JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. -- Ahead of Carson-Newman football's first-ever matchup against UVa-Wise, coach Mike Turner spoke to the media.
Opening statement
"First off I think it's great that Virginia Wise is in our conference. I think it's a positive for all of us in the conference – the proximity of it, the help with our conference scheduling, it's been a tremendous help. Hopefully we can find another one or two more teams that we can get into our league that play football. It's hard scheduling in Division II, especially in this conference, if you've been a successful team then it's hard to get a schedule. We're literally playing someone that we don't know very much about at all, that's the X factor. We've watched them on video and they've been very competitive. They had a great blowout victory in the first game, they took Tennessee Tech, an FCS school, to task, and then had the opportunity to beat Mars Hill this past Saturday. So, they're a good football team. They're very, very gritty and they play hard, they run to the football on defense and on offense they're going to be sound in what they do and attack you. They're a good football team."
On what it's like to prepare for a team for the first time
"You really haven't seen them in the past against common opponents before, you haven't seen that. We've been trying to find somebody that they played that was an option team and there wasn't any. Here's what we have to do. We have to line up and be us and execute what we can do best. You know, a lot of it is TBD, it's to be determined how they line up on Saturday and what they decide to do."
On big play creation
"Well we talked to the whole team yesterday and we talked offensively and we're an option-offensive football team. We go into halftime Saturday night and we had 25 snaps and had four touchdowns. You're not going to argue about having four touchdowns but we only had 25 snaps, that's not us. We talked about having to win the chains and we reminded them that on their first page it talks about expectations. One of the expectations in this offense is that you have a four-yard mentality. Now, do you want to go 68 (yards), oh absolutely you do every time you snap the ball, but we have to have a four-yard mentality so the positive things where the chains keep moving on second and six, second and five where it's a management down and distance. When you start looking at second and eight and second and nine all of the time, that's not acceptable. And that's not acceptable in this offense or any offense, it doesn't matter what kind of offense you are, you got to win the battle of the chains and we didn't get that done. Our kids know that we didn't get that done, we had some mistakes offensively, defensively and in the kicking game that those mistakes can get you beat. When you give them 13 points off of mistakes and the score is 32-28, that tells you a little bit about the night.
On student appreciation week
"I think that's awesome that you celebrate the students. That we celebrate the students that are here, we've got students that are great fans. Our whole premise here at Carson-Newman is that we are a family, it doesn't matter what sport it is, baseball, tennis, golf, whatever it is we're a family. And we should support each other, completely. And also the student body, it's great to see them up on campus and see them at different places in town and talk about football games coming up, those kind of things so we're excited about having them.
On what makes UVa-Wise so stout defensively
"Well, when you look at stats and where they are they've got some guys that have already had two interceptions, they're playing a man coverage, a bump and man coverage, up in your face, and they're pretty gritty at it. They're going to take care of the perimeter with man coverage. They've got a box issue where they've got six to seven in the box, and the type of athletes they've got, they're just tough kids. And they look they enjoy playing.
On what stuck out as areas of correction following Wingate
"I went back and watched that video about six times. The correction is, and I talked to our kids yesterday, it's a first-down emphasis. Now, do you throw the ball on first down? Absolutely you do, absolutely you do. But we have to say we're going to run the football, we're going to have that four-yard mentality, we got to do that, any offense is going to do that. We had some breakdowns execution wise and it's not from a lack of effort. We've got to learn how to play (like) every week's the Super Bowl, and we've got to understand that people are going to give you your best shot. And when it got down to it we didn't give our best shot at times Saturday night, obviously that's where they prepared, yes, they have a great week of practice, yes, did they travel well, yes, and you know, players got to play.
On how to protect the football better
"It certainly is something that we work on every day. There's three points that we leave them every Saturday before we play. Play fast, play hard, take care of the football. It's not (about) was the ball in jeopardy, it's got to be a focus and it's got to be an urgency about them and you know, if we can't we will have to make some changes to make sure that their urgency is there. You know, we're moving the football, we're executing the football, we're a great football team and we throw four touchdown passes in the first half, well, three of those touchdowns came off of play-action. How does that happen, because of the way people are trying to play the option. That means you've got to execute the option at a high level so those people have to react a certain way, they give you that play-action pass."
How to utilize teams putting extra emphasis on Braxton Westfield to his advantage
"Well I hope they start game-planning for him and that opens it up for kids like Romain (Kelly) and some of those casts, Devon (Moore), but if they start, the whole purpose of being an option football team and throwing the football is to get people out of that box. I don't think Braxfield Westfield can be covered by one guy, I think he's a very talented young man so if it forces people to try to double cover or bracket cover him then we've kept people out of the box to run the option."
On what Trevor Makarov means to the team and to the offense
"That's one thing that every football team needs – leadership. Trevor has grown so much in the four years that he's been here. As a young man, as handling issues and overcoming issues he's done that, you know sometimes people don't know the whole story behind all these kids and where they come from, and they've all got different issues that they bring. But we just made a point to them yesterday when you come here there's an eagle on your helmet, there's the name Carson-Newman on your jersey, not anybody got a name on it, all of that belongs to Carson-Newman. They're a Carson-Newman Eagle. You ask kids that they've all got a role to play, you got play-action, you got to dive back going in there and he's not getting the football, he's designed to block a linebacker. You've got a role to play and Trevor's a guy that enjoys his role, wants to do more and I like that about a kid that wants to do more, but he also knows what his role is and he's trying to get better at that role. Nobody could get good enough at being a blocker, we can always improve in that area right there so I admire his grit and his fight in him.
On Darius Williams' impact on the defense
"I think that's part of the whole plan defensively is that they can't say 'there they are, this is how we go attack them.' So you've got to give them different looks, you've got to create situations where a guy like Darius Williams can be turned loose off the edge. We had some other situations where we had people turn loose off the edge and there's a couple of mistakes, we missed some tackles and gave away some big plays, but we've got kids on defense right now that have been asked to do certain things like Rondrow (Peebles) changing linebacker positions, help make up for Antonio (Henderson), so their understanding and that goes back to that role. I do exactly what I'm asked to do, I do it to the best ability that I can and I trust that this is what's best for the football team, I trust those guys that are beside of me are going to make plays and then you can be an effective football team."
On what's different about UVa Wise's two quarterbacks
"I think those guys, they try to, like most spread teams, they're trying to get you outflanked at times, they want to run the zone and part of their offense split zone. If they can they'll get those quarterbacks out to the edge, but you think, 'well, they're a spread team,' and if you're not having them accounted for defensively, then there's a threat that gets out of the side of you and they got one-man advantage on you."
On the alumni base in the UVa-Wise area for Carson-Newman
"We've got a great support group in that area, Southwest Virginia, Northeast Tennessee, I think it's great for them to be able to come here because they've been inundated with Virginia Wise, those kinds of things. They're hoping that this becomes a rivalry game, similar to like a Tusculum deal because of the proximity and that's the way it should be. You got great fans and the same way with Virginia Wise. They've got kids out of the Knoxville area and the Morristown area so it should be a great football game."
