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/ FootballNeal Brown Press Conference - Austin Peay Game
8/29/2016 2:28:00 PM | Football
Head Coach Neal Brown
Opening Statement...
"Welcome. Football time. I appreciate you all being here. Hopefully, you will make plans every Monday to be right here during the fall. Thank you all, newspapers, print, TV and radio for supporting us and promoting our program. I don't take it lightly.
It has been a quick 21 months. I looked at the calendar this morning, and going into year two I'm probably the most confident as I have been. I'm proud of what we accomplished. We still have a lot of work to do to get this wall rebuilt, but it has been fun and we are ready to get this season started.
We are glad to be starting it at home in front of our home fans, and we are expecting a big crowd on Saturday at five o'clock, intentionally going away from the other two teams in the state and their game times, so we are expecting a really good crowd. It's huge for our football team to be opening here and to play that sixth game at home. It will be really vital to us, especially with the young football team that we will talk about here in a second.
Really quickly, I want to acknowledge that it is Alumni Weekend, and this is the first year we have done that. From here on out, we will have an Alumni Weekend where we will bring former players and coaches back. We are going to honor at least one team every year. This year it is the 2001 team. 2001 was a huge year here, as all of you know, first year in Division I classification with Coach (Larry) Blakeney. We have had great feedback, and a lot of former players and participants on that team will be here in attendance. We are doing a function Friday night and on Saturday we are going to recognize them on the field. That will be fun and we are going to be educating our football team about the transition into Division I as we go about this week.
Overall, I will touch base on us and then I will get into Austin Peay. In game one we are going to focus on us. Overall, we are a very young football team. (Assistant AD/Media Relations) Adam (Prendergast) and I visited this morning. We only have 15 seniors on our roster. I think that is the fourth fewest in the country. We have 27 guys on this depth chart that are going to play in their first Division I football game on Saturday. We are talented, and the new guys can play. It is time to put them out there and see how they are going to react.
Defensively, our strengths should be up front. Rashad Dillard, a preseason first team all-conference player is back. He has made a really big jump from the end of last season. Our defensive tackles we have a little bit of depth there, and then at the other end we are glad to have Junior (Gnonkonde) here. He is one of those guys that will be playing new for us, not necessarily new to college football. Our front seven we have four senior linebackers that we are interchangeable on the depth chart. We are not really sure who is going to start yet. Those guys have been very unselfish and have set the tone on the defense side of the ball. The secondary is going to be much more improved from last year.
Offensively, we lost over 70 percent of our production. With that, Brandon Burks and Teddy Ruben, those were our two main guys last year. I'm not sure that we have any one person that is going to step in and fill Brandon Burks or Teddy Ruben's spot. But I feel much better about us collectively on offense than I did a year ago.
We only have three seniors. The good thing is a lot of these guys that you will be seeing on Saturday are going to be here two or three more years playing a lot of football. We have 17 new guys in the two-deep – 17 guys that will definitely play in the game on Saturday that have never played a game for Troy or have never played a Division I football game. It will be interesting. We will be better offensively. If you look at the stats, we played pretty well the last six games of the season last year, and I expect that to carry over. It might take us a little while to gel, but we will be an improved offensive unit for sure. The reason behind that is Brandon Silvers. He has matured and had a really good fall camp. We are better around him up front and I think that is an important piece.
Special teams wise is the one area where we have a lot of experience. All of our specialists have gotten experience. There will be a third-year starter for both of our snappers. Ryan Kay is in the punting role for now for his third year, and then he will take over the kicking unit that Jed had last year. He did that as a sophomore though so it shouldn't be anything. We have more bodies and we are more athletic, so our special teams unit should be improved as well.
Talking about Austin Peay, I really have no idea what to expect to be honest with you. They have a brand new head coach in Will Healy. I'm looking forward to the pre-game handshake where I am the veteran and I'm older. So that will be a first and a different experience. They have an all new staff. Most of those guys come from Tennessee-Chattanooga. Chattanooga has established itself as one of the top FCS programs in the country. Those guys are used to winning, and they know what a successful program looks like, they know how to develop the offensive and defensive units that have had success.
They will have a lot of energy and enthusiasm just following them online and reading some of the newspapers in Clarksville. They have a lot of new guys and new faces as well, especially on defense. I know they are going to come in with a lot of energy, and I know they are going to be fundamentally sound. One thing you see when you watch Tennessee-Chattanooga film is those guys were well coached and they play sound football in all three phases.
