University Southern California Trojans
Football Coaches Discuss Saturday's Contest
June 21, 1999 | Football
October 20, 1998
LOS ANGELES --Following is a transcript of USC Coach Paul Hackett's media luncheon and the teleconference with Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti on Tuesday:
USC COACH PAUL HACKETT
It's nice to get back on the win side of the ledger. This was a good win for us and a good bounce back after the debacle against the Golden Bears. It was nice to go up into a foreign situatio and play in the rain, with the crowd noise, on the astroturf. That'll get us ready for Eugene. There were a couple keys to the ballgame, the fourth-down stop early in the game and the offense responding with a long touchdown. At the beginning of the third quarter, the offense's ability to take the ball and score was excellent. The defense was superb in the second half. With the exception of the Cal game, the defense has been superb in the second half of all of our games. The offense is making progress.
Now we have to go up and play against what I think is the best team in the conference. I've said that a number of times, not just because I coached Mike Bellotti but because I think that is true. What he's done with that program has been dramatic, and it's a tribute to Rich Brooks because he got it started, but Mike Bellotti has really continued to allow it to go. He's been tapping into the university that produces great coaches, UC Davis. It's a real coaching mecca there at Davis. It's a well-coached, well-conceived football team with a great player at quarterback. Imagine 18 touchdowns and four interceptions, that's the most important stat for a quarterback. They have three receivers averaging almost 20 yards a catch. They have a solid offensive line and have one of the top offensive line coaches in college football, I played with him at Davis. Defensively, they have one of the finest defensive coaches in college football. They've done a great job. They lose their middle linebacker, they don't miss a beat. They don't turn the ball over against UCLA, they win the game handily. To me, this is the team to beat. Unfortunately we have to play them in their backyard on their Homecoming weekend. We've got ourselves a serious challenge but I think we're up to it.
(On facing Oregon's running backs) It's very difficult to predict what will happen to a team that clearly played a great football game and lost in overtime, and add that to the loss of their runner, you just don't know because they haven't been through that yet. This team, this year, has not had to deal with that. Knowing Mike Bellotti and knowing the coaching staff, I think they'll respond very well. We've had to play without Chad Morton. How much has it affected us? They now have to play without their great runner. How much will that affect them? I don't know. One indication is that they play without their great middle linebacker and that hasn't slowed them down. We are two teams that are contending for the conference lead. We all know you can survive one conference loss but two losses makes it very difficult.
(On USC's secondary) I think our secondary has been one of the real strong parts of the team all year long. That game gave us an opportunity to play some other guys a little bit longer. Ife (Ohalete) had to play when Grant (Pearsall) was injured so he's had a good year and has developed well. Now he can play on special teams because he's not having to play all the time in the secondary. Antuan Simmons has been a dramatic special teams player and will play more in the secondary. We have three cornerbacks and two safeties that we can play in the nickel situation and feel very good. We've been a strong secondary all year long perhaps with the exception of one quarter.
(On Chad Morton and the running game) Chad felt very good after the game. We were all holding our breath the first few carries. The worst part of the injury has passed so now he can focus on having a good week of practice and getting ready for Oregon. Petros is a power runner. He can move the pile, gain 3-4-5 yards. And in the last couple of weeks Petros has shown he can pop out of the pile and then it's hard to catch him. Chad on the other hand has much more in-line movement. His ability is to make people miss. That's not the way Petros plays, he looks for guys to run over. It's a great combination, a great 1-2 punch. It puts pressure on the defense because they have to prepare for two different styles. We'll continue to use both guys and mix in Frank Strong and Jabari Jackson.
(On Carson Palmer) He has played very well. He played as well on Saturday as he's played all year. He had some situations where he got hit, he had some situations where he made poor throws but he also has some situations where he made some outstanding plays. He was the lead blocker on R. Jay's touchdown. I thought this was the best, in terms of flow of the game, that Carson was in. He played the game much more comfortably then he had all year long ... We're now in game seven and Carson has played in all seven. He's played longer in some than others. He's becoming more comfortable just going out and playing the game. This is not an issue of whether he can do it, it's an issue of how well he can run our football team and how well he can operate all the subtleties of the quarterback position.
(On Ken O'Brien and working with the quarterbacks) There's not much common ground in the offense. Ken worked with the Jets last year and they had a different concept. But his college training was the same as mine. Ken has been learning the offense from me and also Hue Jackson. He's getting more comfortable talking about it and doing the drills and having conversations with the quarterbacks. That's going to be an on-going process. This is his first year as a coach and there are all kinds of things he has to pick up. I'm happy that we have three people working with the quarterbacks. Some people might say that's too much. In our case, because we have grown together, Coach Jackson, Coach O'Brien and myself, I feel the quarterbacks have benefitted from having three people involved with them. With all of the other things I have to do, I'll probably be spending less time with them. That will continue to happen as Ken and Hue learn more of the things that I want done. You compound all that when you have two young quarterbacks. We have a couple guys who every day are learning how to do things. I think the evolution over the next couple of years will be dramatic. Where we are at midseason is about what I anticipated. I can see more efficiency in the quarterback play.
