October 26, 2004
Audio from Tuesday's football media luncheon is available through the links to the right. Files can be downloaded and are in MP3 format.
Here is a transcript of Tuesday's questions and answers session with Texas A&M head coach Dennis Franchione:
How much of a challenge is it as a coach to keep the team focused on this week's game with such a big game coming up the following week?
"I think as a head coach you always have areas that you're thinking about with your football team. You're the head coach they have to look at the big picture. I really think it's hard to week in week out over the course of a season be at an emotional pitch every week. But that's what you strive to do and for my standpoint there's only so many hours in the week and there's only so much time to do all the work that needs to be done to get your team prepared to play. You really get lost, I think, in the moment. Our players are astute when they look at film. They see things very well at our meetings. On Fridays, I ask the offensive kids -I have the centers tell me about their (defensive) tackles. And tackles and tight ends, you tell me about the defensive ends. Tight ends and receivers, you tell me about the secondary. They do a marvelous job. They've studied the film. Sometimes I even have to put the film back on because they've said something I want to checkout. It's a challenge. I think right now this team is a little bit lost in paying attention to themselves. I don't mean media hoopla or things like that. But I mean we practice Sunday and they worked real hard on themselves getting better and that's been a constant focus and conversation point for them two or three weeks here about the reaching our ability level and playing up to our potential. And we talked about it in here. And they're staying pretty focused."
Do you bring up the fact that the Colorado team that was such a battle last week lost to Baylor last year in Waco?
"Sure, you always draw on any examples that you can use to put substance behind the statements."
From Baylor's standpoint, after last year's game, is this their 77-0 game? Do you bring that up and say they're going to want some of us?
"Sure, I think those are all points that you got to think about."
Do you make a point of talking to your emotional type leaders and getting them to spread the word to the team about the importance of getting up for this game?
"Good observation. I did that Sunday. I talked with our Leadership Council and some of our older players. The thing we all know as a team is there are external distractions - that's what fans and (media) do. That's your jobs I guess. It's not ours. We have to be able to kind of insulate ourselves somewhat from those kinds of conversation points the best we can and keep our focus. I appeal to our players on a weekly basis about a lot of different things, but that's one of the issues I talked to our Leadership Council about for this week with this team."
It's hard when you're 18 years old, 19 years old to cool yourself?
"It can be hard when you're 53 years old. I think we all can have a difficult time living in the present. Having turned enough programs around, one of the things that happens is sometimes when you win a game you want to bask in that too long and we haven't that problem fortunately. I haven't seen that at all. There are a lot of mental issues that as a coach you try to head off and deal with and as I say a lot of times you spend 90 percent of your time on 10 percent of the things that happen but all the other percents are still wisely used because it stops things from getting going before they start."
How satisfying has this year been for you after last year?
"Well, I don't know how to quantify it for you. It's been very, very satisfying. Just to go into the locker room see the players after the game and see the scene on the field Saturday. The Clemson locker room was just a great experience for me. The Kansas State one was, the Oklahoma State one was. All those opportunities to see our players' confidence and self esteem and attitude develop after having such a tough season last year."
What was life like last year for you personally? Was that about the hardest thing you'd gone through?
"It was one of my toughest 31 years (of coaching), if not my toughest."
I guess the Oklahoma loss was a low point for you...
"There were a lot of low points. Seemed like October November were... I don't know. That was a tough day. You have to go on to the next game very quickly, try to move forward. You try not to dwell on those things too long. The whole season was pretty draining."
Has this been your greatest turn around?
"I don't know about that. Haven't thought about that. We've just won six games. That's a little bit better and we've gotten to a bowl game - have to think about that a little bit. That 1-10 to Sun Bowl Champion was very special, obviously. That was a one year turn around. The New Mexico job was just a labor intensive turnaround. That took a lot of time. We had a winning season the second year, but to really get the program turned around took five or six years."
What did you tell the team during spring drills to try to encourage them that things will get better? How did you approach them?
"Really our team came back in January with kind of a refreshed, renewed sense of purpose and I didn't have to dwell on any of the past. I dwelled on the future and what we needed to do to get better. I think the past gave them something that they didn't want to go through again and that was motivating for them. But I did not dwell on last season other than to pull out you know analytical and statistical data such as turnovers, takeaways, penalties, things like that to show them how we could get better."
Clearly one of the biggest reasons for your team's improvement is talent...
"This team is more talented. I don't think there's any argument about that. The redshirt freshman have certainly done that and junior college kids. The talent that was here has gotten better. They've gotten a year under their belt. We couldn't do that without some talent. But I don't know if that's the complete key to this. I think a lot of issues of the talent blending together, playing together, working on not turning the ball over, taking the ball aweigh. There are other issues that go with that but it's hard to do it without some talent."