Offensively, they have two guys that are battling for the starting quarterback position. (Timarious) Mitchell is a kid that played a lot last year. He is a dual threat kid. They also signed a junior college kid, (Tommy) Hays from Butte out in California. Their best player on offense in my opinion is a wide receiver named Jared Beard. He is a guy that made a lot of plays last year. He had 49 receptions, six touchdowns, and he is a solid built kid, six-foot, 205 pounds. They have two running backs. (Marvin) Franklin is the starter on the depth chart, he redshirted last year. They also return Kendall Morris who rushed for about 700 yards last year. Their offensive line has experience. I think anytime you have depth and experience on the offensive line you should be more formidable.
Defensively, they have co-coordinators. Both of them have a Chattanooga background. I am familiar with several of their guys, they have a lot of guys that are from Kentucky in their two-deep, just from being in the state when I was at University of Kentucky. Some guys that I think our fans need to be aware of are the defensive tackle, Byron Carver. He is a guy that started at defensive end for them last year. He's explosive. He is from Bowling Green and went to Warren Central High School. He was a good basketball player as well. He can make things happen in the middle. He is a little bit undersized at defensive tackle, but he can run. At defensive end they have Lloyd Tubman who is a guy that played for us at Kentucky for a year. He went to Trinity Valley Junior College and now he is at Austin Peay. He is a really strong kid and he passes the look test, so he looks like a big time SEC defensive end. In the secondary, I think their best defensive player is a corner. His name is Roderick Owens, a guy that is as good at corner than anyone in our league. So those are some guys to recognize."
On youth of team and tempo…
"I think we will pick and choose our battles. The one thing that we have to focus on this year is we have to get more at-bats. We have to get more plays. I think we were in the upper 60's last year in plays per game, and we need to get up to 75 plus plays per game. We have to do a better job on first downs so we have shorter distances on third downs. Tempo is something we believe in regardless of what age of guys we are rolling out there. We will be simple going into the game plan. Brandon Silvers is at a point where he can handle more, but at running back and receiver we have a lot of new faces."
On the focus of the team…
"We respect Austin Peay and we respect their staff and what they are trying to do. We are very familiar with what they are going through, but this week is about us. It is about us through this whole non-conference schedule three games into the season until we play New Mexico State at home. We have to figure out what we are and figure out what are strengths and weaknesses are. We are going to play a lot of guys, offense and defense. We have to be vanilla and simple schematics wise just because we are so unsure about what we are going to see."
On moving Andre Flakes to Wide Receiver…
"We feel like he is one of our best players. Jordan Chunn has had a great fall camp. So Chunn will be our feature back. Flakes, we just felt like he was one of our best 11 players. Tevaris McCormick will be out with an injury; he will miss the game on Saturday. So I feel like we needed some playmaking ability at that position. He will still get some carries. We will play him not only in the back field, but also out wide."
On heading into second year as head coach…
"The biggest thing is I know what to expect. Other than Jordan Lesley, we are all back from last year. We shifted some special teams duties around, so this will be the first game like scenario that we will have in that capacity. The kids and coaches know what to expect. We are in year two schematically with the offense and defense. We have a lot of new faces, but I think there is a lot more confidence around the program as a whole."
On pressure on Brandon Silvers…
"I think most of the pressure is internal. I think he has felt pressure from the day he has arrived really. The history and tradition of quarterbacks here at Troy are expected to win and put up big stats. I think he has pressure that he puts on himself. I don't think he senses any of it from our staff or from the team. Does he have to play well for us to win? Yes, that's where we are at. He knows that. We are going to go as he goes. Last year there were times that he didn't necessarily play bad, but we just didn't get it done around him. We have to do a better job protecting him up front, which we will. We have more bodies and we are just better. We also have to make plays for him at wide out."
On Ismail Saleem injury status…
"We are optimistic about him playing. We won't determine until after Wednesday's practice. But we are optimistic."
On offensive line confidence…
"J.L. Gaston is going to play at center. He is a true freshman. Kirk Kelley and James Peach will play, both of those guys are redshirt freshmen. Look to see Taylor Edwards as well. Tristan Crowder is a guy that we have not made a decision on. A lot of it will depend on how it goes this week."
On Clark Quisenberry's ineligibility…
"Well this is something that we have been planning for. This didn't just come up. We made an appeal to the NCAA and I thought our appeal had merit and they denied that appeal. He will redshirt. That is probably in his best interest coming off that broken leg last year against Lafayette in that last regular season game. So he will sit out and get that leg well and then play his senior year next season. We have been preparing for it so I don't know that it will affect us other that he gives us some real toughness on offense and special teams."
On status of John Johnson and Emanuel Thompson…
"Both of them will play. We are expecting them to play at a high level."
Opening Statement...