(On Mike Van Raaphorst's illness) I don't know. There's an issue of tests and bloodwork and maybe that'll reveal something, maybe it won't. It could be the flu. But we need to get to the bottom of it. He played well. He played well two weeks ago against Cal and played well last week. He got hit when he fully extended himself and it aggravated something. I took some pre-med courses Davis but I never got far with that so I'm going to turn it over to the experts.
(On Oregon and UCLA) UCLA-USC is its own event. It's its own separate thing. I don't know if anything can be put on the bulletin board to affect that rivalry. It's one of the great rivalries in the history of college football. We're going to play UCLA in the distant future so I can't worry about that. I just sat in a hotel room and watched where one team kept turning the ball over and lost in overtime. My analysis is that this football team is very, very good. I don't mean that UCLA's not very, very good. That's my opinion, at this point, and it may not be true when we face UCLA. Right now Oregon's offense is so in sync and playing well. Take out the fumbles, and I know you can't do that, but from my perspective they're hot as a firecracker. Defensively I thought they did an excellent job against UCLA, which has an outstanding offense. Put up in Autzen Stadium, make it Homecoming, and this may be as tough a task as we've had to date. I feel good that we went to Florida State and went through that atmosphere, went through that as a team. This is a tough assignment for us.
OREGON COACH MIKE BELLOTTI
I think we're a tad disappointed. To play that hard and to get that close and to not win is difficult. We made some mistakes that cost us. We still had a chance to win despite our mistakes. Had we played a little bit better football game we'd have won that game. We didn't, so we have to fight back from that. We need to have great resolve. I told the kids that they had a couple of hours to be disappointed, but that we were not discouraged. We're 5-1 and just took the second-ranked team in the nation to overtime. The other thing I said that going into the game, win or lose, every game we played after that was going to be tremendously important. Now we have to get back up and get ready for USC because they're coming to town.
Reuben Droughns did have surgery. He had a plate put in his lower leg and a pin put through his ankle. There was some mild ligament repair. The surgery went well and he should be healthy for next year. He'll have a fairly extensive rehab. He's tough to lose because he's an emotional leader.
Akili Smith was obviously a highly acclaimed junior college recruit. This has mirrored his JC career. He didn't start until midway through his first season and the second season he was lights out. He's done a great job of preparing himself for this year. He learned the offense and various defenses he was going to face. His comfort zone and confidence is much greater. Percentage-wise, he didn't have a great football game against UCLA but he handled it very well. He put us in a situation to win the game. He can throw touch passes and rockets. I'm excited about what he's done.
(On the defense) I think the defense is playing better than it did last year. Bob Foster has done a great job as our new defensive coordinator. He has our kids believing and playing hard and that's all I can ask for. We're a little undersized but we make up for that with intensity. Overall we have had a very solid defense. We haven't given up a lot of big plays and we're keeping people out of the end zone. We had some trouble with UCLA, but they're an explosive offense, as is USC.
(On playing for Paul Hackett) If I remember this correctly, it was his first year coaching and he was the quarterbacks coach on the freshman team. I played on the freshman team several games as a tight end. I do remember Paul and I think he had a great hand in the offense. I don't remember a lot about that year. I remember I enjoyed it immensely and got moved up to the varsity later in the year. Paul was a highly motivated, very intense guy who loved football.
(On USC) I'm very impressed with their defense. I haven't seen an accumulation of athletes in the Pac-10 that ranks with what USC has. It starts with Chris Claiborne. He's the best linebacker I've seen this year, there's no doubt about it. They just do a lot of things that don't allow you to have automatic success on offense. There's not a lot of great matchups. Then you look at the offense, wow, R. Jay Soward is so explosive. You look at the stat and how many touchdowns he's scored when he touches the ball. I hope he doesn't touch the football on Saturday. Morton and Papadakis can go inside and outside. Paul has done a great job getting a lot out of the two quarterbacks. I'm scared to death every week. We have to play well and maybe play our best game. In some respects, this team is better than UCLA in terms of what we have to do to try and win.
(On the running backs) Our top three running backs are down and out right now. Droughns is out for the season. Kevin Parker is out three to four weeks. Herman Ho-Ching is out a couple of more weeks, that's a guess on my part, it could be for the season. We're fortunate to have some depth at tailback. Jason Cooper and Derien Latimer have stepped in before. Jerry Brown will make his debut. He did not play at all last year. He finally practiced last week for the first time. He was disappointed that he did not make the trip to UCLA. But his time is going to come. At this point those three will handle the chores. I have confidence that as a group, they will succeed and handle it. You have to run the football to be effective. We may not run exactly the same plays we did with Reuben and Herman, but those guys actually have better speed. Brown and Cooper are two of the faster guys we have in pads. Latimer is the most experienced and the best blocker. We'll utilize all three to get done what we need to do.
