The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Bill Clark Addresses Media Ahead of Week 2 Trip to Akron
9/3/2019 4:44:00 PM | Football
BIRMINGHAM - Coming off a 24-19 victory over Alabama State to open the 2019 campaign, head coach Bill Clark addressed the media at his weekly press conference on Tuesday in advance of UAB's game at Akron this Saturday.
THREE THINGS TO KNOW:
HEAD COACH BILL CLARK:
Opening Statement:
"What a great crowd Thursday night - just really proud of our fans and of course Alabama State traveled well. It was a great night for football and great weather. It was the first game for a lot of our guys and there is a lot to work on. Really proud of our effort but as we know, when we came in on Friday, to a lot of our guys it felt like a loss. It wasn't a loss, it was a win. There a lot of things to correct. The great thing about playing on a Thursday is it allowed us to come in on Friday and work on UAB. When you come on a Sunday you have to quickly look at you and then move onto the next opponent. Coming in on Friday really allowed us to work on ourselves which I think was important. And then of course Sunday we moved onto Akron."
On an early kick at Akron:
We have been talking about it for a long time. It is an 11 a.m. kick for us, a 12 p.m. kick for them. We have a routine that we go through visiting the stadium. We will get there early on Friday and I think that is important. We are a morning practice tam in the summer. We have to acclimate to the evenings because I like to practice in the morning, but it is trying to do everything we can to get ready for that. To me I would already have had them stay in a hotel if it was feasible. Going through it is going to be a different story."
On the takeaway from the first game:
"This group has worked hard and they care, but it is the urgency of games. I have bragged on Alabama State a lot, but from an offensive standpoint, when they play cover zero and load the box, we have to be able to take advantage of that. Give them credit for that. Turnovers are always something we spend time on, so one is too many. We had one on a kickoff return. I think there are specific individual things and then the overview of what a game looks like. The urgency, one mistake gets magnified, what it is looks like on the sideline etc. We had a lot of guys on the sidelines being spectators and we need them involved. We talk about bringing our own energy on the road so we need those guys. It is a bunch of things."
On working on UAB or working on Akron:
"It's both. What do we do to get us better? What moves do we need to make? Who are the best 11 players we can put out there? Who shows up on game night? Those are the things we are looking at. For Akron, it is really easy to say this score equals this, but that is irrelevant. Obviously there has to be some bearing on what you did last week, that's why there is a winner and a loser, but they are at home, they don't want to be 0-2. It is totally different at home. We have to get ourselves better and get ready to go on the road."
On Week 2 road losses in the past:
"To your point, I think for us [last year], we had an older group that was pretty confident. They watched South Carolina defeat Coastal Carolina pretty handedly. SEC opponent at home. We win comfortably, we were probably a little over confident. That led to what happened at Coastal. That turned out to help us. We went on to win eight straight. I'd rather not go through that again. The game the other night against Alabama State is probably one of the best things that could have ever happened. It shocked us into the real world. 'This is what it looks like, this is what we have been telling you, this is what a bullseye looks like.' I didn't see anything yesterday that made it seem like they were looking at Akron's score. It was more of what do we need to do to get better, and that's what it should be. Hopefully all of those things will help us leading into this week."
On the players having high expectations:
"Yesterday I congratulated Garrett on being named Conference USA Defensive Player of the Week and he says to me, "Coach, I didn't even play that well.' That is the mindset you would like everyone to have. I can coach better, they can play better. They have high expectations. We want high expectations. I could sit here and tell you how many guys we lost last year, or that in two years we are going to be good because everyone has experience, but that isn't who I am and that isn't who we are. We have talked about it the entire offseason. The only way to do it is to go out there and play. I do like the fact that they have high expectations for themselves. It is a win, but for them to feel like they have a lot of things to do, they know it, they are saying it and that is where we want to live."
On capitalizing on missed opportunities:
"We are sitting there in the second half. No offense to Alabama State, but when they have that many guys go down, we have to capitalize. That is why I was so disappointed that we couldn't do anything with those first two drives to start the second half. There were moments that would have changed the game, but that is us being hard on ourselves and that is where I want to live. When you leave a team in it, that is a receipt for an upset. Hopefully we have learned that you have to put a team away when you have the opportunity, and we had a lot of opportunities."
Defensive lineman Garrett Marino:
On his performance against Alabama State:
"I don't know how I won that award. I have a lot of things to work on. I didn't have any sacks or pass deflections. I left a lot of stats on the field and I know I can do better."
