As a coaching staff and team, how do you feel when you look at the
opening month of the season and see Florida State, TCU and Iowa on the
schedule?
Obviously, like every program
around the country, we have aspirations and some of those aspirations are to
start off and get some votes in the Top 25. We are a ways away from doing that,
but we recognize that there are some steps we have to take to get there. We
have played a challenging schedule here in the past and we certainly played a
difficult non-conference schedule last year. We wanted to get a little bit out
of the SEC footprint, even though we are going to play SEC schools down the
road. I think that part of establishing a brand and having people respect you
is to get out to some other areas, and we are doing that some with our
scheduling. It is important to get our name and our brand out there. While we
are not guaranteeing wins, we are guaranteeing that we are going to play hard.
We are telling our players that they will have an opportunity to impress people
with their attitude and their effort.
The schedule we have out of
conference is challenging. Some of that is financially driven, but some of it
is due to the fact that we want to get out there and play some really good
teams so that we become a better football team. Our definition of success has
to be in terms of competing for the conference championship year after year and
not being just a flash in the pan.
Going forward, one of the
things we continue to preach to our players is that we don't care who we play;
it's about the way we play. You want to lose that mentality of being intimated
by a helmet. You want to lose that mentality that these are preseason games
that are just getting you ready for conference games. We want to play at the
highest level we can play at and part of that is playing good teams. That is
part of growing the program.
So consequently I am not
frustrated with who we play, I am excited about who we play because I know it
is going to make us a better football team and it is going to get our brand
name out there. Certainly there is that financial advantage that is gained from
some of those games, but it helps us recruit too. Every young person, just like
every coach, wants to be challenged and play against those teams that are regularly
ranked in the Top 25 to measure how we are developing the program and how good
we are as players.
We are now in the third year of the 3-3-5 system that defensive
coordinator Troy Reffett brought to ULM. What can we expect from the defense
now that they already have two years in the system under their belts?
I've hit two home runs in my
life. One, to get my wife to marry me and the other one was being able to put
together the staff we have here. The camaraderie, their commitment to the
student-athlete as an individual, their desire to win and their commitment to
the program and this University was proven last year when many of them had job
opportunities and decided to stay at ULM.
I've had tremendous respect
for Coach Reffett for many years. I think it is two-fold; he asks an awful lot
of the coaches and of the players to understand what is going on. There is a
differential advantage that is gained when you are doing things that are
unique, and we are certainly unique on defense. I want to be aggressive in the way
we play the game, not just on defense, but overall. There is an old agricultural
adage that makes a lot of sense in football - in the first year it sleeps, in
the second year it creeps and in the third year it leaps. We might make some
tweaks to the system, but the players understand that this is our system and
they are comfortable in it.
You are also able to recruit
to a system in the third year. You've got some players in the program that were
recruited specifically for this system. There is so much diversity in college football
right now and there is going to be certain players that fit in your system
better than others. I've had the question before about our team being an
odd-man front system and that most teams that run an odd-man front have a 290
or 300-pound nose guard. Most odd-front teams are two-gap systems where you
have to have a big guy at nose because he is responsible for both A gaps. We
are an odd-front team, but that is not what we do, we are a blitz team. Our
nose guard needs to not be able to eat up two gaps, he is assigned a gap. Our guy
needs to be quick and athletic so he can penetrate the offensive line rather
than try and eat up two blockers.
What is significant about the
third year? We have recruited to these positions and so we have the guys in our
system now. Do they need to continue to mature? Yes. But the reality is that we
have recruited to this system and our players understand the system now. I
think we are going to make tremendous strides defensively. We are going to make
tremendous strides offensively this year because it is the second year in the
program. It might take one more year for everyone to be fully onboard to where
they have grown up in the system and we have recruited to it, but we have some
high expectations for this year from our defensive and offensive sides of the football.
What are your thoughts on the special teams heading into this season?
The other challenge this year
is that we have to get better in the kicking game. The game has become so much
more complex because of the diversity of all the different schemes that you
see. The teams that can transition week in and week out are the ones that are
generally going to win. With a young team, it becomes significantly challenging
because they have to learn the offense and defense, but they also have to learn
all the changes in the kicking game. You have to try and put the best players
on the field to make sure your special teams are being a factor in the game,
but you also have to try and minimize the reps. The more reps you put into the kicking
game for certain individuals, it is taking away from their knowledge base on
offense or defense. We want to be
aggressive in the kicking game and with the experience we have coming back, you
will see us more aggressive this season. Because of experience on offense,
defense and in the kicking game, it allows us to expand some of those thought
processes and become more aggressive.
I think we have some
challenges in terms of our kicking game. There were no challenges last year in
terms of our starting punter and kicker. There is going to be some competition
develop early in preseason camp and that is going to be a real focal point for
us - to not only be aggressive in special teams, but also making some decisions
about the competition going on at those positions that are generally thought of
as the critical ones.
