University of Massachusets Athletics
Weekly CAA Teleconference With Head Coach Don Brown
September 29, 2008 | Football
Sept. 29, 2008
Amherst, Mass. - On Monday, UMass head football coach Don Brown, held his weekly CAA teleconference. He spoke about the recent bye week and how the team has used it to prepare for the match-up with Delaware.
On the use of bye week to prepare for Delaware:
You can't analyze if you're able to grow until you play a game because that's when it counts, when the lights go on, and we'll find that out on Saturday. We did have a good week of practice, went back to drawing board, we were fairly physical on Wednesday and Thursday, worked hard on the kicking game as well. Now we're getting ready for a very very good Delaware team.
On the Delaware team:
Obviously we were ale to watch them on tape and we did get a little bit of a head start. They are a very solid team, good upfront on offense, last week they utilized Kervin Michaud, their outstanding wide out as a second tailback along with Jonathon Smith. I think Robert Schoenhoft has done a good job as quarterback at running Coach Keeler's offense. Defensively they are extremely solid in all three areas because of the line linebackers and defense backs. It's a good, solid football team, we know we have a very good team coming to McGuirk, and we are going to have to play our best game of the year.
On the mental aspect of the bye week:
I just like the way we went about our business, I don't know if it's more focus or less focus. We expect our guys to be very focused every time they take the field. We had a very good week of practice we certainly worked hard in some areas; fundamentals, techniques, got physical a little bit, went good against good and just felt like we had the right mix of teaching and the right mix of still staying sharp, going into and getting ready for Delaware coming to town.
On addressing the slow start this season in practice:
We've addressed it and I think we are practicing extremely well, you just hope it translates to game day on Saturday. We made our guys conscious of it and now it's a matter of lets just go play football and make sure we show up for sixty minutes.
On health issues of the team, Sean Calicchio in particular:
He was on practice field yesterday running around doing some things. Mostly everybody is in pretty good shape come yesterday. We feel like we are in fairly solid shape going into the game against Delaware this week.