On the defense as a whole:
"Everyone on our defense is trying to go to the next level. We know we aren't going to get to the next level by only have a couple of stats a game."
On UAB's goal-line stand:
"That was our first time being in a short yardage situation. We just wanted to see who the dogs were and who was going to come out to play. That was a big moment for us, we don't ever want to let a team score a touchdown so we had to see who was who."
On moving around on the defensive line:
"We kept it pretty simple week one, but I definitely expect to do a couple different things this week. I like having different matchups instead of just staying on the same guy."
Offensive lineman Colby Ragland:
On his first game as a starter:
"For me personally, I enjoyed it. I had a chance to play in a couple of games last year, but to start and play for the entire game was amazing. I wouldn't say it was too fast because of the way we practice. Overall we rushed for 170 something yards so it was balanced. As coach said, we set our standards very high and we were glad we were able to keep the quarterback clean so we are going to continue working on that."
On the win last week:
"As coach said, the past two years we all know what happened (big opening game wins). So for us to be able to escape last week with a win - we have to enjoy it, but we have to look at the small details and say 'ok, this is what could get us into trouble.' You look at those small things so you can get to the next level as a team."
On keeping the ball for six minutes after the defensive goal-line stand:
"It showed us what we already know. We are capable of being an elite offense and that we play for each other. The defense did their job and they had our back, so it was our turn to hold the ball, get a couple of first downs and keep it out of Alabama State's hands. We didn't want to give it back to them to let them decide what they were going to do with it. Let's use as much clock as we can."
On the difference of playing on the road:
"The biggest difference is that you are by yourself. You are going to have some fans that travel, but you have to know that you have to look to the sideline for the energy. The biggest thing is energy. We had 40,000 fans there the other night. It may only be 2,000-3,000 for us there this week. We have to know that we are all one family. The guys that travel with us, that is our heart. That's who we are going to look at for that big third down play or that touchdown drive. It is different because you don't have the fan base, but at the same time you have your guys and your teammates and that is all you need (laughing, although we do enjoy the fans)."
THREE THINGS TO KNOW:
- Junior running back Spencer Brown is 185 rushing yards away from becoming UAB's career leading rusher. Brown had 77 yards in the opening game of the season and has 2,633 for his career. His 2,633 rushing yards ranks him seventh nationally amongst active career leading rushers.
- Senior defensive lineman Garrett Marino is the reigning Conference USA Defensive Player of the Week. The California native had a career-high and team-best nine tackles, and was instrumental on UAB's fourth quarter line goal stand with back-to-back stops on first and second down.
- This is the first meeting between UAB and Akron, and the fourth time the Blazers have played a school from the MAC. All four games have come since UAB's return, including last year's 37-13 victory over Northern Illinois in the Boca Raton bowl. The Blazers will also look to turn their recent Week 2 woes around as they are 0-2 in since returning to action with both losses coming on the road.
HEAD COACH BILL CLARK:
Opening Statement:
"What a great crowd Thursday night - just really proud of our fans and of course Alabama State traveled well. It was a great night for football and great weather. It was the first game for a lot of our guys and there is a lot to work on. Really proud of our effort but as we know, when we came in on Friday, to a lot of our guys it felt like a loss. It wasn't a loss, it was a win. There a lot of things to correct. The great thing about playing on a Thursday is it allowed us to come in on Friday and work on UAB. When you come on a Sunday you have to quickly look at you and then move onto the next opponent. Coming in on Friday really allowed us to work on ourselves which I think was important. And then of course Sunday we moved onto Akron."
On an early kick at Akron:
We have been talking about it for a long time. It is an 11 a.m. kick for us, a 12 p.m. kick for them. We have a routine that we go through visiting the stadium. We will get there early on Friday and I think that is important. We are a morning practice tam in the summer. We have to acclimate to the evenings because I like to practice in the morning, but it is trying to do everything we can to get ready for that. To me I would already have had them stay in a hotel if it was feasible. Going through it is going to be a different story."
On the takeaway from the first game:
"This group has worked hard and they care, but it is the urgency of games. I have bragged on Alabama State a lot, but from an offensive standpoint, when they play cover zero and load the box, we have to be able to take advantage of that. Give them credit for that. Turnovers are always something we spend time on, so one is too many. We had one on a kickoff return. I think there are specific individual things and then the overview of what a game looks like. The urgency, one mistake gets magnified, what it is looks like on the sideline etc. We had a lot of guys on the sidelines being spectators and we need them involved. We talk about bringing our own energy on the road so we need those guys. It is a bunch of things."
