Mike Clowney Interview, Week Two

Mike Clowney Opening Statement: I guess for us, the big thing is that transition from week one to week two. I think that's one thing that you hear across the country today in coaching is that your greatest improvement should be able to come from week one to week two. And I think that's one thing we talked to our players about yesterday, being able to go back in, break this film down from West Georgia, and talk about the things that we need to improve on going into this week. Meeting with coaches this morning and putting the schedule together saying hey, what do we need on the schedule to make sure that we can fix some of those mistakes that we made last week? So, the big thing for us is to challenge the team yesterday, like doing the little things well. That's the difference between good and great. A lot of times, good football teams, they kind of get the big picture, but you don't really understand the details. And so, for us, like yesterday and today, challenging them to do the little things well. When I get in position to make a play, you don't really stop. You have to change your momentum, but still keep it moving forward. Those are some things that we saw in the game from Thursday, kind of digging our heels in rather than the inside balls of our feet, making sure we make some of those transition, lower path level is something that we still need to continue to improve on and having an opportunity to make plays. We talk about our theme Be the One, and that when you have those opportunities, capitalize on them. So those are the things that we're looking on kind of pressing and making an issue this week in practice.  

Q1 One thing that for a week one game, I don't know that I've seen a week one game where you didn't have a procedure penalty called. No false starts, no illegal formations, nothing like that. What do you owe that cleanliness to?  

This group of guys, they're really tuned in and trying to do things the right way. And so that normally breeds some discipline, which is a result of kind of them coming into the game. We really get focused coming into the game and understanding what's going on. We didn't do a whole lot. We wanted to make sure we kept things as simple as possible to give them the best chance to execute. So, with some of that stuff being goals in mind, the biggest thing we wanted to see was we wanted to see their effort. We wanted to see them go out and play hard. We wanted to see them work and function together as a football team. 

Q2 Franklin Pierce is a program largely in progress. It's their third year of intercollegiate football, and they're a pretty good sprint football team. They won some championships through the middle portion of the 2010s but are still trying to find their way at the D2 level. They certainly have a running back who can get the job done, EJ Burgess. Last year you faced off against two of the top ten rushers in the country at Barton and LR. Burgess was just outside the top ten. How is his running game similar or different to like a Dwayne McGee at LR or the kid at Barton? 

Yeah, EJ's a good back. He rushed, I think, 1200 yards last year for them. The big thing for him is he's kind of got a good combination of speed and power compared to McGee, who's a powerful back, but he's a little smaller, a little bit more scatty than what we'll see this week. But EJ's just a really good combination. He's a lot like the kid we talked about from Limestone. Just a really good combination of speed and power, does work to get the ball outside. He does a good job of catching the ball out of the backfield. I mean, he presents a good challenge. That's where you talk about them winning championships in sprint football. The thing is crazy is it's still really the same thing, same game, except they get to try to get some bigger guys up front right now. So, I think Coach Gas has done a great job kind of putting this program together. They play really hungry and that's something that you see on film.  

Q3 They've been right on the cusp for a while now. They played within a touchdown or two of three nationally ranked teams a year ago, lost twice in overtime, had opportunities against Edinboro in week one and couldn't capitalize defensively. Low scoring game. How do you keep a hungry team like that at bay? 

I think the biggest thing for us is we have to be hungry. When you get into games like this, we have to be able to go out and we have to warn that we have to be ready and willing to fight and we have to be ready to do whatever it takes to win the football game.  

Q4 What's the biggest key for your group to change last week's result into a victory this week?  

I think consistency. There are points in time where we play well and there are points in time where we give up an easy play because we either miss a line, we don't get a block that we need, or we blow the coverage. So, we've got to be able to find that consistency from the beginning of the game to the end of the game to where function and do it the right way without having those little lapses within it.  

Q5 Obviously from a passing attack perspective, Braxton Westfield is a great option to have. How important, though, is it to see a second and third option emerge at the receiver spot? 

That's something that we knew going into the season that we've got a lot of new guys there. Having a couple of different guys catch the football is encouraging. With Cade Meeks coming on, it allows us to be able to put someone else on the field to make sure that they can't try to go double him or do something weird to that side. I think it's important for us to have some of those younger guys step up and respond and be ready to play. 

Q6 From a defensive backfield perspective, Major Williams seems like he's the leader of that group, but it's really a group of leaders with how much experience and how much talent you have back there. How excited are you to see that group develop over the next few weeks? 

 It's fun watching Coach Slade come in and be encouraged about those guys. Even though we made some mistakes in the game Thursday, we're encouraged about their ability and what they're capable of doing. Major has been a good addition to us. A lot of that has been from a leadership standpoint. A lot of what you see transition into that position has been a good bit to his leadership. So, that's some things that we got to continue to do, to push those guys. We have to continue to help Major get better as well. 

Q7 Conversely, on the offensive side, Ivan Corbin has been around for a long time. He gets injured and can't come back in the game until he overcomes the deficits, maybe a little bit bigger than he would have liked. How have you seen him over the last few days get ready to get back into action and make sure that he can be the leader of this group? 

