University of Massachusets Athletics
Don Brown's Weekly Teleconference Quotes
November 09, 2004 | Football
Nov. 9, 2004
It was a big week for UMass head coach Don Brown. In addition to beating Northeastern, 26-22, the football coach became a grandfather for the first time last Thursday night. Read what he had to say in his weekly teleconference with the A-10.
Question: Congratulations on your win on Saturday, what are your thoughts on the game?
Brown: It was a very physical football game as we anticipated. Came out in the first drive and finished it off with Brandon London catching a nice throw from Tim Day putting us up 7-0. I'd say that for the rest of the half, Northeastern had control of the flow of the football game. Maurice Murray, the big physical back, tried to carry the load for them. I think the biggest key for us, was a couple of scenarios where we played red zone defense and were able to hold them to field goals. We©^re 19- 7 with a couple of minutes left in the half.
I want to make a point about Jason Peebler. He couldn't turn his head or run when he woke up Saturday morning. Sometimes you sleep on a different bed and we get nervous about things like that. He was at a chiropractor's at 10:30 in the morning that we got out of the yellow pages in Boston. Jason made a courageous effort and made a big catch to put us down 19-13 at the half. We come out in the second half and we made a big stop right away, which I thought gave our defense some confidence. We went right down the field and Rich Demers scores on a short yardage run.
I was a little disappointed because we thought we had a punt block, we know we tipped the ball. They said that the guy that didn't block ran into the kicker, which was kind of confusing to me, but any ways they go down and I thought they'd play us on third and one. We hold Maurice Murray and force them to kick a field goal. Then it's 22-20.
We go down with 10 minutes left in the game and Steve Baylark goes into score. We just went back and forth the rest of the way. We got another big run from Steve Baylark and the game ended on the six yard line. It was a very physical game between two evenly matched teams and we©^re glad we came out on top.
Question: Looking at the stats, Steve Baylark had another huge game for you guys and your red zone defense came up big as well.
Brown: That's a big point, we were able to ruin three of their scoring opportunities and force field goals. Those are huge, instead of a seven point swing it's a three point swing and minimizes the damage. I thought we played pretty well up front in the second half and I thought we tackled better as a unit in the second half which was important. As I©^ve alluded to in the past, we are starting two walk-on defensive linemen that are freshmen and rotating three other red-shirt freshmen in there. We feel good about the way those guys are responding and competing on a week to week basis. We improved offensively in the game at New Hampshire and we©^ve won 3 of our last four football games.
Question: How are you hoping to use the bye week this week? What are you hoping to get out of it?
Brown: We're a pretty banged up football team and at this point in the year I think the big thing was we gave the guys yesterday off and today off. We're going to practice in sweats probably for the rest of the week. Go Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday trying to keep our rhythm in the rhythm areas, the pass game, the kicking game, punt, field goal. Try to get a jump on some special teams, want to really tone down the physical piece.
We'll work against the run schemes on both sides and try to keep our guys in flow and a little bit of a jump on Hofstra. Use the bye-week for more fundamental, more individual and get a little jump on the schemes but really try to give our guys a chance to heal. We'll give them Saturday and Sunday off and then go Monday through Friday get back into our routine. We've got so many guys banged up as everyone alludes to at this time of the year. We've been putting our offensive line together with baling wire and we're playing with some under sized defensive linemen, we're just trying to get them back healthy.
Question: Looking at the season and how you have played lately, is there almost a wish you could start over from this point?
Brown: Yes, that's the fun part of coaching such a young group. When you go through your troubles and the one piece that kind of gets lost is that we played five of our last six games on the road including Boston College. When you look at that piece and your 3-1 over your last four games, I think it's a great tribute to our seniors even though we only have a few of them. Our young guys are starting to figure it out, we©^re playing with a lot more poise and controlling our emotions better.
Question: Don you mentioned your offense is better since New Hampshire, where is it better?
Brown: First we went to JMU and we threw it 52 times and I think Mickey Matthews said, "I never heard of a Don Brown team throwing the ball 52 times. We just don't do things like that." We believe in the physical pieces of this football game. I'd like to see us be in that 25 to 30 range, two-thirds of it being the play action piece and we need to run the ball to be successful. If you look at Steve Baylark's success since New Hampshire, each and every week he's a prominent piece of our offense. I believe if we can run the ball, be competitive on defense and compete there and take good care of the ball and the kicking game, you've got a chance to win and that tends to bear out.
Question: Now onto the more important things, how©^s it feel to be a grandfather?
Brown: It's great, it's absolutely tremendous. I get to hand the baby back to my daughter and go home but I get all the fun part. It was a great emotional rush and I got a chance to see her Thursday night and Saturday night so it was great.
