Latest / Coaches Corner / Seg 2 - FB Show Oct 31 Jim Mora

Transcript

Seg 2 - FB Show Oct 31 Jim Mora · Coaches Corner

• 0:00
  Up next for the football Husky's a trip to Knoxville and Neland Stadium a date
• 0:04
  with the nineteenth ranked Tennessee Volves. Radio coverage beginning at ten thirty with the
• 0:09
  Hard Auto Group countdown, a kickoff, then it's game on at twelve noon
• 0:13
  Here along the Yukon Sports networking online via the Varsity Network app in the Varsity
• 0:17
  Network dot Com. Mike Chrispino joined by Jim Mora. Later on Nick Harris
• 0:22
  with us the tight end turned tight end from a defensive lineman, and also
• 0:28
  Malcolm Bello plays cornerback for the Huskies. Let me ask you about Nick Harris
• 0:33
  coach quickly defensive lineman to tight end. I know he had a little bit
• 0:39
  offensive background in high school, but this is an interesting transition for this guy,
• 0:44
  and he looks like he might be a talented guide going down the road
• 0:47
  for you. Yeah, I was. I think it was his first spring
• 0:51
  or the first ball, and he was having trouble gain in the way that
• 0:55
  he needed a gain to play defensive line. He had a body type that
• 0:58
  looked more like a tight end, and so I went and looked at some
• 1:00
  film of him from high school playing receiver. I thought he showed some real
• 1:06
  ability and he was really open to the move and it's paid off, you
• 1:11
  know, I mean, right now he's our starting why and so credit to
• 1:15
  him for for digging in and learning how to play a different position. In
• 1:19
  high school, he played more of a you know, an h back tight
• 1:23
  end, you know, split out, but he goes in there and he
• 1:26
  digs out defensive linemen, he blocks linebackers. You know, he does some
• 1:30
  good things in the passing game. I think that that part of his his
• 1:37
  his role will expand because he does have good hands. I like the fact
• 1:42
  that we got a big, physical, smart, motivated kid that found a
• 1:48
  spot where he can really excel. Yeah, a small town guy. I
• 1:52
  talk with him later in the show. He's interesting character and again an example
• 1:57
  of guys that players on your team that are just there's so laser focused on
• 2:02
  being good at it, you know, I mean, they don't they don't
• 2:05
  let the other stuff get in the way, whatever's going on outside the team
• 2:08
  or any of that stuff. I think that's a credit to coaching staff and
• 2:12
  to Nick Harris and the rest of your players. Get a little more on
• 2:16
  the tight end justin Jolie's got twenty six catches. He's had some dynamic games.
• 2:22
  But BC shut him out the other day. How did that happen?
• 2:24
  When you looked at that, because I kept thinking, Justin's a guy that
• 2:29
  can break this thing open and get get the Huskies down the field, get
• 2:32
  a quick score or something like that. But their defense really, you know,
• 2:37
  put the put the net over him, didn't they? Well yeah,
• 2:39
  I mean they put the net over our offense, you know, and they
• 2:44
  they're really good on defense. They got really good players. You know,
• 2:47
  they're big, and they're fast, and they're physical, and they they play
• 2:51
  hard and they cover them up. You know, they cover him up and
• 2:55
  or some of the times when he got open, you know, the rush
• 3:00
  to take one to throw to somebody else, so the route called for a
• 3:04
  read somewhere else. You know. One of our primary objectives every week is
• 3:07
  that how do we get the ball to Justin? You know, how do
• 3:10
  we put him in position to get the matchup we want and then he's got
• 3:15
  to go win. And it was it was really tough this week. And
• 3:19
  you know, I guarantee of this. It wasn't by design that he didn't
• 3:22
  get the ball. Nick works tirelessly to try to find ways to get to
• 3:25
  get just in the ball and uh very rare for him to get shut out
• 3:30
  in a game, and uh, you know it was disturbing to him and
• 3:32
  to us for sure. Uh, takeaways, the team has really started to,
• 3:39
  you know, get it together in that category, a couple more turnovers
• 3:44
  created. I think you're now minus won overall on the season. What's been
• 3:50
  different there? I mean interceptions, you're obviously fumble recoveries are a little bit
• 3:53
  of happen the stance, but uh, to really start to turn it around
• 3:58
  in that category, I thought been a real positive. I think you focus
• 4:02
  on is effort. You just focus on effort on defense. You focus on
• 4:06
  effort, and that means getting to the football in the right position, uh,
• 4:13
  and ready to take take advantage of opportunities and more people get around the
• 4:15
  ball, better chance you have to getting the ball. And as your effort
• 4:20
  increases, you're going to see your takeaways increase. I really believe that.
• 4:25
  You emphasize it, you work on it, you talk about it, but
• 4:29
  it basically comes down to effort. And Uh, our guys have played hard.
• 4:32
  They are every week their effort you know, gets better. I've had
• 4:36
  now it's been three weeks in a row. I think I told you this
• 4:40
  last week, but three weeks in a row where I've had the opposing coach
• 4:44
  make make a concerted effort to tell me how how hard we play. And
• 4:49
  that's a compliment that I love. I mean, I don't. I don't
