Sept. 26, 2015

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Rutgers Assistant Head Coach Norries Wilson

COACH WILSON: Good afternoon. We met our goal for the week. Our goal was to win the game. It wasn't pretty. Kansas did some things that got us off-schedule. But we shot ourselves in the foot with a couple penalties, turnovers but a quality opponent. They made big plays on us. The defense stood up a few times and got them stopped.

We've got to stop turning the ball over and stop lining up off-sides and stop throwing the ball away and running backs putting the ball on the way. But as a football coach, you tend to dwell on the negative things. There are some positive things happened, so we have to go out and take the good with the bad.

It's great to go into a bye week as a program, having won a football game. Now we've got an opportunity to fine tune some things, change some things, throw some things out, maybe get a jump start on the next opponent and just take it from there.

With that, I'll open it up to questions.

Q. Was this a must-win game?
COACH WILSON: To a point, yes. Must-win because I didn't want to go into a bye week on a three-game losing streak and everybody getting in their head. We wanted to win the football game to make us feel good going into a bye week and know that we can go out and beat a quality opponent and get ourselves ready for the next opponent.

Q. As a running back coach, the 312 yards and rushing, what does that mean for you?
COACH WILSON: See the fumble when -- put the ball on the ground. It's tough to play in my room . We call it bringing change to the room. That's what we call it. So I talked to them about, 312 yards, it makes you feel good, but there's things we have to clean up. We can't put the ball on the ground because the game can change with any turnovers.

I'm always proud of them. I think they do a good job. And Josh, he feels bad about putting the ball on the ground. They are selfless with one another. So I'm happy with the production and hopefully we can continue to do that for the program.

Q. That rotation, giving each guy like a series, why do you think that seemed to work so well today? Obviously that could break up momentum but obviously didn't. Why does that work so well?
COACH WILSON: What I tried to do today was try to keep fresh legs. I'd give a guy two or three carries for the most part and put a fresh set of legs out there, hit them hard a couple times and then put another guy back out. There was a series where I let Josh get five or six in a row or let T.J. get four or five in a row. I think it worked today because we had some good blocking up front.

And Coach McDaniels and Coach Browning did a good job teaming up the run, and we knew how we wanted to hit them and once we got them rotated one way, we were able to come back the other way. They did a good job, the running backs did, and with me being away from them and me just calling a name and they take off running, it actually worked out.

Q. Having been around Darius for four years, how difficult was it to make the decision not to play?
COACH WILSON:You know, Darius came in early. He's always been out spoken and he's always had the ability to lead. I'm sure -- I haven't spoken with him on it personally, but I'm sure that it just tears at him. He's always wanted to be out front. He's always a guy at the top -- going into practice, each player and have a great day. I'm sure it rips his heart. But having him on the sideline today cheering the guys on defense and offense was also fantastic. I'm happy that he's still around.

Q. To follow up -- step up in a leadership role?
COACH WILSON: They have to. They have to lead on the field with their play and they are going to have to lead in the locker room along with him with their voices, and there has to be positive leadership from him, as it was with him. It has to be positive leadership, to drive forward and to drive to get better. It's not about team. It's not about me. Those are things they instill in us. Whoever steps up, also needs to lead the same way.

Q. Just wanted to make sure, do you -- I don't know what conversations you may have had, do you expect him to apply for a red-shirt next year?
COACH WILSON: I don't know any of that. That would be between the medical staff and Coach. I don't have any idea.

Q. Obviously today you had hicks and Martin rush for over a hundred yards but for Paul James to get in there and get some positive momentum, especially after his ten carries, seven-yard performance last week against Penn State, run for 57 yards today, how important is that to your room and that running back group?
COACH WILSON: It's important, it's very important for them all to be on their game and feel good about themselves. He averaged 6.3 a carry today, Paul did, and Robert averaged 6.0 and Josh had 5.4. That's a good across the board average for the three of them.

To know that we can get that from any of the three of them when they go out there, that's fantastic and makes us confident and makes us more confident in who is out there at a given time.

