Angelo Anderson was at practice on crutches today, but Willie Fritz says he expects him to be back by mid-October. The reason I had not seen Anderson before was simple. He had to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel because of contact tracing issues. Fritz said it was tough because he could no do any rehab while staying in his hotel room, but that's over now and he can rehab from minor surgery on his left knee.
The backup tackles today were Eric Hicks, Davon Wright and Adonis Friloux. Alfred Thomas was in a full-contact jersey but I did not see him get a rep in the last 30 minutes of practice against the scout team. Brandon Brown is on the scout-team defense, so he is not ready to play. Noah Taliancich remains out with an injury, too. When Patrick Johnson or Cam Sample needs a breather against Navy, the coaches are going to hold their breath with Carlos Hatcher, Darius Hodges and Noah Seiden out there.
Kevin Henry made a spectacular one-handed interception, tapping the ball to himself, against the scout team offense. Tulane has four legitimate starter-quality linebackers this year. It is a strong unit.
Navy rushed for 388 yards on 55 rushing attempts last year but only 132 yards on 43 carries in its last visit to Yulman Stadium when it did not have a game-breaking QB. Obviously, Tulane wants to be closer to the latter figure this year. Although the line lacks depth, it dominated the fourth quarter against South Alabama rather than getting tired. The high is supposed to be 80 degrees Saturday, so it will not be unbearable.
FRITZ
On defending Navy
"It's tough. They know (the under-center triple option) inside and out. They've been running it forever. All the coaches there have been running it forever. You've got to be really assignment sound defensively. You've got to do a great job of tackling and not letting them fall forward. They love second-and-7. That's a good down and distance for them. Most teams are not patient enough to keep doing it. These guys are. We talked to our defense it's a four-and-out mentality. It's not a three-and-out mentality this week."
On bad start to Navy game last year
"We didn't start off very good last year both offensively and defensively. There's a couple plays we've just got to do a better job of fitting it up. We've worked on these guys a bunch. You have to. The offense is so unique and they do a lot of different things on defense. They do blitzes, do a nice job of showing one thing and doing something else. They are a very diverse package defensively as well. It took us a while to kind of get down what they were doing last year. We played really well offensively in the second half, but we need to do that from the beginning of the game in all three phases."
On Spears:
"I'm really blessed. I've got 70 to 80 guys on the team who do it this way, but he practices extremely hard and then he goes and does it in the game. The physicality part of it, the mental toughness part of it. Sometimes he's a little hard on himself. We've got to get him to move on to the next play, but he's a perfectionist and has great speed, great balance. The thing I'm most impressed with him is he'll block. Today one time he got right in the middle of an outside blitzer. Sometimes those backs will get a a shoulder in there a little bit and hope they get a piece of them. He's going to get right down the center of the guy. He's a tough, hardnose dude."
On slow starts in general
"If I had to do things over, the thing I blame myself about is not scrimmaging a little bit more. We'd scrimmaged two weeks before and I'd had about seven to eight guys get banged up. I thought we were ready to go, but when you play a game, it's just different. All these guys I'm sure right now feel better prepared to play a game 2 than they did.game 1. You think you can walk out there and go, but the angles are different, the tackling's different, the ball security's different, everything's different. All the things we do in drills now comes to fruition as long as they do it like they are supposed to in the game. There were a lot of lessons taught in that game for everybody offensively, defensively and in the kicking game."
On Angelo Anderson:
"He had surgery a few weeks ago. Unfortunately he had to go to the hotel because he was quarantined with contact tracing. He didn't have the virus, but when you get contact traced, you get 14 days out, so that was 14 days he couldn't rehab. I feel for those dudes in the hotel. They go to a hotel and are sitting in a room for two weeks. They don't see anybody. They kind of slide their tray of food in front of their door. Somebody knocks and they walk away. Some of those guys who went over there were running sprints in the hallways. It's a different deal. It wasn't anything they did. It was somebody else and they happened to be near the dude. He'll be back in a few weeks. Hopefully mid-October he'll be ready to go."
On Big Ten coming back:
"I just got done telling our guys about it. You really have to be mentally tough. This is a different season. I just talked to one of our guys who stayed up late last night. i said there's nothing to do. There's no place to go. Hey, let's do football, do your academics and try to stay away from stuff. I know that's not fun. It's easy for me to do it. I just hang around my wife when I get home. That's it, but you gotta be diligent on all these things. The mental toughness part is so important right now."
On Ryan Wright status:
"He will be back this week."
