University of Massachusets Athletics
Kevin Morris' CAA Weekly Teleconference
November 09, 2009 | Football
Nov. 9, 2009
AMHERST, Mass. - The Colonial Athletic Association held its weekly football teleconference on Monday and UMass head coach Kevin Morris answered questions on a variety of topics. Some of the things Coach touched on were the Minutemen's 37-7 win over Northeastern, what he expects from James Madison this weekend, and what his seniors have contributed.
The complete transcript is below.
Coach Morris' thoughts on the 37-7 victory over Northeastern:
I thought we played some good, quality UMass football. We came out and played strong. The offense didn't turn the ball over which was a problem for us in the previous two weeks and moved the ball well with the running. Defensively, we had a really strong day, we shut them out defensively and didn't let them get past midfield until the end of the fourth quarter. So really a good effort. Special teams played really well and it was a good UMass football day overall. We certainly needed it coming off those turnover-plagued games.
On the quarterback situation moving forward:
Kyle Havens is our quarterback. He's been our starter all year and he'll continue to be our starter.
On how the quarterback position has performed the last three weeks:
Well, you just look at the numbers and you'll see we didn't play really well at the quarterback position against Richmond or at Maine. That's a two-way street, part of it is defense and part of it is decision making. We played a much better game on Saturday, Kyle was 15-for-21 and had a touchdown throw and another touchdown that was right down to the inch line, they didn't give him a touchdown on it but he played well and played good sound football for us and that's what we look for out of our quarterback.
On if Nelson and Hernandez will both see touches if they are healthy:
Oh yew, absolutely. We just have to get them healthy at the same time and that will be a bonus for us. We'll use both guys. Both guys have been banged up a little bit. Tony missed a good chunk of time and wasn't fully 100 percent until this week. It showed as he had three touchdowns and over 100 yards. We're excited about him getting back in the mix. And then John got banged up. We're going to get John back for this week. We'll keep them both healthy and that will be a benefit for our offense.
On Hernandez' health status:
Yes, he should be good to go. He got bruised up in the Maine game. He took a good shot from their safety, that McMillian kid, number 26.
On how to protect the quarterback against James Madison's front fou:
Well that's definitely going to be the task at hand. I mean they want to get to the quarterback and they do a great job of it. They're very athletic, very physical up front. So we've got our work cut out for us right there. Just like any good quality defense, it starts in the front. Moats is a premier player, he has 10 sacks already in the season. Brown excellent inside and Daniels is getting a ton of tackles which is surprising for an inside kid. Bryant is very active on the outside on the other side. So there is really no weakness there at all. We really have to play hard up front. We have to try and move them off the ball and establish the run.
On getting Tony Nelson back:
He is just a veteran guy. That's kind of what he brings to the offense at this point. Obviously, we would have loved to have Tony all year, he rushed for 1,300 and something yards last year, but he's just missed too many games and too much time this year. He got back in the mix and shook the rust off a little bit at Maine and really got going this past weekend against Northeastern and played well. He's been there and done that and to have that as part of your offense is very meaningful because you can really put the load on him and he takes a lot of the pressure off everyone else because they know he knows what's going on and he's going to find the extra yard and he's going to do those things that help you win football games. He definitely did that Saturday.
On cutting down on turnovers:
I think for us after having those two bad days of turnovers its very much a mental, emotional part of the game at that point. You don't ever want it to be but we set the stage for it to be. We came out and played some good solid football on offense, the whole team kind of got juiced up and said here we go, were back to playing good UMass football, let's go now. We rallied the whole team around us. So it was a negative turned into a really strong positive. And we started this game by not turning the ball over and obviously you want to make it an emphasis not to turn the ball. As we talked about, in this league if you turn it over you really have a hard shot of winning the football game. It's just too much to overcome with the quality of play in our league. Obviously now we're in good shape and hopefully we can move on and make that just a thing of the past.
On what his seniors have meant to the program:
I certainly know them well. We brought them in in one of our first recruiting classes at UMass. We had some guys join the program as we've gone through. This is a really quality group of kids. They've won a lot of football games here, a bunch of them played in the national championship game when they were in their younger years. At the end of the playoffs they're holding out that hope that they have a shot of getting that if we can finish this out the way we'd like to. But just a great group of kids, a large group of kids, and we're going to miss them all. From Jeromy Miles on defense who transferred in from Navy and has had a great impact on our program. Corey Davis at corner, Kurt Filler and Eric Dickson at linebacker. We lost Filler for the season, unfortunately. All year we talk about our four guys up front with Brandon Collier, Michael Hanson, Kyle Harrington, and Anthony Monette. You want everything to start up front as I mentioned and with those four guys up front on defense have really set the tone for where we are at and why we are playing so well on defense. Vladimir Ducasse is one of the best lineman in the country. I know he's really been good for us. He has been scouted and were really excited for him. He's had a great four-year career here. There's a kid who came out in our program helping us out in the background here, Jared Chivers, stepped up as a kid in our program for years, earned some scholarship money and is now a full-time starter for us and is doing a great job for us. And our skills on offense have gotten a lot of play over the years. Tony Nelson as you mentioned, Chris Zardas our fullback who does everything for us in our offense. Matt Silver has been an excellent tight end for us over the years. Victor Cruz, Jeremy Horne and Joe Sanford at wide out, you know all those guys are going to be leaving but they've had tremendous careers here. Scott Woodward's gotten some good time in his senior year helping us out at quarterback. Just a great group of guys and that's not to leave out Armando Cuko who is having the season of his life. He just broke the UMass season record for field goals. And not to take up everyone's time on seniors but they're definitely worth mentioning so I appreciate you letting me take the time to do that.
On JMU Coach Mickey Matthews saying UMass should be a playoff team:
I definitely would hire Mickey as part of my PR staff without question. But for us, it's just one game at a time. We're hopefully not still on the rebound from where we were after those two games against Richmond and Maine. But we came back strong against Northeastern. We're still a team that's working hard every day just trying to get to where we want to be game to game. I believe that JMU is an outstanding football team. Their record doesn't indicate that, but as everyone is saying their offense is getting better week to week with the young quarterback who had an unbelievable run against Maine. He sliced right through them. We really have work to do this weekend. We're not at a point as a team that we can look to the future. We need to look at the present. It's JMU, a really quality team. We're going to be home, we're excited about that and that's our senior afternoon as you mentioned so we'll try to pump up those facts. Hopefully we'll get a win here and then travel down to a tough Hofstra team and hopefully get a win there. If the people feel that we're worthy, and they'll put us in then at that point we certainly should be considered. But we have a long way to go until then, we've got a whole working week ahead just to be ready for JMU.
