Carson-Newman Football Lenoir-Rhyne Pre-Game Press Release Transcripts
Mike Clowney Opening Statement: This is an interesting game. I think Lenoir-Rhyne has done a good job over the past few years of kind of growing and developing their program. I think, you know, be able to see that they're 18 in the country is a staple that they've kind of been able to put together and create. The thing for us is we really can't worry about Lenoir-Rhyne. The thing that we've got to do is focus on the things that we need to do to continue to get better, to go in there and give ourselves a victory.
Q1: You think of the Bears, you've got to think of what they bring to the table offensively. Dwayne McGee, third among all active players in all divisions in rushing yards per game. You got two first-team All-SAC receivers in Deondre Lester and Kelin Parsons. Grayson Willingham finally graduated, but the skill positions are as talented as it gets. How do you slow down what's typically a dynamic offense?
They do have a really talented roster at receiver. Those guys are dynamic. They do a good job. They work to get open. And then McGee was Offensive Player of the Year, Freshman of the Year last year. I know he had a great game against us last year, but when we go meet with other conference coaches to kind of see that his sentiment was unanimous basically across the league. But for us, I think it's still about staying low, doing the fundamental things right, continue to work to change the line of scrimmage. We've got to get a lot of people to the football. We've got to make some adjustments on the back end to where we probably change up what we're doing just a little bit, just to make sure that we can rally guys where we need to.
Q2: Really, the first time this season, you don't have to go against a bowling ball running back. McGee obviously talented, but 5'7, 170, as opposed to the 6'1, 220-pound guys that you've faced the past three weeks. What makes him so elusive, just so good back there?
He really does a really good job of changing direction. He's got good speed. He can stop on a dime and get the ball back vertical. I think that's the one of the main reasons you've been able to kind of see his success. Small kid, but he still kind of runs like those bigger guys.
Q3: How do you avoid letting a heartbreaking loss like Limestone beat you twice?
The biggest thing is just going back to work today. It's where we talked about it's okay to be down for a little bit, but it's time to clock back in. It's time to go get done what we need. We can't sit and soak on it. What happened? What we got to do is go fix what happened. We've been in discovery mode to try to talk about what are some things that we need to do to monitor and adjust to minimize some of the mistakes we made last week.
Q4: Carson-Newman's been known for great stable running backs over the years. What do you think about the depth and talent that your group showed over the weekend?
It was one of those things like you just go in every day, try to figure out who the running back is, which sometimes that's a good problem, sometimes that's a bad problem. But I think right now it's a good problem to have. I think we've got a lot of guys there that's working, that's contributing. They all come to work every single day. I think Coach Weaver has done a great job with them. I think anytime in coaching, the one thing that you want to do is develop a mentality. I think if you go turn on some of his tape and you kind of start to see some of his mentality show up in some of our running backs to where they're doing a good job as far as being downhill, physical runners, trying not to get tackled by that first contact. He works them hard, and they do a good job of having fun. So, you see a lot of excitement, enthusiasm in the room. It's fun watching them come in yesterday. They talk about on their grade sheet where he marked them down. He's like, what happened? Then the next one comes in asking what do you mean on this markdown on my grade sheet? And then just kind of see them have that conversation to where the kids are engaged, they're learning, and I think we'll just see them continue to get better.
Q5: It's an interesting group because you got a lot of young guys, you got a lot of turnover within the roster. How are you seeing the confusion of this year's group kind of gel together here over the first few weeks?
Yeah, I think it's that standard in that room right now. There's one standard. It doesn't matter whether you just got here, you've been here two or three years, whether you play college football before or you haven't. From the guys that we've seen play on Saturday, and then there's a couple of other guys that we traveled and at one point I'm like, he's really demanding that of that kid. And then he is. And then you just kind of watch that growth and development. So, there's a couple of other guys there that he really believes in him. He pushes them and then it's going to be interesting to watch them too.
