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TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: CENTRAL FLORIDA v BAYLORDecember 31, 2013George O'LearyGLENDALE, ARIZONA THE MODERATOR: We'll open with comments from coach and then go to questions. COACH O'LEARY: I want to first of all thank the Fiesta Bowl committee, everybody involved. I think they did an outstanding job this week, just great hosts. Tostitos was outstanding as far as what they've done with the team. We had a good week here. Looking forward to the competition tomorrow as far as the game is concerned. With that, I'll open it up to questions. Q. What does this game mean to you personally? You've been through a lot of trials and tribulations in your career. Early in your career at UCF, fans weren't happy with you. COACH O'LEARY: Well, I don't worry whether people like me or not. That's never been a big item in my agenda. I tell you, as a coach, I've been at this now, this is my 46th year, at all the different levels. I'm happy for our players. The fan base have been waiting to get to a game like this for so long.  We're still so young in tradition. That's the things you look at. We've only been playing Division I football since '97. I think we arrived 10 years ago. Each year got better in certain areas of the segments of the football team. Again, I think it's very difficult to get to a BCS game. Obviously you have to have a good football team to get there. I think this year was the culmination of a lot of good things happening to the team. Not every game was always pretty, but every game we went out for 60 minutes, we ended up winning the game. That's what's important. I think as far as myself is concerned, I'm not one to be patting anyone on the back very much. I think basically it's hard to get here, in my experience. The key is to stay here. That's the key as far as football is concerned at this level. Again, we had a very young football team. Only seven seniors that are leaving. I think the future's bright. Again, it's a new team next year. We'll see what we can get done with them. But I've been very proud of the team and what they've accomplished. Just the effort, the competitiveness that they worked with. It's just not football. Academically over half the team made the honor roll. Those are things that I'm most proud of. Q. When you look at some of the players that have contributed, guys with not a lot of stars in recruiting. How do you identify and find players like Will Stanback, Blake Bortles? COACH O'LEARY: First of all, I think a lot of the universities use the star system, and the coach usually gets fired three years later. I don't think there's a science to recruiting. I think you have to look at tape. That's what I look at. I think the eye in the sky doesn't lie. They take kids that don't fit their program. I think the key to recruiting is to take kids that fit into the culture of your program. Chemistry‑wise is so important on the football field as far as the program is concerned. I spend a lot of time grading recruits. The key thing is height, weight, speed, the things that you have to have. You always recruit range. I think the key, it's not what they've done in high school that's important. How many five stars you never hear about, all right? You look at the NFL, the NFL is full of three stars and two stars because it's what they've accomplished in college that's important, how quick they can take 'coach me' attitude on as far as getting things done. That's how we've looked at it. We've had many of kids that wanted to come to UCF, but they didn't fit into the program. I'm strictly into 'we' guys, I'm not into 'me' guys. I think with all the exposure high school players are getting, we're developing a lot of 'me' guys, instead of 'we' guys. You win championships for two reasons, you can run the ball and stop the run. A bunch of 'we' guys, winning is the most important thing, not their stats. That's the culture we have and the culture of the type of player we're looking for. Q. You said that you were most proud of what these guys accomplished in the classroom. Second best graduation rate of anybody on a BCS team. How does that help these guys on the field? COACH O'LEARY: It's nice when you can talk to somebody and not have to draw a drawing so they understand what you're talking about. I think the big thing is, I always look at how many times you have to repeat something to a certain player, all right? I think the big thing is that our kids work at the game. They understand when they come into the football facility there's nothing more important than the two hours we're going to spend there as far as football is concerned. I don't really talk about the chemistry class at that time or something else they may be taking. But they understand what their role is and basically what they should be doing at different times. We spend an awful lot of time on time management. That's the biggest problem with young kids today is really time management, what they're supposed to be doing at certain times of the day. That's the biggest issue I spend as far as with our freshmen all the time, is understanding there's priorities. I always talk to them, there's four things you get concerned about: their