University Southern California Trojans
Hackett, Tomey Get Ready for Saturday
October 05, 1999 | Football
Oct. 5, 1999
LOS ANGELES - Following is a transcript of the press conference held by USC football coach Paul Hackett, and the teleconference with Arizona Coach Dick Tomey, as they discussed this Saturday's USC-Arizona football game in Tucson:
USC COACH PAUL HACKETT QUOTES
I see that we haven't played Arizona for a couple years. It's been interesting to me to look at them for really the first time because I've heard so much about Arizona and how advanced they are strategically. It's really exciting to watch them. They play a very distinctive defense. They termed it the flex defense, they're running all over the place and it's tough to determine where they'll be, or how you're going to go about blocking them. On offense, goodness gracious, they have every formation. It's really a multiple-offense football team.
I think we're about to go play the best team we've played this year. They were slated as the favorite to start this year and I don't think that information was too far off. It appears that what has happened is that they haven't played as well as everyone would have wanted them to, because the expectations were so high coming off the great season last year. But they've got maybe the premier wide receiver in the conference in Dennis Northcutt. From punt returns to kickoff returns to taking the game over as a receiver, he's really exciting. He's something special. Their runner has been impressive. The thing about the quarterbacks is that they can get themselves out of trouble because they're such great athletes. You're always looking for a premier passer who can run and move, and they've got two. They run this way and that way and get out of trouble just when it looks like the defense has bottled them up. It's an impressive football team. ABC accommodated us and we get to play at 12:30, which is perfect for us because it's been hot here in Los Angeles. This is a great game. It's going to be a full house. We love those noisy stadiums, a lot of noise because we've had our warmup for that.
We're fairly healthy. Windrell Hayes is still a big question but he ran on Sunday and felt really good. Everybody else is in pretty good shape.
(On the noise factor) It's that same thing, how can you learn to concentrate over and above what you normally do, because you may not be able to hear. It's going to be a constant battle for us. We knew that the road was going to be tough for us. We'll have the sound machines out there again this week. We'll try doing some things with hand signals. But basically it's a home-field advantage. We need that more when we're at home. A year ago against Notre Dame we had such a big advantage. We need that all the time at the Coliseum. All the places we go on the road, it's an advantage. You have to be prepared for it so it doesn't surprise you.
(On Arizona's defensive problems) It's very confusing to me because I didn't see them last year. They create a lot of problems for the offense. Basically what they do is overload you on the front. They put a ton of people up front and play a form of three-deep, man-to-man defense. They want to get you confused. You're going to get hit for losses in the backfield. That's what I see. Strategically, it's a problem. You either attack it by being super simple, by being basic and fundamental, or you try to exploit it by spreading everyone out and force them to do things they don't want to do. That's the process this week of developing the game plan, that I need to spend a little more time on. What's happened to them? I'm not really sure. I didn't see the Penn State tape, but Washington State made some big pass plays on them. Washington State is spread out all over the place. Stanford got hot, their receiver made some big plays. You hear about missed tackles. I don't know how a great defense starts missing tackles but I don't buy that. Bell is playing very, very well. He covers a lot of ground and brings a real punch. The corners are different than a year ago but they're seniors and solid players.
(On Arizona's loss to Penn State) We know how tough a place that is to play, and maybe you get so hyped up preparing for them for so long, knowing how important it is that maybe the anxiety gets you. I don't know. Ever since then, they've played solid, but erratically. That's kind of like us. At times, we look like worldbeaters. And at other times, the inconsistency that haunted us last year continues to haunt us this year. You can't do that to be a contender. You have to play for 60 minutes. Our team is not there yet. I would guess Coach Tomey would say the same thing.
(On who puts together the game plan) Where we're very fortunate is that we've got three people on the offensive staff that have played against this defense many times before. Hue Jackson's been in the conference a long time, Steve Morton gives us great ideas from Washington and of course Steve Greatwood. So I'm sitting back and listening to them. Arizona seems to have been pretty consistent over the last 4-5 years in their system. So I'm going to rely heavily on them this week, as I do every week, but more so this week.
