Head Coach Doug Marrone Press Conference Trancript (Nov. 22, 2010)
“Obviously with the past game, we’re disappointed in the outcome. During the course of the game, in the first drive we were moving the football well. Again there was a common theme in the game, where we had a penalty that pushed us back five yards and we weren’t able to convert once we got it into Connecticut territory and we wound up punting. The defense did a fine job throughout the day, except for the first series when Connecticut was able to go 80 yards and score a touchdown. For us, offensively, it hurt us to have a turnover when the game was at 10-6. We can’t afford to do that, especially on that yard line. After that it was very difficult to overcome the score. The situation for us on offense is that we pretty much have to play a near-perfect game for us to be productive enough to win. That is our intention and that is what we plan to do.
“Before we go on to Boston College and talk about them, because I’ll have the press conference afterward and be immediately on the road (recruiting) on Sunday. This team and the seniors who, there are really a lot of things that have been accomplished. It is the first time since 2001 that we’ve had a winning season. It is only the second time in 10 years that we’ve had seven wins in a season. We’ve won four BIG EAST games for the first time since 2004 and really we’ve only won four BIG EAST games from 2005-2009. We won four-straight away games in season for the first time since 1996 and the second time that has happened in 17 years. We won five away games in a season for the first time since 1992, the second time that has happened in 22 years. The first time in school history that we’ve won four-straight BIG EAST road games in a season. We won the season opener for the first time since 2003, won the season opener on the road for only the seventh time since 1983. We started 2-0 at home for the fourth time in the last 16 years. We started 4-1 for the second time in the last 14 seasons. We won at West Virginia for the first time since 2000. We beat a ranked BIG EAST team on the road for only the eighth time in BIG EAST history. We got our first BIG EAST victories against Cincinnati and South Florida. This team has accomplished quite a bit and it is a very important game this week. I just wanted to make sure I said that so everyone has it, because I don’t know if I’d have that ability to say it immediately after the game because I’ll be focused in on that.”
“Moving to Boston College, it is very important. I stand here today and what hurts me the most, and maybe this is personal, but we all feel this in our program, is that our fans and the people of Syracuse haven’t been able to enjoy the wins we’ve had this year like South Florida, West Virginia and Cincinnati. I understand the importance of winning at home. It is very important for us as a program and very personal for us to have a type of performance where the people who come out, and I thought they did an outstanding job last week, that we give them that. I feel like we owe them that. That is what is a disappointment for myself personally, I can’t really put that on our football team. It is important that these seniors, and all of the players, that we go out there and find a way to win a game, that is exactly how we’re going to have to do it. Get ready to be 8-4 and get our eighth win of the season and go out the right way. That is important. That will be our emphasis today, to play for each other, play for our fans and make our seniors go out the right way.”
On special teams/tight ends coach Bob Casullo:
“Bob and I have decided that it is in the best interest of the program to part ways. (Secondary coach) John Anselmo will be handling the special teams for the rest of this year and quarterbacks/passing game coach Nathaniel Hackett will handle the tight ends.”
On whether there was a catalyst to the parting ways:
“Right now that is all I’m ready to say about it, but that is where we are at the moment.”
On whether he is concerned about it distracting the team:
“My philosophy from the beginning has been that no one person, including myself, is more important than the program. This program will survive if something, God forbid, happened to me on my way out this door.”
On what he can do to spark the offense:
“We went back and looked at the whole season to see what we’ve been doing successfully in trying to get them off to a good start. We’ve had opportunities. We looked at reducing the game plan at times during the year, but it is a matter of us getting into a rhythm offensively. We’ve tried to rest our players during the week of practice, we have to do more of that, we’ll have more time to rest this week with no school on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We have to take advantage of that. It has been a tough road for us. Eight-straight games and six of the defenses that we’ve played are in the top 46 in the country. Very physical games. We have to rest and we have to get ready to go. This is the last game and we should be ready to do that.
“Offensively you look to get off to a good start and do things you’ve been successful doing against a team that is ranked first against the rush in the country. We’re playing a very good Boston College football team.”
On what junior quarterback Ryan Nassib can do to improve:
“It is very simple to stand up here and if it was one player, it is very easy, you replace that player, but that isn’t the case. It is a standpoint of those things (like moving his feet quicker and taking less time in the pocket), a breakdown in protection, getting knocked down on a rout, dropping a football or throwing an errant pass, high or low. It is frustrating. Everyone has to remember, and I hate saying this because I don’t want to create excuses, but it is a young offense. There are things that we’ve done well that are past the progression of where we should be and there are things where we haven’t done well that we should be ahead of. Very simple from a standpoint of a flat or a curl route and reading that. Then the throw to (tight end Nick) Provo in the game on a 22-yard gain, that is what upperclassmen and veteran-type players do. It is very tough for us to know how to manage that. If we weren’t getting to the third or fourth read that is open in our progressions, then you’re wrong as a coach. Then you have to put things down and get to the first or second but we’re able to go to the third or fourth at times and go to the first or second and sometimes we miss them.
