Larry Coker Sunday Comments
Oct. 6, 2002
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (www.hurricanesports.com) –
OPENING COMMENTS
“A good win for us. I’ll tell you, the first half played out just like we hoped it would. We’re playing awfully hard. I’ll tell you, our kids really played hard last night, and they have been playing hard. We’re certainly not perfect, but I really like the effort that we’re playing with. And the intensity. Guys are really stepping up and having a lot of fun. It’s great to see the sacks. I think we had six sacks on defense. It’s great to score on defense. I always tell them that there’s more opportunities, more ways to score on defense than there are on offense. I don’t know if they fully by that or not, but it’s good to see that coming back. Offensively, again, we were very efficient. Especially in the first half. I was very encouraged by what I saw. Special teams – we had a couple errors in special teams. We had a blocked punt, which is something we’ve got to get corrected. And we had a long kickoff return, and that’s certainly something that we can’t have against Florida State. We did block a punt ourselves. We had some good and some bad. Obviously, this is a big week for us. This is a fun week. It’s one of the great rivalries in college football. I’ve been very fortunate to be around several of them, and this is as good as it gets. I’m really fortunate to be around this one again.”
QUESTION ABOUT THE FLORIDA CUP
“I know exactly how it works. If we win this game, we’ll get it. I know that much. But no, the winner of the Florida-Florida State-Miami game, the winner of the in-state series gets the Florida Cup. I think it’s obviously new, is that correct? I don’t know if there’s gonna be a presentation or not. Obviously, if we don’t win the game, there will be no presentation. Then I think Florida State will have an opportunity to win it outright if they beat Florida. It’s great from the standpoint of it’s a lot of in-state interest, and it certainly means a lot. As we know and we’ve mentioned before, the National Championships seem to come through Florida. So if you win that Cup, then you really have a great opportunity to be right where you need to be for a Championship run.”
ARE YOU RUNNING THE BALL BETTER THAN ANYTIME YOU’VE BEEN HERE?
“Yeah, I think we are. As I said earlier, I think this offensive line is a better run-blocking line than maybe any we’ve had since we’ve been here. Obviously, Willis McGahee has really stepped up and become a great back. I think all in all, we are probably running the ball better. Willis is the kind of back that, the way defenses play now, you really like, because he’s one that sometimes can make that eighth player in the box miss or run through an arm-tackle, and that person’s really difficult to block. I think that’s very helpful to running the football. I think also, we’ve progressed. You know, Rob’s been here a long time. And since we’ve all been here together, I think the offense has gotten better and better and better, from the standpoint of how we’re teaching it, what we’re teaching, what we want to get accomplished. I guess what I’m saying is I think we’re better coaches now than maybe we were early on. I think that’s certainly giving us an opportunity to be better. But the main thing is yes, we are, and the players are (the difference). I think we’ve got some good players here.”
ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT GREG JONES AND FSU RUNNING GAME?
“I think it’s a major concern. I think they’re a little bit like a mirror image of us, or what we try to be. I watched the Clemson game Thursday night, and they couldn’t tackle that back. He just ran through the entire team at times, it seemed like. I know that the younger Coach Bowden, from Clemson, mentioned that at halftime – “You know, we’ve got to tackle this guy.” And they really didn’t get it done in the second half. You know, that’s a major concern. And the other back’s a good back too. He’s a different style of back, but he’s a very good player. We really haven’t seen that type of back. Warrick Dunn – I think Warrick Dunn was a great player. But he wasn’t that 250-pound bruising back. He was just very strong and elusive. But this is I think a little bit different type of offense for Florida State.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE WATCHING McGAHEE WATCHING JONES RUN?
“Yes, it’s like watching Willis’ older brother. I mean, he’s a lot bigger than Willis is.”
BUT YOU GUYS HAVE PLAYED PRETTY WELL AGAINST THE RUN, RIGHT?
“We have played good run defense. We haven’t faced a – well, I take that back. The back from Florida, Earnest Graham, is I think, an exceptional player. He’s a different style of player, but … No, we’ve played exceptional run defense. I think our experience in the front has made a lot of difference there. We’ve got eight really good players that play in the front. And we’ve got those linebackers that have really played a lot – Jonathan and D.J. especially. And I’ll tell you, I think our defensive coaches are doing a great job of teaching tackling. They work on it a lot, and I think you’ve seen that on game days. And our secondary tackles well. All those things, I think, are added up, and you put in a good defensive scheme to help stop a good running offense.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED AT ALL ABOUT SECONDARY’S NO. 3 RANKING?
