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NCAA DIVISION I FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: TOWSON v NORTH DAKOTA STATEJanuary 3, 2014Robert AmbroseMonte GaddisEric PikeTerrance WestFRISCO, TEXAS THE MODERATOR: Towson, the No.5 seed in this tournament, Rob is in his fifth season as the head coach of the Tigers, 32‑28. Their playoff wins have been over Fordham, Eastern Illinois and Eastern Washington. With us today, Monte Gaddis, linebacker, All‑Colonial; Eric Pike, offensive tackle All‑American, and Terrance West, running back All‑American. COACH AMBROSE: Like to thank been everybody involved in this incredible event. Everything up to this point has been truly impressive. It's been a spectacle, it's been first‑class, and more importantly, it's been a tremendous experience for our student athletes. And for them to work as hard as they have for as long as they have, to be rewarded this way, by so many people, it's a humbling honor and we're grateful to represent the institution. With that being said, we are all‑‑ the guys on this table and the guys that just got on the buses are extremely excited that the carnival is basically over and we can get down to business of why we came here in the first place, to represent our institution and the CAA and the greatest football game at this level. It's time to play some football. Q. Eric, you just head coach talk about how the carnival is almost over. Are you guys itching to get out there? Has this been too long of a wait? ERIC PIKE: Definitely excited and ready to get on the field to put our best foot forward to have success. Right after the Eastern Washington game, the preparation started for this game so we made sure we take advantage of every opportunity that we have gotten that we've practiced, every opportunity to we get into film room and watch and study the opponent, and we are just looking to put our best foot forward so we can have success. MONTE GADDIS: Like Eric said, we are all excited to be here today. We have prepared a long time for this and we are just ready and blessed to be at this again today. Q. How does Peter look today leading up to the game and is he close to 100 percent? Where do you put him at heading into this? COACH AMBROSE: Percentage‑wise of where he would be for game time, he's as close to perfect as he can get. But when he's a starter, I don't have any question about his ability to play tomorrow and I don't‑‑ more importantly, he doesn't have any question about his ability to play. Q. For coach and Terrance, when you go into games, the opposing defense so much focus is put on stopping Terrance; is that a negative for Terrance but also a positive for the team because you do have so many other weapons? COACH AMBROSE: It's a twofold benefit for us. Everybody stacks the box; it isn't a secret, we like to run the football. It's a style of play. Kind of indicates the type of team we are, and we're still going to do that no matter what. The good part about that is that if you really, really want to do it and you think you have a chance of holding us down in the run game, Peter and the wide‑outs are going to make you pay and that's just the way good football is. Try to take one thing away, another one will step up. We are not entirely different from North Dakota State. They run the ball too well, and if you stick too many guys up there with bad discipline, they will make you play with playaction and drop‑back. But it is what it is. It's going to be fun, it will be physical, and I guarantee exciting. TERRANCE WEST: Like Coach said, teams been stacking the box all year round. SO they know what's coming, but you've just got to stop it. That's what it's going to come down to. Q. You guys have logged a lot of miles. Does it help at all as far as, doesn't matter what conditions are going to be like, Rob and any of the players? COACH AMBROSE: I would actually like to ask the statistician guys to figure out what's the most amount of miles ever traveled in a season for a victory to get you to this game. And I've gotta think, we might have the record. As far as playing on the road and playing in front of‑‑ big games on the road, somebody asked me during the season, how you guys win so many games on the road. Because that's where they told us we had to play. And the name of the game is to win it. Who cares where you're playing. If you're a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer, you don't care if there's five people in the stands or 500,000. When you step inside those white lines, it's go time and the rest, that's noise for somebody else. So does it matter to us that we had to travel here? No, not at all. The only advantage is thank God in 2014 they decided to not let it snow here. That's a new one for us. Q. Monte, I'd like to get your perspective, everybody has been talking about the Viking D, 11.1 points per game, 247 yards per game. You guys have gone throughout this playoff stretch, and specifically Brock Jensen will be the fourth‑best quarterback, including passer rating. How do you look at that as a defense? MONTE GADDIS: We just look at it as we are just playing our phase of football which is Tiger ball and everybody doing their job, everybody doing their 1‑11 and everybody just helping each other out. We're a family so we do it all together. That's it basically. Q. You've won 12 straight on the road. I wanted to ask you what has been the key to your success on the