Sun Bowl: Miami, Washington St. coordinators talk to media about game
The coordinators for Miami and Washington State met with members of the media on Dec. 24 in El Paso, Texas. Below are quotes from the press conference.
Miami Offensive Coordinator/QB James Coley
It’s been great, really enjoyed the time here in El Paso. Everybody has been first class, players have loved it, and we’ve really enjoyed the time here, and the weather and the hospitality.
On favorite thing to do this week
Getting off the bus and shaking hands. I mean everybody has a warm welcome here. Everybody’s been phenomenal. With our schedule we wake up, we meet, we go to practice, we come back, we meet, we get back on the bus and we go to function to eat and at the end of the day working on scripts until we go to bed. But everybody’s hospitality with what we’ve seen has been great. The people here are awesome.
On the highlight of the season
Coaching guys like Brad Kaaya, coaching guys like Joe Yearby, watching Stacy Coley come back after missing the first half of the season. Watching Rashawn Scott grow up, watching the offensive line grow up, that’s been fun. Part of this job is who you can affect as a coach and who you can reach, and how you can help guys develop. And that has rally been the joy for me.
On the Miami running backs
Joe Yearby is our starter, he’s our savviest back. Joe does a great job of playing the game itself. He’s not a guy you’re going to micromanage on where he runs, he’s got a great feel for playing ball. He’s our starter and we’ve been very proud of him. He’s close to 1,000 yards and our aim is to make sure that within our game plan he’s able to have an opportunity to get the ball.
Where has Brad Kaaya shown the most growth between year one and year two
First of all I think there’s two ways he’s grown. Physically, he came in with maybe a month before the season began last year and ended up being our starter. His body has changed immensely, he’s dropped in body weight, muscle mass has grown, he’s quicker, he’s stronger, his arm has gotten stronger. So physically he’s grown a big part. It’s been a big deal, I’ve noticed the change even from the beginning of training camp till now. Then the mental part, he sees it coming. I tell him all the time, ‘You see that coming don’t you?’ He studies the game and he understands how to study it. Some time you get young guys that watch film, and what are they watching? They might be watching the quarterback from the other team and they should be looking at coverages and blitzes and tendencies on where guys are lined up. His approach to the game has changed also. But the biggest part was the time he put in to get better, so I’ve seen that part of his game change as well, on how he prepares. What you’re going to get with him is, as he plays more games, he’s going to get better. He’s not a finished product yet, he’s got so much growth, he’s a true sophomore.
On the situation at Miami with new coaching staff coming in, is it hard to maybe not see players develop fully
I’m just talking about this game. I’m not getting past this game and emotions and all that stuff. I’m just talking about the ball game on Saturday.
On Washington State defense
They are better this year, and they do a great job of creating confusion up front. They move, they spin guys down in coverage, they hide their coverages really well, they play physical and they look like a group that’s about 13, 14 deep of guys that are just tough, guys that will really smack you in the mouth. They play right to their offense’s hand. What they do great is they hit you and they make you fumble the football, or they’ll pick it off. Because they confuse you, and now you’re giving that offense the ball. So I think they do a heck of a job on defense, and they coach them hard too, they have really good coaches over there.
Miami Defensive Coordinator Mark D’Onofrio
We’re having a great time this week, our families are here and it’s a great family place and they’re having a nice time, the players are as well, so it’s a reward for the way we finished the season, the way we stuck together through adversity. It’s a great reward for the families, for the coaches and for our players most importantly. Excited to be here, excited to be in the postseason and play a great opponent.
On facing Washington State
They do an unbelievable job. They’re just a really really disciplined team and they execute extremely well. I guess that’s the best way to sum it up. I just think they really know what they want to do. The kids believe in their system and what they do and each guy within the system does a really good job of executing his job. They have a lot of good players and they’re deep, particularly at the skill positions wide out, running back. And they do a really nice job up front, the guys are physical and athletic at the same time.