“Well, I don’t really know what I expected as far as national ranking is concerned. I expected we’d be pretty good in the secondary, and we had good talent there. We just didn’t have the experience that we had lost. And to say coming in, “Well, I think we’ll be just as good or better than these guys that left” – well, that’s ridiculous. I mean, you look at what Ed Reed is doing, and Philip Buchanon is doing, and Mike Rumph and all those guys. I think the thing is we’re playing pretty good team defense from the standpoint of we’re getting a lot of pressure from the pass rush. You could see that with six sacks (against UConn). We kept him very uncomfortable last night. We moved him around, and I think that really adds to the efficiency of our pass defense.”
WILL THE SECONDARY HAVE TO STEP IT UP AGAINST RIX AND FSU?
“Well, I don’t know that it changes. Obviously, the thing that changes is you’re gonna go against a Florida State offensive team that has the entire offensive line back, basically, and may be one of the best to ever play there. You know, that’s a pretty good starting point for their offense. And then Chris Rix is not a freshman anymore. He’s experienced. Now, you’ve got a couple of injured players that didn’t play last year that are back. Anquan Boldin is back, and Talmin Gardner is back. So they’ve got a very good array of receivers, and good size at receiver. So it’s gonna be the biggest challenge that we’ve faced so far, I believe. Because the thing that they have is they can run the football, plus now they have a number of receivers, plus they have an experienced offensive line.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT FSU’S DEFENSE?
“Well, they’re putting a lot of pressure on. The front is doing very good. I guess the secondary has been kind of their Achille’s heel so far. Their secondary has had some breakdowns. Honestly, I haven’t studied Florida State that closely yet. I’ve seen a little bit, but not really studied them. So I can’t just go position by position. But I know this – they’ve always been able to put great pressure on with the front people. It’s hard to get open when you do that. The thing that helps us, and probably helps them also, is our style of play on defense. Our receivers in practice have to work against the defensive backs with pressure, the blitz, and all those types of things. And that’s the type of play that we’ll get from Florida State.”
THE WIN OVER FSU TWO YEARS AGO …HOW VITAL WAS THAT TO UM?
“I think the loss to Washington, had we not beaten Florida State, would have been … That was the only way to really salvage the type of year that we wanted to have. And at that time, there was a chance to maybe play for the National Championship. From my standpoint, that was probably one of the finest college football games I’ve ever been around. And not particularly because it was so well played by us or well played by them. Just the atmosphere, the intensity, the rivalry – it was about as good as it gets. I think you’re right. I think for Miami to quote-unquote somewhat “get back,” you’ve got to beat a Florida, you’ve got to beat a Florida State. And that was my sixth year here, and we had not beaten Florida State. We played them pretty good a couple of times, and we were certainly outmatched a lot of the times. But that was one we needed to win. And the way it all transpired, we somewhat felt like we had the game won, and we had the game lost, and we had it won, then it could have been a tie and go to overtime – just a lot of scenarios there. It was played about as hard as any game I’ve ever been around.”
ROMBERG SAID COACHES CONVINCED THEM THEY COULD WIN THAT GAME – HOW DO YOU DO THAT?
“You try to be honest. And that’s the thing in games where we feel like we’re better than the other team. I mean, you try to be honest with them. It’s like, we felt like we were better than Connecticut. We had better talent than Connecticut. We had to play. We break it down by position, we look at it, we just lay it out on the line, what we need to do to win, and how we need to do it. We really did feel like we had a great opportunity to win that game. We felt like we had an excellent team that year – a really, really good team. We just blew the Washington game. And it boiled down to where that was kind of the case. We just knew we could win the football game if we played well.”
THAT GAME WAS SORT OF “COMING OUT PARTY” FOR DORSEY, SHOCKEY
“Well, I think it was. Because really, Jeremy had only gotten here in August, and didn’t play much against Washington. We really didn’t know what we had. We knew we had a potentially good player, but you know, you have to learn what to do, learn the offense and everything. That was definitely his coming out. I don’t know if anyone really knew who Jeremy Shockey was before that game. And Ken, I know that after the Washington game, it was “fire me, fire Ken,” and two weeks later, he was the front runner for the Heisman after the Florida State game. But I think you’re exactly right. It was a coming out for some of those players. And hopefully, that’s the kind of thing that you see happen in this program – guys have those opportunities in games like that. If you recruited well, and they’re taking the keys from some of those great players, then you’ll see some of those players you don’t really know so much about really have a chance to step up.”
YOU HAVE WON 17 STRAIGHT, TEAM 27 … DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO LOSE?
