Below is the transcript from the Bobby Wilder Press Conference.
Hey, good afternoon everybody, thanks for coming out. First, I just want to say thoughts and prayers go out to everyone that is being affected by Dorian right now, especially seeing what it’s doing in the Bahamas, a place we had a great experience a couple of years ago in the Bahamas Bowl, all our friends down there, we’re thinking about them. Then, all the folks in Florida and on the east coast, there may be an impact with us in the coming week, so we’ll prepare for it and really send out positive thoughts to those that might be affected.
Going into the game Saturday, it was great to get the first win and start the season 1-0. As I explained to our team, they were a little bit disappointed in how it ended, but the point I want to make to them is they won a football game and that’s one step closer to where we want to be, which is playing someplace warm in December. With the stadium, the excitement, that’s all great, great job by everyone associated with Old Dominion and Steve Ballard putting that together.
For us, we had 57 players that played in this game and got much needed experience. We had 23 first-time players play in this game, including our quarterback Stone Smartt. We had six new starters on defense, we had eight new starters on offense, this is basically as young as we’ve been since our first game in 2009. We’re really happy to get the win, a lot of credit to Coach Scott, Latrell Scott with Norfolk State, I talked to him after the game, I messaged him this morning, they played good football, they played hard, I hope they have a great year going forward. We went through some growing pains with our new systems on offense and defense, what we’re trying to do, but I feel really good about where we can go with this football team.
Starting with special teams, not as well as expected in what we did there, we didn’t punt the ball very well, Nick was 1-for-2 on field goals, he missed a 37-yarder, which is usually a chip shot for him and he had made 11 in a row, going up to that one. Then Brad Davis, 2-for-5 on touchbacks, and he had been a lot better than that in the preseason. We did win the drive start by four and a half yards, which is big for us with the style of football we’re playing, having better field position in the game.
Defensively, when you look at the yards, you’d say that’s one of the best Old Dominion performances in years, only allowing 268 yards, three turnovers, really solid performance overall by our defense. Two of the touchdowns that we allowed on defense came off offensive turnovers and short fields. Obviously, we want to respond better in those sudden change situations, but if we can do a really good job protecting the ball on offense and make people drive the field, we’re going to be in much better shape. Garner and Hall each had eight tackles to lead us. Geronda Hall was playing a new position, that nickel position, he had been boundary corner last year, so it was really good to see him get off to a good start playing his first game at a brand-new position. Juwan Ross had five tackles as an interior lineman, Jeremy Meiser had three, they were disruptive the entire game, so it was really good to see those interior guys play good football. Then, as I mentioned, we had three turnovers overall in this game, which was great to see. We had Kaleb Ford-Dement, first time starter at the field corner got the big interception early in the football game. Then we had Justin Richardson force the fumble that Geronda Hall recovered and then to seal the game, Lance Boykin’s interception off a blitz late when we were protecting the lead, so we’re pleased with that.
Offensively, we got off to a great start in this game, first two drives right down the field, 11 plays, 65 yards, we chewed up seven minutes, which if we can do that all year particularly chewing up that amount of minutes, I’ll take it. Coach Blackwell loves those nice seven-minute drives from a defensive standpoint. Then, off their errant punt we had a seven play, 40-yard drive. We’re 14-0 early to get the pick, we got the ball back and we got a chance to put the game away and we didn’t convert offensively, we missed the field goal and at that point we just did not play consistent football. I was pleased with Stone Smartt, his first start, completed 74% of his passes, he totaled 208 yards, he really just made one mistake this game. He threw the ball late down the middle, he had Chris Cunningham open, he didn’t see it early, he tried to force it late, which is a cardinal rule of quarterback play, we never throw the ball late down the field and both our interceptions happened on that, Steven Williams on the reverse pass tried to throw it late down the field instead of tucking it and running it and that accounted for both of our turnovers. We’ll learn from that; we’ll get better from that. We’ll get better in the run game, this was the first time we had three new starters in the offensive line, so we had some solid performance particularly late in the game when we needed that touchdown, but we’ll improve up front there. I was really pleased with Eric Kumah and Steven Williams outside, two first time starters for Old Dominion at wide receiver, Eric had a couple of huge catches in this game, Steven played well. Then Marcus Joyner had a couple of big catches at tight end, and Chris Cunningham, our other Virginia Tech graduate, played good football, so overall, we’ll get better there.
