Neal Brown Press Conference - New Mexico State Game

9/13/2017 2:56:00 PM | Football

By: Adam Prendergast

Click the arrow in the image above to view the press conference

Thank y'all for being here. I appreciate you all switching up schedules to do this on a Wednesday. I'd rather do it on Monday as well, but we had the storm come through. Thankfully the storm wasn't as bad as what was forecasted, our thoughts and prayers are with everybody who was effected by Irma.

Going back to Saturday night, seems like a long time ago now, I'm proud of how our guys responded. What a great atmosphere for college football right here in Troy, Alabama, at The Vet. It's a real honor to set the school's attendance record. We've been playing football here for over 100 years and to set that attendance record is a source of great pride for the staff and for our players.

The win got us to 1-1. We always celebrate winning here. I think the minute you take winning for granted, it stops happening some. Winning is hard to do.

Quick recap of the game, on all three phases…
Negatively on special teams, we had three penalties; two huge returns got called back. One was for a touchdown and the other was a kickoff return that would've put us inside the 50. We missed our only field goal attempt. We want to be able to hit our field goals when we get the ball inside the 25.

On the positive side, our kickoff coverage team was much, much improved. Marcus Jones had a big night, we already talked about his two returns that got called back, but he still had several nice ones. Tyler Sumpter continues doing a great job punting; his distance wasn't what it was when we played Boise, but he had two that were downed inside the 20.

Defensively, we pride ourselves on being a takeaway-driven defense and we didn't have any. We had four penalties and were 0-for-2 in short-yardage situations. We really played outstanding defense in short-yardage situations against Boise but we didn't do that against Alabama State.

Positives were we didn't give up any points. So, if we continue not giving up any points on defense then we'll be pretty tough. Only allowed 165 yards and really only allowed them to have one explosive play and it was deep into the third quarter.

Offensively, the negatives are we didn't convert a fourth and short. I was extremely disappointed with that. The pick-six that really wasn't Brandon's [Silvers] fault because we didn't run the route correctly. We've got to do a better job running after the catch. We're getting tackled in way too many one-on-one situations.

We averaged 7.2 yards per rush. We had 600+ total yards of offense. We didn't allow a sack after struggling with protection issues in week one. We had 11 explosive plays, and when you have that many, you have the chance to play with anybody.

Weekly Awards…
The Corey McCullers Spirit Award goes to the best guy that takes pride in the energy on our sidelines. This week's goes to Brandon Hinton, a true freshman from McGill-Toolen High School in Mobile. He's a guy we're excited about and he did a great job on the sideline.

Our Nathan Harris Service Award, which we give to the guy on our team that does his best to serve his teammates and the community, goes to Tristan Crowder. I'm really proud of how he continues to grow and develop.

Our scout team awards this week go to Mason Earls on offense, Carlton Martial on defense and Omari Vaughans and Abdul Mukiibi on special teams.

Our player of the game on special teams was Jamarius Henderson. We put him as a starter on our kickoff team and he had two tackles, set up two more and had a huge block on the kickoff return that Marcus had get called back. He just added another demeanor to our kickoff team.

Defensively, it goes to Andre Flakes. It speaks well to him in his second game of playing defense at a college level to come in and be the most productive and graded out the highest of anybody on defense.

Our offensive lineman of the week graded out at 94% and had nine knockdowns, which is impressive, was J.L. Gaston. He bounced back from a subpar performance in week one.

And then offensively, our player of the game was Brandon Silvers. He was 32-for-40 for 345 yards. Really only three true incompletions; had the pick and a few drops mixed in there. So, he bounced back from really an uncharacteristic football game against Boise.

On New Mexico State…
If you look at New Mexico State, I really felt like this at media days, I thought they'd be the most improved team in our conference. They've proved that correctly through the first two games.

As a whole, it starts with coaching. If you look at what Doug Martin has done as an offensive football coach throughout his career, it's been impressive. And defensively they've made huge strides under Frank Spaziani there. He was the head coach at Boston College and they had a season where they finished in the top 10 in the country. I knew he'd make them better on defense, it was just a matter of time, and through two games they've shown that.

They get incredible pressure on defense. I think they had seven sacks against Arizona State, a PAC 12 team, and lose by six points. Then they go on the road to New Mexico, who has one of the best rushing attacks in the country, and basically shut them down for three quarters.

Offensively, we've really struggled stopping them the last two years. We've almost given up 1,000 total yards of offense in those two games. Tyler Rogers, the quarterback, is very similar to Brandon; he gets the ball out of his hand fast. I think he threw for 445 yards here. We were able to come out with the win because he threw some interceptions in the red zone. They have one of the top receiving corps in our conference and have two running backs led by Larry Rose, who is special.

They have a new special teams coordinator. We've been able to take advantage of some things in special teams over the past two years. I don't know if that'll be the case this year. They're even more improved on special teams.

We have to travel across the country for the second time in the first three weeks. That's a long plane ride to play in a difficult place. My assumption is that we'll see one of the biggest crowds they've had there. I know they're excited about that team. It's one thing to win at home, it's another to go on the road and that's our challenge this week.

On traveling…
If we're going to make two (long) trips, I'd rather do it early. It's hard to do two (long) trips in three weeks. You talk about Boise, we got back at 3:45 or 4:00. This one is a night game so it'll probably be 6 or 7 in the morning. I think those are tough because your schedule gets messed up. The 18-22 year olds probably bounce back a little easier than I will and it hurts me to say that's the case. But it's not going to be an excuse. We're going to do a better job at getting our players ready to play in a road atmosphere. We didn't perform very well the last time we went on the road and got on a plane.

On offensive balance…
We had good matchups. We took advantage of that. We put an emphasis on getting our running game going. If we want to compete for the conference championship, we have to be able to run the ball up the field. I was pleased with how we came out with Jamarius Henderson, Jordan Chunn and Josh Anderson. If you're able to run the ball, it sets up some things in the passing game for you. Over the past two years, we've really been a 50-50 football team and we'll continue to do that.

On opening Sun Belt play…
It's conference time. Our goal when we get back on the plane is to be 1-0 in our conference. We talked about how successful we were a year ago. What we didn't do was win that conference championship. We've got a couple of those Georgia Southern clips when we had the opportunity to clinch the title and didn't get it done. Those are things that we continually show our team because it's important to understand how close we were but also how far away we were at the same time. This is the first opportunity for us to play a conference football game since that game in December and I know our guys are excited about it.

On conference so far…
Appalachian State will be one of the top teams. Arkansas State impressed me in their one game at Nebraska. They are really fast and they played that way.

I think you have to throw that Georgia Southern game out. They go up and play in Birmingham. I think most of that team and staff were more worried about their families. They have a ton of Jacksonville, east Georgia coast kids. That's a tough ask when you're asked to go play a football game when a hurricane is bearing down on your family, friends, home and belongings. They're going to be a much better football team.