ULM Head Coach Todd Berry
Opening Statement…
“Obviously it was a difficult game. Congratulations to Coach Anderson, his staff and his players – they have a good football team. I thought the first half – we gave good effort, had good energy. We had some snaps there that we'd like to have back. We gave up some explosion plays where their guys made some plays and we didn't. Really the same thing can be true on offense in relation to having some opportunities – we had a few drops, had a ball batted down – some of those kind of things in relation to having big plays. I felt like we competed. The second half kind of got away from us obviously in relation to field position to begin with and then just the injuries. I have never seen anything like this in my life. I don't know what to say. It just is what it is. In all likelihood we probably lost four more guys for the season. So we'll see. Obviously they're all going for x-rays right now but it doesn't look. We'll just have to battle back. Obviously Chaz Carrington – you know it's tough on him because he wasn't getting a lot of snaps because he was a third team quarterback. I thought he came in and did pretty well. All through the course of the seasons he misses Tuesday and Thursday practices. He only has half of the practices which is basically a short one on Sunday and a Wednesday practice because he has a class conflict that interferes with practice. He doesn't get to take any snaps. So I thought he came in and did as well as probably could be expected in relation to how many snaps that he's had throughout the course of the season. Brian Williams, we moved him back to play quarterback this week. We had a little bit of musical chairs at center because of the injuries with Colby (Mitchell) and Jake Snyder went down and so on.”
On how Garrett Smith is feeling and who were the four aforementioned players possibly out for season…
“Not very good, not very good – probably Garrett Smith, probably Rashon Ceaser, probably Jake Snyder and probably Colby Mitchell.”
On what helped Chaz settle in…
I think it was more of the fact that we found a little bit of the run game. I think Ben Luckett came in and sparked us a little bit in the run game which was good to see. Ben continues to grow up and mature and he certainly didn't play perfectly, but I'm really excited about watching him play. We had a few drops at receiver that were some pretty critical drops in relation to opportunities that got away trying to convert a third down. It was a little bit late or a little bit early throwing some balls. I don't think the receivers were expecting it that early or that late. We still have to make the play. You know the passing game is just a little bit out of whack right now – out of sync just because he doesn't normally get in there to get a lot of snaps.”
On how to deal with multiple injuries…
“The problem is two-fold in the sense that it's not just depth on Saturday – it's depth in practice. All of a sudden you have young players out there who need the repetitions but you don't have any numbers to go with. So you can't even get them the repetitions that they need in order to get ready because you don't have enough numbers to practice. I've never seen anything like it. It's very unique.”
On what Arkansas State did to pull away…
“Run past us. They hit on a bunch of explosion plays and explosion plays were obviously the difference in the first half and even in the second half in relation to – they were able to convert on some explosions and we weren't. That was kind of the telltale sign there early. Good for them. They made plays. We were in position to make some plays too and we didn't make them. That's the difference between winning and losing.”
On getting his guys ready in a short week…
“We have to turn around and have a Thursday ballgame now. That just means that Sunday and Monday's practices are even more important. We have some other guys that are banged up too besides the ones that I said that were out, or in all likelihood are out that I don't know if they'll be able to practice over the next couple of days. That will make us a little bit more thin because we have 11 right now that are in the training room. We will see how well they can bounce back here over the next couple of days.”
