MONROE, La. – ULM head coach Todd Berry, defensive lineman Gerrand Johnson and wide receiver Ajalen Holley met with members of the media in advance of Saturday's non-conference road game at Texas A&M.
ULM Head Coach Todd Berry:
Opening Statement…
“Good afternoon! Obviously a disappointing loss this past week to Texas State. I felt like that our first half was as good a football as we played all year, so I was highly encouraged. We prepared well during the week, I think we were excited about playing in the ball game. Then obviously the second half, especially the fourth quarter, was a problem, and that has not been a problem throughout the course of the season. Fourth quarters in close ball games have kind of been games that we've…that's when we've really taken over. But I thought the kids played really hard. I was proud of their effort. Obviously they were disappointed and you are going to have some games like that where you will kind of learn from it and move forward.
We came out of the game, as Alex said, relatively healthy, so we are pleased with that. I think one of the challenges that, looking back, you are always going to self-assess. I'm an old school guy. I'm an old school football coach, and I think one of the things that was a problem for us in the fourth quarter this last week… We've been a very well-conditioned football team throughout the course of the season. I think that's shown out in the fourth quarter. But maybe I need to look at how we do things during those open dates. I said I was an old school coach and I kind of grinded them up a little bit. That's just the way I was raised, and I don't know that we had all of the energy. I think it's paid dividends for us, quite honestly, early in the season because I think we've been in great shape, but I think that at this point in time, by the time the season has worn on, there is that culminating effect of all the games that have been played.
I have asked the offensive coaches to start playing more of their two's. We have more depth than we've ever had. We had offensive linemen who had 95 snaps in that ball game, and we had receivers who had 80 snaps and that's way too many snaps, especially with the tempos that are going on right now. Then defensively again, I think we wore down and we lost our discipline against an option football team. That's going to be something you're going to pay for, and obviously we did. So we are going to shake it off. We'll learn from it and we'll move forward.
Obviously we've got a huge challenge this week against, I think, a very good Texas A&M football team. I think this is a team that's a Top 10 team. I think they had the unfortunate task of playing Alabama, Ole Miss and Mississippi State in back-to-back weeks. I would challenge anybody in college football to play those three games in a row and see how they fare. They are extremely talented. Very aggressive on both sides of the football in terms of what they do schematically. They are, I'm sure, healthy because they had an open date this last week so they were off, so I'm assuming they are going to be healthy and I'm sure they are going to be highly motivated to take out their frustrations on us, so we've got to rise up to the challenge and take this opportunity on.
Obviously, it's an early morning kick, so I think we leave the hotel at like 7 o'clock in the morning. All of the hotels in College Station are full, so we are staying about an hour and fifteen minutes away, so we will have an early bus ride with the 11 a.m. kickoff. Again, this is one of the great venues in college football and one of the great atmospheres in college football, so our players, our staff is excited about going down there and trying to get better this week.”
