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/ FootballNeal Brown Press Conference - Georgia State Game
11/23/2015 3:32:00 PM | Football
Opening statement…
Happy Thanksgiving week to everybody. The bye week was good for us, it was productive. We got couple of things accomplished. Number one, we got a little banged up. We're not an overly deep football team and coming out of that (Georgia) Southern loss we were beat up, so we rested. We only practiced twice during the bye week. We had a long scrimmage Thursday night with all of our guys that are redshirting or on the scout team, which was productive. We had some guys show up, especially the four kids that were redshirting on the offensive line. I think those guys are going to be good players for us. Then the two defensive ends that we're redshirting, Uvakeious McGhee and Antione Barker, those guys really played well in the scrimmage.
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We've got Georgia State this week, playing on a Friday, a little bit of an unusual schedule. Our guys are excited about the opportunity they have to play in the (Georgia) Dome.
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Georgia State is playing the best football they've played all year. Over the last five weeks, they've put on a run of playing really good football, the best in the history of their program really. They've had three wins and two really close losses. One of the losses, I'm not sure the loss to Arkansas State wasn't the most impressive game they've played. They played them closer than anyone else in our league has.
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It starts with them on offense. Nick Arbuckle, their quarterback, has the highest passing efficiency, throwing for the most yards of anybody in our league. Offensively, they're playing as well or better than anybody in our league. They're the best passing team in our conference. They've got three guys that I think are plus wideouts, and what I mean by that is they're three of the better wideouts in our league, they're above average for our league. The freshman that's leading them, Penny Hart, he's a guy that can make you miss. He's been impressive to watch on film. They've got the (Robert) Davis kid that can really run. He's been their deep threat.
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Defensively, I think that's a big reason why they've been playing better here of late. The last three weeks you look at their stats they've been impressive. They've created a lot of turnovers; they're flying around creating a lot of negative plays. They're blitzing a little bit more than they did earlier in the season and they're having success with that. Their best player there is somebody that y'all are really familiar with and that's Joseph Peterson from Dothan and I'm sure rightfully so, he'll be excited to play against us. He's a two-time All-Sun Belt player, he'll make it again this year. They've got a couple of defensive end that are moving around and creating some havoc up front and then in the back end Bobby Baker is a transfer from UAB. I think he may have three interceptions and he's doing a nice job. Their corners are playing right now as good as anybody as we've played in our league so far, they're playing with a lot of confidence and their putting them in more man-to-man situations and against South (Alabama) last week they played a lot of man coverage and South (Alabama) has a really good wide receiver core so I expect them to do the same. The part that really scares you is their kickoff return, they returned one 100 yards against Arkansas State and I think they're in the top 25 in the country as a kickoff return unit. So we'll have our hands full, our guys are excited. We're excited about finishing this thing on the right note. It's an opportunity for our seniors to finish what they started and to lay the foundation for what's to come and a great opportunity to carry some momentum into the offseason.
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Improvements over the bye week…
I don't know if we've made a lot of strides into the bye week other than we're going to be healthy. I think everybody but one or two are going to play, which will be helpful and then we're going to have more depth. We went on a run there where I think we played four or five in a row and our guys just got worn down. Our numbers are a little bit lower than most people. I think we're going to play with more energy. We've played good football and we really didn't play bad in the first half against (Georgia) Southern. Some things got away from us in the second half. They were sharp; the two days they practiced they were sharp so I think we'll play well Friday.
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On pressuring the quarterback and forcing turnovers as an advantage…
They throw the ball better than (UL) Monroe does. They're more talented at wideout than (UL) Monroe and (UL) Monroe has a couple of good players but Georgia State's playing at a higher level and especially leading into our game ULM had fallen off a little bit offensively. But the speed is different at Georgia State, now without question we're going to have to apply pressure. Rashad Dillard, Tyler Roberts; those guys have got to have big games for us. Sam Lebbie needs to be a factor. Our corners are going to be challenged like they haven't been so far. They've got to step up and we've got to mix up coverages. We've got to play some man, which we haven't done a whole lot this year and then play our base zone too.
