University Southern California Trojans
Paul Hackett and Bobby Bowden Quotes
June 21, 1999 | Football
Sept. 22, 1998
USC COACH PAUL HACKETT
It's an exciting week. Last week was exciting because we had a chance to start in the conference. The Oregon State team, much as I predicted, had a tempo about them both with special teams and other areas that was much improved and a real tribute to (Oregon State Coach) Mike Riley. It was a heck of a game right to the end. I think it was a very important, exciting win for us.
Now we head off to Florida State. This is an outstanding, explosive team. Special teams are tremendous. Three returners that can go the distance. A history of fake punts. Probably Bobby Bowden is more creative with the special teams than any coach in football.
Defensively, they are one of the best in the country. They're only giving up 225 yards a game. They play with relentless determination and energy. Their defensive line is the key because they set the tempo of the game. Jerry Johnson is probably the best of the bunch. They have excellent linebacking and great corners. We played them last year and last year's defense had different people than this year. Offensively, what can you say.
You've got three returning starters in offensive line. You've got No. 23 (Travis Minor) as your runner and No. 9 (Peter Warrick) as your receiver and a young quarterback with a lot of talent. He's a pocket passer in the classic sense of the word. They throw the ball deep as well as anyone. When you have Peter Warwick, you're going to throw the ball deep. They have the opportunity to have a national championship team in my opinion. They have the blend of run and pass, the defense and the special teams. They have skill players all the way across the board. They've got tradition, they've got history, the win streak. They've got it all going for them.
It's a great test for us and a great time for us to be going on the road. We're going to have to win on the road to have the kind of season we want to have. This is a tough, hostile environment and is a great opportunity for our team to understand what it's going to be like to go and win on the road. This is a great opportunity. I've got to believe at some point, the percentages have to favor the other team. Since 1991, at some point, you have to feel like you have an advantage going there. I may not say that when the game is over.
(On Florida State's pass rush)
I think their pass rush is sensational. They include and involve the linebackers as well as the four down people. The biggest problem people have with them is that their quarterback gets knocked down the whole game and a lot of the time, gets knocked out. They will come after you. They're a man-to-man team which allows them to free up people. They free up people to put additional pressure on you. If you keep everybody in to block, they overwhelm you, if you put everybody in the pass routes, their four guys can get to you.
Their pressure is significant. We're going to have to address that as the primary focus in the passing game: how we can have our quarterback have time to throw. We have been average at best in pass protecting at this point in the season. When we have pass protected, we've thrown the ball pretty well. When we have struggled, we are like most teams with young quarterbacks. You're going to really struggle to be very accurate. The pass rush is one of the keys to this game, no question.
(On the step up in competition)
I'm delighted that we're 3-0. I think we've reached each challenge and approached each challenge that we've had and done that successfully. There's no question that there are two issues here. The first issue is that you're playing one of the best teams in the country. This is a Top 5 team I'm sure and history will tell us that. The second issue is you're going on the road and this team has never gone on the road.
We don't know what it's like to go on the road and we don't know how to go on the road and keep our concentration and focus in a foreign land. That's why this is a significant game, because we are going to have to go on the road and play good football teams over the next few years. That's the way it works. So I'm interested in two things. One, I'm interested in going down to Tallahassee and winning the game. That's the primary focus. Our football team believes, after last year's game, that we can go down there and win the game. It was a close game, granted it was here, but we feel like we can play with them. Secondly, how do we react when we're in a hostile environment.
We've been very fortunate. We've been in the Coliseum. It's been nice and cozy for us. The fans got fired up and did a great job last week and got behind us at critical times. We've had everything our way. How we respond to this is as important as anything else. This is a great test for us. It comes at the right time. We have the three wins. This is a top football team. We're going to play six of them. Six of the Top 10 teams in the country, we'll play. Might as well get started.
(Injuries)
It looks like that both of our centers will miss their second game in a row. Eric Demon. and Matt McShane are out. That will leave Jason Grain at center and David Pratchard, who I thought did an excellent job at left guard, will once again start at that position. The good news is on the defensive side. It looks like Mark Cusano, Grant Pearsall and Lawrence Larry have all improved from where they were a week ago, which would give us an opportunity to have some depth on the defensive side, particularly with the weather the way it is. That will be important because we'll have to play a lot of people in the ball game. The key issue is the loss of the two offensive linemen.
