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SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 20, 2018

Rocky Long

San Diego, California

San Jose State - 13, San Diego State - 16

HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Opening statement: We won.

Q. What is it about all these close games but you guys find a way to win?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I don't know. I really don't. I mean, I think we continue to play hard no matter what the situation is. We continue to play hard, where some teams might give in or give up, and if you continue to play hard, you have a chance to win.

Q. How much of what Jasmin did last week influenced you to start Kaegun on that first play?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: No, I think we're looking for a running back. I think we're looking for a guy that we think can carry it 20 to 25 times and have a backup that can carry it ten to 15 times.

I don't know, obviously tonight, neither -- none of them separated themselves from the other ones. I thought Chance Bell looked pretty good. Kaegun Williams didn't get back in after he fumbled.

And then chase did okay, too, but you know, I don't see the consistent -- consistency of them finding the holes and gaining positive yards when it doesn't look like there's a hole there and we are kind of used to seeing that around here.

Q. How much of Juwan's injury is kind of making you put in a lot of these young guys?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Well, I think there's a lot of injuries that are making us play a lot of young guys, but obviously the running back situation is one where we're looking for a starting running back because Juwan won't be back probably for another couple weeks.

So we are looking for a starting running back and I don't necessarily -- or Coach Horton could answer that better than me but I don't necessarily see us having a starting running back. There's no one that out-distanced himself from any of the others.

So what you do then is you kind of share carries and hope one of them gets hot during the game, and tonight, I thought Chance Bell, he did some really nice things when he was in there.

Q. The opponent tonight didn't really factor into how many guys you were going to rush -- run. Would you do the same thing possibly next week, as well?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Could possibly do the same thing next week. I think we are trying to find out who the best guy is.

Now, in Chase's case, he didn't practice as much, either, because he missed a couple practices, and the guys that practice a lot, you play them more often than the guys that don't practice because they kind of know what's going on

Q. How much does all that play a role in the offense not finding its consistency yet this year?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I would say that has a lot to do with it. It seemed like we moved a lot -- the ball, a lot better when Juwan was the tailback, didn't it? You keep forgetting, we're missing our starting quarterback, too. I mean and we have some receivers that are out, too.

I mean, it's not like -- it's not like we have the same group out there that we started the season with. And everybody -- everybody has injuries, but we're so young, we actually took 24 freshmen this time to the hotel and that's -- I don't know, that's more than a third of our travel squad. That means more of a third of our team that is playing, our freshmen, our redshirt freshman freshmen. And we are a very inconsistent football team and a lot of it has to do with being that young.

We've got to start getting better here pretty quick.

Q. With that youth and inconsistency, are you surprised you've been able to move to 6-1?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I'm a little surprised we won all those games, yeah.

Now, in my opinion, we actually had two games where we played lights-out, okay. So we've got to get to the point that we can play lights-out more often than we are. Maybe some of it's because we are losing guys here and there so we can't be consistent with who is on the field.

I mean, in a normal situation, the defense played okay, but we're not in a normal situation. Our defense has to play outstanding for us to have a chance to win the game. That's about what they do against everybody else. In fact, that's fewer points than they score against everybody else.

You know, but I thought their defense played a whole lot better than I anticipated their defense would play.

So you've got to give them credit. I mean, any time you're 0-6 and can play that hard, that long, they have got great kids in their program and their coaches are doing a great job at San Jose.

Q. Do you think the beginning of the game was more of a slow start by you guys or a hot start by the Spartans?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Oh, I didn't think it was a hot start by them. They only kicked field goals, and one of them was after we fumbled the ball down there by about the 30-yard line, so they weren't hot.

In fact, if I'm in the booth watching as a spectator, I would say the defense played really good, only giving up two field goals in those situations because if you give up touchdowns, that game might be over.

You know, those two stops where we made them kick field goals and then stopping them on fourth down are the difference in the game because early in the game they score those two touchdowns instead of field goals, it's 14-0. How many did we score? 60? It would have been hard to win that game.

