11/4/2002 - Football
Paul Johnson Transcript For Monday, November 4
Q. Can you talk a little bit about Notre Dame and the challenge ahead of you?
A. Well, I think they are an outstanding football team. There is no question that they have great personnel and Coach Willingham and his staff have done a tremendous job. It?s going to be a huge challenge for our football team and I think we look at it as an opportunity. I was telling our team earlier that it?s an opportunity to measure ourselves against a Top 10 team in the country. There?s a lot of guys that play college football that never have that opportunity, to measure themselves against a Top 10 team let alone on national television and front of hopefully a sold out Ravens Stadium with 70,000 people in the stands. It ought to be a great atmosphere.
Q. You obviously know that Navy has played Notre Dame tough a lot, do you have thoughts on why that is and do you feel good that your kids are going to give them their best shot on Saturday?
A. I don?t know much about the past. I know when I was here in ?95 and ?96 we had a great game in South Bend in ?95 and then in ?96 they got after us pretty good in Ireland. It was one of the three games we lost that year. It?s a great series, two teams that have played each other for a long time and I think both schools stand for something and that?s what?s neat about college football.
Q. Do you feel like turnovers, I know they are always important, but do you think they will play even a bigger role this Saturday?
A. They are going to be important, they are important in every game. We have to go in there and play better than we?ve played all year to have a chance.
Q. Can you talk about some of their individual personnel. Arnaz Battle, the receiver that has been a big playmaker for them, the running back Grant, defensively Vontez Duff.
A. Courtney Watson, the linebacker. They are tremendous. When people say that Notre Dame doesn?t have talent I just laugh. I don?t know how many Parade High School All-Americans they have on their football team but they are a very talented football team. The thing that sticks out to me watching it on tape is how well they run on defense. They are really playing hard and they might be as good a defensive football team that I?ve seen in a long, long time. Offensively, their quarterback is starting to come into his own, he is getting better each week, they have a good stable of running backs and certainly Arnaz Battle is as good as probably any receiver in the country. Couple that with a huge offensive line and they have all the ingredients to have a good football team.
Q. Do you know Coach Willingham very well?
A. I do not know Coach Willingham very well, just in passing I?ve seen him, but I don?t know him very well. There are a couple of guys on their staff that I know. Buzz Preston, who is the running back coach, coached receivers for us in Hawaii for about six years. I?ve known Buzz for a long time. I think I played against the defensive coordinator before when he was at Cal and I was at Hawaii.
Q. Did the off week help as far as getting some guys healthy?
A. Yeah, I think this late in the year everybody is kind of beat up. We are practicing in shells and hopefully everybody we can get back, we?ve lost several guys for the year, but hopefully we can get some of the other guy?s back and be at full strength for the game.
Q. Who are some of the candidates to come back from injury that did not play in the last game?
A. Quite honestly it?s not so much the guys who didn?t play in the last game, but it?s guys who got hurt in the last game that wouldn?t have played if we wold have played last Saturday. Guys like Josh Smith and Aaron Weedo, guys we hope will be able to play on Saturday that probably wouldn?t have played last week.
Q. Eli Sanders is probably not back?
A. He is still out.
Q. Brindel?
A. Brindel is out and I think for the season probably.
Q. In terms of Boston College, did you see anything in that game that gave you an idea of things you might want to do? They obviously held them down.
A. Yeah if we can get them to fumble eight times and throw two interceptions that would help.
Q.Anything else?
A. I think Notre Dame moved the ball, if you look at the stats they probably had 360 or 370 yards and Boston College had 180. The difference in the game was the turnovers and the one big one where they scored on defense. You have to give Boston College credit, they did enough to win the game, but it wasn?t like they came out and just stuffed Notre Dame and held them to 150 yards offense. Notre Dame kind of self inflicted a lot of the wounds on themselves and I know a lot about that.
Q. Do you feel like this is a good time to be playing Notre Dame because they may be down or reeling or do you think they are going to show up angry on Saturday?
A. I wouldn?t expect they will be down and reeling, I would expect they will be fired up and ready to play again. It?s been my experience when I?ve been around really really good football teams that you don?t want anything to do with them after they lose one.
Q. How do you make your kids believe they can win this game?
A. I don?t think I can make them believe that, they have to believe in themselves. It?s a challenge, a great opportunity. Hopefully this is why they came to the Naval Academy, from the football aspect of it, to play in games like this, to play against top teams and measure themselves. The thing that I?ve tried to sell them on is that it can happen, look last week, it happened. You just have to go out there and play to the best of your ability and give it 100 percent and see what happens.
Q. Is there anything you can use from your BC game, I mean you moved the ball on BC to a pretty good tune and BC?s defense shut down Notre Dame.
A. I don?t think so, I don?t think you can ever compare games. You just have to go play. I promise you that this is the best defense we?ve played all year. Bar none, not even close.
Q. Do you like playing defensives with a lot of speed and athleticism?
A. No, I would rather play a defense with no speed and no athleticism.
Q. But I mean against N.C. State you got them to overcommit on some stuff and you moved the ball against them.
A. We moved the ball some, but when guys can run, and that?s the whole key to playing defense. I don?t care what you do if you can run you have a chance to play football and if you can?t run it makes it hard and they have a bunch of guys over there that can run and are good football players. I look at it as a challenge. I think it will be a challenge for the offense, I look at it as a challenge as a coach to try and find a way to move the ball on them. It?s not going to be easy.
Q. When you watch the tape do you see areas you can take advantage of?
A. They don?t have a whole lot of weaknesses. We have to run our offense. If we go out and execute then we will have a chance to move the ball. If we don?t, we won?t. It?s the same every week, we have to go out and not miss reads, execute, and get some blocks on the perimeter and who knows. We will see what happens.
Q. Have you thought about the fact that this could be a partisan Notre Dame crowd despite the fact that you are the home team and it?s in Baltimore?
A. I don?t worry about that stuff. I?m sure Notre Dame sells a lot of tickets. They have their own national TV contract, I?m sure they have a pretty good following. I would venture to bet that if we could get up on them and stay in the game that we would have a lot of fans pulling for us. Most people kind of like the underdog.
Q. Did you guys do any recruiting last week?
A. Boy did we.
Q. How did that go, are you feeling good about it?
A. I think it?s going alright. We?ll know next fall when we see them walk in here. We?ve done a lot of recruiting. Hopefully we are on our way to having a good class. You just never know, recruiting changes daily. Somebody falls back and offers somebody, you might feel good about a guy today and tomorrow they are committed to the University of Florida.
