	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

ARMY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 20, 2010

Rich Ellerson

ARMY Â– 3
NOTRE DAME - 27

THE MODERATOR: Opening statement from Coach Ellerson and then we'll take questions.
COACH ELLERSON: We didn't play very well, and we got clobbered. Interesting they came out and played a defense frankly that looked a little bit like what Rutgers played. Was not on our short list of things to work against.
But I thought our guys came out and managed it reasonably well. Didn't freak out, we executed reasonably well. Our rules kicked in and we got the ball down the field. We were able to keep their safety from being a little too active.
Then we just we made too many errors. We'd get behind in the count. We missed Brian Cobbs. We missed the guy that pitched the ball because they made us pull the ball to the perimeter. Their safety got awfully active, and it got hard to make a yard.
Having said that, I thought, coming out at halftime -- I felt like if we could come out and have a good drive coming out of halftime, we could make that interesting. And it had I think settled down, made the adjustments. The guys understood exactly what needed to happen, and the antithesis of that happens when you do the things you can't do. And the ball changers give up a touchdown. You throw an interception for a touchdown and make a hard job really, really, really hard.
But I was proud of the way our defense came back in the second half. They were overmatched, and they were having a hard time getting pressure on their quarterback, which is something we have to be able to do. Frankly, we had a hard time doing that, so they handled it.
Just a week ago I thought against Utah they handled both lines of scrimmages and that was the case again tonight.

Q. What was the rationale for not giving the touchdown a shot on the first possession? 4th and 3, maybe could have made a little bit of a statement there and you settled for the field goal?
COACH ELLERSON: Yeah, again, 0-0. I wanted to be ahead. Well, I'd like to -- we started off 1st and 3. Yeah, we hadn't had it. If it was a little closer than that if we're having some success down there.
But, again, they came out on a defense we had not prepared for, and the short yardage defense again was something that was a little bit out of the Rutgers book or at least how we'd interpret it. No, I wanted to get the lead first.

Q. You had a lot of success on the pitch early on in the game with Mealy and Cobbs. What changed in your view in the rest of the game?
COACH ELLERSON: Well, not having Brian hurt us a little bit. Then you saw how much more aggressive their safety was able to get. We were initially -- in that initial possession we were able to put some play-action pass. Try to at least make him think about that and keep him. Then we managed to crack him a couple of times.
Whatever it took to control that because we could not get our linemen down field. He was having his way with us in the alley, so we tried. There's a couple things we can do to try to control that.
But, as I say, I think what happens to a team like that, they've been trying to approximate our offense in practice, and after they've had a quarter or so to practice, they were playing pretty well.

Q. In general terms, could you elaborate on the differences in alignment and assignments from Notre Dame's game plan against Navy to the one they used against you today?
COACH ELLERSON: Well, against Navy they ran what they run most weeks, they were in an odd defense. Against us, as I say, they were in four-man front. They were playing two I-techniques on both sides of the ball. They got in some even defense as well.
Just, in general, they were playing a four-man front, covered our guards. Where basically in the Navy game they left the guards uncovered throughout. In this game they covered both guards inside out. Covered both tackles, and they have some good people that clobbered us a little bit.
As I say, what they're going to do is make it hard for your offensive tackles to be effective blocking either linebackers or safeties, and they were effective doing that.

Q. Do you wish you could have gotten Jared jump Starred a little bit earlier today?
COACH ELLERSON: You always love for your fullback to be a factor, but that was obviously -- you run the triple and that part and some of the midline stuff. It's on them. They can take the fullback away because that defender is unblocked, and they did. That was clearly even to the point where we were trying to outside release our tackles to try to influence those guys out of there and get Jared started and they were having none of it.
As I said, we lacked the ability to get on the edge as the game progressed with our pitch.

Q. Was Trent trying to do too much on those two picks?
COACH ELLERSON: (Indiscernible).

Q. On defense you gave up 214 yards passing. Was that more from a difficulty through the pass-rush or just did Notre Dame have passing plays you weren't expecting?
COACH ELLERSON: No, they have matchups. We felt like our best chance was going to be to control the run, keep it thick, and try to keep it thick in the middle of the field. We knew we were going to have a challenge from a match-up standpoint really across the board. We needed our safety to be in a lot of places.
The common denominator on stuff like that is pressure. And that's where we were a little disappointed because we knew if we were going to be successful consistently on defense, it was going to be with pressure. We were going to keep it on the field and force some bad throws, and we weren't doing it consistently at all.
Having said that, I thought defensively we battled back. I thought the effort in the second half was a good effort. That was a good effort against a good offensive team. With those matchups, we were suffering out there.

Q. What effect, if any, will this game have on the preparation for Navy? Obviously you have a little bit to go.
COACH ELLERSON: The big concern from that respect is just the injury part of it. Just trying to get some guys well. We have a chance to. I don't think -- we had some guys out, but I don't know that we suffered anything seriously and that should help.
Every week's another adventure. This is a resourceful bunch. They love to play. They're disappointed. They know they didn't play their best football, but they played hard, they competed.
We play without a lot of margin for error. That is the outfit we have, and we'll be excited to play. Thank you.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297