On his highlight this season
It’s all about developing players and getting them to be the best they can. And whether they’re seniors helping them reach their goals as a senior and hoping you’ve prepared them the best you can that they can go play beyond college if not, if they’re going to move into something else, that they’re ready to do that. Lessons they’ve learned from being in your program that they’re ready to do that. Just proud of the way the team stuck together. In the beginning of the year we talked about having great unity and dealing with adversity. That was our plan and I put that out there and I’m most proud of the fact that we all carried it through. As a staff proud to work with James, Larry, all the guys on the staff did an unbelievable job of just sticking together through a really really hard time, and it says a lot about our coaches and our kids.
Can you compare their offense to someone you’ve faced this season?
No, they’re really good. They are different, they do spread a different way. And again, that’s one of the tough deals about college football coaching on the defensive side of the ball is that you’re going to see something different every week. We just played a pro-style team in Pitt in our last game, before that we played a triple-option team, before that we played teams that were spreading to run, and now we’re playing a team that spreads to pass so they’re pretty unique themselves and I think they just do an unbelievable job of executing their package and what they want to do.
Affect of Jamal Carter being lost for the game
It’s next man up. Unfortunately, we’ve had to deal with quite a bit of adversity, both from an injury standpoint, obviously the linebacker position was decimated early in the year, and from a suspension standpoint where we had those targeting fouls, so we’ve been dealing with that all season so it’s next man up. It’s deep into the season right now and that’s why you’re relying on some guys who’ve gotten better as the year has gone on and gained more experience and now it’s just their time to step up. We can’t miss a beat. We just got to keep moving forward.
Most challenging thing about defending Washington State wideouts
They spread the ball around so much, obviously Marks has the amount of catches he has, but at the end of the day they play so many guys and they spread the ball around so it’s really hard to sit there and say you’re going to key on one guy or lock in. They have so many guys that can catch the ball and so many weapons. And they can throw to the backs, the backs have a lot of catches. We just have to be sound, we have to do our job, we have to tackle well, get opportunities, get takeaways. They don’t throw a lot of interceptions so that part is difficult.
On asking players to play different positions
What we’ve had to do really the whole season we’ve had to train guys at multiple positions, some of them playing two and some of them playing three. When you start to lose some guys since when the season started you have to double-train some guys at two positions and that’s just the way it goes.
Most rewarding thing about being a coach
Just being part of the team, being part of something that a lot of people can’t understand unless you’re in there. The fact that the staff stuck together, the team stuck together, the players and the staff together through a tough time and through adversity, that’s the rewarding part, coming together as a team.
Washington State Offensive Line Coach Clay McGuire
I appreciate you all having us down here, I want to thank the Sun Bowl. Its reputation precedes itself, we’ve heard nothing but great things about coming to the Sun Bowl and they’ve outdone themselves. Our welcome has been outstanding, the events we’ve been attending have been awesome and our kids really enjoy being down here in El Paso. We couldn’t be more happier to be here. We want to thank the Sun Bowl and we’re ready to get out there and play Miami, it’s going to be a great game.
On Miami’s defense
They’re talented, it’s one of those things where they got big kids that are talented and can run. From a schematic standpoint they keep it relatively simple and basic, but they’re good at what they do. They’re well coached, fundamentally sound and it’s going to be a challenge for our guys. It’s going to be who can execute their offense and defense better.
Anything in particular about Miami defense impress you?
They got great team speed. They really can run to the football. They got some good edge-rush guys, they’re really big in the middle so they stop the run really well. Overall they have great team speed.
On people coming up to coaching staff since head coach Mike Leach coached in the area (with Texas Tech)
It doesn’t really matter where you’re at in the country, coach is a celebrity somebody knows him from somewhere. We’ve had some good battles around here, some good games against UTEP a couple of times and been out this way, also been in West Texas, but a few guys here and there, got a couple of former players stop by practice, former coaches that have come out. So it’s been good to be back.