“How close am I to Bear Bryant?! (laughs). You don’t think much about it. You just prepare to win. But you never really forget what it’s like to lose. I know that when I was trying for a head coaching job (at University of Tulsa), I talked to John Cooper about it. And John said, “Why do you want that job?” I said, “Well, I want to be a head coach.” And he said, “Do you know how miserable and lonely and miserable it is on a Saturday night after you’ve just been crushed?” And I said, “Yeah, I know it is. It’s pretty lonely and miserable.” And he said, “You don’t want that job.” But anyways, it’s not too far away from your memory – what it’s like to lose. Even as a high school coach, you play and you lose a playoff game and don’t get a chance to play for a championship, you know you get this feeling like, “Boom!” and all of a sudden, it’s over. It’s really an empty feeling. I don’t think you live and die with a loss, because you’ll die if you’re in this business very long. But I think you honestly learn by it, and you don’t want to do it too much. I remember when I got the job, President Shalala told me, in a private conversation with she, myself and Paul Dee, that “You don’t have to win every game. We expect you to do things in the right way, and graduate players.” Paul Dee kind of whispered in my ear, and said, “We would like you to win several of them.”
HOW DO YOU GUARD AGAINST OVERCONFIDENCE WITH KIDS THAT HAVE NEVER LOST A COLLEGE GAME?
“That’s the thing. And we talk about that. I think it’s a good point. I think they expect to win – they haven’t lost. But I think the thing that I reminded them of is, a lot of these guys haven’t been here at 5-6. And a lot of these guys don’t understand what has transpired to go from 5-6 to 12-0 to 10-2 to whatever it is. Sometimes, you need to be reminded of what people have done to get us to that point. Last year’s seniors, when they started here, they were 5-6. To go from 5-6 to 12-0 and National Champions – I think they have a real appreciation of what it’s like to come from kind of nowhere, where you go to stadiums, and they’re half empty, and there’s not a lot of blimps flying overhead, and those types of things. And I think we need to remind them as coaches of what we need to do to maintain what we’ve accomplished here.”
HOW DO YOU COMPARE RIX AS A SOPHOMORE TO DORSEY AS A SOPHOMORE?
“Well, you know, I can’t really compare the two, because I haven’t really studied Chris that much. But I will say this – I think that he is an exceptional talent. I think that, going in, he was one of the guys mentioned as a possible Heisman candidate and all those kinds of things too. You know, Coach Bowden’s had a lot of great quarterbacks, and I know that he and his staff have great confidence in Chris Rix. And I think, more importantly, Chris Rix has a lot of confidence in himself. And I just think that he’s an exceptional talent, and we’ve got a real challenge in playing against him. And I’m not trying to be politically correct or anything. I think that’s true.”
ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT HIS ABILITY TO THROW DEEP BALL?
“I think it is a concern. I don’t see a lot of people taking shots, and I think that you’ll see that with Florida State. That’s always been a Bobby Bowden trait, he’s going to take his shots down the field. And Lee Corso was calling the plays the other night – you know, they’re backed up in the end zone, OK, look out. But no, we’ll definitely get some balls downfield. It’s not so much Chris Rix throwing the ball, because I think he can throw the deep ball well, but they’ve got some big receivers. They’ve got Bolden, they’ve got Gardner. Those guys are not small players. “
WHAT HAS DORSEY DONE TO EARN TEAMMATES’ RESPECT PAST FEW YEARS?
“Well, I think the main thing he’s done is what he does off the field, in the classroom and what he does in the summer in the weight room. It’s just like I mentioned before – it was two weeks after the Rose Bowl, and he’s got guys out here on the practice field, doing seven-on-seven and pushing cars and doing all kinds of stuff. You know, that’s your concern as a coach – Well, with all that success, let’s not get overconfident, let’s not get complacent, let’s put last year behind us. Well, they did that before I even had a chance to. They said it’s a new year, and let’s make our own run.”
IS THERE A CONCERN WITH HIM BEING TOO ANIMATED OUT THERE?
“I think he has been. The personal foul was on him, and I got in his mug pretty good after he came off the field. And he said, “Coach, I complimented the guy.” I feel like if we can just stay in our huddle, we can compliment after the game is over. I think he is a lot more animated, and we tried to perpetuate that some, from the standpoint of we wanted him to be more outgoing and take on more of a leadership role, because he really hadn’t done that. And like I told him, I said, “Don’t try to be an Ed Reed. You’re not an Ed Reed. And we can’t have a screaming maniac quarterback. You’ve got to be poised and running the offense, and those kinds of things.” But he has become more animated, more into it. He’s got so much confidence in what he’s doing, and he knows the offense so well now. But that was a penalty on Kenny, and I believe him that he wasn’t taunting the player. It’s not like him to do that.”
IS HE UPSET ABOUT GETTING HIT MORE THIS YEAR?
“Maybe. I think there’s a trust factor. I mean, if I’m a quarterback, I have to trust my left tackle to get the job done. I told Chud on the phone, “You know, it’s OK to get upset. But don’t get upset at the guy sacking you. That’s why he’s on scholarship.” You know, those are things you don’t see as a quarterback. You have to trust. You have to trust. And we’re a different team. We have 11 players in the National Football League, that we had last year that we don’t have this year. And just looking and comparing our team to Florida State’s team – you know, every position you read about, it’s the best ever, experienced. The offensive line, the quarterback, the pressure, every position – the kicker, the punter. It reads a lot like our team with the people that are coming back, only on another level, because they didn’t lose the same number of players that we did.”
