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UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 17, 2015Philip MontgomeryTulsa, Oklahoma COACH MONTGOMERY: -- after the turnover again. But, you know, we've got to continue to keep growing and fighting and figuring out ways to win those close ballgames against those quality opponents. That's kind of where we're at. Our guys are diligently working towards that. Obviously our goal is still in front of us. We're got two games to get one here at least. Our plan is to go get both. We have an outstanding team in Navy coming in, ranked top 25 team, 8-1, extremely well-coached. Obviously very disciplined in what they do. Very difficult to prepare for in a matter of three days with that type of offense. We've got a lot of work in front of us. I know our guys are eager for that. We have Senior Night coming up this weekend to honor those guys. We've got a great group of seniors that have really bought into what we've been doing. They've been great leaders all the way through. There is a special bond between our coaching staff and those guys. It will be a special occasion for them. Need a great crowd. We know Navy is going to have a showing. We need to make sure that our stadium is filled with our guys and our people, if nothing else to honor what those seniors have done throughout this program in those four or five years they've been here. With that being said, shoot away. Q. You talked about how difficult Navy is to prepare for. How do you do that? COACH MONTGOMERY: It's just so vastly different. We did some things back in fall camp where you had a couple of days in there to try to introduce some different concepts and thoughts. Everybody wants to talk about New Mexico. Yes, New Mexico is a triple offense type threat. There's some similarities between them, but there's such a vast difference in how they run it. New Mexico being in the gun, allowing you a little bit more time from that sense. Navy being underneath center. The pace with which they play with is always a factor as well. They've been doing it for a long time. They have a lot of seniors doing it. Reynolds, the trigger guy, he's exceptional at what they do. He just set an NCAA career touchdown mark. They're playing with a lot of confidence. They played some really good, quality opponents. I like our chances. But, again, it's a difficult offense to prepare. Q. Can you talk about Reynolds and what makes him so good running this offense. COACH MONTGOMERY: Well, you know, he's a tremendous athlete, number one, and he's a great operator in what he does. He's unselfish in how he works the offense. He has all these career touchdowns, but he's as likely to give it to Swain and let him do his work or pitch it out on the end. You have to defend the whole length and width of the field when you have this attack coming at you. When one guy doesn't do his job, it's a big play. That's what is so hard about this offense. You have to play assignment sound football. Everybody has to do their job every play or something pops and you get a big play out of it. He has been doing it with so much experience underneath his belt now. He's been the starter there I think now for three years. There's nothing you're going to throw at him that he hasn't already seen in what they do. I think Ken and those guys have really taken this offense to another level. Q. On the other side of the ball, they shut down Memphis in the second half, SMU was pretty much shut down. Offense gets all the headlines, but their defense has been playing well, too. COACH MONTGOMERY: Yeah, I mean, they're playing those same offenses we struggled with, when you start talking about Memphis and those guys. What they do defensively is they're going to create some pressures, they're going to keep the box loaded up, they're going to make you be patient in some things. They don't give up big plays. They have a lot of eyes to the box and they're very disciplined in how they play it. As you get in the course of the games, you got to take advantage of what they are giving you. When you get a chance to get out on the edge and use your speed, you've got to use it. I like our matchup. We've got to do some things a little bit differently. But they're an extremely strong, physical defense. Q. I know they can score quickly. Normally they're near the top and win the time of possession battle because of the offense they run. Does that put more of an emphasis on your offense to score? COACH MONTGOMERY: I don't think you have to score every time you have the ball. But I will say we're probably averaging, I don't know this off the top of my head, but probably somewhere around 13 to 15 possessions a game right now with what we're doing. I think they're probably, if you look back at theirs, everybody is somewhere in that range of maybe 8 to 11, 8 to 10. So you're looking at several less possessions a game. So obviously that matters. The other part that you got to consider is just the amount of time that you spend on the sideline as an offense. When they have the football in their hands, they're driving, it can be very explosive. But it also can be three yards, a cloud of dust, they pick up a first down, they go for it on fourth-and-one, that sort of deal. You have to stay focused. You can't get frustrated. If you do that, you fall right into their trap. You get out there, want to make something happen right now, not being patient and taking what they're giving you. Q. When you got hired, were the seniors the guys you wanted to get onboard with what you wanted to do? How did they respond to that? COACH MONTGOMERY: Obviously I wanted them all to get onboard. But you have to start with those guys that you know are controlling the locker room. With Mudoh, Luetjen, D.A., Stafford, all those guys, you can go down the list of those seniors that have been around here a while. Some of them adapted really quick. Others, you know, you had to earn that trust with them. No matter what the process was, I think our football team now has really bought into what we're doing. Again, it starts because of the leadership that we got from those guys and them being open to us coming in and doing the things that we wanted to do. Q. Can you give us some idea of what that buy-in looks like? How do you know? Is there anything you can remember, give us an example of one of those guys buying in, leading other guys? COACH MONTGOMERY: I've told the story about D.A. coming by my office I think day two. He'd been down there. It was pretty cold outside. He's out there working on his craft. He comes up, knocks on the door, comes in. We sit down, have a conversation. Basically the whole conversation was more