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BELL HELICOPTER ARMED FORCES BOWL: ARMY v SOUTHERN METHODISTDecember 30, 2010Darius JohnsonJune JonesDALLAS, TEXAS Army 16 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with Coach Jones, an opening statement about the game. COACH JONES: It was a well-fought game. The turnovers obviously were the difference. We had three and one for seven points, and they had none. It's been a frustrating part this year for us. We went a stretch - four, five games in the middle of the year - without getting a take away, being in the minus column. When you're in that, you're not going to win. I'm proud of how hard the guys played. We didn't play well in the first half, but the kids battled back. Darius made some big plays for us. He's a gamer. He was that way in high school. He's proven he's that way in college. THE MODERATOR: Darius, a statement about your play today. DARIUS JOHNSON: Basically throughout the game I knew it was going to be a big game for really all the receivers because of the coverage they played. I just did what I had to do. Perfect calls by Coach Jones throughout the game. We didn't come out, like he said, in the first half, a few turnovers really came back to bite us in the second half. THE MODERATOR: Questions from the floor. Q. Coach, could you talk about the decision to attempt the 47-yard field goal. You called a timeout before that, too. COACH JONES: Yeah, well, Matty had been making them in the first half, in pregame in that direction. So when I asked him, you know, what his depth was going each way, he said, 65 with the wind and 50 into. I took the timeout just to tell him to hit the ball, relax, don't rush it. It looked like he rushed it, which is easy to do when you're a young kid, a lot on the line. But he had enough leg. Just unfortunate it didn't go in. Q. You took the timeout just to talk to him. COACH JONES: Yeah. Q. No idea of changing your mind? COACH JONES: No. I knew if we didn't make the field goal, we probably weren't going to get the ball back. I just wanted to make sure he was okay, settled. Just hit the ball. Didn't even care if it got blocked, just hit it solid. I knew our protection has been solid inside and they weren't going to come through. You know, too bad. It would have been nice to hit it, obviously. Q. Talk about Kyle in the first half and in the second half, what you noticed. COACH JONES: Well, you know, he didn't go through his progressions in the first half quite like he should have. He did a lot of good things in there today, but you just can't turn the ball over. That's unfortunate. But he'll keep battling through, getting better and better. We'll learn from it. But, you know, he made some good plays in the second half. Thought he made some nice throws. The throw to Darius on the touchdown was a big-time throw. Showed a lot of poise. Couple situations got the ball out. Grew up a lot in the second half. Would have been real easy not to rally up. But that's what the great ones do, they can have that type of first half and come in the second half and do good. Q. The defense played really well. Second straight game they played well enough to win. COACH JONES: I think the defense played well enough pretty much in probably 12 of the 14 games this year to win, I thought. Other than not taking the ball away, I mean, our defense played good enough at UCF and this one to win the game. I'm proud of them. They're playing hard. The one touchdown they gave up, it's always tough when early you never get used to the game speed of it. Once they settled in, they played pretty good football. If we hadn't turned the ball over, hadn't given them the seven points, it would have been obviously a lot happier locker room right now. Q. Coach, last year you had the Bowl win to build off of. How do you build forward from this in your overall plan? COACH JONES: We talked about it in there. We have the foundation built. I think we have a lot of good players coming back. We have a lot of young players committed to come in. We're making the steps in a positive direction to just keep getting better. I've said, Kate has asked me a million times, I think we're a year and a half away from a recruiting class to really have the depth that we need. But I think we're learning how to compete together, play together, all those things that you do, good football teams do. Now we've got to put them together and just keep winning. Q. How important is it that you do have a young team, you're not losing a lot of regulars on both sides of the ball? How important will that be? COACH JONES: We feel like it is. We're going to be green in some areas. We're losing some key players, Youri Yenga and Sterling Moore, to name a few. I know I'm missing another senior. We're still one of the youngest teams in college football. Those guys that come in and fill for them are going to have to step up and play, because those guys are players. We think we have some guys on campus. I'm real proud of Kenneth Acker, how he's played the last month of the season. He's shown he's a gamer. I think we have some young guys that are going to be good football players. Q. Darius, can you talk about the difference between last year's win and what's going on with the team right now? Also, address your future at SMU. Do you plan to be here next year? DARIUS JOHNSON: Of course, we want to win. Throughout the season, we persevered. We took some losses early in the season. To get to this point has really been a blessing for me, and I know has for my teammates. With the help of Coach Jones and the coaches, we always talk about perservering. As far as my career next year, I'm looking forward to becoming a new leader on the team, doing whatever I can to help our team win. Q. Coach, do you have any explanation for the way you came out in the first half? COACH JONES: No, other than we moved the ball. But then you fumble it and they score, you move the ball, you throw a pick. Just didn't do what we did all week. They didn't do anything different. We just didn't do early what we should have done. I think when Kyle looks at the film, he'll be disappointed in the first half and feel good about the second half. Q. Do you think it was just nerves? COACH JONES: I don't think he was nervous, no. I don't think so. I think it's just the discipline of doing your job, not worrying about other things, just do your job. Q. Darius, talk a little bit about what it was like to play a Bowl game at home. Was that strange, comfortable? DARIUS JOHNSON: Being in front of a home crowd is good. We had a lot of supporters. Really didn't feel different. But the intensity of the game, it's a lot different. You know you have the Army crowd going crazy. It was a different experience, but very enjoyable. Q. Coach, could you address what you saw out of the Army side, the pass at the end which sealed up the game? COACH JONES: He's a good football coach, and they do what they do. They're going to get better and better and better. A lot of wishbone teams wouldn't have the courage to throw that play at the end. Rich has always been that way. Even at Cal Poly, they would throw the ball when other wishbone teams don't do it. He has a unique style of play. He's mastered it very well. They're like us. As they get their players in place, they're going to have a good football team for years to come. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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