On working on UAB or working on Akron:
"It's both. What do we do to get us better? What moves do we need to make? Who are the best 11 players we can put out there? Who shows up on game night? Those are the things we are looking at. For Akron, it is really easy to say this score equals this, but that is irrelevant. Obviously there has to be some bearing on what you did last week, that's why there is a winner and a loser, but they are at home, they don't want to be 0-2. It is totally different at home. We have to get ourselves better and get ready to go on the road."
On Week 2 road losses in the past:
"To your point, I think for us [last year], we had an older group that was pretty confident. They watched South Carolina defeat Coastal Carolina pretty handedly. SEC opponent at home. We win comfortably, we were probably a little over confident. That led to what happened at Coastal. That turned out to help us. We went on to win eight straight. I'd rather not go through that again. The game the other night against Alabama State is probably one of the best things that could have ever happened. It shocked us into the real world. 'This is what it looks like, this is what we have been telling you, this is what a bullseye looks like.' I didn't see anything yesterday that made it seem like they were looking at Akron's score. It was more of what do we need to do to get better, and that's what it should be. Hopefully all of those things will help us leading into this week."
On the players having high expectations:
"Yesterday I congratulated Garrett on being named Conference USA Defensive Player of the Week and he says to me, "Coach, I didn't even play that well.' That is the mindset you would like everyone to have. I can coach better, they can play better. They have high expectations. We want high expectations. I could sit here and tell you how many guys we lost last year, or that in two years we are going to be good because everyone has experience, but that isn't who I am and that isn't who we are. We have talked about it the entire offseason. The only way to do it is to go out there and play. I do like the fact that they have high expectations for themselves. It is a win, but for them to feel like they have a lot of things to do, they know it, they are saying it and that is where we want to live."
On capitalizing on missed opportunities:
"We are sitting there in the second half. No offense to Alabama State, but when they have that many guys go down, we have to capitalize. That is why I was so disappointed that we couldn't do anything with those first two drives to start the second half. There were moments that would have changed the game, but that is us being hard on ourselves and that is where I want to live. When you leave a team in it, that is a receipt for an upset. Hopefully we have learned that you have to put a team away when you have the opportunity, and we had a lot of opportunities."
Defensive lineman Garrett Marino:
On his performance against Alabama State:
"I don't know how I won that award. I have a lot of things to work on. I didn't have any sacks or pass deflections. I left a lot of stats on the field and I know I can do better."
On the defense as a whole:
"Everyone on our defense is trying to go to the next level. We know we aren't going to get to the next level by only have a couple of stats a game."
On UAB's goal-line stand:
"That was our first time being in a short yardage situation. We just wanted to see who the dogs were and who was going to come out to play. That was a big moment for us, we don't ever want to let a team score a touchdown so we had to see who was who."
On moving around on the defensive line:
"We kept it pretty simple week one, but I definitely expect to do a couple different things this week. I like having different matchups instead of just staying on the same guy."
Offensive lineman Colby Ragland:
On his first game as a starter:
"For me personally, I enjoyed it. I had a chance to play in a couple of games last year, but to start and play for the entire game was amazing. I wouldn't say it was too fast because of the way we practice. Overall we rushed for 170 something yards so it was balanced. As coach said, we set our standards very high and we were glad we were able to keep the quarterback clean so we are going to continue working on that."
On the win last week:
"As coach said, the past two years we all know what happened (big opening game wins). So for us to be able to escape last week with a win - we have to enjoy it, but we have to look at the small details and say 'ok, this is what could get us into trouble.' You look at those small things so you can get to the next level as a team."
On keeping the ball for six minutes after the defensive goal-line stand:
"It showed us what we already know. We are capable of being an elite offense and that we play for each other. The defense did their job and they had our back, so it was our turn to hold the ball, get a couple of first downs and keep it out of Alabama State's hands. We didn't want to give it back to them to let them decide what they were going to do with it. Let's use as much clock as we can."
On the difference of playing on the road:
"The biggest difference is that you are by yourself. You are going to have some fans that travel, but you have to know that you have to look to the sideline for the energy. The biggest thing is energy. We had 40,000 fans there the other night. It may only be 2,000-3,000 for us there this week. We have to know that we are all one family. The guys that travel with us, that is our heart. That's who we are going to look at for that big third down play or that touchdown drive. It is different because you don't have the fan base, but at the same time you have your guys and your teammates and that is all you need (laughing, although we do enjoy the fans)."
Players Mentioned
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