"Welcome. Football time. I appreciate you all being here. Hopefully, you will make plans every Monday to be right here during the fall. Thank you all, newspapers, print, TV and radio for supporting us and promoting our program. I don't take it lightly.
It has been a quick 21 months. I looked at the calendar this morning, and going into year two I'm probably the most confident as I have been. I'm proud of what we accomplished. We still have a lot of work to do to get this wall rebuilt, but it has been fun and we are ready to get this season started.
We are glad to be starting it at home in front of our home fans, and we are expecting a big crowd on Saturday at five o'clock, intentionally going away from the other two teams in the state and their game times, so we are expecting a really good crowd. It's huge for our football team to be opening here and to play that sixth game at home. It will be really vital to us, especially with the young football team that we will talk about here in a second.
Really quickly, I want to acknowledge that it is Alumni Weekend, and this is the first year we have done that. From here on out, we will have an Alumni Weekend where we will bring former players and coaches back. We are going to honor at least one team every year. This year it is the 2001 team. 2001 was a huge year here, as all of you know, first year in Division I classification with Coach (Larry) Blakeney. We have had great feedback, and a lot of former players and participants on that team will be here in attendance. We are doing a function Friday night and on Saturday we are going to recognize them on the field. That will be fun and we are going to be educating our football team about the transition into Division I as we go about this week.
Overall, I will touch base on us and then I will get into Austin Peay. In game one we are going to focus on us. Overall, we are a very young football team. (Assistant AD/Media Relations) Adam (Prendergast) and I visited this morning. We only have 15 seniors on our roster. I think that is the fourth fewest in the country. We have 27 guys on this depth chart that are going to play in their first Division I football game on Saturday. We are talented, and the new guys can play. It is time to put them out there and see how they are going to react.
Defensively, our strengths should be up front. Rashad Dillard, a preseason first team all-conference player is back. He has made a really big jump from the end of last season. Our defensive tackles we have a little bit of depth there, and then at the other end we are glad to have Junior (Gnonkonde) here. He is one of those guys that will be playing new for us, not necessarily new to college football. Our front seven we have four senior linebackers that we are interchangeable on the depth chart. We are not really sure who is going to start yet. Those guys have been very unselfish and have set the tone on the defense side of the ball. The secondary is going to be much more improved from last year.
Offensively, we lost over 70 percent of our production. With that, Brandon Burks and Teddy Ruben, those were our two main guys last year. I'm not sure that we have any one person that is going to step in and fill Brandon Burks or Teddy Ruben's spot. But I feel much better about us collectively on offense than I did a year ago.
We only have three seniors. The good thing is a lot of these guys that you will be seeing on Saturday are going to be here two or three more years playing a lot of football. We have 17 new guys in the two-deep – 17 guys that will definitely play in the game on Saturday that have never played a game for Troy or have never played a Division I football game. It will be interesting. We will be better offensively. If you look at the stats, we played pretty well the last six games of the season last year, and I expect that to carry over. It might take us a little while to gel, but we will be an improved offensive unit for sure. The reason behind that is Brandon Silvers. He has matured and had a really good fall camp. We are better around him up front and I think that is an important piece.
Special teams wise is the one area where we have a lot of experience. All of our specialists have gotten experience. There will be a third-year starter for both of our snappers. Ryan Kay is in the punting role for now for his third year, and then he will take over the kicking unit that Jed had last year. He did that as a sophomore though so it shouldn't be anything. We have more bodies and we are more athletic, so our special teams unit should be improved as well.
Talking about Austin Peay, I really have no idea what to expect to be honest with you. They have a brand new head coach in Will Healy. I'm looking forward to the pre-game handshake where I am the veteran and I'm older. So that will be a first and a different experience. They have an all new staff. Most of those guys come from Tennessee-Chattanooga. Chattanooga has established itself as one of the top FCS programs in the country. Those guys are used to winning, and they know what a successful program looks like, they know how to develop the offensive and defensive units that have had success.
They will have a lot of energy and enthusiasm just following them online and reading some of the newspapers in Clarksville. They have a lot of new guys and new faces as well, especially on defense. I know they are going to come in with a lot of energy, and I know they are going to be fundamentally sound. One thing you see when you watch Tennessee-Chattanooga film is those guys were well coached and they play sound football in all three phases.
Offensively, they have two guys that are battling for the starting quarterback position. (Timarious) Mitchell is a kid that played a lot last year. He is a dual threat kid. They also signed a junior college kid, (Tommy) Hays from Butte out in California. Their best player on offense in my opinion is a wide receiver named Jared Beard. He is a guy that made a lot of plays last year. He had 49 receptions, six touchdowns, and he is a solid built kid, six-foot, 205 pounds. They have two running backs. (Marvin) Franklin is the starter on the depth chart, he redshirted last year. They also return Kendall Morris who rushed for about 700 yards last year. Their offensive line has experience. I think anytime you have depth and experience on the offensive line you should be more formidable.