• 4:51
  need someone, you know, stroking our ego. And but when a coach
• 4:56
  says, god, dang, your guys play hard. We saw it on
• 4:59
  film GM any Christmas. They play hard. You know you're on the right
• 5:02
  track, and that's how you get takeaways. Play hard, play fast,
• 5:06
  play physical, get to the football. Yeah. I thought that one of
• 5:10
  the big ones was Malik Dixon Williams interception in the end zone. I was
• 5:14
  watching it. I was watching the end zone because saying, I'm up way
• 5:16
  high and I can see that angles and he came a long way to make
• 5:20
  that pickoff. And it was huge at the time because you're going into halftime
• 5:26
  and you kept them from scoring. I thought Malik Dixon Williams pickoff was a
• 5:30
  good one. It was huge. You know, we just we just gone
• 5:34
  for it on our own forty with a minute I think minute thirty four.
• 5:40
  They had timeouts. We didn't get it. Now you're going, oh my
• 5:44
  god, and they get the ball to start the second half, right,
• 5:46
  so they essentially get two possessions in a row at that point in time,
• 5:51
  and I think it was a seven point in game fourteen to seven. If
• 5:56
  they go down and score and it's twenty one seven, you go in at
• 5:59
  half between one seven, they come out and you have to kick off and
• 6:01
  they get the ball again. You know, it's a big deal. So
• 6:04
  took a chance by going for it. We didn't get it, and you
• 6:09
  know, our defense and Elik bailed us out with the takeaway to keep it
• 6:12
  at fourteen to seven. Uh, going in a half. So that was
• 6:15
  a huge play. You mentioned in your press excuse me conference this morning about
• 6:20
  a couple of drop passes that was came early in the game. I don't
• 6:25
  know if that kind of thing sets a ten are a little bit for what's
• 6:28
  going to happen. But it's disappointing because you say, well, if we
• 6:30
  make that catch, we get a first down, we start to move the
• 6:33
  ball, we get some momentum. It didn't happen early in that one.
• 6:39
  Now, well, you know, like you think about the just the first
• 6:42
  two plays of the game. So they kick it off and Cam, you
• 6:46
  know, so it's a bad kick. It takes a weird bounce. Cam
• 6:49
  you know, has to figure out where it's going to go. He grabs
• 6:51
  it, he turns up the field, the ball pops out. Now the
• 6:57
  ball is on the thirteen yard line. I think not the idea a place
• 7:00
  to start a game. Cam runs a beautiful corner route. Take One puts
• 7:03
  it right where it should be and Cam drops it. Now is that a
• 7:08
  function of you know, him having carry over from the kickoff, or just
• 7:13
  I don't know, but you know, that's a ball that Cam's gonna catch.
• 7:15
  He needs to catch. He knows he needs to catch. I don't
• 7:17
  need to tell him, hey, you need to catch that ball. He
• 7:19
  knows he needs to catch that ball, and he will catch that ball.
• 7:21
  He is Cam Ross. He's a damn good player. So that one,
• 7:25
  you know, that could have got us out to the thirty yard line.
• 7:28
  It could have made up for the mistake. It just happened on the play
• 7:30
  before and it did, but we didn't make it, you know. And
• 7:31
  then there was a third and fifteen where take Onon scrambled. We have a
• 7:35
  chance to keep the drive alive. You know, ball hits case not an
• 7:40
  easy ball to catch, but that's a ball case you know he can catch
• 7:43
  and he should catch. And once again, you don't have to go up
• 7:46
  to cam Ross. You don't have to go up to the case and go,
• 7:47
  oh, you got to catch the ball. They know they want you
• 7:49
  got to catch the ball. They want to catch the ball. They're trying
• 7:51
  to catch the ball. But you're right, you know, those drops can
• 7:55
  really hurt you. Our guys the last couple of games, man, they
• 8:00
  been sure handed. You know. It was just one of those things.
• 8:01
  We're early in the game, in the first half, when we had a
• 8:05
  chance to get better field position or continue a drive. You know, we
• 8:09
  had unfortunate drops. And I'll tell you what's amazing, all right, and
• 8:11
  you kind of talk about the resilience of our players, is Sundays their day
• 8:16
  off. I come in here and I'm gonna tell you, now, there's
• 8:20
  probably this is just last Sunday. There's probably fifteen kids in here working on
• 8:24
  their own down on the jugs, catching passes, you know, working on
• 8:28
  pass rush moves, like taking things that they felt like they needed to improve
• 8:33
  on from the day before and putting them into action immediately after the game.
• 8:37
  That doesn't happen everywhere. That doesn't happen anywhere, you know. So cam
• 8:41
  Ross, he knows that he didn't he should have caught that ball. So
• 8:43
  rather than sulk and he goes out and he works on it, he works
• 8:48
  on it. Can you not love a kid like that? You know,
• 8:52
  you love a kid like that. No, you got to have guys like
• 8:54
  that on your team, that is for sure. And it's an example again
• 8:58
  of the margin for error very thin in any college football game, and for
• 9:03
  Yukon obviously now in a couple of drops, we have to talk about it.
• 9:05
  You have to talk about it. But at any rate, we got
• 9:09
  a quick break here taking time out back with Jim Mora is the Yukon Football
• 9:13
  Coaches Show.