On the challenge for other teams when facing Washington State offense
Our quarterback’s ability to check the play at the line of scrimmage. A lot of teams their offensive coordinator or whomever is calling the plays has to call the perfect plays. We do our best to try to get our quarterback in the perfect situation but he makes us right. Luke (Falk) has done an outstanding job this whole entire year, for just being a sophomore he’s been really impressive in being able to run the offense. Our philosophy is based on attacking in space, gaining leverage on the defense. A lot of times the defense will come out and show you something that’s not necessarily a good play and Luke has the ability to check and get us in the right play to attack the space where we need to. So it’s really hard for a defense to go out there and just take everything away every single play. When a quarterback has the ability to do that it really gives us an advantage.
Washington State Defensive Coordinator Alex Grinch
Thrilled to be here, been a great bowl experience. It’s always good to be wanted and you feel that from the people attached to the Sun Bowl and the people of El Paso. The weather’s a whole lot nicer than back home so we’re thrilled with that. As the week winds down we’re getting anxious for gameday so we’re at that point. We’ll have a good practice today. We expect it and we’ll get it from our guys on the last real physical work of the week leading up to Saturday. We’re excited for being here.
On facing Miami QB Brad Kaaya
We see some pretty good quarterback play in our conference and when you watch him on film he is without question at that level of the best that we’ve seen this year. And that is meant to be a compliment and it is also true. He makes them go, what they do offensively, he can get them out of trouble when there otherwise might not be a way out. He can make every throw, he can get the ball downfield and put stress on you vertically. I’m very impressed with what he’s done thus far and he’ll be a major challenge for us.
On facing Miami RB Joe Yearby
What you see in all their skill positions is you see speed, and the ability to, one, make you miss, and then two to flat run by you, and that’s the biggest fear for us as a defense, how you defend speed. And what you try to do as best you can is to not allow yourself situations where it’s one-on-one, because you’re going to lose most of those battles. So that’s what you see on film across the board from their skill guys.
Does it make more difficult to stop Miami because of their almost 1-1 pass/run ratio?
It does, and there’s no simple answer behind it. And then a lot of their run game also includes a pass-option off of it. So it just puts that much more stress on you defensively. But ultimately, we’ll try to get as many hats there as we can, whether it’s a bit delayed if we’re covering a route, but we got to rally to the football and do the best we can.
On Washington State defense being good at takeaways
Well, you always think about the ones you didn’t get, I think there’s more to be had as you look back through a 12-game season. I think 11-straight games we’ve had one, and that’s not by chance. Takeaways aren’t luck, you create them, you force them, it’s how we practice, it’s what we preach. I think the guys do believe in it. When you want to impact a football game you fight for that football. Our sole purpose on that field as a defense is to get the football back to a very explosive offense that we have. So we know that’s our mission each and every snap and certainly if we want to have any success come Saturday that trend has to continue.
On Miami not turning the ball over so much
They’ll throw the ball downfield and a lot of times what you’ll find with teams that do that vertical passing, what comes with that at times is interceptions, but you don’t see that on film. Numbers don’t suggest them throwing it to the opposite color jersey so we got to be good and get as many guys as we can in a position on top of their receivers to try to make them pay for taking shots but it goes back to quarterback play. He does a good job of finding the open guy and not forcing the football.
On strength of Washington State defense
I like to think effort. If we’ve done anything right this year, we’ve developed a brand of defense that is going to play extremely hard and we feel we can out-effort people. We don’t say that because it’s easy, it’s extremely hard to do that, but we’re going to play hard, we’re going to fight for the football and those things have kind of been what’s becoming more of an identity in terms of who we are. But it’s always a one-game evaluation, so you’re one game away from not being that defense, so that’s the message to all our guys. We’ve done that for the bulks of the weeks this year and we’re going to do it again Saturday. What you saw very early on was a pretty good buy in from our guys.
On Washington State defensive lineman Hercules Mata’afa
He’s a talented young player in our program. He is disruptive, he is explosive the height and weight doesn’t do him justice in terms of his impact on the game. A lot of times we like to talk about the guy who is 6-6, 300 pounds, he may not be the most imposing guy walking through the door, but he’s as strong as anyone we got. On the football field he’s extremely strong and quicker than you think. He’s faster than you think he is. If we can get more people like him we’ll be OK up front.
More On Sun Bowl
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