OPENING STATEMENT: We’ve already gone back and looked at the film from the other night. We’ve put the thing to bed, made the corrections we needed to correct. We’ve moved on and are concentrating on (North Carolina) A&T.
Q. On what happened during the three interceptions:
COACH FEDORA: The first was a pick down in the red zone. (Marquise Williams) knew where he was throwing the ball and he threw a bad ball. The ball was way too low. He knew the backer was there. He just threw it too low. He put the ball on the top of the helmet.
The next one was where we had slants into the field and a route into the boundary. He had free excess in the boundary and he checked it but then tried to come back to the slants, and in a quick game throw, you’re not going to work both sides of the field.
On the last play he got flushed out of the pocket and had to make a quick decision and a quick throw, he just didn’t get the throw where it needed to be. All three of them are not good things. We talked about it going into the game. In an early game in the year, turnovers are going to be the difference in the game. Turnovers and penalties, and they were.
Q. On the team’s red zone performance throughout the last couple of years:
COACH FEDORA: I haven’t gone back and looked at last year’s games, but we’re aware of what we’ve done. I don’t know if there’s been a common trend other than there’s been some inconsistency and that could be a common trend. That’s something we have to get out of it. We have to be consistent. We did a lot of good things during the game. A lot of good things. But you can’t turnover the ball in that position and think that you’re going to have a good night.
Q. On Marquise Williams’ performance:
COACH FEDORA: He made a lot of good throws. He made good decisions. A lot of those runs we had were runs with the option to pass and he made the good decision to run the football. There were times where he pulled it out and those were good decisions. It was not a total game where he couldn’t throw it or didn’t make good decisions. The one where he threw it behind Bug (Howard) in a cover situation, the linebacker dropped back into coverage so he threw it behind him instead of tying to wait for him to get open in the second window. He tried to get to him too quick.
Q. On the play calling near the red zone in the team’s last possession:
COACH FEDORA: If I could do it over I would. I’d do a lot of things differently, but I don’t get the option to do that. We could have called a different pass or a different run. We could have called a lot of different things, but the ones we called we had prepared for and we felt good about those calls. We expect them to be successful and unfortunately they weren’t.
Q. On if the coaching staff has scripted plays for the red zone:
COACH FEDORA: No, we don’t script them. But we have a game plan for the red zone and we have a game plan for the score zone and we have a game plan for goal line. We work the three or four plays that we have down there, that’s what we do.
Q. On if Elijah Hood will get more carries moving forward:
COACH FEDORA: You look at how productive he was during the game. We want to make sure we get the ball in his hands so many times a game. When he’s healthy and running the ball productively, we need to get the ball to him more, there’s no doubt. He reeled off 30-something yards on a play and we took him out for a breather and we didn’t get him back into the game because we were in a hurry-up mode, and we can’t substitute in a hurry-up mode. We had taken him out because he had just had a 29-yard run breaking about four tackles there at the end of it, so we took him out to get a breath. We had planned to get him back in, but we went into hurry-up mode, so we don’t substitute.
Q. On the performance of the team’s defense:
COACH FEDORA: They did some really good things. I’m not going to come in here and say the defensive staff was all fired up about the game, because they weren’t. The way they looked at it is they gave up a catastrophic play that was the difference in the game. They went into the game saying they can’t give up any catastrophes. That big play was a big play to them. A lot of good things in the game happened. There were a lot of bright spots defensively for them to build off.
Q. On facing N.C. A&T next Saturday:
COACH FEDORA: They were dominant in about everything they did. They were picked to win their league and they won it last year. I would imagine they would come in here with a lot of confidence and expect to play winning football.
Q. On what happened during the three interceptions:
COACH FEDORA: The first was a pick down in the red zone. (Marquise Williams) knew where he was throwing the ball and he threw a bad ball. The ball was way too low. He knew the backer was there. He just threw it too low. He put the ball on the top of the helmet.
The next one was where we had slants into the field and a route into the boundary. He had free excess in the boundary and he checked it but then tried to come back to the slants, and in a quick game throw, you’re not going to work both sides of the field.
On the last play he got flushed out of the pocket and had to make a quick decision and a quick throw, he just didn’t get the throw where it needed to be. All three of them are not good things. We talked about it going into the game. In an early game in the year, turnovers are going to be the difference in the game. Turnovers and penalties, and they were.
Q. On the team’s red zone performance throughout the last couple of years:
COACH FEDORA: I haven’t gone back and looked at last year’s games, but we’re aware of what we’ve done. I don’t know if there’s been a common trend other than there’s been some inconsistency and that could be a common trend. That’s something we have to get out of it. We have to be consistent. We did a lot of good things during the game. A lot of good things. But you can’t turnover the ball in that position and think that you’re going to have a good night.
Q. On Marquise Williams’ performance:
COACH FEDORA: He made a lot of good throws. He made good decisions. A lot of those runs we had were runs with the option to pass and he made the good decision to run the football. There were times where he pulled it out and those were good decisions. It was not a total game where he couldn’t throw it or didn’t make good decisions. The one where he threw it behind Bug (Howard) in a cover situation, the linebacker dropped back into coverage so he threw it behind him instead of tying to wait for him to get open in the second window. He tried to get to him too quick.
Q. On the play calling near the red zone in the team’s last possession:
COACH FEDORA: If I could do it over I would. I’d do a lot of things differently, but I don’t get the option to do that. We could have called a different pass or a different run. We could have called a lot of different things, but the ones we called we had prepared for and we felt good about those calls. We expect them to be successful and unfortunately they weren’t.
Q. On if the coaching staff has scripted plays for the red zone:
COACH FEDORA: No, we don’t script them. But we have a game plan for the red zone and we have a game plan for the score zone and we have a game plan for goal line. We work the three or four plays that we have down there, that’s what we do.
Q. On if Elijah Hood will get more carries moving forward:
COACH FEDORA: You look at how productive he was during the game. We want to make sure we get the ball in his hands so many times a game. When he’s healthy and running the ball productively, we need to get the ball to him more, there’s no doubt. He reeled off 30-something yards on a play and we took him out for a breather and we didn’t get him back into the game because we were in a hurry-up mode, and we can’t substitute in a hurry-up mode. We had taken him out because he had just had a 29-yard run breaking about four tackles there at the end of it, so we took him out to get a breath. We had planned to get him back in, but we went into hurry-up mode, so we don’t substitute.
Q. On the performance of the team’s defense:
COACH FEDORA: They did some really good things. I’m not going to come in here and say the defensive staff was all fired up about the game, because they weren’t. The way they looked at it is they gave up a catastrophic play that was the difference in the game. They went into the game saying they can’t give up any catastrophes. That big play was a big play to them. A lot of good things in the game happened. There were a lot of bright spots defensively for them to build off.
Q. On facing N.C. A&T next Saturday:
COACH FEDORA: They were dominant in about everything they did. They were picked to win their league and they won it last year. I would imagine they would come in here with a lot of confidence and expect to play winning football.