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How to neutralize linebackers…
With (Joseph) Peterson we've just got to get our offensive lineman up on him. They do a good job of moving and slanting the front. They free their linebackers up. A lot of (Alonzo) McGee's tackles for loss are on first down when they run blitz him off the edge and he's able to get in the backfield and get some tackles for loss. On passes, he's able to get the quarterback down. We understand coming into the game they're probably going to pressure us and blitz us and we've got to be able to handle those. We've got to stay away from negative plays, that's what really harmed us earlier in the year. Teams similar to this coming off the edge and hitting us for negative plays, so we have to stay away from those.Â
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Happy Thanksgiving week to everybody. The bye week was good for us, it was productive. We got couple of things accomplished. Number one, we got a little banged up. We're not an overly deep football team and coming out of that (Georgia) Southern loss we were beat up, so we rested. We only practiced twice during the bye week. We had a long scrimmage Thursday night with all of our guys that are redshirting or on the scout team, which was productive. We had some guys show up, especially the four kids that were redshirting on the offensive line. I think those guys are going to be good players for us. Then the two defensive ends that we're redshirting, Uvakeious McGhee and Antione Barker, those guys really played well in the scrimmage.
Â
We've got Georgia State this week, playing on a Friday, a little bit of an unusual schedule. Our guys are excited about the opportunity they have to play in the (Georgia) Dome.
Â
Georgia State is playing the best football they've played all year. Over the last five weeks, they've put on a run of playing really good football, the best in the history of their program really. They've had three wins and two really close losses. One of the losses, I'm not sure the loss to Arkansas State wasn't the most impressive game they've played. They played them closer than anyone else in our league has.
Â
It starts with them on offense. Nick Arbuckle, their quarterback, has the highest passing efficiency, throwing for the most yards of anybody in our league. Offensively, they're playing as well or better than anybody in our league. They're the best passing team in our conference. They've got three guys that I think are plus wideouts, and what I mean by that is they're three of the better wideouts in our league, they're above average for our league. The freshman that's leading them, Penny Hart, he's a guy that can make you miss. He's been impressive to watch on film. They've got the (Robert) Davis kid that can really run. He's been their deep threat.
Â
Defensively, I think that's a big reason why they've been playing better here of late. The last three weeks you look at their stats they've been impressive. They've created a lot of turnovers; they're flying around creating a lot of negative plays. They're blitzing a little bit more than they did earlier in the season and they're having success with that. Their best player there is somebody that y'all are really familiar with and that's Joseph Peterson from Dothan and I'm sure rightfully so, he'll be excited to play against us. He's a two-time All-Sun Belt player, he'll make it again this year. They've got a couple of defensive end that are moving around and creating some havoc up front and then in the back end Bobby Baker is a transfer from UAB. I think he may have three interceptions and he's doing a nice job. Their corners are playing right now as good as anybody as we've played in our league so far, they're playing with a lot of confidence and their putting them in more man-to-man situations and against South (Alabama) last week they played a lot of man coverage and South (Alabama) has a really good wide receiver core so I expect them to do the same. The part that really scares you is their kickoff return, they returned one 100 yards against Arkansas State and I think they're in the top 25 in the country as a kickoff return unit. So we'll have our hands full, our guys are excited. We're excited about finishing this thing on the right note. It's an opportunity for our seniors to finish what they started and to lay the foundation for what's to come and a great opportunity to carry some momentum into the offseason.
Â
Improvements over the bye week…
I don't know if we've made a lot of strides into the bye week other than we're going to be healthy. I think everybody but one or two are going to play, which will be helpful and then we're going to have more depth. We went on a run there where I think we played four or five in a row and our guys just got worn down. Our numbers are a little bit lower than most people. I think we're going to play with more energy. We've played good football and we really didn't play bad in the first half against (Georgia) Southern. Some things got away from us in the second half. They were sharp; the two days they practiced they were sharp so I think we'll play well Friday.
Â
On pressuring the quarterback and forcing turnovers as an advantage…
They throw the ball better than (UL) Monroe does. They're more talented at wideout than (UL) Monroe and (UL) Monroe has a couple of good players but Georgia State's playing at a higher level and especially leading into our game ULM had fallen off a little bit offensively. But the speed is different at Georgia State, now without question we're going to have to apply pressure. Rashad Dillard, Tyler Roberts; those guys have got to have big games for us. Sam Lebbie needs to be a factor. Our corners are going to be challenged like they haven't been so far. They've got to step up and we've got to mix up coverages. We've got to play some man, which we haven't done a whole lot this year and then play our base zone too.
Â
How to neutralize linebackers…
With (Joseph) Peterson we've just got to get our offensive lineman up on him. They do a good job of moving and slanting the front. They free their linebackers up. A lot of (Alonzo) McGee's tackles for loss are on first down when they run blitz him off the edge and he's able to get in the backfield and get some tackles for loss. On passes, he's able to get the quarterback down. We understand coming into the game they're probably going to pressure us and blitz us and we've got to be able to handle those. We've got to stay away from negative plays, that's what really harmed us earlier in the year. Teams similar to this coming off the edge and hitting us for negative plays, so we have to stay away from those.Â
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