Q. Your over impression of Chris Laviano's performance?
COACH WILSON: It was up-and-down at times. He made a bad decision and I told him he made a bad decision when he threw the pick in the end zone. He threw two in the end zone, one was the Hail Mary -- that happens a bunch on the Hail Mary. But when he threw in the back of the end zone on the left -- and I just talked briefly about it, can't have a lot of people talking to the quarterback.

I asked him if it was a good decision or a bad decision and he said it was a bad decision. I asked him, can he give us better decisions and he said yes. And from then on, he strung together a bunch of good decisions and we are happy about that.

Q. Blocking a couple times, a couple throws he tried to get out of bounds, is that part of being a young quarterback or is it something to worry about?
COACH WILSON: I don't think it's something to worry about. We just have to instill in him and harping on him what he has to do, when you're out of the pocket, it's something we have to make sure we instill in him and keep harping on what he has to do to get the ball. When you're out of the pocket, just throw the ball, pass it, if it's out of bounds, don't try to throw it to the back.

We've got to keep teaching. He's a first-time starter and sometimes guys need a couple mistakes before they get it right and hopefully he got enough looks of making that mistake that we get it right.

Q. On the other side, doing a very good job of stopping him --
COACH WILSON: This morning, when we met before we came over, we talked about what he had to do to win the football game and we talked about on defense we have to stop the run, limit the big play and we have to stop the run. We gave up some big plays but we had to stop the run.

I think they averaged, 64 yards on 29 carries and that's a good day's work against anyone, especially when they had a backup quarterback that was doing the things they were doing. I hope the young man they had to put out of the game, the quarterback, I hope he's going to be okay. You never want to see a young man hurt. That might have changed a few things, how they planned to attack us, but the defensive line and the linebackers, they did a good job stopping the run.

Q. On offense, we talked a little last week about Agudosi's effort and his career night at Penn State. Comes backtoday, he makes that first catch to put you up 7-0. How important is he to be a target in the red zone and a security blanket?
COACH WILSON: Well, I wouldn't say security blanket. I think it's important for him to be a target in that his play is so good that we know we can go to that his play is good, Pat's play is good, Grant's play is good; that Chris has more than just one option to throw to.

So he's got to keep working on his game and I'm very happy for him. The first thing I told him was congratulations on the touchdown. Second thing I told him was make sure you hand the ball to the official. So he's getting better and he's getting a lot more reps. Coach Campanile is on him. Coach Campanile is the best coach on the staff. I wish I could coach as good as he does, and he's on his guys and he demands from them. He was demanding from them at breakfast this morning, still teaching.

Pat and Agudosi, you asked about Agudosi, he's got to work and get better. Never be satisfied with where he is. Sometimes kids fall into, hey I've arrived, and I know Coach Campanile is not going to allow that. He's going to make sure that he's coaching them through the bye week and just continue to get better.

Q. The difference in the pass rush, seems like you brought a little more pressure today?
COACH WILSON: Well, I know we caught a few more blitzes and I think Joe had a good plan. Joe was hunkered down for a long time. He wanted to stop the run after last week's performance and he wanted to sack the quarterback a few times after last week's non-sack evening. So he put a good plan together and they got after him a little bit.

Q. What would you say about the secondary's performance today?
COACH WILSON: This is what I told Pat, I said, guys, this is what you're going to do. You're going to decide what you think the right thing to do is and just go do it. You can't be apprehensive. Anything you do apprehensively, you're going to screw it up. Just take an assignment, just go and that's what he did and he had fun. Dropped two interceptions he could have had and I talked to him about that on the sideline. I asked him, was he having fun and he said he was having fun.

If they are out there having fun and you are going as fast as you can go -- the only fun in this whole deal is winning onSaturday. The rest of it, we're just grinding.

We're going to see the Monroe Wolverines tomorrow, so going to go see my son play his first game tomorrow.

Appreciate it, everybody.

SOPHOMORE QUARTERBACK Chris Laviano

On keeping Kansas off balance …
"Our guys up front played a tough game and we ran the ball really well. "

On what the team did well …
"The offense played great today. The line blocked really well and our running backs got to the second level and had a pretty good day."


