■ 06 September 2008 | 6:43 PM
Hokies talk about that Furman crowd ...
No real time to analyze this one for you fine folks just yet. Gotta do that in my story for tomorrow’s paper … which is due in, oh, about an hour.
But I’ve banged out all the post-game reactions (except Beamer, who I’ll post later, but you’ve heard most of his stuff before).
A little closer than expected, eh? It’s going to be VERY interested to see how this team grows and develops and whether they’ll challenge for a Coastal Division title or struggle to make a bowl game.
At this point, it’s not looking good for Tampa, that’s for sure.
One bit of info: DE Jason Worilds has a sprained left shoulder. LB Cam Martin has a strained left groin. Both will be re-evaluated tomorrow but neither returned after their fairly early injuries.
Check back tomorrow, probably, for more. Until then, here’s what the Hokies had to say …
QB TYROD TAYLOR
ON WHETHER HE’S HAPPY THE REDSHIRT IS OFF: “Yes. I’m excited to be back on the field, out there making plays.”
ON BEING SURPRISED BY THE DECISION, ONE WEEK AFTER BEING REDSHIRTED: “It did catch me off guard, but at the same time – like I told y’all – I just wanted to prepare myself in practice for this incident, if something was to happen, I’d be ready to go in there and play.”
ON WHETHER HIM NOT PASSING MUCH WAS BY DESIGN: “Uh, the defense played good. They took some of my routes away. I found gaps in the defense where I could run and I tried to make a play with my feet.”
ON HOW MANY OF HIS RUNS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE PASSES, BUT HE TUCKED IT AND RUN: “About five times, maybe. Maybe about seven times.”
ON WHAT THE COACHES TOLD HIM ABOUT RUNNING VERSUS THROWING: “Of course try to find a receiver. If it’s not there, make a play with your feet or throw it out of bounds.”
ON HAVING SAID BEFORE HE DIDN’T WANT TO SHARE SNAPS, SO IS IT HIS UNDERSTANDING THEN THAT AT SOME POINT THIS SEASON HE WILL BE “THE GUY”? “I’m not sure yet. I have to meet with Coach Beams and ask him about that. As of right now, I’m just going out there and playing. If they decide to do two quarterbacks, just going out there trying to help the team.”
ON WHETHER, THEN, HE HAS CHANGED HIS STANCE ON SHARING: “If that’s the call that Coach Beamer makes.”
ON THE LONG RUN HE MADE: “It was a four-route play. They brought a blitz called a house blitz, which is actually one more than we can block. And I seen the free guy come and took off to the right, cut back across the field and I tried to make one more cut but the last guy had a guy angle on me, so he kind of ran me out of bounds.”
ON TAKING HIMSELF OUT AFTER THAT PLAY: “Actually, I slipped and almost fell. I think I kind of twisted my ankle a little bit, but it was OK.”
ON HAVING TROUBLE PASS-BLOCKING I-AA FURMAN AND HOW MUCH TOUGHER IT’LL BE AGAINST GEORGIA TECH’S STIFF D-LINE: “It’s going to be a task, but every week, week in and week out, is going to be a challenge for us. We’ve just got to go out there and practice hard … get our assignments, just go out there and execute.”
ON HOW MUCH PRESSURE HE WAS UNDER: “Their front four and their linebackers were pretty good. They played pretty good defense overall.”
ON RECOGNIZING THE BLITZ ON THAT LONG RUN, AND WHETHER HE WOULD’VE SEEN IT LAST SEASON: “Maybe last year, I might’ve been a little late on that. But watching film and studying and being through preseason and … knowing more, I did recognize it earlier.”
ON HOW COMFORTABLE HE IS WITH TECH’S YOUNG WIDEOUTS: “Very comfortable. They work hard every day and they’re trying to get better, just like I’m trying to get better.”
ON NEEDING TO THROW MORE IN FUTRE GAMES: “Of course we’re going to have to throw the ball, but like Coach Beamer said … you have to do sometimes whatever it takes to win the football game. And we won the football game on the ground today. We played good overall.”
