HONOLULU – University of Hawai`i Warrior football head coach Greg McMackin conducted his weekly press conference, recapping last weekend's Western Athletic Conference opener versus San Jose State and looking ahead to UH's road game at Fresno State on Saturday, Oct. 4. Below are excerpts from the press conference.
On the San Jose State game:
After the game we were devastated because we knew that was a must win. Quite honestly after watching the film that was the best game we've played so far. We really improved our special teams, our defense, and we played with emotion. Emotion is making the plays and letting people know about it. Offensively we moved the football, the receivers made catches, Inoke (Funaki) played his tail off the first half, and the offensive line was physical. Defensively, except for that first trick play they got us on, which was well conceived, and you've got to give San Jose and Dick Tomey credit, the defense pretty much shut them down. Although we got better as a team, our turnovers killed us. Our turnovers are a mystery because last year we were one of the top ten teams in turnovers. Defensively we have got to create turnovers, and offensively we've got to get that fixed. You can't win games when you have a high turnover ratio. That really cost us the ballgame.
More on the team's turnover problems:
We've cut out every turnover we've made this year in our film and we're analyzing them. There may be a couple of plays we won't call anymore until we can get our timing down. We averaged four turnovers a ball game last year, but we were also getting turnovers, and the offense had high-powered guys that could score. We're not doing that this year so when we get a turnover it really hurts us.
On the defense:
I was happy how the defense played, except for the first play. We reached all of our goals except for a win and a big passing play. I was pleased with the defense, they came out and played, they celebrated when they did good things, and they played well together. It looked more like us.
On the quarterback situation:
Inoke played a good first half. Notice we did different things with him. We sprinted him out and ran the option with him. We're still going to run the run-and-shoot. He got a lot of good reps, but made a couple of bad decisions with the interception, which comes with experience. He needs to keep himself up the entire ballgame and be a leader because the players love him. We felt Tyler (Graunke's) hand was ready by game time, and we put him in because we had slowed down and we wanted a spark because he plays good off the bench. I told them the day before the game who was going to play, but I told them both they were probably going to play.
On this week's opponent, Fresno State:
Fresno State is a top 20 team and this is Pat Hill's year. They've been playing really well on the road beating UCLA, Toledo, and they played Wisconsin really well at home. It's going to be a tough physical game. I know they are going to be waiting for us because we've beaten them the last two years. It's college football at it's best with a crowd that's on you. They're a physical, well-balanced, good, solid football team so it's going to be a great challenge for us.
On the team's morale:
Our team is right with us. Now we are in a situation that we don't control our destiny in the league. We've got to win one game a week, and win six games to go to a bowl game. We have to get better every week, but we improved more as a team in these last two weeks than we have ever before. (The San Jose State game) was a tough one to lose but we have a lot of games left. We watched a lot of film and our guys can see that we got better. I think the players believe what we're talking about, they're really good to coach, and they know what we have to improve on.
-UH-
