convert the fourth and one they scored there. We were a much better team when we started playing more man coverage. We wanted to play it from the start, but with our safeties Rob Thompson and Christian Byrum out, Jamez Brickhouse got hurt in the first quarter and didn’t return. We were depleted in the back end, but give a lot of credit to Brandon Addison who continues to play with a couple sprained ankles. Joe Joe Headen came in played really well, had a nice interception for us, so that certainly helped us at that point.
Offensively, 84 played, 386 yards, 35 points, which is a season high for us, we just need more explosive plays. When you run 84 plays and you average four and a half yards a play, we’re not getting the explosive plays that we have in the past. We ran the ball well, the offensive line was outstanding, 205 yards. Jeremy Cox with a tough 24 carries for 109 yards and a touchdown, but the long run for him was 15 yards. We just couldn’t get anything out, their safeties did a nice job tackling at the second or third level and our quarterback ran the ball well again. He had 55 yards rushing, he had a touchdown rushing, he’s getting much better at the zone read play in deciding when to hand the ball off, when to keep it. He’s explosive when he runs. He had 45 yards last week, 55 this week, so he’s improving in that regard. He completed 60% of his passes in this game. He had two interceptions, one was tipped by a d-lineman when he had Kevin Todd. He was making the right read throwing it, tipped it, went right back down to the d-linemen and then the one he underthrew Isaiah Harper a little bit on and harp just couldn’t get back to the ball.
Our best football offensively was at the end of the half and the third quarter. We had four straight drives that were good solid drives, three of them produced points, two touchdowns and a field goal. We’ve been really efficient in bursts of offense this year, particularly these past six games, we’ve just got to get better at being consistent.
This week’s opponent Charlotte comes in off a bye, they won two weeks ago at home against UAB, a team that’s 5-2 right now and a very good football team. Those guys were down 17-0, showed tremendous character in that game to come back and win that football game. We’ll be excited to play them, we’re going to have to handle their quarterback. They’ve got an outstanding quarterback, he’s athletic, he runs the ball, he throws the ball. We’ll have to do a good job there. Defensively they’re not giving up explosive plays, they’re making you earn it, so we’ll be excited to play. It’s homecoming which is always a good time, particularly to have our alumni, however many alumni we have at this point in our program that are coming back, so it will be good to see those guys.
Q: Bobby, how hopeful are you to get some of those guys back in the secondary? A: I think Rob Thompson and Christian Byrum will both be back. Rob had that pretty severe quad contusion that he got in the first half at Western Kentucky that got really bad last week. I’m hopeful that Rob will be back, he’s told me that he’s playing this week regardless. Byrum just has to get cleared by the doctor, he got sick last week. Jamez Brickhouse right now we’ll have to see how he feels over the next couple days because he just couldn’t get loose during this game. It was a little bit colder, but he just could not get himself loose and just couldn’t run the way he needed to run. So possible all three and hopeful on Thompson and Byrum.
Q: What about Ray Lawry and his hip? A: Yeah Ray got a hip pointer in the Western Kentucky game that was really bothering him last week, he tried to gut it out and tried to play, but he just could not get loose, he just couldn’t get it going. That’s the same injury that Jeremy Cox had early in the year that really bothered him. We’re hopeful that throughout the week getting treatments, we’ll monitor him in practice, we’re hopeful that he’ll be able to play this weekend. He really wants to play, but it’s just a matter of the treatments. It’s not the hamstring now that’s bothering him, it’s the hip pointer.