Fresno State Athletics
Pat Hill Quotes From Monday's Press Luncheon
10/6/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 6, 2003
On Colorado State game
"Like I said after the game, you have to give a lot of credit to Colorado State. I think they played a heck of a football game. I think Bradlee Van Pelt really showed he can do it in a big game and it was a very, very big game for Colorado State. He played very, very well."
"As far as our team's performance, there was a lapse at the end of the first half when it was 3-3. We let them off the hook. Once again, letting them off the hook and then taking advantage of situations is our issue. I think they took advantage of situations. Give them credit. At the start of the third quarter, we knew we had to make a stop and once again Colorado State stepped up and made plays. We couldn't stop them for three straight series in the third quarter and that was the difference in the game."
"Offensively, our inability to convert four different third down situations in the first half really were critical. They were all situations that if we made plays, might have changed the complexion of the game because I thought we were having good success offensively early in the game running the ball and passing the ball, but third downs really killed us."
"As far as the play on special teams, for the first time in a long time I think that people had a good game against our cover teams. I think you give credit to [CSU kick returner] Dexter Wynn. He's a good football player. Like I said, I thought Colorado State going into the game drew a line in the sand and they came up with the big game they needed to have. We just didn't have the plays to stay in that football game when we had some chances early.
On play of Paul Pinegar
"I was really thinking about putting him in at the start of the third quarter. I wanted to play him in the third quarter for sure, but at the end of the half, I wanted to give him a chance to just get the tempo going. We felt that if Paul could just get it down into field goal range, we had the wind at our backs for a field goal. We had three timeouts. We were throwing underneath routes and I think Paul completed two in a row, got the ball moving and then we made a mistake on protection and they got the sack on us so we just ended the half."
"I thought it was a good situation to put him in. I think at that time Colorado State was playing off and I knew that Paul could just easily throw the ball underneath, throw the short passes and get us into field goal range. We didn't put him in there with the idea of going deep and putting stress on his arm."
"I made sure he was very warm before he went in. I talked to him before the last series on offense and he had plenty of time to warm up because Colorado State had the ball for about six minutes so he was plenty warm before he went in. For just practicing three days last week and missing seven weeks, I thought he looked very poised in there. I don't think the accuracy was there with all of his balls. The touch on the fade in the end zone obviously wasn't there but as far seeing things, throwing to the right people versus the coverage, I think everything was there. I thought he did a very good job in the pocket, he didn't flinch in the pocket, he didn't run out of the pocket except one time for a good gain. He stood in there and shuffled in the pocket and I thought he made good decisions mentally. As far as the crispness of the ball, it's not there yet but it will be. I felt very good with the progress there."
On Pinegar's status for Saturday's game
"The starter for the Hawaii game will be Paul Pinegar. Hopefully, he can step up this week in practice. We have to be very careful with him. It's not the chest right now that I'm worried about; I just want to make sure we don't throw his shoulder out. Sometimes you get a little excited, you get your guy back and you want to throw and throw and throw and throw. I have to keep a close eye on making sure that we don't get his shoulder sore. The only thing that was really sore after the game was not the pec but the shoulder. And we want to make sure that we do a good job of monitoring his amount of throws and get him to the dance in Hawaii fresh and ready to go."
On the decision to kick towards CSU returner Dexter Wynn
"The first two kicks to him we got really good, high hang times, and we had good coverage. We felt that with [punter Mike] Lingua, if we got the ball high, which he is very capable of doing, we could get the coverage on him. Going back and looking over it again, we were probably better of directional kicking. But we didn't want to take away from everything that we had been teaching him to try and teach him directional kicking right now. We didn't think that making him a directional kicker at this time was the answer."
"With Jason Simpson last year, he was able to do those types of things. He didn't always get the ball up and get distance so directional kicking with him was a good thing to do. With Mike, we weren't caring about distance, we just wanted to get the ball up and high and get the coverage teams down there. It backfired on us. Going back over it, maybe next year if we have a guy like that, next year we will start working on other things with Mike. Mike has only played football for one year. We didn't want to interrupt what he has been doing so well this year."
