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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 1, 2017

Chris Ash

Piscataway, New Jersey

Washington - 30, Rutgers - 14

COACH ASH: Really disappointed. Happy about the fight and the toughness and the improvement that a lot of guys made. A number of players played their first college football game tonight on national television.

Did a lot of good things. Made some mistakes ask and some critical errors, or in critical situations that cost us but we'll keep moving forward. Keep getting better.

But I like the direction that we're going. You know, if we can keep this team healthy, keep getting better, there will be a lot of fun football games to watch on Saturday nights here, or Saturday afternoons here at this stadium with our football team.

With that, I'll go ahead and open it up for questions.

Q. You said a couple times in the off-season, that the team has much improved, the overall competitiveness compared to last year. What do you think that says --
COACH ASH: You tell me. What did you see?

Q. Saw a more competitive football game.
COACH ASH: That's it.

Q. You spend a lot of time on special teams, fielding punts, disappointing from your standpoint --
COACH ASH: From fielding punts?

Q. Yeah, covering punts.
COACH ASH: Fielding punts we were fine. Covering punts, we wanted the punt to go out of bounds. Didn't go out of bounds. Simple as that. We didn't execute what we wanted to get done.

Q. Did Anderson outkick the coverage?
COACH ASH: We don't want it to go 60 yards. That's not what we want on our punt team but we also wanted the ball to go out of bounds. So two negatives and one play, went too far and didn't go out of bounds. It was his first game. He'll get better. He's a very mature kid and cares a lot.

But his first game on a stage like this; he understands what we want. Just on that particular play, you know, went too far, and didn't go where we wanted to go but still got to get the guy down. We didn't get that done.

Q. What did you think of Kyle's performance tonight?
COACH ASH: Did some good things -- until we watch the film. He had some pretty good poise back there. Probably put the ball in harm's way twice for the two interceptions that were costly turnovers. I thought our ball security offensively with the running backs was outstanding but we made two costly mistakes with the ball. We threw it with two interceptions.

I thought he managed the game well. There were some times when we weren't in the right formations and he got the formations right. There's a couple times he checked plays against different looks that they were giving us. He got us in and out of the right plays. I thought he had pretty good poise.

You know, he executed the game plan. Other than the two plays where he made a poor decision, but he executed to the game plan. He worked the clock to shorten the game the way we wanted to tonight. Didn't panic as the time was going down. A lot of good things to build off of, but you know, when you're playing a team like this, you can't make those mistakes and put the ball in harm's way because they will make you play.

Q. The decision on fourth and one in the third quarter, from the Washington 44?
COACH ASH: In terms of --

Q. Why punt there?
COACH ASH: Field position. As simple as that. If we go for it on fourth down, we don't make it, you guys are asking me: Why the hell did you go for it. We punt it. We played the field position, which we wanted to try to do. Didn't quite get the punt that we wanted to flip the field quite like we wanted but that was the theory behind that decision, was try to play field position in a tight ballgame.

Q. You said you guys wanted to shorten the game obviously. Should you have gone a little faster on offense late in the first half?
COACH ASH: No, not at all.

Q. Seems like you were --
COACH ASH: No, we were good. Yeah, exactly what we wanted to do.

Q. Your decision for Kemoko Turay, he didn't come in until second quarter. What was the reasoning behind that?
COACH ASH: He missed most of training camp. The kid, he missed several weeks of practice, you know, in training camp. He wasn't ready to go out and start the game.

You know, Elorm had done a great job in training camp. Got all the reps. Did a great job. He played exceptionally well, too, tonight.

Q. Defensive line overall, how did you feel that they performed -- obviously before you've seen the film.
COACH ASH: We wore out in the second half. Hurt our pass rush. I thought we were doing a great job earlier in the game. We were stopping a hundred, ten or 15 yards rushing at half-time and I thought we were putting good pressure on the quarterback in the first half but we wore out in the second half. That's a concern. You know, we really knew we were going to struggle at times with some pass rush, and we got tired and that showed up.

Q. Overall, this was a 48-3 game in the third quarter last year against the same team. Is there a feeling that you're looking at a team that's much-improved? Do you feel that way?
COACH ASH: Yeah, I've got to watch the film. I mean, again, we were in a really good ballgame. Last year, you watch that game, and you would have said, there was a lot of physical mismatches across the board. I don't feel that way right now.

I feel like we just didn't execute in some critical situations on some key plays that cost us that football game. Until we learn how not to do that, you know, we won't come out on the winning end.

I feel like we're bigger, we're stronger, we're more athletic and we've got the ability to go toe-to-toe with good football teams but again, to beat them, we're going to have to play better football.

Q. The passes -- maintaining your offensive --
COACH ASH: Yeah, I thought Gus played an outstanding football game tonight. I thought he and Ron Martin both did. I thought we ran the ball pretty well at times. A couple times we had some negative yardage plays but it wasn't them. We kind of shorted some things up on the offensive line in some critical situations but I thought in terms of rushing the football it tonight, Gus and Rob both ran hard. They protected the football exceptionally well. I thought they blocked well, so very pleased with what the running backs did tonight.

Blackshear got in and got a few reps. Really nice to see a freshman get a first down opportunity to play in a big-time game like this and he had a couple productive plays. I feel really good about our running back position overall. You know, they will keep getting better.

Q. That first drive kind of set the tone for the first half. How much of that 11 plays is scripted beforehand and Kyle's touchdown pass there, kind of threading the needle there, those two things? How much of that is scripted and what did you think of Kyle's touchdown pass there?
COACH ASH: You know, most teams always script their opening plays, their opening drives. We're no different.

You know, situations come up within a drive that may cause you to get off-script or think twice about what you had scripted. But I thought Jerry called a great game. You know, put ourselves in position to, again, shorten the game, move the sticks. We scored some points. If we take care of a couple other things here and there, we're in a tight ballgame with a chance to potentially tie or win the game. It is what it is right now, but you know, to answer your question, yeah, a lot of the opening drive is scripted.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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