Army West Point Athletics
Jeff Monken Press Conference Quotes: Wake Forest
September 15, 2015 | Football
WEST POINT, N.Y. - Army West Point football head coach Jeff Monken met with members of the local media Tuesday afternoon for his weekly press conference inside Nowak Auditorium. The Black Knights are preparing to host Wake Forest on Saturday in a noon kickoff at Michie Stadium.
(Ref.: opening statement)
"Good afternoon everybody, we are certainly disappointed about losing the game this past Saturday. It was interesting to play UConn again after playing them so late in the season last year. There were a lot of things in that game that if they had just gone our way, a play or two that could have made it a different ball game. That is probably the most agonizing thing and we are not playing as well as I think we are capable of playing.
"I think we are making some real improvements. To have as many young guys in the game as we had, it is promising to see the improvements they are making and I think we have improved from week one to week two in a lot of areas. Other places we may have digressed a little bit, but I am excited about a lot of the things I am seeing despite having to suffer through a loss. I was really proud of the effort of our guys. Where we are from an execution standpoint and from an effort standpoint I think there are a lot of improvements compared to last year. Unfortunately, it hasn't equaled up to two victories and I hoped it would have, but our guys are a great group of kids and they recognize the areas where we need to improve and they are willing to put in the work.
"Give credit to Coach Diaco this past Saturday, they had a great plan and they shortened the game. Normally, we're the ones who control the clock and make the game really short, but they did that to us. They ran the ball really well and they took time off the clock. We didn't do a good job on maintaining possessions and you can't do that when you play our style of offense. This week, hopefully we can do a better job of controlling the ball. Wake Forest, as much as they're throwing the football, they're one of the best teams in the country at controlling the clock. Dave Clawson is an outstanding coach, he and I worked together at the University of Buffalo. I have great respect for what he's done. He's been a winner everywhere he's been and I know he's going to do that at Wake Forest."
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(Ref.: on balancing trying to win with developing new players)
"We're not giving guys repetitions just to make improvements with them individually, we're putting them in the game with hopes that they'll help us win. I think we have some young guys that, from an athletic standpoint, will give us a chance to win. Eventually, they're going to have to play. We're going to have to find places where they can play and get them the experience they need."
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(Ref.: on the challenge Wake Forest quarterback John Wolford provides)
"He does a great job. He gets rid of the ball so quickly and they throw the ball to a bunch of different guys. That's kind of been their style. I thought he did a really good job with him last year. He's calm in the pocket and he does a nice job in their offense. I'm impressed with their run game and I think that's more effective than it was a year ago. Dave Clawson has a great plan and they really use his skills and his strengths to benefit their team."
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(Ref.: on your level of concern with your offense)
"After the first game, everybody wanted to know why we were passing it so much and now everyone wants to know why we didn't pass it. We've never tried to masquerade ourselves as a throwing team, we want to run the football. On Saturday, we had some big plays and I thought our guys did a good job on the perimeter and gave us a chance to have those big plays. We didn't do a great job at the point of attack and getting movement at times. It's tough to get the fullback going if you can't get movement at the line of scrimmage. At times we did, but too often, we didn't. We had too many short drives where we had to punt too early. We were 2-of-8 on third down and if you don't convert on third down, you end the drive. UConn was doing a nice job of controlling the ball and they kept some drives alive and we didn't."
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(Ref.: on how do you get fullbacks going/point of attack blocking)
"You've got to get movement at the line of scrimmage. You've got to get people knocked out of there and there's also got to be some cooperation from the defense. They can commit everyone they've got to the fullback and that's fine, but you've got to be able to run the quarterback in the slots. The quarterback has hit some good runs and some long runs. He had a couple on Saturday, one that got called back, but I think that makes a difference in the game. We've had some slots get the ball on the perimeter and we have to run through some tackles out there and not get brought down by one guy. When you have more success on the perimeter and defenders have to commit it helps with the fullbacks too. It's a combination of things all of which we have to do better."
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 (Ref.: time of possession importance)
"A lot of coaches will tell you that time of possession is way overrated, the most overrated statistic in football. If you score on one play it's still seven points. If it takes 15 plays it's still seven points. To a lot of coaches it doesn't matter and probably for a lot of teams it doesn't matter. For our team it does. I think it is important to control the ball and give the opposing team fewer opportunities with the ball because in the nature of what we do offensively and who we are in nature physically. For us to trot our defense out there for 12, 14, 15 possessions in a game, it gives the other team a lot of chances and typically we are better if we can hold the ball and keep our defense off the field, and force the opposing offense to press and get out of their rhythm. It's something we'd like to be better at, certainly Saturday [vs. UConn] we were poor in that area."