“Consistency is important. Playmakers are important and making plays is important. What has happened is we have been beat up. We don’t have the same speed and efficiency that we had earlier in the year because of injuries that you do not want to have right now. You look at a game and the players are ready to go but when you practice all week and when your numbers are low, it is a catch-22 for us. It is different at the next level. At the next level you can sit down the eighth or ninth-year receiver, which most teams are probably doing right now. They go out there and run six or eight routs in a day and sometimes they shut them down totally on a Wednesday and they don’t practice, then on Thursday run a six or eight, Friday they’re just jogging around then on Sunday they’re going out there and playing. We can’t do that because our players have to practice to be able to perform. It is a catch-22 and a situation that we’ve been trying to manage and handle with our players. A credit to them, we haven’t had a lot of changes in our starting lineup. A credit to this team, because they haven’t been in this situation where we’ve been playing these big games to try and accomplish what our goals are. What happens with that is people see it from the physical end of things, but you have to remember it from the mental end. Different from the other league, we’re in a high academic institution, our players have a great amount of accountability and pride in what they do academically. Then you have games going on that create your goals of winning and the possibility of going to bowl games so every game is important and no one on this team has been through that. At the end of the day that will make us a better team in the future because now we know how we have to prepare mentally and physically to get through a full season. Obviously our numbers will be better but just the standpoint of players realizing that the season is long, there is a lot on them and they have a lot of things they have to be able to do. When the season is over you start preparing in January to be able to make it through the following year and do all the right things. There are a lot of things that come into play that are quite interesting.”
On the play of special teams this season:
“(I have been dissatisfied) with the play of special teams at times, just like every phase of our game, except for the defense. The defense is at a greater advantage because they’ve played better the majority of the time. Special teams and offense at times we have done a good job. Special teams has done a good job, at times we could have done a better job. That is the same way I feel about the offense, same way I feel about the defense at times, we talked about it in the Connecticut game.”
On whether the team will be opening up the playbook against Boston College and how Macky MacPherson did in the shotgun:
“People say opening up, I don’t know if we’re going to open up. It is hard to open up if we’re not running well, to get down the field vertically. We tried to take a shot early in the game and we threw the ball out of bounds when Van (Chew) beat him on the side on a double go. The shotgun is exactly what I said. We were exposed in the Rutgers game. There were two snaps against Rutgers where they mugged someone up in the ‘A’ gap so the guard had to take him and then the back had to take the three-technique which is a tough matchup in a seven-step drop, but you feel good about it in a five-step drop. The next series, credit to Rutgers, they mug him up in there, our guard comes down and they bail the linebacker, now our back is matched up on that three-technique and our guard is standing there blocking air. Once that occurred we knew that we were going to have that issue coming into the Connecticut game. By this time, Macky (MacPherson) had been working quite a bit and has done a good job changing his body and becoming stronger and being ready to play. The philosophy and my belief is that the closer you are to the ball the harder it is to play. He has done a very good job so we put him in and he did a nice job. We have that ability to do that, now do we open it up to, without giving away that game plan, all these different things that people have written in that we should be doing? We’ll do what we have to do to win the game. Yes, we do have that ability now and we feel much more comfortable with it and we have experience in it.”
On where the Boston College rivalry ranks:
“My belief is in Eastern football. That is myself, personally. I grew up with Eastern football, Syracuse, Boston College, Penn State, Pitt. I look at is as being that way, I don’t know how our team feels about it. It is a rivalry within, I hate to say this and my wife will be upset, but it is a rivalry within my home. My wife is rooting for Syracuse, I can promise you that, but a lot of her friends are Boston College graduates and a lot of her friends are ex-Boston College football players, who are obviously my friends, with their families. (smiling) They’ll be sitting in the upper decks. We have two great, high academic institutions that have a history. There have been great games played with the two schools and it is good to be playing them again. It is a good rivalry. You have a lot of alumni, a lot of fans in the Massachusetts area and it just helps both programs.”
On the similarities between Syracuse and Boston College:
“I don’t like getting into what I feel about their offense and describing what they do and what is going on on that side of the ball. Statistically, if you look at it, they are like we are. Their defense is playing at a very high level and keeping it to a point where their offense can generate enough to win a football game. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with that philosophy. In a perfect world you want to score a bunch of points and shut people out. That isn’t reality, but that is a perfect world. Yes, I do see Boston College as being similar in the way they’ve been winning, defense causing turnovers and offense is taking advantage of it. We’ve done the same thing so I do see the similarity within the two schools this year.”
On Boston College’s defense:
“They are the number one defense against the rush, they are playing at an extremely high level. My hat’s off to them. It will be a great challenge for us. We’ll have to be ready to play, credit to them, they are a heck of a defensive football team.”
On plans for Thanksgiving:
“We talked to our players about what they would like to do. Since it is a home game, a lot of families are coming up. We’re going to practice earlier in the day, which will give us some extra time on both Wednesday and Thursday. We’re going to make sure everyone has a place to go. That, to me, was the most important thing. When the players said they had parents coming up who wanted to cook for everyone I didn’t have a problem with that, my main concern was those who didn’t have a place to go. Whatever we have to do for them, I don’t know if I’m breaking an NCAA rule, but if they didn’t have a place to go they could come to my house or other coaches homes. But, it seems like everyone has a place to go right now.”
