Fresno State Athletics
Pat Hill Quotes From Monday's Press Conference
10/22/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 22, 2001
General comments on last week's game
"When I took this job five years ago, the expectations here were to have a winning season. In my fifth year, the expectation has grown to playing in the top 10, top 20 in the nation and going to BCS bowls. So I think there's been a lot of growth in the program."
"I'm really proud of where we are as a football team right now. But that was a very devastating loss. Being 6-1 is not where we want to be. Boise State made some great plays and did a good job defensively. We've got to regroup and come back this week. We've got a very difficult task in front of us going to Hawai'i and winning at Hawai'i, which is a very difficult place for a lot of people to play, especially Fresno State."
"There's still a lot of great things this football team can accomplish. But that loss was a devastating loss. No doubt about it. But I think it's a great compliment to our program that in five years we've gone from talking about winning seasons to talking about playing in BCS bowls. Hopefully, those expectations come true for us some day in the near future."
On things the team needs to work on
"We've got to get back to playing mistake-free football. I think the kids have played very, very hard, but we blow some coverages and we don't run our routes just right. The fumble in the game was a big play. We've got to get back to the basics and working on the fundamentals of the offense and defense. The physical part, I think we're doing a good job with. We've just got to be in the right place at the right time to make plays."
On Kendall Edwards' hit
"I feel bad for the young man who got hit. We don't coach it that way. We want them to run down full speed and break down two yards away and stop. That's what we want them to do. A lot of times you don't see that. A lot of times those guys are getting blocked, like the week before against Colorado State because we weren't doing a good job covering."
"I will take him off the punt team. We do not condone that."
"I think they've got to change the rules. [The big hits] happen too frequently. It's not just Kendall Edwards. It's happening all over the country. It's a very hard play to coach. It's a very hard play to break down. Especially when the wing doesn't block your guy. Kendall flew right by him. But if Kendall gets blocked, Therrian Fontenot is about seven yards away, and the punt returner is going to get hit by Therrian. When you have a play like that, it's because the wing doesn't make a block. The same thing happened to the same returner and the same wing the week before. The same identical play. And he was kicked out of the game but wasn't suspended the next week. And I think it's right [Kendall] got kicked out of the game. That's a flagrant hit, but it's not coached and it's not taught. It's the same thing when a receiver catches the ball over the middle and you see a safety go right through a receiver's helmet, not playing the ball but playing the man. You just say great hit and move to the next play. On punt return, it's a very, very vicious play, because it's a 40-yard run, and putting on the brakes when you have no eyes in the back of your head, that's hard. We try to tell them to break down. But if you're breaking down too much, the wing is blocking you."
"It's not like that's the only time it's ever happened. We've had it happen to us earlier this year. And if we don't block their wing on a punt later in the game, Bernard [Berrian] is going to get knocked out. Bernard's been hit this year, just not like that."
"If you watched the NFL highlights [Sunday] night, there were two of them just like it. Until they change the rule on punt returns, they are going to keep having those high-speed collisions. They are not taught that. But it's very hard to teach a man to put on the brakes five yards away from the ball carrier when he's trying to catch the ball. If you put on the brakes or go to the side, he runs by you, the returner has a big gain. That play really hurt us, losing Kendall. We weren't able to play any nickel package or relieve our corners - that was tough."
On the outlook of the team
"We'll play very hard in Hawai'i. It's a game where we've got to go over and do everything we can to win the game. We're going to get Hawai'i's best shot. We've played a very tough schedule, and we've played against a lot of teams that have played well against us. We're 6-1 at this point. We've climbed a long way up the mountain. We lost some ground this week, but we've got a chance to make it up. It's about going to BCS games, that's the expectation level in this city now, and that's good. I encourage that."
About Hawai'i
"They are a good team. They are second in the nation in passing. They throw it very, very well. They've got some good receivers and a good offensive line. I think they'll try to run the ball against us, like they did last year. They'll have a different package for us, like everybody else does. And we'll have to be ready for that. I think they are very capable of winning. They've played their three road games, and they'll get their eight or nine home games now. They don't play another game off the island. There's some real advantages to being at the University of Hawai'i. The road games are tough, but the amount of home games are very good."
On the media pressure surrounding the team during the fast start
"It's a great tribute to David Carr that he has performed well every week. I can't say enough about the performance of David Carr. This has been a great experience for us. I'm hoping that this program stays at a top 20 level. That's the plan. For us to stay up there -- we're going through some growing pains right now. The first three weeks, the hype didn't affect us. Then, all of a sudden, it was 'You're supposed to win, you're going to be 13-0, this is going to happen, that is going to happen, you're doing this, you're doing that.' Young men have to learn how to handle that type of exposure.
"With the national spotlight comes praise, but with the national spotlight, there are a lot of things that can go against you. I think it's a great learning experience for me as a coach and for our players. That's just another step in the growth of our program. Being received on the national stage was new for all of us. We're learning how to deal with it, and we got caught. And if we had pulled the Boise game out, it might have come later. You never can predict that."
"I think we learned a lot from that game. We learned we better be ready to play every week. We learned that you can't listen to everybody saying how you are supposed to do. The only thing you can worry about is the game that's happening now. We can't worry about five games down the road, seven games down the road, what bowl games we are going to be in. We've just got to concentrate. That's a good learning process for me and the entire team. I've learned a lot. You're learning all the time."