ON STRUGGLING TO SCORE IN THE FIRST HALF: “We were making mental mistakes. We knew we wanted to put more points on the board. Everybody was trying to get everybody fired up (in the halftime locker room). It seemed like we were a little sluggish or maybe just not in it all the way. But we picked it up and put some points on the board.”
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR BRYAN STINESPRING
ON LAST YEAR GLENNON RUNNING ABOUT 75 PERCENT OF THE PLAYS IN THE TWO-QB SYSTEM LAST SEASON, AND TAYLOR RUNNING ABOUT 75 PERCENT TODAY … WHETHER THE GAME DICTATED THAT OR IT WAS THE PLAN: “Really, when you attack an eight-man front, we used our fullback or an additional tight end to try to take care of overhangs – an eighth defender one way or the other. So that’s one thought, and we had some success doing that. We were able to get a fullback up on an outside linebacker or counter back around and get the fullback as the lead blocker on a counter scheme. Run the speed option, got the fullback out there, made a great cut on an outside linebacker that made a great run. So that was one school of thought. And the other was to spread it out and still maintain a two-back principal, with the one tailback, but then you also had the opportunity to create a two-back system even in spread sets (with Taylor at QB). Obviously that helped. We were able to still spread and we were able to still run the ball. There were some quarterback draws, some quarterback decides, some gun-option things that really enabled us to run the ball a little better. That was part of halftime: OK, can we still continue to spread it out? Make people accountable for everybody that’s on the field.”
UM … SO … WAS THE OPPONENT DICTATING MORE THAT TAYLOR PLAYED MORE TODAY? “(Yes) and what we were running.”
ON HOW MUCH BETTER THE O-LINE IS RIGHT NOW AT RUN BLOCKING THAN PASS BLOCKING AND HOW MUCH DID THAT HAVE TO DO WITH TAYLOR PLAYING AND PLAYING SO MUCH: “Well, I just think the directive is … we’ve got to run the ball better. And I think our mindset is that way. I know our mindset is that way. We’ve got to run the ball better. Obviously we’re a little disappointed in the protection, but that’s part of the game, too. When you start emphasizing this, we’ve got to be good that when we are throwing it, we’re OK there. They gave us a blitz early, the one Sean got sacked on, that we had not seen on film. It was a very difficult protection. It was a hard play-action protection off the front side and they gave us a blitz off the back side that we had not seen. And it was very difficult to pick up on. And that protection caused us to take a sack, and a significant sack. That was one aspect of it. And then a couple twists. The twist part of it really caused a couple problems. We’ve just got to get better at it. We’re going to have to throw the ball better … but you’ve got to get something established. And obviously the mindset is we’re going to establish that we can get back to the end of last year or the end of the year before where we felt much better about where we were as a running team.”
UM … SO … IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE SAYING YOU, AS AN OFFENSE, AT LEAST WANT TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING FOR NOW, AND RUNNING IS THAT THING AT THE MOMENT: “No, we want to be good at everything. But it’s steps. It’s steps. Obviously the first step … and not saying we’re not going to throw it … we threw on first down several different times today, and sometimes it was good, sometimes it got us in trouble. Everything’s got to work together, but we want to make sure we’ve established a chip about how we’re going to run the ball, too.”
RB DARREN EVANS
ON HOW HE FELT ABOUT HIS PERFORMANCE: “Real good. Home crowd and scoring a touchdown, and the W, that’s the best feeling.”
ON FEELING LIKE HIS ROLE IN THE OFFENSE IS GROWING: “I’d like to hope so. As long as the offensive line keeps making the holes they’re making, I think I can keep running through them and picking up yards.”
ON HOW MUCH BETTER THE LINE IS RIGHT NOW AT RUN BLOCKING VS. PASS BLOCKING: “I guess it kind of all depends on how hard the D-lines are going, the blitzes they’re bringing. And on run plays, I kind of think we catch the defense off guard and we kind of jump down their throat when we run the ball.”