On Remetich and Tuggle:
"They did a very good job. For true freshmen playing their first Division I game, they did an excellent job. We rolled them a bunch. They split reps with Jaylen Miller and Ben Knutson on the right side, which is great. We're building up some depth. We've not been able to do that in the past."
The backup tackles today were Eric Hicks, Davon Wright and Adonis Friloux. Alfred Thomas was in a full-contact jersey but I did not see him get a rep in the last 30 minutes of practice against the scout team. Brandon Brown is on the scout-team defense, so he is not ready to play. Noah Taliancich remains out with an injury, too. When Patrick Johnson or Cam Sample needs a breather against Navy, the coaches are going to hold their breath with Carlos Hatcher, Darius Hodges and Noah Seiden out there.
Kevin Henry made a spectacular one-handed interception, tapping the ball to himself, against the scout team offense. Tulane has four legitimate starter-quality linebackers this year. It is a strong unit.
Navy rushed for 388 yards on 55 rushing attempts last year but only 132 yards on 43 carries in its last visit to Yulman Stadium when it did not have a game-breaking QB. Obviously, Tulane wants to be closer to the latter figure this year. Although the line lacks depth, it dominated the fourth quarter against South Alabama rather than getting tired. The high is supposed to be 80 degrees Saturday, so it will not be unbearable.
FRITZ
On defending Navy
"It's tough. They know (the under-center triple option) inside and out. They've been running it forever. All the coaches there have been running it forever. You've got to be really assignment sound defensively. You've got to do a great job of tackling and not letting them fall forward. They love second-and-7. That's a good down and distance for them. Most teams are not patient enough to keep doing it. These guys are. We talked to our defense it's a four-and-out mentality. It's not a three-and-out mentality this week."
On bad start to Navy game last year
"We didn't start off very good last year both offensively and defensively. There's a couple plays we've just got to do a better job of fitting it up. We've worked on these guys a bunch. You have to. The offense is so unique and they do a lot of different things on defense. They do blitzes, do a nice job of showing one thing and doing something else. They are a very diverse package defensively as well. It took us a while to kind of get down what they were doing last year. We played really well offensively in the second half, but we need to do that from the beginning of the game in all three phases."
On Spears:
"I'm really blessed. I've got 70 to 80 guys on the team who do it this way, but he practices extremely hard and then he goes and does it in the game. The physicality part of it, the mental toughness part of it. Sometimes he's a little hard on himself. We've got to get him to move on to the next play, but he's a perfectionist and has great speed, great balance. The thing I'm most impressed with him is he'll block. Today one time he got right in the middle of an outside blitzer. Sometimes those backs will get a a shoulder in there a little bit and hope they get a piece of them. He's going to get right down the center of the guy. He's a tough, hardnose dude."
On slow starts in general
"If I had to do things over, the thing I blame myself about is not scrimmaging a little bit more. We'd scrimmaged two weeks before and I'd had about seven to eight guys get banged up. I thought we were ready to go, but when you play a game, it's just different. All these guys I'm sure right now feel better prepared to play a game 2 than they did.game 1. You think you can walk out there and go, but the angles are different, the tackling's different, the ball security's different, everything's different. All the things we do in drills now comes to fruition as long as they do it like they are supposed to in the game. There were a lot of lessons taught in that game for everybody offensively, defensively and in the kicking game."
On Angelo Anderson:
"He had surgery a few weeks ago. Unfortunately he had to go to the hotel because he was quarantined with contact tracing. He didn't have the virus, but when you get contact traced, you get 14 days out, so that was 14 days he couldn't rehab. I feel for those dudes in the hotel. They go to a hotel and are sitting in a room for two weeks. They don't see anybody. They kind of slide their tray of food in front of their door. Somebody knocks and they walk away. Some of those guys who went over there were running sprints in the hallways. It's a different deal. It wasn't anything they did. It was somebody else and they happened to be near the dude. He'll be back in a few weeks. Hopefully mid-October he'll be ready to go."
On Big Ten coming back:
"I just got done telling our guys about it. You really have to be mentally tough. This is a different season. I just talked to one of our guys who stayed up late last night. i said there's nothing to do. There's no place to go. Hey, let's do football, do your academics and try to stay away from stuff. I know that's not fun. It's easy for me to do it. I just hang around my wife when I get home. That's it, but you gotta be diligent on all these things. The mental toughness part is so important right now."
On Ryan Wright status:
"He will be back this week."
On Remetich and Tuggle:
"They did a very good job. For true freshmen playing their first Division I game, they did an excellent job. We rolled them a bunch. They split reps with Jaylen Miller and Ben Knutson on the right side, which is great. We're building up some depth. We've not been able to do that in the past."
