R.C. Slocum Tuesday Media Luncheon Quotes
Sep 22, 1998 | Football
September 22, 1998
Talk about dealing with the D'Andre 'Tiki' Hardeman situation (suspended indefinitely) and what did you tell the team to do to deal with it?
"We've talked about the concept of a team. One of the foundations of building a team is trying to get everyone to understand that it's not about one guy. It's about the overall group.
"The foundation that you try to impress on them is that if you get someone hurt, you close the ranks. If a guy packs up and goes home, you close the ranks. Whatever the situation, you have a 100 guys out there. You try not to let the loss of one player is that big of a distraction. I thought the Dallas Cowboys last night showed that pretty clearly playing with Troy Aikman on the sidelines. It looked like Dallas was pretty good last night. That's a credit to their team that they all picked up the slack. They looked a pretty good football team and won a game on the road. They did it without, arguably, one of their best players."
How do you expect the team to deal with the (Hardeman) distraction?
"I think they will do fine. I don't think it's going to be a bad distraction at all. Players don't read newspapers very much, so other than that it's not going to be a big deal. They don't sit around all day and mull over things like that. Kids, I've found over the years, are pretty resilient. I'm not concerned with the team being distracted."
Can you offer a description of what you do lose without Hardeman in the lineup?
"You lose a good back. I think he's proven that he's a good back. You lose a considerable amount of experience. We've got a young guy there at fullback now (Ja'Mar Toombs) who we think will be a good fullback in time. But Tiki was there four years ago and his level of experience is very high. So we lose a lot at a position where we didn't have a lot of experience to lose. With Jason Bragg being hurt we really don't have any experience to lose at that position."
Do you know when a final decision will be made regarding Hardeman?
"I don't. I don't know that."
Are you thinking it is doubtful that he will be back?
"I wouldn't want to say one way or the other on whether it's doubtful or not."
Is he still here?
"Yes. He's here. We won't be getting him a bunch of reps. At this time I'm not expecting him to play this weekend. I'll say this: we're making our game preparations without him in the plans."
Can he practice?
"Yes he can practice."
At this time no one knows what is going to happen, but forfeiting the Louisiana Tech game is one option. What's your thoughts on that?
"I'm not going to get into discussing hypothetical outcomes to something. I'm going to wait until I get what I can talk about before I start hypothesizing on outcomes or how people would feel about hypothetical outcomes."
The players have mentioned it to us that whatever happened was not (Hardeman's) fault? Is that your understanding?
"I really don't have a lot of discussion about what happened, whose fault is was. It would serve no purpose for me to discuss my opinions about the issue. There are very few things that I don't talk about, or won't talk about. But I do get some situations that I can't talk about."
You're big favorites about North Texas. Can you talk about making sure the team doesn't look past North Texas? What do you want to get out of this game besides a win?
"I see two things. First, last year North Texas was coming off a win over Texas Tech and we struggled with them for a good while. Our players remember playing this team just a year ago. They know it's going to be a challenge for us. Secondly, we're in a mode right now where we don't have it all worked out. We need to go out and show some improvement and get some things worked out. I'd really like to play on a dry field and get one of those games where we're not trying to 'manage' the game because of the weather. Once we got to 14-0 last week, in my mind I was trying to be 'smart' with what we were doing in the ballgame. It was slippery field and so we wanted manage the game in such a way that we were assured of the win. We're not nearly as concerned with stats in a game like that, as you are with winning. I think a dry field would help. But their are execution things that we need to do that would help too. So we need this game. I think it's good that we have a team that going to come in here and get after us. They will be good for us. If we're planning on defending our Big 12 South Championship, we've got a lot of work to get done."
Is the gameplan different without Tiki?
"Yes. He gave us some options because of his experience and because of his ability to play the "A" back or the "B" back. He just gives us more options. We have a young guy now playing fullback and we have to be careful about what we ask him to do. Tiki could jump into both the A back or the B back, but now we get more defined into what we're doing with Ja'Mar. He's a B back and it will be all we can do to that position taught, much less trying to play two positions. So it takes away some of our options."
Talk about Chad Frantzen's climb from the 12th Man Kickoff team to second-team linebacker...
"I think he's a great story. A guy comes out for the team and works his way up the ranks. He started out as a guy that covered kicks and he's worked to the point that he is a legitimate player."
The players say that the offense's struggles can't be linked to any single thing. What do you think?
"I tend to agree with that. It's not any one glaring thing why we're not being effective. As I look at it, it's a combination of things."