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(Ref.: on what mental adjustments need to be made)
"Well certainly I think missed assignments are going to glare no matter if it's our offense or defense or someone else's. When you miss an assignment, when you don't block the right guy, play the right gap or cover the right receiver, it can be big plays for the other team. We really struggled with that in the opening game on defense and we just had our communications crossed up and missed some tackles. We did that again on Saturday. We missed far too many tackles and it cost us, which is a fundamental thing. The mental part of the game, offensively, we looked at it just this afternoon, in the course of two games last year, we had over 90 missed assignments. In the course of two games this year, we have 27. So, it's not an assignment problem on offense, it's an execution problem. Just blocking and sustaining blocks and running and breaking tackles and we just haven't done a good enough job of that. The physical part comes into play. We know who we are. If you're just a laymen and know nothing about football and you came out there and you saw our three defensive lineman standing across from their offensive line, you can tell there's a difference between the size of their football team and our. You can look at the size of Ryan Alexander, who weighs 250 pounds, and the guy across from him weighs 307, that there's a difference. That's not an excuse. That's been like that forever for Academy teams. The other Academy team that I coached, we weren't bigger than other people, we just got to a point where we could execute. And we executed effectively enough that a lot of times you could make the size not count. And sometimes it did, I've said in here before, physical superiority cancels all theory. When a big, athletic, fast team is playing really hard and playing really well fundamentally, and they're tough, they're a difficult team to beat. We're going to have challenges. But I'm not concerned about that. I'm concerned about us and how we execute. If we do block the right guy, if we do play the assignment we're supposed to on defense in the gap and in coverage, it's our job as coaches to get those guys in the right position to be able to make a play and I think our guys will make enough plays that we'll have a chance to win if we do that on a consistent basis. There's been some times that that's hurt us, not as much this week as the week before. That's encouraging. We just didn't do enough on Saturday to earn the victory and we had some opportunities."
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(Ref. challenges experience of Wake Forest's defense provides)
"They're very well coached. You can see that not from just playing our offense, but playing other people as well. They do a really great job. There are several coaches on that staff that I know very well, and several coaches on that staff that have connections to other coaches on our staff. They're very familiar with us, and we've got some familiarity with them. They do have an experienced defense. They have a really good group of athletic guys that we're impressed with as we watched them. Guys that played against us last year are a year older and more experienced, and some guys that are in their fifth year who have played a lot of college football. They're not going to be intimidated by coming in here or by playing against us. They've played plenty of good football. What we're going to have to do is get our guys prepared to execute our offense against those experienced guys on defense and execute the game plan that we think is going to be best for us to move the football. I know our coaches will come up with a good plan, and our kids will work hard at it this week. The bottom line is on Saturday, when we kick the game off, we've got to execute. There are certainly some challenges there. They've got some great players, and we'll have to play our best."
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(Ref.: How excited are you to return home?)
"It's always good to be home. If I had my choice, we would play every game here. I think there's a level of comfort just from being in our locker room, playing in front of our home crowd and the corps of cadets. I hope that'll help us. We want to make playing here at Michie Stadium an advantage, and that's got to do more with us than anything and how we play. I hope we'll execute and play better."
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(Ref.: opening statement)
"Good afternoon everybody, we are certainly disappointed about losing the game this past Saturday. It was interesting to play UConn again after playing them so late in the season last year. There were a lot of things in that game that if they had just gone our way, a play or two that could have made it a different ball game. That is probably the most agonizing thing and we are not playing as well as I think we are capable of playing.
"I think we are making some real improvements. To have as many young guys in the game as we had, it is promising to see the improvements they are making and I think we have improved from week one to week two in a lot of areas. Other places we may have digressed a little bit, but I am excited about a lot of the things I am seeing despite having to suffer through a loss. I was really proud of the effort of our guys. Where we are from an execution standpoint and from an effort standpoint I think there are a lot of improvements compared to last year. Unfortunately, it hasn't equaled up to two victories and I hoped it would have, but our guys are a great group of kids and they recognize the areas where we need to improve and they are willing to put in the work.
"Give credit to Coach Diaco this past Saturday, they had a great plan and they shortened the game. Normally, we're the ones who control the clock and make the game really short, but they did that to us. They ran the ball really well and they took time off the clock. We didn't do a good job on maintaining possessions and you can't do that when you play our style of offense. This week, hopefully we can do a better job of controlling the ball. Wake Forest, as much as they're throwing the football, they're one of the best teams in the country at controlling the clock. Dave Clawson is an outstanding coach, he and I worked together at the University of Buffalo. I have great respect for what he's done. He's been a winner everywhere he's been and I know he's going to do that at Wake Forest."
Â
(Ref.: on balancing trying to win with developing new players)
"We're not giving guys repetitions just to make improvements with them individually, we're putting them in the game with hopes that they'll help us win. I think we have some young guys that, from an athletic standpoint, will give us a chance to win. Eventually, they're going to have to play. We're going to have to find places where they can play and get them the experience they need."
Â
(Ref.: on the challenge Wake Forest quarterback John Wolford provides)
"He does a great job. He gets rid of the ball so quickly and they throw the ball to a bunch of different guys. That's kind of been their style. I thought he did a really good job with him last year. He's calm in the pocket and he does a nice job in their offense. I'm impressed with their run game and I think that's more effective than it was a year ago. Dave Clawson has a great plan and they really use his skills and his strengths to benefit their team."