SOPHOMORE RUNNING BACK Josh Hicks

On getting into a rhythm …
"When your number's called, you have to be ready. Most times you won't have the opportunity, so when you get the ball you have to make the best of it."

On today being a big day for the running backs …
"I knew we were going to run the ball, but we just stuck to the game plan."

On the running game being a focal point in the second half …
"We love running the ball. We love hitting the holes and having the o-line block for us. They did a good job today."


SOPHOMORE TIGHT END Matt Flanagan

On going into the bye week with a win …
"It's really good for momentum going forward. Coming off a tough last two weeks, it's just really good to be 1-0 again. We left some stuff on the table but we also executed when we needed to so shout out to the offense and defense playing how we need to."


FRESHMAN DEFENSIVE BACK Kiy Hester

On when he found out he would start …
"In the beginning of the week we were rotating so there was no clear starter at the beginning of the week. Coach [Joe] Rossi said 'be prepared, anybody can start, we're going to dictate it by practice film.' So I was just out there playing hard like I usually do in practice."

On being active in the secondary and on run responsibilities …
"Coach Rossi emphasizes swarming to the ball, everyone getting to the ball, 11 hats to the ball. I feel like in practice we executed that, so I feel like in the game it was a lot easier because we were going a lot of up-tempo. I felt like everyone was flying around in practice and that translated to the game."


SENIOR LINEBACKER Kaiwan Lewis On stopping the Kansas running game effectively …
"It was big because if you stop the run you can make a team one-dimensional and you kind of know what they're going to do."

On others stepping up in the absence of Darius Hamilton …
"Darius has always been a big help. Even when he's not there, he's still leading. He may not be able to put the pads on, but he's still the leader of this team and definitely the leader of the defense. I'll do my best to step up and be a leader. We've got a lot of guys that can lead, but Darius is still our number one guy when it comes to leading this team and the defense."

JUNIOR LINEBACKER Steve Longa On Kawain's performance as a whole against Kansas …
"That's not anything that's surprising. Coming in, Kaiwan picked up play pretty fast. That's why he's able to be out there with us now. Showing up week one, week two, week three - he's just getting better every week. He's a great competitor. When we go out there we try to compete and it's fun having him out there right next to me."

On having 11 tackles and being prepared for Kansas' offense
"I just trusted my reads. I've been doing this since Sunday, watching film - a lot of film. You're not trying to read the mesh just read your keys and go where you think the ball is supposed to go. Fit where you're supposed to go. Let everybody else do their job, you do your job. I just did my job and doing my job made me get 11 tackles."

Kansas head coach David Beaty
On when the decision not to start Montell Cozart was made: "It was made this morning. Yesterday, it wasn't looking good because he was sick. We got him his own room last night and tried to quarantine him a little bit away from the team. He had a really high fever. He wasn't the only one on the team. We had to leave one guy back because he has the flu. One of them is just getting over the flu. He didn't start the game. We were bringing another linebacker to help us and he got the flu. Unfortunately, it's kind of going around us. The decision wasn't made until this morning. We were going to continue to evaluate those guys all the way through walkthrough and the decision was made a little easier because he was sick. He wasn't just sick, he had a 104 temperature."

On decision that Montell Cozart would be play if needed: "Montell (Cozart)and Deondre (Ford) are clearly the most prepared to play for us. And that's why those two guys are the two guys right now. We've got some plans for Ryan (Willis) too obviously. The game plan was if we got in certain situations, you would've seen Ryan do some things, but we never got into those situations today for him today. They'll be some things in the future hopefully we can utilize him for, because we think he's got a good skill set. The amount of knowledge that you need to know at this level is a little bit more sometimes. He's getting there. He's just getting better one day at a time. He's not there yet. The other two clearly are."