(On if the Pac-10 is one-dimensional) If you become a finesse offensive team, and there's nothing wrong with that, there's a trade-off. In practice, year-round, the defense is practicing against a finesse offense. Championships are won with defense. For the defense to prepare properly against a smashmouth or run-oriented football team, they need to be able to practice against a powerful, physical running team. You have to have that element in your offense if you're going to get your defense trained the way you want them. Our conference has become very much like Oregon State, where there's one back or no backs. It's effective, there's a lot of points scored. But can we make the change, where we'll have to play against two backs. And then come back to defend against no backs. That's the real challenge of the defense. I listen to Bill Young and Ed Orgeron say that we need to keep working against two-back power running, because if we get too far away from practicing against it, we'll become a soft pass-rushing defensive football team. Historically, that's not the way to win championships.
(On if the Pac-10 is as bad as people think) That's ridiculous. This conference has teams that are trying to find themselves. We've got young teams with young quarterbacking, and it takes time to find out who you and what you are. It takes until midseason. At midseason, you begin to settle on your strengths and weaknesses and maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses as you move into the heart of the season. We've had some tough games but by the end we'll hold our own. This conference has a tendency to beat each other up. Every game is a tough game, and they're going to overtime or being decided by seven points. As competitive as this conference is, it sometimes hurts us out of conference.
(On Trevor Roberts and Faaesea Mailo) I am very pleased with Trevor Roberts' development. I thought he played very well in the game and he'll get more playing time. If you remember back to training camp, Brent McCaffrey was not there for two weeks and Trevor was marvelous. Then he had the ankle sprain against Hawaii and it took a month. This was his first opportunity to play. Faaesea stepped in and for a guy who hasn't really played in two years, he played the entire game. He showed real improvement, and it's exciting on the left side. We wanted the offensive line to pick up where it left off last year, but it took a while to get going and that's just the process. We saw a spark in the game where we're going to be a pretty good running team, and if you put that with a good defensive team, it's the mark of a good football team. If we can get the running game going, I'm going to be very excited ... (Playing time) will depend on the health of everyone. You've got to be 100 percent. We have to look today and tomorrow at how Denmon and Kendrick practice. If they're not ready, the nice thing is that we've got an answer for that. We don't have to push them in too early. We can pick the guy that's healthiest and will be the most effective.
(On the Pac-10 standings) As much as I thought last year a team with two losses might make it to the Rose Bowl, I really think this year that's got a reasonable chance to happen. Some teams are going to come on strong down the stretch. Clearly Stanford's in the driver's seat. I don't know what their schedule's like. But I really believe that Arizona is still a favorite. Just because you've got one loss, it doesn't mean you're out. Two losses, you'll need a lot of help and get the calculator out. Last year I thought it would be like that and UCLA proved me wrong. But they had 2-3 games that came down to the last play. If we could have beaten Oregon, it would have really given us some momentum, but we've put that behind us and now we've got to go win the rest of them.
(On not kicking a field goal in the fourth quarter) My confidence in the kicking game has been a concern. But I felt really good about the first field goal. It was excellent. I got a little disenchanted when we can't make a PAT. But there was far more involved in this decision. We were at 4:33, and I felt if we got it down to three minutes, 16 points in three minutes against our defense is a considerable task. I felt that you run the ball twice, give it to them inside their own 20. Nothing can get blocked. You play it conservatively, and we'd probably do the same thing again. I know I've been criticized. I just have great confidence in our defense. We weren't playing great there, but a lot of it was that I insisted on mass substitutions. It backfired a little bit. You can make an argument to kick it because that ends the game. But if they block it or it gets mishandled, they have it at midfield or instead of on their own 19. Not in my wildest dreams would I think that we would fumble the ball. That's the one thing our offense has been spectacular about. We don't turn it over. I thought it would be the end of the game there.
(On playing the three freshman wide receivers) Every time they looked at me I was sending them into the game. To think that we didn't have R. Jay, or Windrell, and the two of them and Carson were standing next to me. We're out there playing. It's one of those things where they just had to go play. To analyze what's going on with them, I don't think it's hit them. They just go play. They're a big part of our receiver corps. They've been great. They knew when they decided to come they would have a great opportunity, I don't think they knew it would be this much this soon. I think because of their competitive background in track and football, they have really accepted their roles very well. When I think about Carson redshirting and the three of them with three more years, it's exciting to think about that kind of firepower being here for a long time.
