WILLIE FRITZ
This is the second game you've played this year where you were expected to win comfortably. What does is say about the team that you came out and did exactly what you were expected to do.
"Well, I think that's the sign of a mature team. We talked all week about it. I know sometimes guys look past games and that's when upsets occur and we're certainly not to the point where we can do that, but I was excited about our effort. We had pretty good energy."
Once again you were able to rest guys. Justin McMillan was out midway through the third quarter.
"I didn't even see him on the sidelines (joking) in the second half. I don't know where Justin went. He took off and went in the stands? No, we wanted to get a bunch of guys out there. We've got such good kids on this team. We want to get those guys in there and get the opportunity to play. Against Missouri State I think we played 87 guys, and we're going to be close to playing that much. Our secondary one time had all true freshmen in there that are on the scout team. We had to kind of coach them up on the sideline and get them going, so it was fun to get those guys in there. I like the fact that the starters were pulling for guys that were getting in there. That's a neat thing."
I was on a radio show this week where I was asked to give a weakness of your team and I could not come up with one positionally. Do you feel pretty good about what you have?
"We are much deeper than we have ever been by far. The first couple of years if we got an injury at a couple of spots, there was a big drop-off from the first-team guy to the second-team guy, but we also wanted to play a lot of guys so that we could keep some dudes out of harm's way. It's a big game next Saturday, and we felt like we had the game in hand at halftime, so not everybody played as much as they might normally play."
How happy are you with the pass defense this year? Only five teams had held opponents under 50 percent completions entering this week (It's no longer true for Tulane).
"It's awesome. We had an interception return (for the touchdown) and there were a couple others I thought, we'll go back and look at the tape (on Jaylon Monroe's interception off a tipped pass by Larry Brooks when Brooks was flagged for interference), I thought that was pretty good defense and they called interference (Ed's note: I thought it was interference, but the referee who called it was the side judge on a pass in the middle of the field, and he appeared to wait for the result before throwing the flag) on us. We'll see. We're playing good pass defense. Part of that's the rush, but we work on it every single day. When you go against (Darnell) Mooney and (Jalen) McCleskey and (Jaetavian) Toles, those guys who are quick as a cat, it helps those guys with their technique, our DBs."
There were some costly penalties in the first half, and you've already said you're not sure the call was right on the interference in the second half (Tulane finished with eight penalties for 80 yards). How do you feel there?
"Well, we're trying to decrease it. We had eight today. Some of those were late in the game with some guys who don't get to play much. We had a guy that jumped late in the game. We had a guy that was the second shover. Hopefully he learned his lesson. The second guy always gets caught, not the first guy, but we need to play a lot cleaner football this Saturday."
The defensive starters were upset you didn't get the shutout.
"I wanted to play those guys. We've got to finish the game. One thing we talked about on Monday was we've got to know how to react when we're up on somebody (unlike what happened at Army) so we can keep competing and keep playing and all those kind of things. We did that for the most part, though."
You've put yourself in good position with a tough schedule the rest of the way. What are your thoughts going into the second half of the season?
"Well, the same thing as we've been preaching all along. We want to go 1-0 (this week) and that's all we're worried about. We're going to let the guys have fun, celebrate. It was a big win. It's hard to win college football games. Everybody is trying to win, but we'll come back here on Monday and we're turning the page and moving on to Memphis."
Will Thakarius Keyes be OK?
"Yes. He's fine."
This is the second game you've played this year where you were expected to win comfortably. What does is say about the team that you came out and did exactly what you were expected to do.
"Well, I think that's the sign of a mature team. We talked all week about it. I know sometimes guys look past games and that's when upsets occur and we're certainly not to the point where we can do that, but I was excited about our effort. We had pretty good energy."
Once again you were able to rest guys. Justin McMillan was out midway through the third quarter.
"I didn't even see him on the sidelines (joking) in the second half. I don't know where Justin went. He took off and went in the stands? No, we wanted to get a bunch of guys out there. We've got such good kids on this team. We want to get those guys in there and get the opportunity to play. Against Missouri State I think we played 87 guys, and we're going to be close to playing that much. Our secondary one time had all true freshmen in there that are on the scout team. We had to kind of coach them up on the sideline and get them going, so it was fun to get those guys in there. I like the fact that the starters were pulling for guys that were getting in there. That's a neat thing."
I was on a radio show this week where I was asked to give a weakness of your team and I could not come up with one positionally. Do you feel pretty good about what you have?
"We are much deeper than we have ever been by far. The first couple of years if we got an injury at a couple of spots, there was a big drop-off from the first-team guy to the second-team guy, but we also wanted to play a lot of guys so that we could keep some dudes out of harm's way. It's a big game next Saturday, and we felt like we had the game in hand at halftime, so not everybody played as much as they might normally play."
How happy are you with the pass defense this year? Only five teams had held opponents under 50 percent completions entering this week (It's no longer true for Tulane).
"It's awesome. We had an interception return (for the touchdown) and there were a couple others I thought, we'll go back and look at the tape (on Jaylon Monroe's interception off a tipped pass by Larry Brooks when Brooks was flagged for interference), I thought that was pretty good defense and they called interference (Ed's note: I thought it was interference, but the referee who called it was the side judge on a pass in the middle of the field, and he appeared to wait for the result before throwing the flag) on us. We'll see. We're playing good pass defense. Part of that's the rush, but we work on it every single day. When you go against (Darnell) Mooney and (Jalen) McCleskey and (Jaetavian) Toles, those guys who are quick as a cat, it helps those guys with their technique, our DBs."
There were some costly penalties in the first half, and you've already said you're not sure the call was right on the interference in the second half (Tulane finished with eight penalties for 80 yards). How do you feel there?
"Well, we're trying to decrease it. We had eight today. Some of those were late in the game with some guys who don't get to play much. We had a guy that jumped late in the game. We had a guy that was the second shover. Hopefully he learned his lesson. The second guy always gets caught, not the first guy, but we need to play a lot cleaner football this Saturday."
The defensive starters were upset you didn't get the shutout.
"I wanted to play those guys. We've got to finish the game. One thing we talked about on Monday was we've got to know how to react when we're up on somebody (unlike what happened at Army) so we can keep competing and keep playing and all those kind of things. We did that for the most part, though."
You've put yourself in good position with a tough schedule the rest of the way. What are your thoughts going into the second half of the season?
"Well, the same thing as we've been preaching all along. We want to go 1-0 (this week) and that's all we're worried about. We're going to let the guys have fun, celebrate. It was a big win. It's hard to win college football games. Everybody is trying to win, but we'll come back here on Monday and we're turning the page and moving on to Memphis."
Will Thakarius Keyes be OK?
"Yes. He's fine."