2014 Bowl Central

Head coach Skip Holtz

Opening comments:
"I am really proud of this football team and the effort they put forth against a very explosive Western Kentucky football team. Defensively, I thought some guys really played well. I thought the secondary really answered the challenge that we gave them after the way that Southern Miss was able to throw the football against us a week ago. The way our secondary played was a huge growing moment from Southern Miss to this weekend. I thought up front we did a great job. Houston Bates constantly provided pressure up front. I thought our front seven really did a good job. Overall, defensively they played a motivated and passionate football game. It was fun to watch them. They ran around and they had a lot of fun."

"Offensively, we were able to score some points. That was the mindset coming in. Scoring 52 points as an offense, we did it the hard way. We drove the field five times of 70 yards or more. When our defense created positive field position, it seems like we could not take advantage of it and get points that way. We ended up having a couple of turnovers, but I thought Cody Sokol really played well at quarterback, and obviously Trent Taylor as well with three touchdowns and over 100 yards receiving. It was great to have a healthy Paul Turner back who also had nine catches in that football game. Most importantly, though, we were able to score points while trying to shut down a very explosive football team."

"I thought for the first time this year the kicking game and special teams was special. Carlos Henderson was able to get loose for the first time this year. Kyle Fischer hit a 51-yard field goal. We created a turnover on a kickoff. Trent Taylor also had a 20-yard punt return to help set up another score."

"I thought overall it was probably our most complete game that we have played. It is always nice to put on a show for Homecoming. I thought the team really played well and was really prepared. I think it is a real tribute to them that they have been able to maintain their focus and play that well at home, which gave us four wins in a row."

"Looking forward to this week with UAB, it does not get any easier. I think Bill Clark has done an outstanding job there. This is a team that won five games in the last two years combined. They have won five games to this point right now. I have followed his career. He has been an incredibly successful high school coach in the state of Alabama. He did a great job at Jacksonville State. I think he is a great fit and doing a fantastic job with this program."

"When you watch them on film, this will be one of the bigger challenges that we have had in conference. We break stats down in conference games. When you look at this team against conference opponents, they are averaging over 450 yards on offense. They are controlling the ball for 33 or 34 minutes a game. They are rushing for over 200 yards a game. They are 47 percent on third down. Their defense is only giving up 29 percent on third down. This football team is a very good football team."

"Offensively, they are putting up big numbers. They like to run the ball and they have two very explosive running backs. They have a wide receiver and kick returner who is one of the most explosive players in the entire country. They are doing a really good job because they are simple with what they do offensively, but they are going very quick. They give you a lot of different looks to create some problems for you."

"To say their defense was multiple would be an understatement. They have played just about everything. They are going to try and suffocate you. They are going to put everybody on the line of scrimmage. They are going to play bump and run man coverage. They are going to try and stop anything before it can get going. That has been one of the reasons they have been able to control the ball and been so good on third down. They are a very pressure-oriented defense."

"Their punter and kicker are probably one of the best combinations in the league. The two seniors average about 45 yards a punt and do a great job on kickoffs with half of them being touchbacks. As I said earlier, their kickoff return is ranked fourth in the country as a kick returner. He is very explosive and very dangerous. It will be a great challenge for us this week on both sides of the ball. We are going to have to go and play a complete game. Going on the road is never easy, especially in a conference game. I think our players are excited about the opportunity to go out and play again. We wipe the grease boards clean this week and start all over again and get ready for a great conference challenge this week on the road."

On UAB third quarter efficiency:
"That is why we play the game. They are good coaches as well and they are going to sit down and look at it and it is going to be about halftime adjustments on both sides. I look at this as being one of the best football teams that we have played. They run the ball and are so aggressive. It is not just going to be about the third quarter. It will be about the first and second quarter, making sure we can put together a game plan on both sides of the ball that can be sound but simple enough. With everything they do, you do not want to create too much confusion, especially this late in the season. It will be a challenge for both sides. It will be interesting to see how the third quarter plays out."