Yeah, that's where Ivan and I met. I guess it was Sunday night. We did kind of a late meeting because being injured is tough. He went in the game, was good, was able to come back and play some more, but it's just tough for all our guys. The toughest thing I experience every single day are the guys that are off to the side because they're trying to figure out how to connect with the team, like how to be involved. Mentally, it just becomes challenging. I was just talking to him about how basically it boils down to we keep saying this over and over. In order to have a good marriage, you got to communicate. In order to have a good football team, you have got to communicate. That's one thing I talked to him about yesterday was just, hey, man, everything that's going on, just know that airways open to talk about it. I only have one requirement, just tell the truth. As long as we communicate, and we're truthful with one another then whatever the problem is, whatever the injury is, we can get past that because we had the right information to make the right decisions. So, I think for him, it was frustrating not being able to finish the game. He scratched and clawed. We debated whether to put him back in or not knowing that he could go back and play. He's a kid that's from Georgia. His brother plays at West Georgia. That's a game that was really important to him. But as we transition forward with him being a quarterback, it's important for them to be able to see him come out and compete, to see him bounce back from this, and to see him being encouraged, even though he's got his back against the wall. The cool thing talking to him was listening to how some of the other players on the team were encouraging him. Hey, that happened to me back at this point in time. Like, man, I was fine. Everything is going to be good. And so, this is a good group when it comes to that type of stuff. 

Q8 It's obviously a big part of your job to teach, but how difficult is it to teach a team how to win games? 

 I think the biggest thing is you have to do it. They have to experience it. They have to feel it. We went to church a couple of weeks ago, and that's where I talked to the coaches about their theme, went to Avenue, and their theme was Dope. It talks about dopamine and how addictive it is. When you get this rise and you get this good feeling, then you want to kind of return back to that spot. So, I think this team getting a win and getting one early, I think it will be encouraging for them. We need to go make sure that we get that done. To have that feeling, to go ahead and get that whole thing behind you as far as, like, you raised that question of can we? And then just start focusing on how do we do it and what needs to be done. I think that's the biggest part of it. I talked to our coaches, same thing. The biggest thing from that sermon was like, when you look back, and that's the thing that we have a tendency to do, but when you look back, if it's something that encourages you to push you to move forward, closer to Christ, then it's okay to look back. When you look back and it's something that discourages you or it disconnects you from Christ, then stop looking back. We need to look back at the things that encourage us and push us to move forward. We don't need to look back into the things that are going to weigh us down or create that force.  

Q9 You touched on it a smidge with the injury with Ivan, but you had another one to your left guard, Mike Peppin. Colt Sinor was thrown into the fire in a position that he hadn't practiced much during preseason. What you see out of him? 

That's where you get to the next man up mentality, and everybody says that, but sometimes for the kids, it can become a negative because we talked about how hard it is to be injured. So, the next man up is like, we need that next guy to be prepared. The tendency is the player thinking I didn't get to play or I'm second team. How are you going to respond to that? You do one of two things. You either pout, or you prepare. The good thing is I think Colt comes to work every day. He's prepared. So, I mean, it's disappointing that we were not to be able to take Mike to that game because he provides leadership. He's our older, better guy there. It hurts us not to have him, but we feel confident putting Colt in the game and giving him the opportunity to play. We believe that he can go get done when we need to get done. 

Q10 Talking about injuries, how do your own experiences as a player, being a beat-up linebacker in the mid 90s help convey those emotions to your players now? 

 That's one thing I talked about with Ivan, when we're in this weekend. In 1995 and 1996. I did an interview on Thursday, and they said chances are, you're getting tackles a game and you only need six to break the record, chances are you'll break the record this weekend. How do you feel about that? I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe this dude just asked me the question, and lo and behold, I went out first quarter, and I got two tackles. I get hurt, and I miss the next four games. I don't play the rest of the regular season, which is what that record was for. And so, like you said, I've been the angry guy at that point in time. That's what I told him. I didn't understand at that moment what God was trying to do. But in my position right now, the opportunity I have is to talk to injured guys about what it looks like and what it feels like to be injured and then what you have to do to overcome it. Fortunately, my teammates put us in position to make the playoffs every one of those years. Both times it could have been my last game if we don't make the playoffs. But my teammates played well and they put us in a position to be able to go get into the playoffs and get an opportunity to play again. I remember coach Bart's grabbed me at LR and I was just sitting on the fence, boohoo-ing. He's like, dude, are you okay? I was like, I'm fine. I just want to play. He talked to me that day about my priorities. He's like, chances are you'll get to play football again. And there are other things in life that's bigger than us, and even if you don't, I see a lot of success in your future. I didn't listen to that. I didn't appreciate that day. But 40 years, I guess 30 years down the road, it matters. My experiences have been super duper influential in the way we handle injured guys. I remember walking on the field with my street clothes on. He said, hey, are you playing football? Are you a street guy today? And so that's why we want the reason we ask our guys, they're like, go get dressed up, go do stuff to get better. Don't just sit here. Like I said, that natural tendency is first you start wearing your street clothes, then next thing you're missing drills, then you're not at practice, and then you're running around campus telling people that people on the team don't love you anymore. That's just not how it works. We have to find a way when we're injured to be connected with the football team. 

Q11 We have quarterback for Franklin Pierce, Bryce Macina. He got a few reps last year, but they brought in the Western Kentucky transfer Kevaris Thomas. He's good through the air, good on the ground, and he won. What sticks up to you about his game? 

 He's a good pick up for them. I mean, he's a dual threat guy with great size, and he throws a good ball. He is a really good running threat. It's a great combination in the backfield with the running back. So, that's where you turn the film on, and say, I think they got better there. He did a good job for him last week.  

Q12 Defensively, release, didn't you, the red zone against the Fighting Scots. They didn't give up a ton of yards either on the ground or through the air. What's the hallmark of their defense? 

They play with a ton of effort. They are an all-out effort football team. A couple of times you watch their backside safety, get down, make a tackle on the side of field for a five-yard gain. And so, I mean, they do a great job of rallying and running to the football.