Q. When you were talking about the two games that you guys played lights-out in, I'm assuming one was the Boise game. Is that where you want the defense to be?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Yeah, I think that's what we strive to be like that every week on defense. We weren't there this week.

Q. I know better than to ask you this question, but you are going to a Bowl game and you're Bowl eligible?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: We're Bowl eligible, that's nice.

Q. Given the limitations you have right now, there are not many teams in the country --
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I appreciate you being positive. I appreciate that.

Q. Not many teams in the country can say that.
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: That's nice that we are Bowl eligible, but you can ask all our fans and everybody -- not everybody, but the majority of people here watching and the people that were watching on TV, if we're not Bowl eligible, they are upset. Our program has gotten to the point right now that if we don't win, or don't go to Bowl games, everybody's mad and wondering what's wrong.

So I guess I fall into that category, too. We won tonight and my father always told me, there's no such thing as a bad win. So there's no such thing as a bad win.

But I'm very disappointed on how we played.

Q. Do you see any improvement down the line for the offense?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: We'd better improve. If we want to win any more games, we'd better improve.

Q. What do you think is ultimately holding back the offense from being able to score and be able to beat teams by more than such a tight margin every single week?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I don't think we have the explosive tailback that we've had over the last four years, and okay, maybe the offensive line isn't playing quite as good as we anticipate or expect them to play. But there was a couple times tonight that would have been touchdowns in the past.

Q. Do you think that with more senior leadership coming back, with Chapman coming back and Juwan down the road, that's going to improve the offense in any way?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I think if Juwan is back and he's healthy, you'll see a lot of difference.

Q. What about Christian?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Oh, I think we've got two good quarterbacks now and that's a good problem to have. I think it would be a security blanket to the coaches if Christian was 100 percent because you can take turns or you can go with the hot hand or -- now coach Horton will make this decision. My understanding is if Christian is 100 percent, he's our starter. That's my understanding.

Q. Is that the plan, to play both of them?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: No. It just gives you that security; if one of them is not playing very good, you can try putting the other one in and see if that changes things. And they are both very good friends, so they would not take that personally whatsoever. They both want to play but they also both want to win. So if one guy is having a bad night, the other one, he won't have a problem letting the other guy see if he's having a good night.

Q. You talk about your sort of security blanket of a kicker. Seems to consistently come through --
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: Kickers are -- are a strange group (Laughter). John's about as normal a kicker as I've ever been around.

And I told him, so he didn't hear it from somebody else, I told him what I was calling him when he kicked that kickoff out of bounds and they got the ball at the 35-yard line. And so I told him that. And he was okay. It didn't bother him. It didn't ruin his day.

And I said, "Can you make it from here?"

And he said, "How far is it?"

"I've been told it was 51."

"Well, let's go for it."

I said, "Go on." It was 52. That's why it hit the crossbar. If I had told him 52, it wouldn't have hit the crossbar. He'd have made it by a little bit more.

Q. Back to the running backs. Do you feel situationally Byrd could be the jet sweep guy and you see Chase more between the tackles?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I think our offensive coaches, coach Horton and our offensive coaches do a great job of designing plays that match each individual's abilities.

And you're right, Jordan Byrd is the fastest guy on our team so he's probably going to be the fly sweep guy. He faked it a couple times tonight. They did, too. They fake fly sweep and hand it to the tailback. You watch as a guy comes on a fly sweep, you see if the defense adjusts to take away the fly sweep and then sometimes it opens up a cut back lane or the tailback.

As soon as he goes on a fly sweep, if you don't see the defense adjust to the fly sweep, then you come back and hand the fly sweep. So he was our fly sweep guy tonight but they were adjusting, so there was no reason to hand him the ball.

Q. Do you feel like you used Chase more similar to the way you use Juwan?
HEAD COACH ROCKY LONG: I think we're looking for what they all do the best. Obviously when you run a power play, it doesn't matter who the tailback is. It's blocked the same way. He has to find the seam and get in the seam.

But there's some other things, like tosses and who is the best receiver out of the backfield and that kind of stuff, where you'll find out and try to use their abilities to the best of your benefit.

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