On LA Tech secondary:
"We talked about it at the beginning, but they answered the challenge. We really challenged them. We had not played a lot of man coverage. We got into this game and said that we were going to put them in a man coverage situation. I thought they answered it and did a great job. With Le'Vander Liggins and Adairius Barnes, I know the two of them have not had a lot of interceptions and most of those have come from the safeties, but they were challenged on Saturday. The game turned into a fade game. We were going to press them and make them throw the fades and give those guys a chance to make some plays and they did a great job with that. This was the first game that we put them on an island and loaded the box. I thought they did a nice job and answered the challenge we put on them."

On UAB RB Jordan Howard:
"You are going to have to try and take away the running game. You have to be careful because they do throw the ball well enough, especially with the explosiveness of (WR Jamarcus) Nelson on the perimeter. Howard is the second leading rusher in the league. He is big and powerful. He is physical and they are going to feed him. They are going to get him the ball in whatever ways they can. They are going to move fast, which eliminates you from doing a lot of scheme-type things and makes you play more vanilla."

On the challenges of coming off a complete game:
"Last week does not have anything to do with this week. Like I said, it is time to clear the grease boards. We talked about it last night, it is time to start all over. We have to play a one game season this week. We have this game before the open date. What do we have to do to find a way to win the game this week? We have to cross T's and dot I's. We have to make sure as a staff we do whatever we can to put our players in a position to have success. Our players have to be diligent this week coming in and watching film against one of the better football teams that we have played."

On preparation for UAB:
"They are multiple in their formations with what they do. The two things we know is that they are going to get the ball to their running back and throw it to their wide receiver. Those are two of the better football players in this league and they are going to utilize them. They are not power-I or shotgun. They are going to get the running back the ball with quick tosses or handoffs. They will throw bubble screens and deep balls. They are totally different from the team that we just played, which was a little bit slower with that they did. This team likes to get up on the ball and go fast. They are probably closer to an Auburn-type offense, as far as comparing what they do."

On excitement surrounding team:
"I can talk from the inside. The leadership Cody Sokol and Houston Bates have added coming in as seniors, with their energy, focus, leadership and work habits, has been outstanding. They come in and study film. They have really helped this football team understand what it takes. They are two shining examples of guys that have been other places and brought that mindset in here. I think what that has done each week from a leadership standpoint has been huge. I cannot say enough about the rest of the seniors. This is a fun team to coach because they are very serious about it and they understand it. We have great leadership on this team, which is one of the reasons we are in the position we are in right now."

On looking at conference championship possibilities:
"We talked last night in our big picture meeting, which is what we have on Sunday night, about the conference race and what is going on. Everyone is going to start getting into who has to beat who. They go on the road to play them and what happens if that happens. Then everyone starts projecting. I told them that we cannot fall into that trap. Sitting down and trying to project the future is a waste of our time right now on the inside. I understand the media and the fans, which is part of the excitement of winning. For us right now, we need to find a way to go 1-0 this week. After that we can go through the open date and take a look at how that is shaking out and we will have a lot clearer picture of what everything will look like in two weeks."

On comparing the Western Kentucky-UAB game:
"Western Kentucky hit some big plays on them with all the man coverage. You look at where they were earlier in the year and they have just gotten better and better as the year has gone on. I think Western Kentucky was able to hit some big plays on them. They had to come back and do that. UAB was able to control the ball on them, as they have with everybody. We always talk about how the offensive and defensive systems have to fit. They control the ball on offense, and then on defense they are not bend but do not break. They have everyone up on the line trying to get you to go three-and-out. They want the ball back so they can control it. That is one of the reasons they have been so successful. They are controlling the ball for 33 minutes so far in conference play. They dictate the flow of the game and that is how they have been able to win football games."

On similarities between Louisiana Tech and UAB:
"We will play quite a bit more zone than they will. They are up in your face, bump-and-run pretty much every snap. There are some similarities, but there are still some differences. We do not control the ball with our running game the way they do. We throw the ball. We have been more throw-oriented, especially the past couple of weeks, compared to them who are more run-oriented. They are going to find a way to run the ball."

Defensive Coordinator Manny Diaz

On hearing good things from HC Skip Holtz on this year's defense:
"It certainly feels good, but to me it talks more about our players. It is the reason we all feel good. Our players are doing a great job out there of just bonding together and playing unselfishly, which is the key to any defense. As a coach, you have more fun actually sitting back and watching those guys go play, and Saturday was a good example of that."