Jason Grain has got a great future as an offensive lineman. In the spring, he worked a little at center, but it became clear that he was the best candidate to work at guard opposite Travis Claridge. What's exciting is that you have some injuries and you look for someone on the football team to step up from a leadership standpoint to go in and not only fill in but play well. And here's a guy in his third start at USC, changes position, practices for three days and we have no quarterback-center exchange problems.
Certainly there are some things we can do better, but this to me is the making of the offensive line and the making of a team, when someone can do that and do it as effectively as he did. I was very impressed. And then David Pratchard has his opportunity and he comes in and also plays well. The center position is the guy who makes the calls and decisions and has to figure out how to block the various fronts. Florida State is complicated, their linebackers are up on the line of scrimmage and off of it. Jason is going to get a whole other level of getting tested this week, but what better way to prepare for what is left for the season.
I also want to mention Adam Abrams. There were a lot of people when Adam did what he did against San Diego State (miss all three field goal attempts) that had some doubts about his ability. But this young man really did a job and did it without a lot of friends around him last week. I'll be the first to admit it. He went out himself and prepared himself to go into a ball game and in a game where every kick is an important kick, he goes out and gets all four of them. I take my hat off to both Jason and Adam.
(On USC's special teams)
We've been very good in special teams in the first two weeks but we took a significant step backwards. A couple things happened to us. We had the extreme high with the blocked punt, which was a tremendous coaching effort as well as player performance. We had a misalignment on the blocked punt and that's a tough one to swallow because if there is one thing we take pride in, it's the punt team. The kickoff return (by Tim Alexander), we got our lanes messed up and over-committed to the outside and he did a heck of a job.
The thing that was disappointing was you hate to come out from the lockerroom, where the coach gives his best speech and have a kickoff returned for a touchdown. Makes you wonder if you're saying the right things. Any other time of the game, you can live with it. But not when it opens the third quarter. I thought there were some things that were very correctable and I thought it was an experience for our team to feel the deflation of what a kickoff return does. It was a nice job of setting our jaw and just continuing to play with them.
In the end, we made the plays we had to to win the game. That will happen over and over. When you play good teams, you've got to overcome things that happen that are not exactly the way you choose. I'm concerned that we're a little more of a roller coaster on special teams where the first two weeks I thought we were solid. Now we have clearly our most difficult test in special teams because of their returners. We'll have to step it up.
(On USC's success in the fourth quarter this season)
In two of the three games, there was a real question going in the fourth quarter whether we would win the game. I think that's a big part of it. Also, we've had good conditioning. We put ourselves in a position to condition and we passed the test against Purdue. But I thought we were stronger against Oregon State in the fourth quarter.
But now the real test comes. Can you go into the humidity, play a four- quarter game and win the game on the road against a team like Florida State. This is a real test for our conditioning. We'll find out where we are. But that's what I've felt the best about this football team after three weeks is how we play in the fourth quarter. We're pretty good. Some of the real leadership has to come out and it's coming from Chris Claiborne and Chad Morton and from the people who have to carry the load at the end.
(On hurricane situation)
The weather is the same for them as it is for us. You just keep talking about it so it's not a big shock or surprise. Same thing about playing on the road and in that stadium. You prepare the best you can. We were able to get a noise machine, but not a humidity machine. Going through the Purdue game is important. We have a sense of the magnitude of the issue with dehydration and how important it is.
My philosophy has been get into town as late as you can and get as early as you can. Play the game in between and go from there. You can't do anything about it. You go and play the game and do the best you can and hope you're in shape. If you're not in shape, it compounds the problem. I think we're in reasonable condition, so that won't be as much of an issue. But there is no question that we'll have to use everybody on the team so players can get a chance to recover on the sideline.
(On solid play of defensive line).
Marc Matock and Ennis Davis have really turned it up a notch the last couple of games. They have really made a difference in the ball games. Aaron Williams is also in there and we're trying to get Darren Collins back. So we've got four people who I definitely was concerned about. At the end, Larry is a little nicked up. (Shamsud-Din) Abdul- Shaheed has been involved and of course (Sultan) Abdul-Malik has done an excellent job and Ryan Nielsen.