faith, if they're going to church, keep going; academics; football; and the one item, as long as you keep it fourth, their social life. As one freshman said, Coach, First season I never met anybody. I said, You met all your teammates, that's your fraternity. You'll meet a couple more people in the winter. And then a couple more. So you'll have about 10 people you met before you graduate, so you'll be all right. Q. How do you find all these kids in the backwoods of Georgia? Do you feel a season like this alleviates, 'UCF doesn't recruit well'? When you have seasons like this, you can say, We know how to find talent? COACH O'LEARY: We rate players, too. As far as the backwoods of Georgia, you've been to Georgia, right? Q. Yes. COACH O'LEARY: Not too many backwoods there anymore. My experience at Georgia Tech, I was there 13 years, five years as a coordinator, eight years as a head coach. They know what kind of players we're looking for. They'll actually call down and say, That's a Coach O'Leary type of kid. They know I want kids that are going to come in and work hard, parents that know what's going on. As I offer scholarships, I say it's a family scholarship. That doesn't mean their brother or sister are coming along with them, but the parents are going to be involved in everything we do. Whether good or bad, I'm going to be on the phone talking to them saying, Hey, here is what's going on, I need your support. That's the reason you go into every home you recruit, to see what the support element is. We've been very fortunate. We've had great parents. I'm happy when someone graduates four or five years ago, they walk in, they have a great job. They understand what time management is, they understand what it takes to get along in later life. That's what the scholarship is about. You have to go out and be competitive and win games. But the student end of it is the part of the head coach's job you have to make sure you get done, too, when they graduate, they're ready for the outside world. Q. Have you seen team speed, especially offensively, like Baylor has? How do you deal with that? COACH O'LEARY: I tell you what, Baylor is a very explosive offensive football team. They have some speed on defense also. The key is, I think Art does a great job of attacking defenses. The one thing he's done since I played him last time was he has those wide receivers way out there. You have to almost commit three guys there, sometimes a fourth. I asked him the other night if he would bring them in a little bit to help us out. He didn't seem to answer that question (smiling). I think that's the biggest difference. Most of these teams that spread, they either throw it all the time or they run it sometimes to keep you honest. I think Baylor has a really good running game. They have some power people up front. I think Petty does a great job of reading coverage and getting it to the right receiver. Obviously our game we have to be able to tackle in space, attack quickly. I think their receivers, a lot of their yardage is not straight‑on throws, but yack, after a five or six‑yard throw, what they make after it. Again, you have to attack and secure the tackle on the tackle. Understand they're going to complete some passes, but let's not make them passes that are behind us. That's the time you really start getting in trouble. Q.  You only get today to do the walk‑through over there in Glendale. What do you hope the kids get out of there? Is there anything left to do to prepare? COACH O'LEARY: We never workout where we're playing. We show up and check the locker room out so it's not new the first time they're walking in. We won't be in Glendale more than 10 minutes, then going back to Pinnacle High School to practice. Same grass. Not much different. But I think you want to see the surroundings before they get there. We've never practiced at an away site. We always practice at home, then go and just check the facility out. I think the players, they're in bowl mode right now. Last night, 10:30 curfew. Leaving, everybody was asleep when they went to their room. That's either a real good sign or a bad sign, but I'm taking it as a good sign (laughter). Q. You talked about being at Georgia Tech as long as you were. You've been at UCF now for 10 years. How important is that stability, keeping coaches with you, too? COACH O'LEARY: I think stability is the key, I really do. The difference is the administration has changed since I first started. Normally your coaches came up through the ranks, one of them took over the AD job. He understood the pressures that are involved in being a head coach. He understood the problems. Today I see more and more business ADs that listen to sometimes the wrong ears. They're firing guys before they have a chance to really get the program under their feet and doing things the correct way. Again, I think when you look at the whole situation, it's changed. The game has changed. Obviously it's a big space game now. Three yards, a cloud duster over. When you check the records, whether it's the Super Bowl, Division I championship, high school championship, it comes down to the same things all the time. Look at the teams that don't commit a lot of penalties, have good special teams and