University of Massachusets Athletics
Head Coach Don Brown's Thoughts From Weekly Teleconference
September 24, 2007 | Football
Sept. 24, 2007
Thoughts on jumping out to a quick lead against Maine:
We got a little lucky. There was a fairly significant wind there. We tried to defer. Obviously Maine takes the ball and we kick with the wind at our back. We got the ball in fairly good field position for our defense. We stopped them on the 28. We gave the ball to our offense on the UMass 32. Matt Lawrence made a great run, 62 yards for a touchdown. We go ahead and kick the ball in the end zone and they get the ball at the 20. We had the little play action pass covered and Jeremy Miles knocked it out to Mike Meggett down to the one. Chris Zardas gets the first touchdown. We were in pretty good shape and we hadn't even gotten into it really at that point. We, again, were able to kick it and get the touchback. We played good defense. They had to punt at their own 12 and we took over at the 48. Once again we moved in and scored. So with the wind in the first quarter we went up 24-0. That's fairly significant.
On the rest of the game:
In the second quarter, we kind of held serve. In the third quarter, we took the ball, they got the wind and I thought had a great drive. 11 of 12 plays were runs and we got it in the end zone to go up 31-0 at that point. We had two 100-yard rushers on the day, with Matt Lawrence and Tony Nelson. Liam was 15 of 19. He did have an interception, but I thought he handled the offense really well. He made some good run-checks. On defense, we put up three quarters of shutout football before we were scored on in the fourth quarter. We did what we had to do and our whole mantra all week was to play 60 minutes and really focus our energy on execution. We only had four penalties for 20 yards. So it was a really solid effort by our ball club in a really difficult place to play. Once again, as all Maine and UMass games are, it was physical from the beginning to the end.
On team's consistency:
We don't worry about statistics here. I don't care about how many yards we run for, how many we throw for, how many points we give up. We're just trying to win. That's really our focus. I think that our guys are coming together. We exhibit quality in all three phases. We were fortunate in the kicking game a little bit. We had one bad kickoff. It was into the wind and a semi-squib kick that gave Maine good field position. Punt wise, we need to do a little better job there. Brett Arnold, our punter, didn't have the greatest day. We don't worry about stats, we're just trying to win the game.
On Liam Coen:
Liam played the first three quarters on Saturday and he looked fine. I thought he did a great job handling all the run-checks and so forth and he is moving forward health-wise.
On Boston College:
It's the fifth game on our schedule. They are a very good team. Matt Ryan throws the ball as well as anybody in the country. He drops the "7" route in there, the deep take-offs. He can throw the deep outs from across the field. There isn't a throw he can't make. They have two excellent tailbacks. LV Whitworth, who we recruited at Northeastern, and Andre Callender. Their offensive line is led by Gosder Cherilus. He is 6-7, 320. They have two excellent receivers in Kevin Challenger and Justin Jarvis. Brandon Robinson makes plays. On defense, they got Ron Brace in the middle 6-3, 325, who's a Mass. kid that we recruited. Last year was more of an A-gap filler type; now he has more of a complete game. They got four guys up front playing extremely well. They're playing a lot of linebackers led by Joloon Dunbar who's excellent, 6-4, 238. Three of the four secondary guys are back with their leader being DeJuan Tribble, who's just an excellent cornerback. I don't know if there's a corner playing better football in the country at the 1-A level. They're an excellent football team; this is an exciting game for our alumni. It's going to be a great challenge for our guys.
On trying to replicate Appalachian State's upset over Bowl Subdivision team:
We didn't really talk about it all that much. Our focus is on ourselves. I don't think we executed a 60-minute game until last week. We're trying to put two good efforts in a row together and just take care of ourselves. We know we're playing an excellent football team. We're four weeks in now; they're just having their way with people. Their quarterback is excellent. I know this; my guys are going to give us great effort and energy. It's going to be a great environment. It's a very, very old rival for us. I know we're going to get a great effort from our guys.
On Norwich Univ. Hall of Fame Induction:
It just means you're getting old and at one point in time you were a decent player. I'm proud of my alma mater. It gave me a lot of energy. I learned some great things from some great coaches up there. My son actually did my acceptance speech and I got four calls today telling me what a great job he did. If you ever heard me and public speaking, it was better off that he was there than me.
