Meet The Press: @GoldenAl Recaps 2013 Season

Miami Hurricanes head coach Al Golden met with the media Monday for his season-ending press conference.

In his third season with the Hurricanes, he led Miami to a 9-4 record and a berth in the Russell Athletic Bowl – Miami’s first bowl game since 2010. Golden is 22-15 in three seasons as Hurricanes head coach. 

Opening Statement…
“Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming and for covering the Canes. As I said yesterday in my statement, it’s humbling and it’s flattering, and it’s a testament to our staff and student-athletes that other people expressed interest in us. As I said yesterday, I’m excited about where we’re going here at the University of Miami. I’m excited about our student-athletes coming back next week. We’ve got some mid-week enrollees coming in this week. I’m excited to get back on the road and just really ready to move forward. It’s one of those things where I really don’t talk about other programs or other universities. I think it’s really important we talk about the University of Miami and the direction we’re going.”

On the difficulties he has faced over the last few days…
“Obviously there are some universities that have express interest the last couple of years, and I’ve never addressed any of them. I’m not going to start doing that now. I’m not a candidate for any other job, and I plan to be at the University of Miami.”

On if he was offered the head coaching job at Penn State University…
“I stand by my statement from yesterday. I’m here. I plan to be at the coach at the University of Miami. I never speculate on any other programs, and we’re ready to move forward.”

On the potential for changes to his team’s defensive personnel…
“When we talk personnel, it can be construed as an excuse or it could be a situation where you’re disparaging anybody that’s here in the program. The guys that were here in this program delivered us through a very dark time, and we’re so grateful to them. We’ve made progress with them. Understand, number one, I’m responsible for everything in our program, that’s including the defense. Number two, I’m responsible for personnel. The third thing is, in terms of schemes and direction that we want to go, we’re not where we want to be. We had an opportunity to win nine games, I would have loved to have won 10 and kept moving forward, but that did not happen.

“The progress we made, whether it’s the sacks, the fumbles caused and recovered, interceptions – all of those things. This has been, probably in my career, I don’t want to say the most explosive but we made explosive plays. We scored five touchdowns on defense. We blocked four kicks for the first time – things of that nature. Those, to me, are all positive trends. We went from 31 penalties on defense a year ago to 10 or 12, if I’m not mistaken. To 10 from 31 penalties, playing all those young guys a year ago. Although we’re not where we want to be, there are so many little things I look at as a head coach that say, ‘Okay, the answer right now is not change. The answer is continuity. The answer is continued development of our young people.’

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about the talent coming back on defense. I am. I’m excited. We have a lot of playmakers coming back. We are adding 13 to 16 more recruits to that. I’m excited about that. It’s my decision. My decision was that starting over for these young people is not the answer. Continuity, continued progress, continuing with the same position coaches, techniques and scheme was the better answer for me. I made that decision after careful evaluation.”

On if he plans on making any changes to his assistant coaching staff…
“I do not. I evaluated all that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and finished my evaluation last night. We obviously had three position changes last year on offense. I’m happy with all those guys. I really am. As I said, we’ve made a lot of progress in a lot of different areas, but we have a long way to go. I never fail to recognize it. I understand we have a long way to go. We’re going to keep fighting, keep working. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to tweak our personnel, our usage of personnel, how we devise things, or the quality control we go through and deciding what is best. A team is reborn every year. What was good for this past team may not be best for this team coming up – whether it’s a different quarterback, a different run game, especially with the kids coming in – we may have more defensive backs than we’ve had in a while – we might be able to play more nickel, for instance. Those types of things all going into consideration when you’re making that decision.”

On if he would call Ryan Williams his starting quarterback entering the spring…
“I think Ryan has done a really good job. But you’re not anointed the starting quarterback anywhere. Ryan did a really good job. He did a really great job as distinguishing himself as the No. 2 in training camp. Kevin [Olsen] and Gray [Crow] and the young people we have coming in are going to have an opportunity to compete. In terms of Ryan’s growth, his development, his maturity, his football intelligence – I think that relationship with Stephen [Morris] and the progress that he made, is obviously someone we’re excited about. I think I shared that with you along the road here this year.

“As it relates to our offense, we want to be more balanced. We have explosive playmakers, but we need to control the ball a little bit better.  One of the ways to do that is doing a better job on third down, and that includes first-down efficiency. How can we get into more third-and-manageable [situations]? Really, our completion percentage – for how we conduct the offense, our completion percentage needs to be closer to 67 or 68-percent, than what it was this year. It needs to be higher. That’s going to allow us to get more first downs and control the ball. We could have helped our defense a lot more by controlling the ball, but also by converting on third downs. Third downs were not good enough.

“We were a lot better running the ball, explosive runs, runs over ten yards, a lot better at our explosive passing. I don’t think there’s any question that we have an explosive element, and I’m very excited to say all that element is coming back – Duke [Johnson], Dallas [Crawford], Gus [Edwards], Beau [Sandland], Clive [Walford], Herb [Waters], Stacy [Coley], Rashawn Scott, Phillip Dorsett. There should be a good group of guys coming back that can give us an explosive element.”

On why he waited until Sunday to issue a personal statement…
“I can tell you that the only reason I released the statement, as communicated to by Blake [James] and Chris [Freet] and everybody, how widespread the speculation was. I really thought I was going to have the opportunity to talk here on Monday. I released it yesterday, and like I said, we’re moving forward.”

On why he remained at Miami after the NCAA investigation…
“We’ve made a lot of progress now, and this will be our first year being able to go out and recruit without any NCAA cloud hanging over us. I guess there’s a big part of me that wants that, that I haven’t experienced that. None of us have experienced that. We haven’t experienced a season or training camp without that hanging over our heads. From that standpoint, we want to move forward.

“We have great kids in this program. We have a lot of young men who do things the right way. Knock on wood, we’ve made good decisions off the field, and we’re getting better on the field. All those trends, all those things that I look at, when I make decisions I have to make – we have a lot of experience coming back. Probably more experience than we’ve ever had. We’re a much more mature group. We’re better in the weight room. Those are all the factors that go into those types of decisions.”

On the struggles on the defensive side of the ball late in the season…
“If I say yes to what you just said, it’s an excuse. The reality of it is that we weren’t good enough. We didn’t get it done. It’s my responsibility for us to be better at that time of year. Again, we have to continue to build our depth. That’s going to be critical. Everybody goes through a lot of injuries, and injuries are a part of the factor – if you look at the time of year, the guys we lost, it was difficult. There’s no excuse. All that goes into play, including us coaching better, playing better, and continuing to have our focus.”