basically can run the ball and stop the run. They're the ones that end up in championship games. Offense obviously sells tickets and puts people in the seats. When you come down to the real nuts and bolts of what wins championships, it's those other areas when you check the history of football out. Q. You have so few seniors, but you found a way to win so many of these close games. What do you attribute that to? COACH O'LEARY: Coaching (smiling). I think we have great assistant coaches. The way it works, the way I see it, head coaches coach coaches, and coaches coach players. That's what I've always believed. I think you sort of have to be a jack of all trades as a coach. You see a lot of high school coaches that come into the ranks of college, they do extremely well because they're versed in all the areas. They're not specialized in one side of the ball or the other. You look at Art, he coached high school. He's coached it all. He has a real grip on what's taking place on the field. If you look throughout the country, the guys with some high school background really do well, because they sort of have a little bit more of knowledge of all the positions, not just the one they played or coached in college. But I think the key this year is when we had the opportunity to make plays, we've made them, whether on offense or defense. Again, I think offensively this year, I thought coming back this year we were going to be a solid offense. We had all the receivers back, quarterback back, linebackers back, runningbacks back. The addition of William Stanback, he was a good surprise for us.  I expected him to be very solid, be able to move the chains, put the ball in the end zone. Defensively we started off fairly decent. We basically lost six players during the season, not just during the season, but for the year. We had to fill in there. I think those players have overachieved when I look at it. They've overachieved. We're not making it difficult for them, we're keeping it simple so they can use their athleticism. They have the ability to make plays, which is the name of the game on defense. You have to get off the field on spread teams. You have to kill the time some way. That will be the job of the defense. That will be a tough job against Baylor, which I think is an outstanding offense. Q. Can you talk about what Blake has been able to do in his career, show people his ability. COACH O'LEARY: Blake Bortles, it's funny, we knew about him because he's from Oviedo, which is a town next door to the college. He was a wing T quarterback. They don't get a a lot of notoriety.  They usually just turn around, hand the ball off or run some bootlegs or play action. We had him in camp. You could see he was athletic. He had the throws you need. I look at quarterbacks, if you put them on a hash, if they can throw a three‑cut, get outside, they have arm strength to win at this level. He had all that. We offered him in camp. Not many other people, they knew about him. It's like anything else, he wasn't a four or five star. I laugh at it all the time. I say, Thank you. But I think he's a kid, if he didn't play quarterback, he'd be a heck of a tight end. That's what I looked at. When you look at quarterbacks, I look at them as, Can they play another position? I think the day of just strictly the drop‑back quarterback is over. I think the pass‑rush, the pressures they put on athletes today, you got to be able to avoid a rush and make a play, take a bad play, make a good play out of it. He came in, 6'4", 6'5", about 225, that has great instinct. I think first year out, when you get behind that center, it all looks like a bunch of spiders over there, they're moving too fast for a freshman quarterback. This second year, they all slowed down, those spiders. He understood where the reads were, where the coverage was, where the weakness of the coverage was, where the run front mechanics should be going. Plus, he's not a real high guy, low guy. He's always right in the middle somewhere. I think that's basically why don't elect quarterbacks captain. They are a captain already. That's what I look at. But I think he's a kid that takes things in stride. I think he's done a great job of answering questions regarding the NFL. He's concerned. I really truly believe that. I've kept my eye on him. Some of you know me better than others here. But his mind and his focus is on this game. I went down the other night. Free time, he's sitting there watching tape. So I expect him to know where to go with it, hope we give him the time to let him get the ball where it needs to go. But he's matured. That's what he has done. I think basically the one aspect he has, great poise back there. He never gets unsettled. I saw one game this year I thought he got unsettled with South Carolina. He had thrown a couple of picks that he knew were just bad plays. It was a 'woe me' type thing. I had a talk with him. I said, One way or the other, you have to move on to the next play because the kids in that huddle look at you as the guy. He is the guy, there's no question about it. One thing that people don't realize, he has a lot of weapons around him. We play six receivers, they all can catch. A couple of runningbacks will be in there. 