Below is the transcript from the Bobby Wilder Press Conference.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for coming. We’re coming off a hard-fought game down in Florida against Florida International. I was really proud of our team’s effort and attitude going down there. We were shorthanded, we’ve got about 30 guys that are in some way, shape, or form hurt right now. We were down seven starters in this football game and our players just competed their tails off. It was up in the mid-90s throughout the game on the field. It was hot. We had guys that had to get IVs at halftime. Everybody competed hard for 60 minutes in this football game, and when you’re going through a difficult stretch like we are right now, you can evaluate a football team by how they play and how they compete, and I really felt like our guys played their tails off in this game. I really feel like our team got a lift from Hayden Wolff coming into this game. I thought overall, he played well for his first-time playing college football. The majority of the time when you’re a freshman and it looks like you’re going to redshirt, you spend your time in practice down running the scout team, you’re going against the first defense, and you’re getting chased repeatedly by guys like Keion White who are coming off the edge being blocked by another freshman. The one thing that was evident in this football game was how much Hayden has practiced in the last couple of months getting the ball out of his hands quickly. You could see that in the game, he was sharp, he was on his reads, he threw the ball away when he needed to, he got rid of it quickly. One of the things our pass catchers, our receivers, tight ends, and running backs learned in this game was that you got to get your head around, especially on the blitz because that ball is going to come out fast. I felt like he handled the moment, it wasn’t too big for him, and I’m confident we’ll see an even better performance out of the quarterback this week because the guys around him will play better.
Special teams, this was a really solid performance, especially our punt team going against the number-one punt return unit in the nation. Bailey punted the ball six times, 43.6-yard average, four of his punts were inside of the 20-yard line, and we were much better this week than we were last week from a field position standpoint. We won the drive start in this game, repeatedly we pinned them deep in their own end, which is what kept the score very consistent throughout the football game. Their returner, Maurice Alexander, only had three returns for six yards in the game. Jake Herslow made a couple of really nice tackles, so I was pleased with that unit. Our field goal unit, unfortunately, we got one blocked. We didn’t execute protection in terms of the gap, and that was at a point in the second quarter when we could have taken a 10-9 lead, the guys got it corrected and handled after that.
Defensively, we held FIU below their scoring average, and their yardage average in this game. Really good performance in the red zone, we forced five field goals in this game, two of them that they missed. People kicking field goals against us this year are 11-of-19, and I know that it’s because of the pressure we get. Cam Washington actually tipped one of their field goals in this football game, so our guys did a much better job in the red zone. Lawrence Garner, another outstanding performance with 10 tackles, he leads C-USA in tackles, he’s playing good football. I thought Keion White for the second week in a row was incredibly disruptive he had nine tackles in the game, he had three and a half TFLs, he recovered the fumble that Derek Wilder caused on the strip sack and returned it to the five-yard line. Ted Alexander on Anatomy of a Play this week, we actually did two plays, because he was in after the strip sack, he was in and made a key block on the touchdown. He’s playing tight end right now in the goal line package. He’s just playing at an incredibly high level right now, I think he’s an all-conference player, he’s only going to get better and better, because defense is still new to him and we’re still moving him around, he’s playing multiple positions for us in the football game. The most disappointing play and the key play of the game was the 54-yard, basically, Hail Mary the quarterback threw up the field. Keion tackled him right as he threw it. Our defender and their guy both had a shot at the ball, and he tips it to himself, and they score the next play to make it 16-7.
Offensively, I talked about Hayden Wolff, tremendous poise, on his reads, we’ll play better around him, that’s one of the focal points this week. Certainly, getting Isaac Weaver back at center will help us. I think Chris Cunningham will be back for us this week, he’s been playing really good football at tight end. Blake Watson, outstanding kick returner and running back, should be back this week, so we’ll get some more weapons back around him. We had the ball six times in their end in this football game and scored three times. One of the things we have to do a better job of, offensively, is not committing those key penalties or giving up a sack in critical situations. Across midfield, twice, we knocked ourselves out of field goal range and lost an opportunity to go for it on fourth down with penalties in this game.
Speaking to UTSA, our opponent this week, their 3-5 coming off a tough loss at Texas A&M, a game they trailed 14-7 with a minute to go before the half. This is a very physical football team. They’ve got a couple of all-conference players in the offensive line, they’re a veteran group. The defensive line is physical, I already made it a point to our guys that this game will be a physical game up front. They work to establish the run, that’s what they want to do offensively. They’ve got a veteran group of skill guys that play for them, and defensively, as I mentioned, their D-line is physical. Overall, they’re fast and physical and they play hard. This team plays good football. We’re excited to be back home. I’m encouraging our fans to come out and see us play, particularly, support the young quarterback, we’re going to need it this weekend. I will gladly take questions.
Q: You had 70 yards rushing against FAU, and 64 last week. Is there going to be a lot of concentration on getting better results this week?
BW: Yeah, that’s a critical area we need to improve at. I was encouraged with Lala Davis with his ankle, he had six carries for 58 yards and a couple of really explosive runs. We need him to get back to the level that he played at Virginia Tech when he had over 200 yards rushing. He was healthy, Kesean Strong was healthy. It was encouraging to see Lala Davis have a couple of explosive runs because you need that off the RPO game, for the pass offense to work you need to get some explosive runs, and until Hayden went in and starting throwing the ball like he did, this was the first time we saw two-deep coverage. It had all been press man, load the box, and force the quarterback to throw, and when he started to hit a couple balls down the field, they started to play two-deep which opened the run. It’ll be interesting to see how San Antonio plays us now that our quarterback has proven he can throw the ball and we can hit a couple of explosive runs.