Football Press Conference Quotes

SDSU Football Press Conference Quotes
November 26, 2018
 
Head Coach Rocky Long
 
Opening statement:
"I appreciate you all being here. We just got done with Thanksgiving so I am thankful that we have had a winning record and we are still bowl eligible. There's a chance we get to play another game, but we're frustrated and disappointed that we haven't played as well as we expect to play the last half of the season. So we started today to work on improving for next year. Most of our coaches are on the road recruiting right now. Over the next few weeks we're going to do a total evaluation of how the program is run and how we do things around here. When our team gets back from Christmas vacation we can start implementing those things so that we return to the expected win-loss record that we're all use to having around here. That being said, we're still bowl eligible and hopefully someone takes us to a bowl game."
 
On if it's something deeper than just injuries and youth to the team's recent struggles:
"I don't know. That's why we're re-evaluating everything. Maybe we're doing everything right and it's just one of those seasons where nothing went right, and late in the season the bad breaks happen. Injuries have something to do with it, obviously, but that's an excuse. We don't make excuses. We didn't get better. The last half of the season we played the same way every game. Every game was close and when every game is close, guess what? You're going to win half of them and lose half of them. That's just the way it works. I didn't see us getting any better. I thought we played the last game of the year just like we did the sixth or seventh game of the year."
 
On what types of things he will be looking at with the program:
"We're going to go more in-depth. We're going to go all the way from offseason workouts because we have a system that we've run since I've been the head coach. We're going to re-evaluate what we do on offense, we're going to re-evaluate what we do on defense. We're re-evaluating right now how we recruit. Recruiting has gone better over the last five or six years according to the people that judge the recruiting classes. I think maybe in the process of recruiting more highly rated guys by recruiting services we've lost a little bit of an edge that we had."
 
On if the re-evaluation process will include talking to seniors:
"We always talk to the seniors. So we're going to do that again, but that's not new. I have each coach evaluating the program from his point of view in a written manner. We're going to sit down with each coach individually next week and see what his evaluation (of our program) is because I don't think we always do that. We get involved in recruiting, we go about our business and, as long as everything's going good, we don't worry about changing anything. Well things (this year) went OK. We're hopefully still going to go to a bowl game and that's OK. That's kind of nice. There were a few years hear a while back that San Diego State hadn't been to a bowl game for a really, really long time. Well the way we want to run our program that isn't good enough anymore. We didn't play as well as we should have in the second half of the season, so obviously there is something that we are missing. It could be a big thing or it could be a small thing, but if you don't go hunting for it you'll never find it. So we're hunting for it at every corner."
 
On some of the offensive and defensive statistics not being as good as it has in recent years:
"I think when you start picking specific statistics out, you're clouding the picture. If you start talking about statistics on defense, when you talk about total defense and rush defense of where we rank in the country, we're as good or better than we've ever been. Now I agree with you that we didn't cause as many turnovers this year, we didn't have as many tackles for loss, we probably didn't have as many sacks and I know we didn't have as many interceptions. You can take a stat and make it sound anyway you want it to sound, but on defense we are actually statistically better than we have been the last three or four years. I know we're in the top 10 in rush defense, and I think we're in the top 25 of top 30 of most categories on defense. I agree with you that our offense is way down than it's been the last couple of three years. Let's stop talking about statistics, it might be the players. We had a first-round draft choice that was running back here for two or three years, we had leading rusher in the NCAA history that was here for three or four years. It might just be players. We didn't have that kind of tailback this year. The one we have that's pretty good got hurt and then we had some offensive linemen that we expected them to play well. They didn't play as near as well as we expected, but they had a lot of injury problems. You can slant the story anyway you want to slant the story, around here we've been expecting teams to win 10 or 11 games and I'm all for that. But when you expect that kind of stuff and you automatically think it's going to happen and things don't go your way. I'm doing the same thing, I'm looking for answers. Maybe it's just one of those seasons when things didn't go our way. But if you don't go looking for (the answers), you won't find it. If there is any answer out there, we've got to find it."
 
On some of the coaching mistakes made on Saturday's game vs. Hawai'i:
"I'm not going to get into particulars, but I don't think we coached as well this year as we have had in the past. Some of that is that we have new coaches in the system and they don't understand the system as well. I'll give you one on Saturday night. I think I messed up. I though we totally had the momentum right there in overtime and, by the way, the game should have been over before that if you look at a replay or two. They would have had fourth-and-11, and they should have been trying to kick a field goal from a long distance. But we let them score and we scored on the very first play that we had the ball in overtime. That is huge momentum. So the right thing to do for it is to go for it right there. That's the right thing to do. We've had a 2-point play that we've been working on what seems like forever that's a really good play. We called that play and somehow we messed it up. The mistake was made after that play. Since we messed it up, I should have, maybe even taken a penalty, kicked the extra-point then and let us settle back down and go into the second overtime. That was a mistake by me. Sometimes it's an emotional mistake. We messed up the 2-point play that I thought for sure was going to work and we had all the momentum. Since we messed that up, I should have stepped back and taken the delay of game penalty and kick a little longer PAT, and go onto the second overtime. But I thought we were going to win the game before that too. John Baron is a darn good kicker and I thought he was going to win it for us like he has many, many times, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion."
 
On how the players have responded after the losses and if it's because of a lack of effort:
"I'm happy with the effort. I don't think we have ever had a team that has given up. You can tell when a team gives up you can tell when a team decides that they don't want to play anymore you can tell when a team it's already decided the other team as won. I don't think we've done that. I think we took the early losses really hard but I think we played as hard as we could in the last two games. I'm not sure we did the two games before that but I think the last two games our team put a really good effort out."
 
On if not making a bowl game would be a crushing blow to the program:
"Not a crushing blow because our team was prepared. They were told before the last game that if they didn't win there was a chance they weren't going to a bowl game. So our team is sitting just like I am wondering if we're going to get to go or not. I think it'll be a celebration for the career of the seniors and the seniors we're going to have a great time. I'm sure the other guys will have a good time once we get to the bowl game but they're probably not going to have a good time the first week that we practice."