225, 220 guys that can carry the rock. Probably the most important thing offensively has been that the frontline, that's one area that hasn't had any injuries all year. That's been a very fortunate idea as far as what's going on as far as offense is concerned because that's where you have the toughest chemistry, making sure they're all on the same page. Blake, I'm going to meet with him when I get back on the 3rd, with his parents, give him the information I have, talk with some GMs, just where he stands. Again, whatever decision him and his family make, I'm going to be very happy for him. Obviously as a coach you want him back. But I want to do what's best for him. I'll relay the information I got. Then it's really a family decision, what's best for him, and we move on from there. Q. How does winning so many close games this season help you prepare for a game like this? COACH O'LEARY: I hope it's like that, close at the end. I think youth has something to do with that. Sometimes you look at experience as helping you out. The young kids didn't know any better but to play with great effort for 60 minutes and good things were going to happen. I always tell them, You play with great effort every play, good things will eventually happen. You have so many kids today that are front‑runners. As soon as things go wrong, their heads go down. They were allowed to do that in high school and everything else. That's not how you win games. You go on the field. It's a 60‑minute game for a reason. That's one thing I think the assistant coaches have done a great job with, It's the next play that's the most important play, move on. I think that's one thing the kids have taken and run with and have done a good job. Q. When you look at UCF's athletic budget, it's half of some of the teams you've beaten. Do you ever wonder what your program could be like if you had the budget that some of these other BCS schools have? COACH O'LEARY: I'm sure the coaches would be fatter (smiling). I'm not one to keep up with the Jonses. I think at UCF we have what we need to do to win. Obviously the big difference is recruiting. We're driving to schools. Some schools are flying. I think the university's done a good job as far as meeting my needs. Pretty much everything I've asked for, we get. Where we fall behind as far as not in that top five conferences, if there is, everything is about initials now. SEC, ACC, Big 12. It's all initials. There's two or three good teams in each conference, the rest are just members. They get a paycheck for being in the conference. They have no shot of getting to games like this. I truly believe that. I tell our players this. That's why when you line up and go out and play, except for those two, three, SEC may have six of them, great teams. But everyone else is the same. I think the biggest thing with this game is the national exposure we've gotten. We've won 10 games three out of the last four years. No one knew about us. I think ESPN has done an outstanding job of national games with us and we've performed well in the national games. I think that's what's carried over. I've had almost 19 phone calls now of kids looking to transfer from top five power schools. Again, they were kids that we were looking at earlier. Told them, It's the distance where you're going, you're going to be looking to come back. Right now we don't have scholarships available. I tell them to come in, walk on, see if they can earn one. They don't want to listen to that. I think things are going very well. As I tell the coaches, If each coach just brought in one great player, one great one, all right, and then you filled it with good football players, that's a heck of a class. Recruiting is a crapshoot. It really is. Kid may be a great high school player, but when he gets to camp, he doesn't fit into your program. He doesn't compete because now he's competing against kids the same size, same speed. I've always said it's not the physical thing, it's the mental toughness that separates kids who play early. The ones who play early are freshmen who don't act like freshmen. I think the biggest reason that you're seeing more freshmen playing is summer school. Before way back we couldn't bring kids in. You could, but they had to pay to go to summer school. Now we pay. We put them in a six‑week program. We may call it oranges, they call it apples. It's terminology. They learn that. It allows them to perform a little quicker. Again, I want to thank the Fiesta Bowl committee. I met most every one of them. I've been to a lot of bowl games. I really have been. I think as a host, they've done just an outstanding job. I can't say enough about it. I don't want to embarrass them, but I think basically it's obvious, I talked to other coaches before I got here, they said this was the best of them as far as how they treated the players, the coaches, the fan bases. They were 100% right. Again, I want to thank the Fiesta Bowl, the work they put into it. Exactly the work you put into it is what you got done. We're extremely happy. I know the players are ecstatic. They're ready to go out and compete and give you a great game. Thank you. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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