Â
(Ref.: on your level of concern with your offense)
"After the first game, everybody wanted to know why we were passing it so much and now everyone wants to know why we didn't pass it. We've never tried to masquerade ourselves as a throwing team, we want to run the football. On Saturday, we had some big plays and I thought our guys did a good job on the perimeter and gave us a chance to have those big plays. We didn't do a great job at the point of attack and getting movement at times. It's tough to get the fullback going if you can't get movement at the line of scrimmage. At times we did, but too often, we didn't. We had too many short drives where we had to punt too early. We were 2-of-8 on third down and if you don't convert on third down, you end the drive. UConn was doing a nice job of controlling the ball and they kept some drives alive and we didn't."
Â
(Ref.: on how do you get fullbacks going/point of attack blocking)
"You've got to get movement at the line of scrimmage. You've got to get people knocked out of there and there's also got to be some cooperation from the defense. They can commit everyone they've got to the fullback and that's fine, but you've got to be able to run the quarterback in the slots. The quarterback has hit some good runs and some long runs. He had a couple on Saturday, one that got called back, but I think that makes a difference in the game. We've had some slots get the ball on the perimeter and we have to run through some tackles out there and not get brought down by one guy. When you have more success on the perimeter and defenders have to commit it helps with the fullbacks too. It's a combination of things all of which we have to do better."
Â
 (Ref.: time of possession importance)
"A lot of coaches will tell you that time of possession is way overrated, the most overrated statistic in football. If you score on one play it's still seven points. If it takes 15 plays it's still seven points. To a lot of coaches it doesn't matter and probably for a lot of teams it doesn't matter. For our team it does. I think it is important to control the ball and give the opposing team fewer opportunities with the ball because in the nature of what we do offensively and who we are in nature physically. For us to trot our defense out there for 12, 14, 15 possessions in a game, it gives the other team a lot of chances and typically we are better if we can hold the ball and keep our defense off the field, and force the opposing offense to press and get out of their rhythm. It's something we'd like to be better at, certainly Saturday [vs. UConn] we were poor in that area."
Â
(Ref.: on what mental adjustments need to be made)
"Well certainly I think missed assignments are going to glare no matter if it's our offense or defense or someone else's. When you miss an assignment, when you don't block the right guy, play the right gap or cover the right receiver, it can be big plays for the other team. We really struggled with that in the opening game on defense and we just had our communications crossed up and missed some tackles. We did that again on Saturday. We missed far too many tackles and it cost us, which is a fundamental thing. The mental part of the game, offensively, we looked at it just this afternoon, in the course of two games last year, we had over 90 missed assignments. In the course of two games this year, we have 27. So, it's not an assignment problem on offense, it's an execution problem. Just blocking and sustaining blocks and running and breaking tackles and we just haven't done a good enough job of that. The physical part comes into play. We know who we are. If you're just a laymen and know nothing about football and you came out there and you saw our three defensive lineman standing across from their offensive line, you can tell there's a difference between the size of their football team and our. You can look at the size of Ryan Alexander, who weighs 250 pounds, and the guy across from him weighs 307, that there's a difference. That's not an excuse. That's been like that forever for Academy teams. The other Academy team that I coached, we weren't bigger than other people, we just got to a point where we could execute. And we executed effectively enough that a lot of times you could make the size not count. And sometimes it did, I've said in here before, physical superiority cancels all theory. When a big, athletic, fast team is playing really hard and playing really well fundamentally, and they're tough, they're a difficult team to beat. We're going to have challenges. But I'm not concerned about that. I'm concerned about us and how we execute. If we do block the right guy, if we do play the assignment we're supposed to on defense in the gap and in coverage, it's our job as coaches to get those guys in the right position to be able to make a play and I think our guys will make enough plays that we'll have a chance to win if we do that on a consistent basis. There's been some times that that's hurt us, not as much this week as the week before. That's encouraging. We just didn't do enough on Saturday to earn the victory and we had some opportunities."
Â
(Ref. challenges experience of Wake Forest's defense provides)
"They're very well coached. You can see that not from just playing our offense, but playing other people as well. They do a really great job. There are several coaches on that staff that I know very well, and several coaches on that staff that have connections to other coaches on our staff. They're very familiar with us, and we've got some familiarity with them. They do have an experienced defense. They have a really good group of athletic guys that we're impressed with as we watched them. Guys that played against us last year are a year older and more experienced, and some guys that are in their fifth year who have played a lot of college football. They're not going to be intimidated by coming in here or by playing against us. They've played plenty of good football. What we're going to have to do is get our guys prepared to execute our offense against those experienced guys on defense and execute the game plan that we think is going to be best for us to move the football. I know our coaches will come up with a good plan, and our kids will work hard at it this week. The bottom line is on Saturday, when we kick the game off, we've got to execute. There are certainly some challenges there. They've got some great players, and we'll have to play our best."
Â
(Ref.: How excited are you to return home?)
"It's always good to be home. If I had my choice, we would play every game here. I think there's a level of comfort just from being in our locker room, playing in front of our home crowd and the corps of cadets. I hope that'll help us. We want to make playing here at Michie Stadium an advantage, and that's got to do more with us than anything and how we play. I hope we'll execute and play better."
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Players Mentioned
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