ON HAVING TAYLOR BACK AT QB: “It’s a good thing. It spreads the defense out. He can throw the ball, then when he takes off it’s amazing what he can do with his feet. So it opens up holes for us as running backs and the receivers should get open down the field once the defense starts coming up on him.”
ON WHETHER TECH WOULD’VE STRUGGLED WITH ONLY A DROP-BACK PASSER TODAY: “If we had started the game off the way we started the second half off, we’d have been alright whether we had Sean, Tyrod, Cory Holt or anybody else back there. It just depends on how we start the game off.”
ON WHAT WAS DIFFERENT IN THE SECOND HALF: “Putting the ball in the end zone. We didn’t do that the first half. We had opportunities and didn’t do it. That’s real frustrating. You drive all the way down the field, you get tired, you get excited because you think you’re going to score. Then when you don’t, it’s a big let-down.”
ON THE HALFTIME TALKS BEING FIERY: “Halftime was just all about capitalizing. I think Sergio said a lot. Devin Perez, he’s a big leader. Tyrod and Sean, they were both speaking up. (They were saying) ‘We’ve got to capitalize.’ Just like last week, when we were down there a bunch of times and we didn’t put the ball in. We’ve got to capitalize on our opportunities.”
ON THIS YOUNG TEAM GROWING UP THROUGHOUT THE SEASON: “I think it’ll happen real soon. I think we’ve got a lot of potential, and with the offensive line playing the way they are, opportunities will open up for everybody.”
QB SEAN GLENNON
ON HE AND TYROD REMAINING FRIENDS THROUGH THE “CONTROVERSY”: “I have no reason to be mad … I could be bitter toward Tyrod. That would be my only option. But it’s not like he’s making these decisions. If I’m frustrated, he’s not the one to take it out on. I’m friends with Tyrod. We root each other on. We realize that both of us playing well is the best thing for this team. I’m going to cheer like heck when he’s in the game. I hope he’s doing the same – and I think he is – when I’m in the game. Like I said, when coaches make personnel decisions … it does zero good to be bitter toward that person. You may have beefs to take up with who’s making the decision. But as far as the player, what is that going to get me, being bitter toward Tyrod?”
ON WHETHER HE PLANS TO TAKE UP ANY BEEFS WITH THE COACHES: “Nah. Nah. I’m going to trust that they’ll use me the way I feel like I need to be used on this team. I’m just going to pray and have faith that I’ll be out there and contributing to this team. I don’t want to think past that. I don’t want to think about the negative. I just want to focus on the positive and what could happen and not looking at, well, what if this doesn’t happen? What if I don’t play? I just want to keep my head down, work hard, do the best I can while I’m in there. Maybe if it comes to a day where I’m not playing, then maybe I’ll have something to say. But right now, I’m just going to do what I can while I’m in there.”
ON THE BOOS HE HEARD FROM SOME FANS: “Doesn’t bother me. They’re going to do what they want to do. And I will say, just for the benefit of those people in the stands, it’s only 10 percent maybe. I know that most of Hokie Nation is behind me. Most of Hokie Nation is not booing me. And maybe for that small group that is, maybe they’re jealous they’re not out there. Maybe they don’t like me personally. But I threw a touchdown three plays after they booed me coming on the field, so …”
ON THE STRUGGLES SCORING IN THE RED ZONE: “Not getting that fourth-and-1 on that first possession, that killed a lot of possible momentum. Coming out, driving it right down their throats, scoring a touchdown would’ve been huge. Maybe that would’ve really gotten the ball rolling. After that, some sacks and breakdowns in protection … all the sudden the first quarter, we got nothing out of it. At halftime, everybody was frustrated. Everybody was saying, ‘This is ridiculous. We need to get this going.’ So I think it was pivotal for this football team to come out and score like it did in that third quarter. Because we were teetering on the edge of getting very frustrated.”
