MONROE, La. – ULM head coach Todd Berry, wide receiver Ajalen Holley and cornerback Trey Caldwell met with members of the media in advance of Saturday's Sun Belt Conference road contest at New Mexico State.
ULM Head Coach Todd Berry:
Opening Statement…
“Really disappointed for our football team. I think that we continue to give great effort and not find a way to win a close game again. It's my job to make sure that we learn how to finish those games but I'm tremendously proud of our effort and the fact that all these games have been emotionally draining and yet they find a way to rise back up. One of things as I mentioned last week in terms of motivation is what's deep inside you, what are you about. The first motivation has to be about how hard I play and how well I play, rather than the championships, rivalry games and any of those kind of things. So quite honestly I'm very proud of our players. I'd like to see them have more success than they are having. For the second week in a row, offensively we found our stride. I was pleased with how aggressive we were on offense and how well we threw the football around. I'm very excited about Pete Thomas and what he has done because he continues to grow up in the offense. He had to carry a heavy burden this last week and he took that in great stride. He's done a great job of taking care of the football other than the fumble but that can be sometimes difficult in relation to the past teams that have had a very good defensive line.
Little bit more disappointed in our defense for the second week in a row. There was quite a few explosion plays. We knew Lafayette had talent but I think certainly over the course of the season we've played against teams that maybe were a little bit more talented. Giving up over seven yards per play is not what are defense is used to so we've got to find a way to put together all three phases in one game. The closest we kind of come to that was Texas A&M, where we were finding our footing a little bit on offense and playing well on defense, other than the punt return we played pretty well on our special teams. We didn't make an impact on the special teams, certainly the fumble was very costly and then we had a fake punt that was not executed as well as kind of what we liked. If we would've executed that (fake punt) a little better than we might be talking a little different right now because I thought that was a huge momentum play. Again, we're banged up right now but I don't expect anybody to miss the game, although I don't know the number of quality snaps we'll get out of certain individuals. Rise back up and meet a new challenge in New Mexico State.
Doug Martin (head coach) and I worked together for four years. I consider him to be a close friend. I think he's an outstanding football coach. They've had some tough things that have happened to them this year. Offensively, their pretty close to what we're doing right now. There's an awful lot of similarities in structures, protections and all those types of things. Their offensive line has played significantly well, only giving up five or six sacks through the course of the season. They're going to spread the field and try to find the mismatches and they're tempo-based.
Gregg Brandon the offensive coordinator used to be the head coach at Bowling Green and I give him this a little bit too. Everyone wants to take credit for the spread offense, Gregg Brandon was the one that needs to take credit for the spread. He was the first one to start doing it at Northwestern back before it became invoked at Bowling Green and so on. Obviously, Urban Meyer hired him at Bowling Green to run the spread, this new-fangled offense and he is really credited at least by the coaches with the advent of it more so than everyone else because everyone else kind of stole it from him. So, pass some credit on to him in terms of creating this new thought process that is really taking over college football.
They had an open date (before we play them) so we know we are going to see a team that has a little more time to prepare for us on both sides of the football and be a little bit healthier. So, we've got another challenge and another opportunity and I'm anxious to see us play our best football in all three phases. We will try to put together that perfect game and once that happens I think we'll be a little bit better.”