On the team's struggles on the road
"I had a long talk with the team about it yesterday. This team has to learn playing on the road is something that I think you get better at. With this team, we are 0-3 on the road but Tennessee, Oklahoma and Colorado State are three very tough venues. When you look at our roster, 40 of our 60-man travel roster are freshmen and sophomores, so there are a lot of guys that haven't traveled."
"This trip to Hawaii will be a real adventure. I think the main thing a young man has to understand on these trips is that there's times to be focused on the task at hand and there's times to be on your own. Getting through this Hawaii game, this team with as much youth as it has, they're going to learn how to play these types of games. It's very easy to lose focus and I could see some signs of it at the Colorado State game. I think the input that we put in with them all week about how much this game meant to Colorado State, I think we really hammered these guys hard with how they had to focus on this game and I think we had some breakdowns."
"I wish I had the answers for winning road games. I don't know why it's so hard to keep a band of 60 guys focused on a task. You try so hard at it, there's a lot of free time they have by themselves and it's easy to stray. This week will be easy to stray."
On some Fresno State breakdowns during the Colorado State game
"There were some, little signs going into it that maybe the whole focus wasn't there. What does it have to do with tackling? I think all the little things build up to the big things. Tackling is really a focus thing especially in the open field. The mis-tackles we had were in the open field against Van Pelt. We've had mis-tackles against him before but they are just not as glaring when you win. He's done it against us for three years and this year it finally caught up with us."
On whether the loss to CSU will help the team's focus
"I don't think losses ever help. I'm not into that. I think wins help a lot more than losses but I think we were able to stress some of the mistakes we made in this Colorado State game were things that had been covered very, very well in practice. The kids understood it but we didn't execute it at game time."
On the play of reserve freshman offensive lineman Chris Denman
"Chris Denman really held up well playing against their best defensive lineman. Maybe just one time his block was a bad factor in the play but I thought the young man really held in good. He's playing way before he was due. We're playing without our two starting tackles. I think there's bright things happening on the offensive line. I see great progress going on there. It's not exactly how we had it pictured going into the season. They'll all be back and this group is going to get better."
On Hawaii
"Hawaii is very good football team. Whenever you have a pitcher, Timmy Chang, you have a chance to win. The way football is, you better have a guy at the trigger that can make plays happen because he has to deal the ball out to your game players."
On stopping Hawaii QB Timmy Chang
"You have top pressure him and you have to contain him. We have to do a good job with our coverages and make him see certain things. Hopefully we can make the plays when the ball comes out. They're a team that has a lot of strengths. It's sort of puzzling that they are 2-3. They are, to me, the team you have to beat if you want to win the conference. Speed will be our greatest asset in the game. It's going to be critical that we are fresh in the fourth quarter."
On his views of the season up until now
"Every year is a new experience. I have learned a ton this year. Right now we are 3-3. We are not where we wanted to be at this time but we have a chance to make a heck of a run this year. It's really critical we put Paul into a situation with a game plan that he is ready for (from a throwing and getting his feet on the ground standpoint).
On if this is a must-win game for the Bulldogs
"This is not a must-win game. It's a must win for Hawaii or they are looking at the scoreboard every week before they play. A loss at Hawaii still puts us in a position to control our own destiny. As soon as you can't control your own destiny, then you are in must-win games. It's a very big game but I'm not telling these kids that it's a must-win game. There's a must win coming up soon, I just don't know when it's going to be."
On Jeff Grady
"This has been a tough year for Jeff Grady. We are looking at a kid that got battered in the Tennessee game. He played with a slightly seperated non-throwing shoulder that can affect your throwing. Then he comes back and pulls off a great win against Oregon State and he gets hurt badly. It's been one of those years when he's never been completely on top of his game. I think it took his toll on him."
"He's a very competitive young man who wants to win very badly. He hasn't been able to play at 100 percent but we really didn't have anybody else to go to at the time. With Paul, he went 9-3 as a freshman. He can see it, he's good in the pocket, he has a good strong arm but it's not all there right now. Paul's not on top of his game right now but we have to get him ready. If we can win in Hawaii, we have two weeks to get him even better and I think this whole team can keep coming."