DO YOU AGREE WITH VIEW THAT THEY ARE DOWN THIS YEAR?
“Whether they’re playing up to what their expectations are – I don’t really know what those are. But I know what I read about what their expectations were, and the players they had coming back. I know that their expectations have got to be sky high, just like ours are. So are they playing to that level? I don’t know if they are or not. But I know that, a little like our Washington scenario two years ago, this is a good way to right your ship. And we can’t let that happen. I’m sure they’d love to be able to come here and do that.”
CAN THEY GET THEIR SEASON BACK ON TRACK WITH A WIN HERE?
“Well, yeah, because it’s not that far off track. You know, the teams that have played for the National Championship the last two years lost one game. And of course Nebraska last year lost a game – late – and still played for the National Championship. So yeah, they can definitely get their ship on track. Now, Florida is another story. They’ve lost twice. They can get back on track and maybe have a great year, but for them to really be a Championship team is kind of a longshot.”
ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE KICKING GAME NOW?
“You know what? I am very pleased with the way he kicked the ball last night. I think he did an excellent job on kickoffs. We didn’t give him an opportunity for a field goal, but he’s got an extremely strong leg, and I feel very good about where he is. We kicked Mark Gent some in the second half, which we needed to do. And he did a nice job kicking the ball. He did miss the long extra point, but the ball was hit very well. That’s the thing that I see – you hit the ball well, and you’re OK. No, I’m very pleased. And I think their kicker has done an outstanding job for them also.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE TO RELY ON KICK TO WIN GAME?
“I think that’s always a possibility. I think two years ago, as it transpired, they missed some field goals early, and they went for it on first down in the first half a couple times, and I think didn’t make it. That may have ended up being the difference in the game. But I think that game here, the thing was the perception was still that if they hit the kick, we lose the game. But if they hit the kick, we go into overtime. So we still have some football to play. It’s not like the game’s over. I think we did a good job that year of keeping focused on not the kick, but just, “Hey, if he hits the kick, let’s go into overtime, and this is what we’re gonna do.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE TEAM’S OVERALL HEALTH?
“Well, I feel very good. Kyle Cobia is one that we’d hoped to get back. Kyle had a neck strain that caused some problems that made it a game-time decision on him. We decided not to play him. He would have been our starter. So that is one where we’ll see how he progresses throughout the week. That’s a concern, because we really like some of the things that he gives us, which is size, athleticism and speed. So again, that’s a question mark there. I think the rest of the health of the team, I think we’re pretty good. Sherko ended up starting. I’ll tell you why I did – because I talked to Dr. Uribe, and he said, “If you’re going to play him, play him early. Don’t let him stand for half the night, and put him in late.” So we actually started him and he played several plays. And he played very well. I’ll tell you, our offensive line is playing very hard. I’ve never really seen offensive linemen play that hard. And you know, they’re pretty athletic. Romberg and Sherko and Myers and Joseph – all those guys are athletic. Even Vernon is very athletic, especially now that he got his weight down.”
HOW IS SEAN TAYLOR’S FINGER?
“I won’t say, because I don’t know, to be quite honest with you. He stayed in and played, so I’m assuming it’s OK. But I don’t know that right now. If not, we’ll just put a club on him, like half our team.”
DOES IT HELP FSU THAT THEY’VE BEEN THROUGH AN OT GAME?
“Well, I don’t know if it helps them or not. They lost it, so it may not. But I think they’re like us – they practice it, they know what they’re doing, and had they not gone through one, it would still be the same. It’s one of those parts of the game that you have to prepare for.”
WHAT IS THE SITUATION FOR THE DISCIPLINED PLAYERS?
“Their situation is fine. Unless, there’s some issues that develop throughout the week, they’re fine. This was not a University issue. Basically, and really and truly, it was, as we handle a lot of things, an internal matter. And not meant at all to be for you or to embarrass any players. But on the other hand, we’re not keeping any secrets either. But no, their situation is fine.”
DO THEY COME BACK AS STARTERS?
“They’ll come back as starters. They’ll just have to make sure that the academic part of their life is in order. That’s not a severe penalty, obviously, but it is a reminder. I mean, that hurts – if you’re a starter and you don’t start. I wouldn’t like that. I hope so, because those are three good players. I hope it was understood. The point I made to our team was this – the graduation rates came out, and we graduated 56% of our students from I believe ’95 or ’96. Now, 56 percent — some of those went out early to the NFL. Now, circumstances like that, where they pay millions of dollars, you probably should do that, then come back and get your degree, then go to Cambridge or wherever you want to go. But the point I made to our team is 56 percent – that’s not good enough for us.”
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