Do you try to redshirt most of the newcomers when you're building a program?
"I don't ever go into a season thinking I'm going to redshirt. Travis (Schneider of Bellville High School) is probably an exception there. We knew when we signed Travis as an offensive lineman that he was going to have to redshirt. But for the most part we don't go into the season saying these guys are going to redshirt. We throw them in there see how good they do, let them see how quickly they can make the transition learning a new offense or defense, do all the things at the speed of the game practice intensity and if they're to play, we've played them. I played a true freshman quarterback before. Sometimes you play them because you have no choice you have to play them. The thing I've never done is play very many before they were ready and just waste a year on a handful of plays. I've never done that. My career has taught me that almost every guy playing in his fifth year plays his best football. Countless times, I've seen it over and over again. Maybe a guy that hadn't played much in his first four years in his fifth year played very well and make a contribution."
You recruited Lee Foliaki out of high school and he ended up choosing another prom date. Was it pretty easy to forgive and forget when it came time to recruit him again?
"It was easy for me. We needed linebackers bad enough, I thought I was going to have to beg. I remembered Lee well and knew Lee was a football player. I knew what kind of spirit he had and I knew what kind of attitude he would bring. Everything about Lee was what we needed. So there wasn't any doubt when I heard that he was going to be able to come out. I told Coach (Stan) Eggen that we needed to go sign that guy. There wasn't any doubt in our minds about wanting Lee on this team."
The way he's played the past couple of games proved that out, right?
"I think of all the JC guys, Lee's gotten markedly better on a weekly basis. He's had a little up and down here and there but his progression has been solid."
That whole group of junior college linebackers might have been the most important part of last year's recruiting class because of all the injuries to your linebacker corps...
"You're right. We could not have held up depth-wise. When we had some injuries at the position, fortunately we've had guys ready to step in. We really played Oklahoma State game very thin at the lineabacker position that night, but held up fine. That's been a pretty pivotal part of our improvement."
Coach, can you talk about the last drive of regulation and how great the execution was?
"Well, the only thing could have made it better is if it had been a touchdown. If you were on our sideline there was a real confidence, calmness approach. We had done 'May Day' so many times here that it's no big deal. The only thing that we really had to talk to our players about is we had two time outs and playing on a short field that we needed a field goal at least not a touchdown. If we can get a touch down great but we needed at least a field goal. Sometimes it makes you think about going no-huddle with the way we operated it there. But they just did what they've practiced and I think they had confidence and poise to go do it and the guys made plays."
Does your quarterback become more of a leader in that situation?
"I don't think there's any doubt. His composure and poise bleeds to the offensive line and no doubt about that. Especially the offensive line."
Do you have as much confidence in that situation even if you practice it all the time if you don't have a quarterback that can take an opening and make a 20-yard gain?
"Well, you're asking me to think about if I had a slow quarterback that couldn't run. I just know Reggie and I had a lot of confidence he could do it. He was ready to go and we've done it a number of times in different scenerios. I knew we could do it. I didn't know if we would, but I knew we could."
You had never done it (been successful on a two-minute drill) in a game. How important was it to actually be successful in a game situation?
"You tell them a lot of things and put them in as many situations in practice as you, but until you go out there and do it in the game - it's not that you're not sure you can do it, but once you do it, it's like 'we've done this. No big deal.' It's like when you rode a bike. After you did it the first time, then the second time was a lot easier."
Jason Carter, did he still want to be a quarterback? Did it take any convincing to move him and then deciding where to move him? Go to the process of where he is now?
"At the time we had him and Dustin (Long) and Reggie (McNeal) and Ty (Branyon). We went through about half of spring practice if I remember correctly and kind of reached a point where our team wasn't talented enough to leave all three of those guys at that position and to have one or two of them sitting on the bench with me all the time. I had had Jason in football camp at TCU and I knew what his ability level was about. We sat down and I think Jason wanted to play as much as anything. He probably wanted to be a quarterback but didn't want to be the backup or third-team quarterback and not play. He wanted to play. So at the time we had just come off using the A-back position that was so successful for us at Alabama with Shaud Williams so that was immediately the type of athlete that we thought he could be. We just kind of talked about it. I think we talked about both sides of the ball, but he wanted to be on offense and that was fine with us. We said give it a try if you don't like it we can move you back. I think we were guilty as coaches last year of putting too much on his plate too quickly and you know we probably slowed down his development because when we finally just said 'Go play receiver. This is what you focus on,' Jason started getting better and better and playing pretty solid for us."