road? TERRANCE WEST: Just playing with a chip on our shoulder. We're not even supposed to be here according to a lot of people. We just want to prove a lot of people wrong, that we can get the job done. ERIC PIKE: Being on the road and being able to limit the distractions a lot of times when you're at home, guys being able to be easily distracted. Being away, getting the team away from everybody and just being focused on the task at hand, which is winning ballgames week‑in and week‑out; being on the road is definitely a benefit for us and limited distraction. MONTE GADDIS: At beginning of the season, from playing UCONN to the end of the last game of the season playing North Dakota State, we have always been the underdog but that's nothing to us; we just face it. We don't look at the other team. We worry about ourselves and how we play football. Q. Is this night before the game going to be different? Do you sense preparing differently? Is there any more nerves heading into this? TERRANCE WEST: Not at all. Football is football. The game don't change. Just more cameras, more fun, more fans. Just a lot more excitement to the game, that's all. Nothing's different. ERIC PIKE: There's no difference in how we're going to prepare the night before this game than we have any other game before the season. It's the last game of the season and we know the importance and the margin of error, once you enter into the playoff increases and we've got to make sure we do our job, like Monte said, 1‑11, all three phases of the game, special teams, offense and defense; and if we go out and execute our game plan, we'll walk away with a win. Q. Is there a funny side to Terrance and if so, what is that side? ERIC PIKE: I don't know if I can give you a funny side. I don't think you're going to get one from me. COACH AMBROSE: There's a whole lot of tongue‑biting going on right now (Laughter). ERIC PIKE: He cares a whole lot about the game, I'll say that, and he has a way of showing it through his emotions and he definitely loves the team, he loves to win and we are here to support that and that's what we all are about as a team. It's not about one guy. We are all close in the family and we are to go to war for each other. Q. A lot of the season, it's been talked about your team's leave‑no‑doubt attitude. What did you learn from last year‑‑ you get left out of the playoffs and all of a sudden you hear this 'leave no doubt' throughout the whole off‑season and it's carried over and it's worked. To you, what does that mean as a coach for the character of your team? COACH AMBROSE: There's a lot of questions in there. One, as a coach, at this level, scheduling is massively important, and call it what you want, the honest to God truth is the number of wins matter. Doesn't matter how well you play LSU or how well you play Kent State, if you don't beat them, it's going to be held against you. That's the honest to God truth, and I don't necessarily like it. We represented this level of football extremely well that year. The best quote I heard this week was that if things had been a little different in someone else's eyes, this game would have been a rematch, and I like that. Now, as far as the character of this team, I've said this time and time again; hard work, faith, belief, love in a family is magic. It's hard to come by in today's world. Take a bunch of guys from massively different socioeconomic levels, bring them all together; one of the things we say when we bring them in‑house, don't really care about where you came from but it's more important where we're going. And these guys, it's all about we and we can do magical things together. And if that doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you're not watching the right game. Q. Rob, five years ago, took your hits from the CAA and other opponents, but how did the CAA prepare you? COACH AMBROSE: When I got in the league as the head guy and got a chance to spend some time with some of the head coaches, let's face it, man, when they stop coaching in this league or at this level, the day they quit is the day they walk into the Hall of Fame. If they all said the same thing; that this league will prepare you for the playoffs unlike anything you can possibly imagine; and that you can actually be a mid‑level team in our conference and do well in the playoffs because it's so hard week‑after‑week after week. The quality of ball, the quality of football players and the quality of coaching is really impressive, and it hardens you. It toughens you and gives you the opportunity to be successful in this level. It's not a question at all that we would not be here today, if we were not in this conference and played the schedule we played against the people we played, and we are prepared. Q. If memory serves correctly, I think there were two or three CAA teams that won their National Championship the first time they got here. Does that give you any hope that you guys can carry on that trend? COACH AMBROSE: That's pretty good. If somebody told me that the team that won the bowling team last night is the team that wins the National Championship; sure, if that ties itself together, I'm in. No, in the end, it's going to be the 11 versus 11 on the field and the team that plays the most consistently, makes the least amount of mistakes and doesn't turn the ball over. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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