On having faith in the corners after watching them perform like Saturday vs. WKU:
"One of many things we feel about our team is we have versatility. We have weeks where we can play more man or weeks where we can play more zone. Our kids do a good job of being flexible. They know when we come to them on Tuesday and say this is what we feel is the best way to stop this offense, they buy in, whether it is what we are playing up front, how we are playing the linebackers that week. They do a nice job, and our job is to keep it simple for them, but at the same time be versatile enough to stop the different kinds of offense we defend during the course of the season."

On UAB RB Jordan Howard:
"It would be hard to rank him for certain, but he catches your attention with his leg drive and the way he runs behinds his pads and creates yards that really are not there. If it is a one-man tackle, you are going to be in trouble because you have to get a lot of men to the tackle spot because he continues to try to get yards after contact. Certainly in the last drive of the Florida Atlantic game where they ran it 12 straight times or whatever it was, what you could see was the wear-down effect on FAU's defense. Guys that are excited to tackle in the first quarter and they are okay with tackling in the second and third quarters, they would really rather not tackle in the fourth quarter. They really did not want to tackle at all. That is what you see when they continue to ride a back with his power and mannerisms."

On simulating the running back in practice:
"We cannot, and you would not anyway because it is Week 10. The one thing our resume shows is that we will bite ourselves and we will get a bunch of people to the point of attack. We do a decent job of creating knock-back at the point of attack as well, so there will be some collisions on Saturday. We know they will bring it, but they will know we will be there ready to hit as well."

On the growth of the defense from the beginning of the season to now:
"I think, certainly, their trust in the scheme and their trust in each other. There are so many things that take part in putting together a really good defense, but the No. 1 thing is really trust. Everyone has a job to play, and what you try to preach is that when everybody just gives up themselves and sort of blends in with the defense the way it is designed to work, there are a lot of plays to be made. One of the neat things for us as a coaching staff to watch is different guys every week benefit in the headline department in terms of making the plays. That is what the kids see. It is not about one guy or one unit or one position, but everyone locks in. We came in yesterday, and all the big plays and turnovers, every turnover we created in that game, there were three to four guys responsible for the turnover being made. Then when you see the guys sharing the football, trying to score on defense, you can just see the difference. It is a very close-knit group. Our leadership from our senior class and older guys has been outstanding. When you have all those elements, to be honest, it makes you look like a good coach."

On play more man coverage on Saturday vs. WKU:
"We had played man before, but you always want to have them wondering exactly what it is you are going to do going into the game, just like anybody else. They will present the same questions to us. They did some things against Florida Atlantic they had not done all year. There has to be a reason for them to wonder about us throughout the course of the week, but at the same time it is not complicated. There is still an A gap, B gap and a C gap. We will have one guy in each of those gaps. There are only so many ways you can cover people on the outside. We did not trick Western Kentucky. After the first drive, they knew what we were in, and it just comes down to a game of execution. It is easy to say we were successful because of the man when a lot of the success was because of who the men were that were playing man-to-man. They did a great job."

On making adjustments to stop the run vs. WKU:
"We just fixed our defense. On the first run of the game, a play spits out because we had poor gap control. It is running inside zone and they had an open B gap that we had a guy that was a step slow getting into it. A play later, they had some success because he hit the fullback on the wrong shoulder. Our players understand now that offense for the most part will gain what we allow them to gain. They know our structure enough to understand that if we are not all where we are supposed to be, there is an issue and we could have a problem, but if we are, we are pretty hard to run the football against."

On pressuring the WKU quarterback:
"There were certainly some ways we felt we could attack their protection, but I thought Saturday was an example of the illusion of pressure sometimes better than pressure itself. When you have a quarterback who looks like he is uncomfortable with the illusion of pressure, that is what disrupts the timing and makes the man coverage down the field all of a sudden get better because now, will you stand in the pocket that extra count to get that route to come open. That is tough to be that guy and stand in there and do that. I thought just the relentless nature and the fact that we hit him a couple times early on, that later when we were not even there, he either wanted to bail out or get rid of the ball early."

