Tommy Tuberville’s weekly press conference was today. Here are some of the highlights, as transcribed by me. Quotes may not be 100% accurate, but the main point is accented. No liberties have been taken by the writer.
“Start off by thanking our veterans on Veteran’s Day. Big around our house for years with my dad being a vet in WWII. Growing up in a military family, it was a big day for his family and his father’s brothers, who were also in wars. Most of them didn’t come back. Want to thank our veterans and families for their sacrifice and the freedoms we have.
“Coming off an open date week we physically and mentally needed, it looks like we’re going to be about 100% healthy. Guys have got their legs back. We gave ’em a few days off to rest mentally and physically. Worked on a lot of different things we needed to work on. Gave us time to work on fundamentals and depth we lost.
ECU is probalby the most talented team int he league. Ruffin McNeal and Tubs were up for the Texas Tech job together. Good friend, been a good friend for a long time. Their athletic, lot of speed and quickness. It kind of reminds me of a Big 12 team. They run a Big 12 offense. Fast paced. Got a gunslinger there. Probably the best QB in the conference, gonna break a lot of records. His experiencing is paying dividends. Has a lot of targets. Their running game is as good as their passing game. They are well balanced and well coached. They’ve got a scheme there, they run it, the players bought in and you can tell they’ve been quite successful.
Defensively, a lot of speed. Big defensive lineman that control the run game. Sold on what they do. Don’t do a lot. They execute every week. Players play well and execute well. Played a tough schedule. They can score points, run a lot of plays. Coached against this offense several years. It can carve you up pretty good. They have a guy that can carve you up. Fortunately for our players, we had a little extra time to get healthy and practice.
Offensively for us, Gunner and Munchie have taken snaps. We won’t make a decision until the day of the game because Munchie has played well and practiced well. Gunner isn’t 100%, but he’s as close as he’s been. Running back situation is the same with Rod Moore and Mike Boone. (Kevin) Schloemer practiced the last two days. Been out since SMU. Full contingent on offense. Our receivers were a bit tired, running of steam. Got back healthy mentally and physically the last 4 games.
Defensively, almost everybody’s back that we are going to count on the last 4 games. Jarrell Jordan has been down with a twisted knee. We’re going to need defensive lineman down the stretch. It should be a good game Thursday night. A little change in temperature. The weather forecast is the first thing I look at for the next 14 it’s going to be rather cold. We got up north the next two weeks. We’re gonna be under the gun with the change in temperature. We haven’t had it much here. Hasn’t been much of an advantage. We’ve been practicing in warm weather like teams like East Carolina. See how our players handle the change. Hopefully we get a great crowd from our students. Hopefully we play better than what we’ve played. We’ve been better the last three weeks. Hopefully this will give us a better mark where we are and where we’ll be the rest of the season. Questions.”
What kind of things did you work on defense
Worked on run defense, gap control, hand placement, working with your eyes better. Didn’t get off blocks well. Some of the teams we played had something to do with that. Worked on some things in coverage. I think we’ve gotten better at that, playing over top, playing the ball in the air on deep balls. Had some INTs we didn’t’ have earlier. Playing well with our eyes. Players get glued on players. When he looks for the ball, you look for the ball. A good 4-5 days of fundamentals then we put in the game plan.
Condition of Kiel’s ribs
He’s a lot better, close to 100%. Week of OSU game was when he took the first shot. next week he took a shot on the other side. Tried to play through pain against Tulane. couldn’t get it done. He tried to play. We wanted to see how far he could push himself. He wasn’t in danger of hurting himself anymore. Probably the change in weather didn’t help his cause. He’s ready to go. Throwing with authority. Working on technique and able to practice. He was throwing 1 day per week basically. Wouldn’t have been able to play last week. Proud of Munchie and what he did. Had a good game against, I forget who it was, South Florida. Built confidence. He’s always going to have problems. His knee will swell up on him. He’s as healthy as he’s been since two a days.
One win away from being bowl eligible, what does that mean for this program?
Well everyone wants to be bowl eligible. Everyone wants to get to 6. 78 teams have to be eligible. Our #1 goal is to stay in the race for the championship. This is a big game for us. Our schedule is tough, 2 games on the road. This is the team we have to beat. Last year it was Central Florida, this year East Carolina. You don’t put as much pressure on your players if you don’t have to. This is our second to last game at Paul Brown Stadium. It’s been good but it hadn’t truly been a homefield advantage due to the size of the stadium. But our guys have fought through that and made the best of it.
Asked about how big a game this is
He’s had time to travel and think about this season. It’s been a tough year in terms of starting the season with everyone else playing while we were still practicing. Got off to a rocky start, even though we won 2 games. Then we went to Ohio State and we all know how good they are. Watching on TV they are one of the best teams in the country. We played decent, didn’t play great. Our defense kind of got shredded a bit. Against Memphis, we didn’t look focused. We didn’t have that spark we needed. Of course we had a player who didn’t make to practice with a motorcycle accident and we had to go to funerals. Then we went to Miami and they whipped us, but we held in there. Then we knocked off 3 straight. I’m still at the point “Where are we? Where is this team at? How good can we be?” We have a lot of young guys still playing, getting better but making mistakes. We have 4 teams that can give us a pretty good idea of where our program is right now. Offensively we are healthy. Defensively, we continue to worry about holding up. WE’ve done a few things on defense that helped us, but sooner or later our guys have to help themselves in base defenses and technique. Hopefully that’ll show up in the work we’ve done in the past two weeks and the last 4 games.
Watch the press conference here:
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