ON RUNNING FOR HIS LIFE – HE AND TAYLOR BOTH – EVERY TIME THEY TRIED TO PASS AND HOW MUCH THAT MIGHT’VE FACTORED INTO TAYLOR, THE SCRAMBLER, PLAYING MORE: “I hope not. I’m almost tired of hearing, ‘You’re not playing because of someone else.’ I’m hoping our O-line can get that figured out. It just seems like we’re having a problem picking up stunts. ECU and Furman, after I talked to the line, every time there’s pressure there’s some kind of leak and it seems like they did some kind of stunt. Hopefully we can get that ironed out and work on picking that up. Hopefully we’ll get Blake back. I’m hoping. I just … I don’t want to hear you’re not on the field because of someone else. I want to be on the field contributing any way I can. It’s not satisfying to hear that as a reason. It’s a break-up thing. It’s not you, it’s me. George Costanza.”
CB VICTOR “MACHO” HARRIS
ON HITTING HARD TODAY, ESPECIALLY ON THE FIRST GUY WHO TRIED TO CATCH A PASS ON HIM, LEVELING THE GUY: “That big chip on my shoulder from last week … I’m sorry he had to pay. But somebody had to pay.”
ON HOW MUCH BETTER THE DEFENSE FEELS THIS WEEK: “We definitely feel better. During the week, the coaches did a great job getting us prepared as far as tackling, getting our timing right, being physical and wrapping up. We bought into it and showed improvement from Week 1 to Week 2.”
ON STILL NOT GETTING MUCH PRESSURE FROM THE D-LINE: “You know, these last two games, it was kind of like the option game. The read plays, it kind of throws the defenders off a little bit. But we’ll definitely get that right. That’s nothing. We’ve got young guys up front. We’re going to get it right.”
ON THE INJURED FOOT: “Feels good. A little sore, but I feel good.”
ON WHETHER HE TWEAKED IT AT ALL IN THE GAME: “Yeah, I did a little bit. But it was just a nagging pain. My strength is still there. Just a little nagging pain.”
ON FEELING AS FAST AS BEFORE: “Nah. I knew I wasn’t that fast. I’d say I was about 80 (percent). It was few times on that punt, I could see (an opening) and normally I could go get it, but for some reason I just couldn’t go get it today. It’s getting better. I ain’t worried about it. Coaches ain’t worried about it. I should be back to normal by the end of this week.”
ON FIXING THE TACKLING ISSUE BEFORE GEORGIA TECH: “Very critical. I’m glad we got our tackling down pat. It definitely hurt us last week. That’s just giving the other team the upper hand. Feeling good about this week. We should be ready.”
ON HOW BIG THE WIN WAS: “I was telling the players right after the game: Man, this victory right here feels like the ACC championship game.”
REALLY??? “Nah, nah, nah. I’m saying, maybe because I was sitting out and it was a big loss, a tough loss last week. I wish I could’ve did something to help the team and I couldn’t. Then we come back and get this huge victory, it feels good.”
ON HIM SAYING, THEN, THAT ANY WIN FOR THIS YOUNG TEAM IS BIG: “Definitely, yeah. Get a win. I know for a fact that loss kind of messed us up a little bit. When I came back for practice, it was like, ‘How’d we lose? How’d we lose?’ When we needed to be like, that’s over with. By winning, I know we’re taking steps forward and leaving last week as last week.”
ON HOW WELL CB STEPHAN VIRGIL HAS PLAYED THE FIRST TWO WEEKS: “I mean, he’s playing ball. Just like last year, Brandon Flowers was over there in the boundary and he was an All-American type guy. So we knew he really wasn’t going to get challenged. All the pressure was kind of going to be on me. (VIRGIL THAT GUY THIS YEAR) He’s just telling them don’t throw over there, neither. Having two solid corners like that, it’s kind of tough to beat a team like that.”
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