about, Coach, just tell us how to win, that's all we want to do. They were ready for whatever new fresh thing you were bringing. A pretty good example also was like Mudoh. You know, when you think back to the spring, probably didn't get all the reps that he wanted to get. Some other guys were playing extremely well at the time. We sat down and talked about some of the things we wanted to change in his diet, what we wanted him to do from a body standpoint, which is you look at Mudoh, he looks like he's chiseled out of a rock, why would you change anything about him. There were some things we wanted to change, some things he needed to change. He accepted that challenge and obviously he's had an unbelievable year. So to see that by him is a big part of it. That's just a couple guys. You can go down the list and talk about each one of them individually. But they were ready and they welcomed us. Q. I think Coach Norwood, he has a connection with Ken. Does that help you in any form that they've coached together? COACH MONTGOMERY: Ken and Brian are very good friends. Their families are very good friends. Brian actually coached at the Naval Academy. They stayed close. They have the Hawaii connection to that, as well. I hope it helps us from a defensive standpoint. Obviously he's been around and seen it a little bit. But you also got to think, there's been a lot of years of separation between those times when he was there. They've changed and they've grown, they've extended some things. Obviously their base principles are the same thing. But whatever advantage we can get out of it we're going to try to take, I can promise you that. Q. How much do you use for motivation with your players going into this game getting that sixth win, becoming bowl eligible? COACH MONTGOMERY: It's what we've talked about. It's been our challenge all year long. I think our guys, they're feeding off of that right now. Extremely disappointed in the locker room last weekend. You know, really felt like we were playing with a lot of confidence at the time, especially the way we started the football game on both sides of the ball and in special teams. We're still going to use that because it's out there. That's our goal. Our guys are still very locked into that and understanding that we still have those opportunities in front of us. We got two games. Yeah, we want six. We'll take seven as well. But it starts with this one this weekend. It would be a great, great win against such a quality opponent that, shoot, their only loss is Notre Dame who I think is ranked pretty high. Q. As the season comes down to the close, there's only two games left, do you want them to continually think about the sixth win or could that put too much pressure? Do you want them just to play? COACH MONTGOMERY: I mean, that's part of life, pressure. I don't think there's any more pressure. They know what's going on. Me not talking about it's not going to change them not thinking about it. It's one of those things that we have been talking about for a long time around here. Those guys are close. They can taste it. We're going to use it as motivation, not as pressure. Q. Navy is more committed to the triple option than New Mexico. They run it better. But is there anything that your defense did, played well that day against New Mexico, anything in general that you hope can carry over? COACH MONTGOMERY: Well, I think the only thing that we've got to press to carry over is just the discipline that you had to play with within that game, everybody doing their assignment, doing their job defensively. If you'll do that, you'll have a chance. But from that standpoint, that's probably the only carryover from the New Mexico game because they are both triple option but vastly different in the way they do it. We have to be disciplined in what we do. We got to tackle well. 'Cause you're going to end up with some one-on-one type tackle situations because they're assignment sound. The biggest thing we can't do in practice is you can't simulate the tempo they do it with, how fast it hits. These guys have been doing it for three or four years, all of them together. We've got our scout team guys that are going to step in and try to give them as good a picture as you can. Just like in the New Mexico game, that first drive, it was bang, bang, bang, down the field. Then our defense saw the tempo. They adjusted and were able to play really well. If you watch Navy's tape, they've done that on their first drives to a lot of people. We have to stay calm, focused, not let things get us frustrated. Q. Who is the scout team quarterback? COACH MONTGOMERY: There will be a couple of them. I think T.I. will be one of them and Keidrien will be one of them. Those two guys will be. Q. When you play a team like Navy, is it almost the mental side not more important but more prevalent on defense because you have to pay attention and remember the fundamentals of it? COACH MONTGOMERY: Yeah, you can't get out of your area. You can't try to do too much. As soon as you try to do too much, your job, the one that you're responsible for, that's where they're hitting and where they're popping. I do my job. The guy behind me does his job. The guy beside me does his. You got to do that all the way and be disciplined enough to stay with that. We'll make adjustments as we go through, change things, give them different looks, but we have to be on the same page from a defensive standpoint. Q. Final home game of your first season. When you think back to the season, fly-by, what do you remember most about your home games in your first year here? COACH MONTGOMERY: You know, it really has flown by. You're in the grind of it all. You're going through it. It seems like a long time ago that you played Florida Atlantic first rattle out of the box. With that being said, time is clicking by. As far as the things that I'll remember, you know, I remember that first game for sure, the way our guys came from behind in the fourth quarter and sent it to overtime and get us a win like that. Our first road game win, which was at New Mexico. That was a big part of it. The thing that we've got to continue to do is keep building on the progress that we're making and continue to keep taking those steps forward as a program to be at the level we want to be. We're striving for that, getting closer to that. As you look at our guys, the games that we have lost, we've been in just about every one of them. We're a play away or two from the momentum switching on the field and being on our side. I appreciate what those guys have done, especially those seniors. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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