Ken Hatfield's Monday Quotes
10/24/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 24, 2005
On Rice's special teams play -- "The disappointing thing about the (Navy) game -- other than losing the game -- was that I expected our special teams and kicking game to be dominant forces in the game. We emphasize it and put a lot of enthusiasm in all our kicking teams. I thought that could make the difference in the game, and unfortunately it did make the difference the other way. They won 11 big plays in the kicking game. Part of it is young kids playing -- and learning. We get the two 15-yard penalties when we cover the punts. The two freshmen did an outstanding job getting down there, but they just don't get out of the way when (the Navy returner) called for a fair catch. We would have been in good field position after two good punts. Then, we had two other punts -- for 20 and five yards -- that were not good. We're capable of being so much better, and that's disappointing.
"We kicked the long field goal, but we came right back and kicked the ball out of bounds, giving them the ball on the 35-yard line. That's unacceptable.
"Missing the field goal, really a chip shot. Put the ball in the middle of the goalposts, not close where an official can make the call, one way or the other. All of those were big plays."
On Chase Clement -- "To his credit, in our second series, he threw an absolutely perfect pass to Jarett Dillard. It was one of those things where Jarett was looking back into the sun and could not come down with it. He'll make that catch 99 out of a hundred times. This was the hundredth time. Chase threw the ball on a rope and I was encouraged with that.
"He made some good scrambles and ran the ball well. I know he was nervous as a cat, as any freshman would be, but he did some good things in the game. He ran the option extremely well in the second half, and he got the ball to Quinton Smith, who is second in the conference in average per carry."
On the Rice defense -- "We made more stops and more big plays than we have. We got better and better against an unusual offense. We did give up some big plays. The fullback breaking up the middle is always disappointing, and also some of the play-action passes. That's to their credit. We had the chances to make some plays, and we did make some."
On Rice's injuries -- "We came out worse, but you usually do this time of year. We'd like to get David Perkins back at center. Austin Wilkinson is doing a good job, but David is a big, strong guy who could give us an extra lineman in there. Joe Wood wasn't able to play. He's a guy that could help us at fullback and tight end, but he got hurt again. We won't get Mike Falco back yet. It's likely that they'll be operating on his knee again. He had some problems running, trying to get back. Marcus Knox is another good running back who has disc problems, and he's going to be operated on.
"That's just part of it. That's why we went into this year saying we were going to have to play some true freshmen if we started getting injuries like that, and we did. I think there were seven freshmen that played the other day and a couple others that are dressing out."
On UTEP -- "UTEP is a good football team with only one loss. They shut down Marshall the other day to only three points. Last year, we had a great game with them. That was the best we have played in a loss in a long time.
"(Jordan) Palmer is having a great year for them at quarterback. (Johnnie Lee) Higgins is a leading receiver and kick returner. They play defense extremely well, they played in a bowl game last year, and they've only lost one time this year. They're playing with a lot of confidence coming in here. They'll be a real challenge."
On this week's preparations -- "The biggest thing that I'm going to focus on this week is not El Paso, it's Rice. They're going to be good, and they've already proven what they can do. We have not proven what we are capable of doing, and until we can start taking the coaching, playing the kicking game well, it doesn't matter which team we play right now. We've got to get the Rice team to play up to its capabilities, not matter who the opponent is.
"We're going to focus more on ourselves, what we can do better everyday, where we can be in a better position and do our assignment. They more we can do that, the better we'll be able to play at five o'clock Saturday."