On having multiple guys get two interceptions in games this season:
"I think what our players believe, whether it is tackling or big plays, is that if everyone is doing their job, then the offense decides who gets to make the big play. On Adairius Barnes' first interception, Mitch Villemez is unblocked. Mitch can get the sack if the quarterback chooses to get sacked, or the quarterback could have thrown the swing to the back, but Houston Bates peeled on the back. Then he had a short five-yard route he could have thrown, but Kentrell Brice had jumped the five-yard route."

"It is a multiple choice question. What he had left was: a.) get sacked by Villemez and we would be talking about Villemez today, b.) throw it to Houston Bates who might have pick-sixed it, c.) throw it to Kentrell Brice who might have intercepted it, d.) throw it to Adairius Barnes, or of course, e.) throw it out of bounds."

"That is what our players understand is that the sugar they get from making the play, really the offense decides who gets to make the play. In our run defense, if we build a wall, the running back runs into whatever brick in the wall and that is the guy who makes the tackle and everyone rallies and makes the assists. The players have bought into that team concept. They know there are plays to be made everywhere, because later on, it might have been Adairius Barnes covering his man and doing a great job off the line to allow Houston Bates to get the sack. That is where they see the communal nature of our defense and how we all help each other out to make plays."

On Le'Vander Liggins pitching the ball to Xavier Woods:
"It started from the Baltimore Ravens back when they had Ed Reed and Ray Lewis. It was brought to the New York Jets, which was the first time I was exposed to it. It was something that was practiced with the way the ball is pitched. The whole idea is that in a conference, in a season, games are going to get tight and the ability to score on defense is paramount. What we have done a better job of the second half of the year is when you get the ball for your offense and it is closer to the goal line you are attacking, your odds of scoring go up. On Le'Vander's interception when he has the potential of getting tackled at our 30 and then he is able to pitch the ball to Xavier, who runs the ball back to their 30, those are points. In the data world by doing that, we have actually increased the amount of points we score for our football team. Now what is important is that it is not haphazard, schoolyard, not something we take very lightly because we understand we have the ball in our hand."

"I also feel a little defensive for defensive players. I have never understood why when we sign up to play defense, you violate all your rights to do something with the ball. You let all the offensive guys run double passes and pitches and reverses and flea-flickers, then there is this band of misfit toys over here playing defense. I think our guys resent that a little bit, so we feel we can do some things with the football to score. Twice in one game was pretty cool, but what I am most proud of is them playing unselfish. When a guy like Le'Vander who has made a play in his senior year, you could go down or think to get all you can get. Then when you realize you can continue to push the ball down the field, a guy like Xavier who is sprinting to get there to make a play. Then the guys who are sprinting to make the wall so we can score, we actually felt on the first one that we should have scored. We were teaching the film yesterday that we need to do a better job of blocking to clear off the sideline because I really thought Xavier could have been one man away and cut back on the quarterback, who was not going to tackle him, and scored. I do not remember if we scored on that drive or not, but those are big deals. And we will coach off other people's tape. We will see guys get tackled on the 30-yard line. I think there was a game from FIU at UTSA where they had a long fumble recovery they could have pitched at the end. They kicked a field goal and they lost by three. We said if they had scored a touchdown there they would have won the football game. We only do it because of wins and that is what we are all about."

On making the defense simple to teach the players, but complex for opponents:
"I think that is the whole point. I think any teacher in a classroom teaching any topic, your No. 1 job is to take something that appears complex and make it simple. Then the second thing we try to do is make what we do simple appear complex to the people we play. But defense is absolutely simple. We are not building rockets. We are not solving any of the world's major crises, but we are just trying to get our guys to play aggressive, play hard, play for each other and understand that everyone has the same goal in slowing down the other team."

WR Trent Taylor

On hearing from your family after the WKU game:
"Yeah, I have heard a lot from my dad's friends. They were kind of wondering about how my dad felt about the game. They were saying you probably hurt your dad's feelings, but he is being a good sport about it. If anyone were to beat his Hilltoppers, it would have to be his son with Louisiana Tech, so I guess he was alright with it."

On what he has seen from the tape of UAB's defense:
"They have a fast defense I believe. I know they are a team that gives great effort. They are definitely not a team that we can look past at this point in the season. I feel like at this point in the season we are on everyone's radar and they are trying to bring us down. As we learned from the Northwestern State game, we have to bring 100 percent effort every week."