On being surprised on how well Montell Cozart played: "Honestly, I really was. I went over to Ryan (Willis) and said 'you know you have to be ready. We'll keep it limited. We'll take care are you with things you feel comfortable with.' I wasn't sure. When I talked to (Montell) on the sidelines, he was doing a great job holding his composure and doing a good job of cheering on Deondre (Ford), but he was coughing and didn't look very good. The second he put that helmet on, he went in there and I think he played as hard as he could have possibly played, particularly giving his current situation."

On QB Ryan Willis: "We are going to use Ryan. There's no doubt, but he is not ready to play with the whole system right now. There's just a lot for a high school senior. We are being very smart on how we create some things to utilize him. The situations have to arise for that to happen the right way. It just didn't happen today."

On the level of play: "You can't take the score out of it unfortunately. There were some better things at certain points. I really liked the way our defense responded after we gave up a touchdown on that first drive in the second half. I thought (the defense) created some turnovers. I thought they flew around a lot better. There was some improvement there. Offensively, it was good to see that we had some adversity and guys handled it. No one ever thought about who was at quarterback. They just did their job."

On opponents' rushing: "They held the ball for 37 minutes and they did a great job of converting third downs. They were 8-of-12. I thought (defensive coordinator) Clint (Bowen) did a nice job of schematically getting in the right positions at times and then the quarterback, we lose containment. He scrambles for at least two first downs, maybe three, and that's hard. You've got to give (Rutgers QB Chris Laviano) credit, he gets to the sticks and gets the first down. We got them to third-and-medium and third-and-long a lot and we have to get off the field when that happens. I know that frustrating for our defensive staff as well as it is for me and our team, but we've got to be able to get off the field. I'm interested in seeing the tape because I want to see how we were on first down efficiency, especially early in the game. I thought we gave them long sticks and a lot of third-and-medium and third-and-long, but they converted. It means were are efficient on first down, but we need to be able to hold that through on third down. That's a big ten football team and they are built a lot differently than we are. (Rutgers) did a good job of holding on to the football, which is the name of the game when you play tempo teams like us."

On telling Montell Cozart he wasn't starting: "This morning when I went into the training room and I saw how he looked. I just said "you just be ready and if I see you look like you feel better and we get to a point where we need you, you be the one that tells me'. I didn't have to go search him. I turned around and he had his helmet in his hands and he was running out. The answer was pretty easy from that point."

Senior Defensive End Ben Goodman
On the horse collar tackle penalty: "I definitely cost my team. It was a big play. We just have to move on from that."

Did you feel Corey King (Nosetackle) running with you: "I had him in a bad spot. I didn't see him. I wasn't trying to be selfish and get a sack. I was just trying to get him down. That was the only way."

On the difficulty of stopping the running game: "Just have to be disciplined, trust the coaches and keep doing our job."

On QB Montell Cozart and what he was able to do today: "He stepped in and played well. Both QB's have been competing all week for the job. It was fun to watch. He stepped up when his number was called."

On Rutgers holding the ball for 38 minutes during the game: "Penalties killed us and they were able to score on a couple of them."

Junior Line Backer Marcquis Roberts
On Rutgers being 8-for-12 on third down: "We have to get off the field because that's the biggest down right there."

On being sick throughout the week: "I just had some body weakness and a fever throughout the week."

Junior Safety Tevin Shaw:
On returning home to Piscataway: "I feel pretty well. There are always things I can do better. But overall I think it was a decent game for me. We stayed right down the street at a hotel we've stayed at before. Walking through this tunnel again reminded me of the state championship game. It was surreal."

Junior Quarterback Montell Cozart:
On playing through the entire game despite being sick: "It was definitely tough. Enthusiasm helped and the fact that we had a shot to win. I just have to thank those guys. The receivers and running backs made great plays."

On competition between him Deondre Ford: "Coach is always talking about getting better. You're only as good as your next. Competition makes you better."

On 4th-and-7 play miscommunication: "We were trying to get a signal but they communication between guys broke down. It's always something you have to pay attention to. Guys have to pay attention when the quarterback says anything."

Was the lack of voice difficult since you were sick?: "Yes, because when the crowd started to get loud on third down it was tough to get them to hear me."