This week’s opponent, Virginia Tech, is 0-1 right now coming off a 35-28 loss to Boston College, a game that they dominated in the yards, plays, field position, time of possession. It was the turnovers. They had five turnovers; Boston College only had one in this game. For them, they’re sitting there at 0-1 right now, they’ve lost seven of their last 10 games, which is something you never see with Virginia Tech, you’ve got to go back 30 years to find a stretch like this for them. It wasn’t necessarily our game last year, because the week after our game they went on national television and beat Duke handily, a team that was undefeated at the team, had the sixth pick in the draft at quarterback. Since that time where they started 3-1, they’ve lost seven of their last football games. It’s been a really challenging stretch for them, I bring that up because this is a must win game for them, not only because it’s Old Dominion, a team they’re expected to beat by 30 plus points, but because they need the win, they need to get themselves the win. We’re in a bit of a different situation with them then last year when they were undefeated and had that huge convincing win at Florida State, 2-0, nationally ranked to where they are right now. We know they’re going to be ready to play in this football game. Offensively, Ryan Willis had three interceptions in the Boston College game but I feel like he’s playing better football, he looks like his arm is stronger than last year, he threw to nine different receivers. They’re good up front, they did struggle in the run game, it might have just been the first game. Defensively, they’re multiple, they’re big, they’re fast, they’re talented. In a Bud Foster defense, they’re going to load the box and really challenge us to make plays outside, but I suspect they’ll be ready to go this Saturday. They got put in some tough spots defensively against Boston College, three of the five touchdowns they allowed were on short fields off of turnovers, and similar to what happened to us on Saturday night, sometimes the sudden change can be difficult.
For this game, I’m going to announce that Eric Kumah and Chris Cunningham will be captains along with Lawrence Garner and Issac Weaver. The reason I’m doing that, number one, those two have just been tremendous leaders since they arrived. They’ve only been with us for four months, but they’ve already made a huge impact in our program. I’m talking about two guys that had scholarship offers to Power Five schools, they could’ve gone to a lot of places but they made it clear that they wanted to go somewhere that was the best fit for them, as players and as people. Since they’ve been here, just tremendous leadership, they’re two of the hardest workers on the team. Our players look up to them, particularly the younger players who saw them play last year in the Florida state game where Cunningham blocked a punt and Kumah caught it in the air and ran it in for a touchdown, and then Kumah had a 50-yard touchdown catch. They both played well against us, Cunningham caught a touchdown late to tie it and I feel like they both played good football at the end of the year. I know there was an article a couple months ago that said some of the guys who are no longer with the program might have been a factor, and I emphasize might because I believe it was an anonymous source that was quoted in the article, but the guys who left might have been a factor in why they weren’t winning as many games and that was bothersome and hurtful to both of those players to be associated with a situation where they might have been considered responsible for the lack of wins last year. I went back and looked at those end of season games, I watched the Virginia game, the Marshall game, and the Cincinnati game, and those two were playing hard, good football, Kumah played with a broken hand in the Marshall game and the Bowl game with Cincinnati and caught a touchdown in both, Cunningham caught a touchdown pass in the Cincinnati game. You look at those two guys and I think you can say they both were playing their tails off for Virginia Tech last year. They graduated, they have degrees, they have close friends on the team that I’ve asked them not to have a lot of communication with this week because we want to win a game, but I’m really proud of what those guys have done. From my philosophy as a head coach, when you take transfer players, you better get guys that have character, good team guys, and along with them, Tobias Moss from South Alabama played really good football the other night at corner the other night, Calvin Brewton from Florida State started at safety and played good football, so I feel really good about our four graduate transfers. These two guys, it’s a special game for them both, Eric and Chris, and I’m really excited to announce them both as captains.
Q: Looking back at last week with all the buildup to the game, how do you think you guys handled that, and how do you think that could affect this game, another game where there’s going to be a lot of talk outside?
BW: Yeah, I look at those situations and I always look at how we started the game and we started out great. I mean, 14-0, then got the turnover, so I felt like they handled it well. They were really excited to play, they wanted to play well, they started to depress a little bit in the middle of the game and that was a good learning experience because we need to learn how to handle some of those adverse situations. In terms of the start that we had, couldn’t be any more happy with that, how excited they were to play and they wanted to play well.
Q: I know we’re waiting to see what’s going to happen with the storm, but are there any contingency plans with what’s going to happen practice wise for Thursday and Friday?
BW: I’ve been in communication with our university leadership, it really comes down to what we get on the next report tonight and tomorrow morning, whether or not we’re going to have to adjust our schedule. Unfortunately, we’ve been through it before, fortunately, we’ve got some plans that we can work out if we need to, but let’s all hope that storm bangs a serious right and heads out to the Atlantic and goes and plays with itself. How about that?