	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 20, 2017

Chris Ash

Piscataway, New Jersey

COACH ASH: Appreciate you guys coming, as always. Same routine. We'll just review the game a little bit. Talk about our next opponent.

You know, went through and watched the game on Sunday. Obviously was disappointed in the game result on Saturday after the game. Didn't feel any better yesterday watching it. We didn't play very good. That's on me. We didn't coach good, we didn't play good and as the head coach, I take ownership of that and we didn't do what we needed to do, and win or lose -- just disappointed in how we lost.

Started the game off poor. We went to a penalty on the opening kickoff. Penalty on a critical third down situation. Got a defensive stop and fumbled the punt. And then it was a touchdown. Then we had a mental error on a coverage, next drive, another touchdown, and before we could even blink we're down 14-0.

As always, we evaluated the film, looked at the goods and the bads. We learned from it, we move on and apply the lessons that we learned to next week and keep trying to get better.

From an injury standpoint, we came out of the game fairly healthy. Just minor bumps and bruises, typical things that you get in the game, especially at this time of the year.

As we head forward here this next week, it's Senior Week. That's our focus. We have a great group of young men that are going to play their last football here at home. They have gone through a lot here. They have given a lot to the university and to the program. They have gone through a lot during their tenure here, and it's our responsibility to do everything we can to hopefully give these guys one last opportunity to celebrate together with their team and here in our stadium.

You know, Michigan State is a very good team. They have done a great job this year. They have got good players, good coaches, playing with a lot of confidence right now. They play good defense, play good special teams, they run the ball well on offense. It's a very good formula for success, and they have been able to do it this year and get back on track to the way Michigan State has been playing for quite some time.

It's going to be a huge challenge, huge test and another great opportunity for us to go out and finish, but it's about the seniors this week. We're still trying to get another Big Ten win. If we were to win this game, it would be four Big Ten wins. It hasn't happened since Rutgers has been in the Big Ten.

Looking to build positive momentum going into the off-season, which is huge, also. So there's a lot on the line, a lot at stake and a lot to play for here this week.

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

Q. I think I asked you after the game about the effort and whether they played hard. Could you tell that on film?
COACH ASH: Yeah, you can always tell on film. This is the way I operate, you know, when we win games, coaches and players, assistant coaches and players did a great job. When we lose games, I did a bad job and that's it. I did a bad job. Didn't have the team ready and that's my evaluation of watching the film.

Q. Johnathan Lewis, does his role change at all after what you saw on tape last week?
COACH ASH: No. The quarterback situation is the same. The last couple weeks, we have had conversations about the quarterback position a lot. We'll go through the week and evaluate it, and we'll play the person that gives us the best chance to win this next Saturday.

And if that's Johnathan, great; if it's Gio, someone else, whatever, but we'll manage that through the week, evaluate that through the week, and make a decision later on who gives us the best chance to go out and play our best game.

Q. Does that mean it's game-time? Would you characterize it as game-time?
COACH ASH: No. We'll make a decision before that. I mean, that's what's right for the team. But we are not going to make a decision today, on Monday.

We have got to go through some practices and we've got to look at what we need to do against Michigan State, which is a very good defense and see who gives us the best chance to win.

Q. You mentioned this a little bit, but is it important just momentum-wise coming off these two losses to have a better performance heading into the off-season?
COACH ASH: Oh, absolutely. It's a big deal. Any time your last game is a positive game as you go into -- whether like it will be for us, the last game of the regular season, a Bowl game. You go to a Bowl game, you want to win that Bowl game. If you lose it, you go into the off-season with a negative feeling.

Any time you can play your last game and it's a positive feeling, you've played your best football going into off-season workouts and everything, it is, it's a momentum boost. It's an attitude boost. You know, it excites people for the future.

Q. Obviously you've only been here two years, but can you talk about what some of the seniors, guys who have been here 4-5 years, will be playing their last game here in the last game of the season, what they have meant to you in terms of your transition as a head coach and what they have meant to this program?
COACH ASH: Yeah, obviously the biggest impact they have made is this year. Coming off of 2016, the first year, we were changing a lot, going through a lot of transition; a lot of things that we had to get right off the field before we could do things on the field, and these guys have just been rock solid.