On what he thinks has changed for the passing offense lately to make it more dynamic:
"I believe that in effort this season we have grown every week so far. Every little mistake that we have put on film, the next week we have gone out to the practice field and worked on conquering that mistake we saw on film. It is all starting to kind of tie together for us here toward the end of the season."

On the versatility of the LA Tech defense:
"I believe that they are very versatile. I am just glad that those guys are on my team because I know that I would not want to go up against them every week. They have put this whole team on their back and they have made plays for us, just like they were talking about pitching the ball around. Coach Diaz has done a great job preparing them for that and just setting a standard."

On how hard it is competing against Kentrell Brice every day in practice:
"He is definitely a competitive guy. He is someone you do not want to see across the ball obviously. He lays the wood better than anyone I have ever seen. Like I said, I am glad he is on my team and I do not have to go against him."

On playing inside receiver:
"I have kind of played slot my whole life really. I think I have kind of grown in that position. Learning from Hunter Lee, who took some shots from Southern Miss and ate those things up like it was nothing, as a leader he has really helped me. I learned how to play big in the middle of the field and make the plays that we need to make."

On having a big brother-little brother program on the team and his relationship with Hunter Lee:
"Hunter Lee definitely, and we have had some deep conversations. He is out right now and that hurts our offense. He has been positive with me just trying to help me out as much as he can. He is a great guy and is very unselfish. He is not talking about how he is out. He is worried about helping me out and helping the rest of the slots out to get prepared for each game."

DE Houston Bates

On being around a defensive coordinator that makes it as simple as Manny Diaz does:
"No, I have never been around a coach like Coach Diaz. He has come in here and the job that he has done has been outstanding. This is my fifth year in college football and I have never had a coach that makes the complexity of his defense as simple as he does. We have to execute the plan, but he makes the plan for us to be successful. I have to give all the credit to him and the coaches. They do a wonderful job."

On the challenges seen from UAB's offense:
"They run the ball and I think they saw last week that we did give up a few rushing yards, more than we would have liked too for sure. They are going to try and pound the rock and we are going to have to stop them. We are going to do a better job of that this week. Yesterday in the film room we were watching Western Kentucky run over us a little bit. We got together and said that was not going to happen again and it was unacceptable. That is not playing up to our standard like Coach Diaz wants us too. We are going to band together this week and make sure that does not happen."

On if he has ever been around a coach like Oscar Giles:
"No, I have not. Like I said, I have to give credit to Coach Holtz and his wife for bringing me in here and giving me an opportunity to lead this team and be a part of something so special. This is the best decision I have made in my life up to this point and I do not think I have been around a coaching staff like the one around me right now. Coach Giles has done a great job at preparing us and getting all the players to buy in and all the players banning together. It is not a fight. I have been around people that it is a fight to have to get them to do the right thing, the little things like go to class or eat the right food or go to sleep. It is not like that here. Everyone has the same goal and everyone has the same desire to be great. It is really nice not having to fight people to do the right thing."

On the spirit behind the talk of winning a conference championship:
"I think that the guys know that to get there you have to win one game at a time. That is the mentality that we have. Coach Diaz and Coach Holtz have it instilled in us week in and week out. Bowl games are great and I believe we will have the opportunity to play in one, but right now it is UAB. To get to a bowl game, we have to beat these teams. To get to a conference championship, we have to beat all of our conference opponents and that is what we are worried about right now."

On what stands out about UAB RB Jordan Howard:
"He keeps his feet moving. Tackling a guy that keeps his feet moving through a hole is not an easy task, especially with him being 230 pounds or however big he is. It is going to be a tough job, but we are going to have all hats to the ball. Once we do that, I think that we can stop him."

On rebounding from the Northwestern State game earlier in the season:
"It is funny you bring that up. It still hurts a little losing that one, but at the same time on the positive side, I think it humbled us. I think we needed that going into the conference race and doing what we are doing right now. It brought a lot of the guys back to earth a little bit. Maybe we were not as good as we thought, but we can be great and I think that game, losing how we did, shocked a bunch of guys. It humbled us and I think it is going to pay dividends later on down the road."

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