Q6: Saturday, you don't have a lead until overtime. A lot of things go wrong for your group. Was there any silver linings for you and the coaching staff that perhaps you can take away from a game like that where you certainly didn't play your best, but had a chance to?
Yes, I think there are a lot. I think the one that really sticks out to me is just they never really flinched. They never didn't think we were going to win the football game. The most frustrating thing to me, honestly, is the first play kick-off to where we bobble it, and then we wind up with the ball on the six, and then we immediately give up the punt return. So, in my head, that's the cycle of the series and plays, because one thing you always want to do is get off to a good start. But it didn't bother them. As the coach, I'm like, I'm growling, but it didn't bother them. It was like, let's go down. Let's put the ball in the endzone, and then we immediately go down, we move, we score, and essentially you get the game back to zero-zero, and let's go play ball from here. But even down by five at halftime, I mean, as many mistakes as we made, we're still within a touchdown of trying to take control of the football game, but then we never stop making those little mistakes. Some of the mistakes we made, I think were kids trying to give great effort, but we've just got to give great effort and make sure we get in front of a guy or pull off a guy in a position to make a block, but we can't see his eyes. And so, the mistakes that we made, they weren't guys just being selfish. I think it was guy trying to give us a good effort to win a football game, and you just got to curb those.
Q7: How do you get off to a fast start this weekend?
I think it's the same thing. That's what we talked about in our meeting. It really still goes back to doing the little things well. I think we're off to a great start. I think we're this far from a great start. I hate picking at Major on that, but if he moves this far over, he catches the ball in the middle instead of letting it hit on the side, then we get a decent return and who knows what happens in the football game. So, it goes back to just us focusing on not making those little errors and being comfortable in a situation where we just need to focus and go to work.
Q8: Meeting LR this weekend, what are one or two things that needs to happen for your team?
We've still got some of the big plays that we left on the field. We've got to connect on a couple of those. We still have to make sure that we can run the football and control the clock. I think defensively, we've got to sure up tackles, and we can't have miscommunications on the back end because they will take advantage of them.
Q9: You kind of alluded to it with the running back room, but Vonte Brackett. He was a late addition to the travel roster at West Georgia, and he had three games, really two and a half for how sparingly he played against Wolves. He's putting up Carson-Newman feature back numbers. Ten carries, 60 yards. What has he done to so quickly worked himself into the rotation from late travel squad addition to he's getting significant touches?
Vonte played in a good program. He played at Hoover in Alabama. So that's one thing I think, that sticks out. He's played good football. He's played in big football games before. And so that's one of the qualities that you look for when you are recruiting. The biggest problem with him is he showed up out of shape. We felt like he had a talented guy, but he showed up a little bit heavier than we anticipated and would like to have. But the thing over and over pushing them to like, hey man, you aren't where we want to be. You aren't where you want to be. I know Coach Weaver, it sounds rough when he asks you to run an extra 20-yards every run. But if you'll do that for the next four or five weeks, then you kind of work yourself into shape. And so, going into West Georgia, we still had some concerns over is he where he needed to be? But then, now you look at this game, even from that point. It's been two weeks since then to where he's been able to kind of develop himself, push himself to kind of get a little bit better condition to where he can make some of the cuts. When we're out of shape, sometimes if I want to play a game today like I see the hole I just couldn't make a cut to get in it. And it didn't matter whether you're 42 or if you're 22. If you aren't in condition to do that, then it just won't happen. But now you kind of see him play himself into shape to where he can help us.
Q10: You look at LR. I mean, for years their offense has been good. The defense here of late has been really good. Limiting the defending national champions to 28-points, a sack in 56 straight weeks of football. What do they do that can cause an offense to have problems?
They're super talented, especially up front. On the back end, they're really athletic. But the biggest thing they do is they rally to the football. They've got a bunch of guys that's won games and they do the little things. They're going to attack, get up field, then they're going to work back to the ball. So, you'll wind up seeing them get more than one guy to the ball consistently, which gives them a chance to get guys on the ground and get them stopped.