They have believed in our vision when others haven't. They stayed the course when others have told them they shouldn't. They believe in our plan and our process, and because of that, we've continued to develop our culture. It's become stronger, our brotherhood, and the product that we have put on the field has gotten a lot better, and it's because of the senior class.

If you're going to have success, I don't care if it's this year, next year, any year, any program, you need your seniors, your upperclassmen, to play their best football, and we had a lot of seniors do that this year. It's because of the way they have been committed since, really, the end of last season and they have done a lot for us. They are going to leave this program -- whether we win or lose on Saturday, on a positive note because we have done some things this year that not a lot of people think we could.

Q. Is it particularly special, the dedication they gave to this, considering those are guys you didn't recruit, obviously.
COACH ASH: Yeah, I don't care whether I recruited them or not. They are my guys, and that's the way I look at it. You know, some of them, I don't know if anyone's had three different coaches since they have been here. I know a lot of them have had two, obviously. But when I come in, we came in, they are our guys. They are my guys and that's the way I look at it.

Again, I don't care who recruited them or who they committed to. We are going to do everything we can to send them off the right way.

Q. How do you balance your answer about the momentum and trying to get a win with the idea that you could play some of the younger guys like you did, I think Fogg played a lot -- I'm not just talking about Johnathan Lewis.
COACH ASH: We're not worried about that. We are worried about a very good Michigan State team. I'm not worried about who gets in, who gets reps and who plays.

It's all about, we need to go play our best game and we need to try to beat a very good Michigan State team. That's it. That does more for your future than getting somebody a few reps here or there.

We know what we have in our younger players. They have played enough, whether it be on offense, defense or special teams. We have a really good idea of what they can do. If they give us the best chance to go play our best game against a good football team, then they will play. If they don't, they won't, and that's where we're at.

We have an obligation and responsibility to make sure that our seniors have a chance to finish their career on a positive note, and we're going to put the players that we feel give us the best chance to do that on field on Saturday.

Q. With the season winding down, what's kind of your approach to guys who might be considering leaving a year early and going to the NFL Draft, what kind of approach do you take to deal with that?
COACH ASH: We're not having those conversations right now. Our focus is on Michigan State. That's where it needs to be. If people are worried about what they are going to do after the Michigan State game, we have no chance to win the game.

I'm not focused on that. We have our calendars set. We know what we're going to do in the off-season, all that stuff, what we're doing in recruiting. But as a coach and as a player, our focus has to be on our preparation, our practices and doing our job as good as we can for Michigan State. All the other stuff, we'll worry about that when the season's over.

Q. You made a couple changes during the game, Jackson for Applefield, any changes along the offensive line?
COACH ASH: Not at this moment. A lot of things that happen in a game, happen in a game for potential injury reasons or Jonah's back. He was a starter. I'd like to see him get some reps. That's a guy that needs some reps to get back in there. So there's different reasons why that happened. Doesn't mean there's going to be a change in the lineup for next week.

Q. A guy like Janarion that has not had the senior year he wanted, when you look back at his year, how do you sum that up and do you expect him to get on the field this Saturday?
COACH ASH: He's still day-to-day. For him to play Saturday, it would probably be a game-time position.

We knew it was going to be a potential struggle for Janarion. He had a very serious injury. You know, he's a skilled athlete and he had an injury in a tough spot for a skilled athlete. It wasn't like it was a shoulder; that was an ankle. And with him returning the ball a lot and potentially needing to run a lot, he's going to get tackled a lot. Every time he got tackled, especially low around the ankle, you worried about it.

You know, it's come up. It's hurt us and it's hurt him. You know, when I say "hurt him", hurt him from having the type of senior year that he wanted and we all wanted, and something we knew we were going to potentially have to manage.

