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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2015

Kyle Flood

Piscataway, New Jersey

COACH FLOOD: Exciting week, one of the great challenges in all of college football to get ready for the triple option in one week. It's a challenge that we've prepared for in the past and something we take a lot of pride in.

Army's football team led by Jeff Monken: Jeff is somebody that I know very -- I know very well professionally, not personally, but very well professionally. Jeff and I have competed against each other the late 90s when I was Hofstra, he was at Georgia Southern; in the early 2000s, he was at Navy and I was at Delaware. And I then when I was at Rutgers and he was at Navy.

So we have met on a few different occasions at a few differently schools, and I've always been impressed with how the offenses that he's been associated with have been run. He's a direct disciple from the Paul Johnson coaching tree. So we have a pretty good idea of what we are going to get and we see is on film. As I said in the opening, it's a tremendous challenge and we are looking forward to it.

Questions.

Q. Is it particularly tough to prepare for Army this late in the season without a bye, and obviously not having a bye week before or the week after? Is it challenging to face them in week 11 or 12?
COACH FLOOD: It is. It's something that you have to map out before the season ever starts, where you're going to get your practices in, to make sure that when you get to game week, it's not the first time they are hearing it.

Now you are doing that; but you also understand that there's going to be attrition throughout the season, and you can't quite put all the pieces exactly where they are going to be, but at least everybody is starting to install the defense.

Q. You were not lying about the injury report in the offensive line. How do you mix-and-match or what you do you do in practice this wreak?
COACH FLOOD: Sure. We started last night. Not only are Derrick and Dorian questionable for the game, but they are also our first and third team centers. And a guy like Chris Muller is our second team center, and so when all three of those guys are in the game, and something like this happens, we have to make sure we are start to training other people and we started that process last night. And we'll make a decision tomorrow when we see the hell many of some of these guys as to who is the going to take the reps in practice.

But putting the right guy at center is the first priority, and then we'll put the pieces together at guard and tackle.

Q. Given the things that happened in Paris on Friday, and then all over the world for however long a time what does it mean to go up and play at Army and just the whole setting and what they represent?
COACH FLOOD: I've always been in favor of playing the academies, when possible. And we have got a long tradition here of competing against Army and Navy. I think it serves a couple purposes. One, I think it's regional football and I that I that's good. But I think the other part of it is it gives us an opportunity to kind of pay our respects to those young men that are playing on their football teams.

I worked with a guy one time, Brian Broussard, who had worked at Army, and after that we had worked together and he said to me, he says: "What you've got to remember is when they go to practice, it's the easiest part of their day."

And when you put in that kind of perspective, it really tells you a lot about the quality of the people that you're going to be competing against. It's a tremendous Army to go up there to West Point. This will be my third trip up there.

Q. You guys have had success in the past against triple option. What do you think the key is for you guys?
COACH FLOOD: There's a couple things you have to do to be successful in defending this offense. The first one is you've got to be very disciplined with the way you play defense because they are going to challenge you on every play in three phases: The dive, the quarterback and the pitch.

I told the team yesterday: Don't get bored tackling the to fullback because the minute you stop tackling that fullback is when he'll rip off a big run in the game.

And you have to be sound schematically, and I give a lot of that credit to Coach Rossi and to Coach Fraser 6 for making sure that we have got the right numbers. It's not just one guy on the dive and one guy on the quarterback and one guy on the pitch. It's a little bit more involved than that, and they do an excellent job of getting the players ready to make sure we have got the right numbers at point of attack.

Q. You saw Navy last year. How similar or different is their attack to what Navy does?
COACH FLOOD: Similar. Both coaches from the same tree. I think the systems are very similar, and what you also find is they will use certain packages of their offense against certain defensive structures.

Q. Piggyback off that. Do you have a standard playbook to kind of like defend a triple-option scheme and is it something that you even like install like during the summer or during the spring just to kind of get the team ready for it?
COACH FLOOD: When we have played them earlier in the year, it's something we have done in the spring. We didn't do it last spring. We do have a package that we play that is different than our normal defensive package.

Q. Anthony Cioffi is questionable on this injury report, seems like as the only veteran back, seems like the only veteran back seems like he's constantly helping the younger guys moving around. If you lose him, how big a loss is that and with no other veterans back there, who is the most advanced that would take on that role.
COACH FLOOD: I don't have a final answer on that just yet but Anthony is a playmaker. I think he's got four interceptions on the year and had another one last weekend. He is the lone veteran voice back there, and the other guys are go to have to pick up the slack.

The difference I think this week would be the defense was going to be different in terms of how we'll play. So there's going to be a couple people in different spots.

Q. With the triple option being the featured offense for Army, is this an opportunity for your young secondary to have a little bit of a break against the pass this week?
COACH FLOOD: Well, you could think of it like that but when you look at the receivers from Army and you see that they are averaging I think over 17 yards a reception, I don't think so. I don't think there's ever a break.

This is different because you need to have the discipline of keeping your eyes on your man when we are in man coverage or your eyes on the right place when we are in zone, because even though they may not throw it as much, when they throw it, they are getting chunks.

Q. Army's defense, are they unique, as well?
COACH FLOOD: Army's defense is a little more conventional. They base it. They are very similar -- now they are very similar to what Navy does. Although I don't know if there's a connection the two coordinators.

They are a 3-4 personnel with some 4-down frons in terms of how they play a significant amount of pressure. Probably more pressure than Navy would give you traditionally but not completely unique the way they used to be when Coach Ellerson was there and they ran that bear flex defense. That was very unique.

Q. What would you like to see out of P.J. this week as he continues to get healthy and his role changing a little?
COACH FLOOD: I feel good about P.J. I feel P.J. is ready to go this week and he'll be back out there. And that's exciting because again, he's always been a guy who can make explosive plays in the run game, and I think he's back ready to do that now.

Q. Obviously the injuries are probably going to dictate this a little, too, and I know you try to win every game. But anything for the last two games in terms of playing maybe getting a longer look at some of the younger guys, Bateky or Owens; will you focus any can different in terms of getting a longer look for the future for some of the young guys?
COACH FLOOD: Jon got a pretty significant amount of playing time last week. And he's getting better. He's been playing on third down for awhile, got some first and he can is down snaps in the game.

Jon is an exciting guy. But in terms of going out sigh of our normal rotations, no. We are going to do everything we can this week to be 1-0 and that's the most important thing for us and that's how we'll make all the decisions.

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