As a unit, they are improving and what you hope is you can set a tempo with the defensive line. When you watch Florida State play, they set the tempo on the field in the defensive line. That's what you want to get to. We all know that's how great offenses are created is the tempo set in the offensive line. That's the situation defensively as well and I'm pleased with the progress.
NC State and Duke have played against them a lot and what they don't do is change a lot. They take their philosophy and their offensive and defensive schemes into the ball game. I think in Duke's case, they struggled in pass protection. North Carolina State did a good job of pass protecting and were able to hit a couple of long plays to keep them in the ball game. That was a close game in the first half. They hung in there and kept it close and then there were some interceptions thrown. When those were thrown, they took advantage of it. One of our biggest disappointments last week was when the turnovers and the field position came to our offense, our offense was not able to score touchdowns. We had to kick field goals, and if you kick field goals against this team, you probably will come out on the short end.
FLORIDA STATE COACH BOBBY BOWDEN
It's been a roller coaster start, up and down. We had the bottom against North Carolina State and there were two real solid football games. Today Duke said that they had food poisoning for our game, and now we have the same thing. Half of our team is sick. We didn't practice much today. I hope we'll be back tomorrow. We practiced very little last night because of the weather. I hope we can get the team back and play a good ball game.
(On quarterback Chris Weinke)
Normally we bring in a new quarterback every two years. Normally we start a new quarterback whose least experience is a redshirt junior. But the redshirt junior we had got injured in the spring. So we had to go to a true sophomore. We hoped that with the age factor and that he's in been professional baseball for seven years, we'll bypass the inexperience factor. The only way to get over that is to play. He's a good prospect. He just needs time.
(On wide receiver Peter Warrick)
He is a very talented receiver whose inconsistency is the only real problem. Last year, he'd catch one, drop one, catch one, drop one. This year he goes the first ball game and doesn't drop a thing but the last two ball games, he's dropped two each game. He's got unlimited talent if he learns to catch every pass.
(On Travis Minor)
He's a really good prospect. He came on the scene in about our seventh game last year and played really well the last four games. He's got off to a good start this year and we're trying to run a little bit better than we did last year.
(On whether the 1998 defense is as good as it has been in past years)
It was until we played North Carolina State. We had two games where we played like we used to play. We haven't had enough games to know if we'll be consistent enough to win with the people we're playing.
(The secret to all the 10-plus win seasons)
You do it by losing late. This year we lost early and now we have to hang on. A couple of losses and it's over. This is the first time we've lost a game this early since about 1989. We have our backs to the wall and have to keep scratching.
(On USC)
The thing I see in Southern Cal is the same as when we played them last year. The skill matches up. We can outskill some people over here but when we played Southern Cal, we could not outskill them. We had excellent receivers, they had excellent corners. We excellent corners, they had excellent receivers. We both throw the ball and catch the ball and have dangerous runners. They have linebackers that can run and we have linebackers that can run. You have two skilled football teams. I've always felt like maybe the best skill in the country comes from Southern California, Texas or Florida.
(On NC State loss)
It was a shock. It was a shock to all of us. You don't even expect to lose close and we lost big. It was a shock because it hasn't happened in a long time.
(On hurricane situation)
I that part of the country, those things hit and hit in any direction. I'm just hoping it doesn't come in here.
(On whether this year's game will be a higher scoring game than last year)
It may be easy for them but it won't be easy for us. I've seen them play. You go back and look at the film last year and there was one play that won the game for us. That was when our quarterback hit their defensive back in the chest with a pass with no one in front of him to the end zone. He catches that and they beat us 14-7. But he missed it and we drove 99 yards and won the game. That was one play difference and they look better to me now. They're undefeated and have so many kids back. The thing that concerns me the most as I watch them is they have the skill to stay with us and we don't like that.
(On any retirement considerations)
I still have the desires and anxiety and enthusiasm that I once had. If there's any difference, I can't tell it. I have no desire to retire. I feel good right now. I won't go to the doctor where they can tell me something's wrong. As long as I feel good, I'm going to coach.