Q. When you look at other programs around the Big Ten and how they have built themselves into what they are, and you see what Michigan State has done constructing its identity, are there things about that program that, you know, you'd like to be able to model here in some ways?
COACH ASH: Well, I mean, yeah, you want to have your own identity. But it's like the things I just mentioned about Michigan State, what do they do, what are they known for and they are not the only ones. Wisconsin's this way; Michigan's this way; Ohio State's this way. First and foremost, what do those teams do? They play really good defense.

To be able to win -- again, I talk about it all the time, our plan to win, you have got to be able to play really good defense to be able to consistently win in this league. From there, you have to play good special teams, also. And when you look at the top teams in this league, that's what they have: Good defenses, good special teams.

And then the third part of it you have to be able to run the ball. And if you can do those three things, it means you can control the line of scrimmage up front on both sides. You're changing field position with special teams. You know, we've done that at times this year. We haven't done it consistently enough and we definitely haven't done it against the top teams in this league yet, but that's really what we want to do.

Now, how we do that, that's different. You can do it with different personnel groupings, different sets, quarterback run, tailback runs, all that stuff, different fronts defensively. But at the end of the day if we can play great defense, play great special teams and we can run the football, you're going to have a chance to win games.

Q. Ross Douglas has talked a lot about how he wants to become a coach when his football career ends on the field. What kind of future do you think he has doing that?
COACH ASH: I don't know why he wants to do that.

Q. What I didn't see?
COACH ASH: My advice? Don't do it. (Laughter). Don't do it. Yeah, job security, go right ahead. You want great job security, go be a coach.

I love Ross. You know, Ross is a very intelligent kid. Loves the game of football. Really proud he made the decision to come here and the effort that he puts forth every single day.

I'm happy for him. He's made a ton of progress since he's been here. He's made a significant contribution to our football team this year. I think he'll be an outstanding coach if that's what he wants to do.

I know he and I have had those conversations and he's going to test the water a little bit here in the spring with that. My advice is not to do it, but that's what he wants to do. So if that's what he wants to do, we're going to do everything we can to help him.

Q. Jawuan Harris, what's the plan going forward: Safety, third down, maybe wide receiver? And second part would be just how he's come along, six games at defensive back, is that surprising to you, how well he's played?
COACH ASH: Yeah, the same plan -- answer the first part of the question. With where we're at from an injury standpoint at wide receiver with Janarion questionable, Damon Mitchell questionable; you know, if we need Jawuan on offense again, he was ready for an emergency last week; that we would still use him.

In terms of defensive back, he continues to get better at a lot of things. There's certain things that he's got to continue to get better at. Because there are certain things just like playing wide receiver, it just takes a lot of reps to get good at, and a lot of that just being focused on your key and being able to react instinctively to what your key tells you to do.

Sometimes he's able to do that. Sometimes he's a little bit slower because it's new. The inability to maybe adjust to new things that come up that he hasn't seen is a struggle, and that's just with all players and it just takes a lot of reps. You can't do back to week one and say, hey, remember when this team did this or we had to do that. Those banked reps are not there yet.

But I can't say enough about what Jawuan has done for our football team in the games that he has been a defensive back. We couldn't even have potentially lined up and given ourselves a chance to be successful if he wouldn't have done what he's done.

Q. Zach Allen, I think he was emergency as a wide receiver. Is that still the plan for him?
COACH ASH: He might be left tackle this week. We'll see how it goes from an injury standpoint.

Zach, you know, again, a kid that came in as a grad transfer, things didn't work out quite like he had hoped as a quarterback and then the injury. You know, he made the commitment to stay this year, not knowing what the season was going to be like for him because he's got a torn ACL right now. Made a decision to not have surgery. Just a selfless individual, just really like Ross.

So happy to have him on our football team. And everybody wants to measure an individual's contributions based off the stats sheet from Saturday, but that's not what Zach brings to the table. He's a very high-character individual; is great with the younger players. He's great in the quarterback room and is willing to do anything to help the football team. You know, you can't have enough guys like that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297