(On Moreno and Steele) Zeke Moreno has had two marvelous games back-to-back. Last week we lost and it got swept under, but it was spectacular. The thing we have to remember about Zeke is he came as a true middle linebacker. He moved last year because of the injury to Mark Cusano. He did that, and what that gave him was a full season of playing every snap. He had one eye watching Chris Claiborne, because he always knew it would be his opportunity to go back there. He's done nothing but get better, he's a natural for the position. I think there's no telling how good he can become. He has a great feel for it. Markus plays a totally different position. He's spectacular going sideline-to-sideline. He's a marvelous player but he's not as experienced as Zeke is at this point. The development of our defense, which has only one senior, is probably the single-most exciting thing about the program. We have 12-15 men who will be here again next year who are taking steps every week to get better. Are we as consistent as we need to be? No, because we still have improvement to make. I don't know how much you noticed, but #2 and #30 played a lot on Saturday. They've got bright futures.
ARIZONA COACH DICK TOMEY QUOTES
We realized it was going to be hard for us. Every game was going to be hard for us. We just are very realistic about college football and the difficulty of winning. We've just focused in the bye week on working on fundamentals and trying to get better in all the little areas that win football games. I think we've had a real productive week, and we're looking forward to playing again and seeing if we've improved.
(On if the expectations were realistic) Looking back, they probably weren't. We were rated No. 4 in the nation a year ago but we had six guys off that team make the NFL, which is the most we've ever had. So probably, our ranking was on where we finished than on this team. This team did not play well early in the season at Penn State, we played better against TCU but played horribly against Stanford. We turned the ball over, we got sacked, we did not play defense. Probably the most surprising thing is that we haven't played good defense. We've played good defense around here for a long time, we had a lot of guys returning but we haven't been able to put together a good defensive effort. We've worked like the dickens on fundamentals, and I think we'll be better, but we're going to have to be because USC is certainly the most explosive offense we've faced.
(On the quarterbacks) Early in the season, our quarterbacks had decent numbers throwing the ball but we were turning the ball over too much and all of our turnovers were quarterback-related. Against Washington State, both guys played well. Keith Smith has led us on two 80-yard fourth-quarter comebacks against TCU and Washington State. We've been pleased about that. A no-turnover effort at Washington State was welcome after the number of times we turned it over early. We hope that's indicative of things to come.
(On Dennis Northcutt) Dennis has been our outstanding player thus far. He had a great summer, he worked real hard to make himself a better player. He's made a tremendous impact on our offense and the kicking game. He's one of many outstanding receivers in the conference.
(On the Pac-10) I'm not as down on the Pac-10 as others. I've seen it up and down. By the time the bowl games are finished we will have acquitted ourselves well. I do not agree with those that say football is in a sad state. It's not just the Pac-10. There's not as much difference as say, the WAC and the Pac-10 or the WAC and the Big 12 or the Big Ten and the Mid-American Conference. There's just not much difference anymore. That's what the people at what used to be the high-profile schools don't want to admit, but that's how it is and I don't know that it's going to change.
(On playing USC) I think USC is a terrific football team. I admire a team that's leading the nation in turnover margin. That's probably the number one thing that leads to winning. That and kicking game efficiency are the things that most lead to winning. I respect that about USC. You have to respect their athletes, the Sowards and the Mortons, all the other guys. Their offensive line is doing a nice job. Defensively they're very, very impressive. Moreno has had a great year, Davis is a force inside, Simmons is an outstanding player. They've got all kinds of speed and quickness. They played great defense a year ago and they're doing the same thing this year.
(More on the Pac-10) The nature of our conference in the last 6-8 years is that it's difficult to predict who will be up and down. And I think that college football all across the board has become the same way, with the exception of a Florida State or a Michigan or a Nebraska, teams that are perennially on top. It's not comforting us. We're frustrated because we're not playing like we're capable of. I knew we were overrated a little bit but I hoped we could rise to the occasion and play over our heads, and we haven't done that.
(On USC's Moreno and Steele) Moreno is the one that catches my eye. We didn't lose a Chris McAlister and come up with an equal kind of player but certainly USC has done a great job of that. Moreno is very, very impressive. The things that he does, the plays that he makes, the consistency that he plays with and the intensity that he plays with is impressive.
(On the effects of the Penn State loss) I don't think there's been any lingering effects. We showed that we shook it off the next week. At halftime of the TCU game we made a real statement. USC knows TCU is a capable team. Certainly it was not anticipated that we would go to Penn State and play so badly. We didn't do a good job.