Defensively, they have co-coordinators. Both of them have a Chattanooga background. I am familiar with several of their guys, they have a lot of guys that are from Kentucky in their two-deep, just from being in the state when I was at University of Kentucky. Some guys that I think our fans need to be aware of are the defensive tackle, Byron Carver. He is a guy that started at defensive end for them last year. He's explosive. He is from Bowling Green and went to Warren Central High School. He was a good basketball player as well. He can make things happen in the middle. He is a little bit undersized at defensive tackle, but he can run. At defensive end they have Lloyd Tubman who is a guy that played for us at Kentucky for a year. He went to Trinity Valley Junior College and now he is at Austin Peay. He is a really strong kid and he passes the look test, so he looks like a big time SEC defensive end. In the secondary, I think their best defensive player is a corner. His name is Roderick Owens, a guy that is as good at corner than anyone in our league. So those are some guys to recognize."
On youth of team and tempo…
"I think we will pick and choose our battles. The one thing that we have to focus on this year is we have to get more at-bats. We have to get more plays. I think we were in the upper 60's last year in plays per game, and we need to get up to 75 plus plays per game. We have to do a better job on first downs so we have shorter distances on third downs. Tempo is something we believe in regardless of what age of guys we are rolling out there. We will be simple going into the game plan. Brandon Silvers is at a point where he can handle more, but at running back and receiver we have a lot of new faces."
On the focus of the team…
"We respect Austin Peay and we respect their staff and what they are trying to do. We are very familiar with what they are going through, but this week is about us. It is about us through this whole non-conference schedule three games into the season until we play New Mexico State at home. We have to figure out what we are and figure out what are strengths and weaknesses are. We are going to play a lot of guys, offense and defense. We have to be vanilla and simple schematics wise just because we are so unsure about what we are going to see."
On moving Andre Flakes to Wide Receiver…
"We feel like he is one of our best players. Jordan Chunn has had a great fall camp. So Chunn will be our feature back. Flakes, we just felt like he was one of our best 11 players. Tevaris McCormick will be out with an injury; he will miss the game on Saturday. So I feel like we needed some playmaking ability at that position. He will still get some carries. We will play him not only in the back field, but also out wide."
On heading into second year as head coach…
"The biggest thing is I know what to expect. Other than Jordan Lesley, we are all back from last year. We shifted some special teams duties around, so this will be the first game like scenario that we will have in that capacity. The kids and coaches know what to expect. We are in year two schematically with the offense and defense. We have a lot of new faces, but I think there is a lot more confidence around the program as a whole."
On pressure on Brandon Silvers…
"I think most of the pressure is internal. I think he has felt pressure from the day he has arrived really. The history and tradition of quarterbacks here at Troy are expected to win and put up big stats. I think he has pressure that he puts on himself. I don't think he senses any of it from our staff or from the team. Does he have to play well for us to win? Yes, that's where we are at. He knows that. We are going to go as he goes. Last year there were times that he didn't necessarily play bad, but we just didn't get it done around him. We have to do a better job protecting him up front, which we will. We have more bodies and we are just better. We also have to make plays for him at wide out."
On Ismail Saleem injury status…
"We are optimistic about him playing. We won't determine until after Wednesday's practice. But we are optimistic."
On offensive line confidence…
"J.L. Gaston is going to play at center. He is a true freshman. Kirk Kelley and James Peach will play, both of those guys are redshirt freshmen. Look to see Taylor Edwards as well. Tristan Crowder is a guy that we have not made a decision on. A lot of it will depend on how it goes this week."
On Clark Quisenberry's ineligibility…
"Well this is something that we have been planning for. This didn't just come up. We made an appeal to the NCAA and I thought our appeal had merit and they denied that appeal. He will redshirt. That is probably in his best interest coming off that broken leg last year against Lafayette in that last regular season game. So he will sit out and get that leg well and then play his senior year next season. We have been preparing for it so I don't know that it will affect us other that he gives us some real toughness on offense and special teams."
On status of John Johnson and Emanuel Thompson…
"Both of them will play. We are expecting them to play at a high level."
𝗕𝗘𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗟𝗟 - 𝗦𝟭𝟬, 𝗘𝟲
Wednesday, October 15
Behind the Wall - S10, E6
Wednesday, October 15
Football Press Conference (Players) - ULM Game
Monday, October 13
Gerad Parker Press Conference - ULM Game
Monday, October 13