Neal Brown Press Conference - Idaho Game - Troy University Athletics

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Troy Head Coach Neal Brown – October 30, 2017

Thank y'all for being here.

On Georgia Southern…
It was a quality win over Georgia Southern here on Homecoming. It gets us to 6-2 and 3-1 in the Sun Belt. We're on a short week so I'm going to be quick wrapping that game up.

Special teams, first of all, the negative was our kickoff coverage. We've been one of the top teams in the country over the last three years in kickoff coverage. But Saturday was not our best day. We didn't kick the ball particularly well, we didn't cover well and there were way too many missed tackles.

Positives are we allowed zero punt return yards. We had a 32-yard punt return by Cedarius Rookard, who we put in as the starting punt returner this week and he'll be there moving forward. We had good operations on field goals and punts in inclement weather.

On defense, I think we started slow and didn't finish particularly well in the fourth quarter. That's really the second week in a row that our backups got in the game and played the whole fourth quarter defensively. Both games we gave up a touchdown, so that was disappointing. We'll be depending on those guys as we move forward as a program. I thought we did a poor job of getting off the field, also. There were way too many third and fourth down conversions, we dropped an interception and had two fumbles on the ground that we didn't recover.

Positively, I thought we played really well in the second and third quarter. We put the game away in those quarters because the defense came out and did a better job stopping the run. The difference was on first downs. We only allowed 3.7 yards per carry and three explosive plays. That was a difficult game defensively because they were so much different in that game than they were on anything they had shown. Our coaches and our guys adjusted really well.

Offensively, the negative was that we had four drops. We have to have more attention to detail in the passing game.

Positively, we had 7.7 yards per play, we had the most explosive plays we've had all year, we were perfect in the red zone – which is something that has been a point of emphasis over the last couple of weeks – and we allowed zero sacks.

That's wrapping up the Georgia Southern game. Again, it was a good win because it's been a long time since we've beaten Georgia Southern, since 1992. It's good to get that off our chest.

On Idaho…
Flipping the page to Idaho, a Thursday night game on national television. Idaho is playing their best football of the year. They're well-coached by Paul Petrino and their staff, I have a lot of respect for what they do. They had a great year last year. I think that kind of got lost a little bit and they probably had the best offensive performance of any college football team in a bowl game last year.

Offensively, they're very good schematically. I think Paul does a great job, he's calls the plays there and keeps people off balance with a lot of different looks. He and Vic [Koenning] are familiar with each other, they were on the same staff at Illinois. Their quarterback Matt Linehan is tremendous. He's an NFL player and I think he's getting better. As I was telling somebody earlier, he's throwing the ball so much better under pressure than he has at any point of his career. The running back [Aaron] Duckworth is physical and gets downhill.

Defensively, this is where they made their biggest improvement over the last few years. I think you throw the Missouri game out, it was an aberration of how they've played the rest of the season. No conference team, in regulation has scored more the 23 points on them. They're very good on the edge. Two defensive ends Aikeem Coleman and Leonard Hazewood have done a great job of getting pressure on the quarterback this year and setting the edge. They have two linebackers who are plus players, all-league type linebackers.

I don't want to underestimate it, this is a key game for us. We need to have a great showing with our home crowd here, I know we have a lot going on from a promotional standpoint. It is a late kick, but I know our students are fired up about that. I expect us to have a great atmosphere, I know the weather is going to be nice, and we need to put our best foot forward. I encourage everyone to come out and support us on Thursday night and we fully expect to play one of our better games of the year.

On short week…
The way the season is set up, we're relatively healthy and fresh for this point of the season. We had our toughest stretch of games, as far as travel and those type things, the first five weeks. From LSU through the Georgia State game, we didn't play a whole lot of football. There was a lot of time for rest and recovery. The rest of our season doesn't set up real demanding either when it comes to travel and back-to-back games.

This is a tough turnaround going from Saturday to Thursday. As a football coach, I'm not real fired up about it because it gets you out of your routine. As somebody that promotes this University, I think these games are great. It's great for Troy University, it's great for our Athletics Department and it's great for our community.

Idaho is doing the same thing, but they have to travel. We practiced last night, it's usually our day off. Then today will be our main work day of the week. We'll be in shells, then a normal Thursday practice tomorrow, a normal Friday practice on Wednesday, then we'll be ready to play on Thursday night.

On calming players' nerves…
I'm not going to talk about it one single time this week, honestly. I probably built that last game up. I was worried about us coming in and having a letdown emotionally off the LSU game to our last midweek game. I talked about the importance of playing on national television and building your brand. This week we're just going to suit up and play Thursday at 8:15, whether there is 30,000 or nobody here, whether it's on ESPN3, ESPN2 or ESPNU. We're just going to worry about being 1-0. We have to focus on the task at hand.

On John Johnson…
Well, he's gotten us going the last two weeks. He's a senior and a guy that has played a lot of football here. He had a huge reception against Georgia State that got us going. He had the great touchdown pass last week that got us going and set us up to be in control of that game. He keeps getting better.

On building defense…
It starts from a culture standpoint, first and foremost. If you look at every top program in the country or the top program in every conference, it comes down to being able to play great defense. Even as an offensive coach, there are so many ups and downs on the offensive side. There are so many things that have to go right to have a successful.

Our defensive staff does a great job and our players have bought into what we're doing. Our guys are playing with a lot of confidence. They have a new challenge this week. The last three weeks, we've gone from a spread offense, to a wing triple option offense and now we're at a pro-style attack where Coach Petrino gives several different looks. Our guys have responded every week, and I expect them to do it again this week.

Troy University Athletics

Neal Brown Press Conference - Idaho Game

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