Neal Brown Press Conference - ULM Game - Troy University Athletics

Neal Brown Press Conference – September 17, 2018

Opening statement…
"Good win for us on Saturday. I thought our players handled the trip well, Nebraska is one of the best venues in all of college football. Their fan base I can't say enough about, one of the most positive environments and a really fun place to play. A lot of credit to our staff. They had our guys ready to go, I thought we had a good plan in all three phases and it paid off.

"I thought special teams was the difference in the game. In a game where both defenses played really well, I didn't think either offense played particularly well at all, some of that may have been a product of good defense, I thought special teams really provided the edge in the game for us.

"Negative in the kicking game, we had a penalty at the end of the game on punt that we need to get corrected. Didn't think our kickoff coverage wasn't as good as it had been, it wasn't poor just not as good as it had been. Obviously, [Cedarius] Rookard fumble on the punt return, didn't turn out as bad as it could have because we held them to three points. Opening kickoff return was a really bad decision. We brought it out and only got to the 13, we need to take a knee and take the yardage there.

"The positives, zero punt return yards. Tyler Sumpter may have been the MVP of the whole game. We had a punt return for a touchdown, Rookard's first of his career. We blocked really well on the return, Rookard made the first two initial guys miss then we got some really key down field blocks. We made all of our PATs and a field goal.

"Defensively, our guys played with a lot of energy and emotion. I think if you play with energy and emotion defensively it gives you an opportunity. We hadn't done that up until Saturday afternoon, and that is the way that we play defense around here for the last couple of years and that is how we are going to play defense moving forward.

"Negatives, I thought the tempo affected us. We have to get better, it shouldn't have so we have to get better at that. Our communication in secondary still has to get better. Positives, we had three takeaways. I thought we were really good on third down, the best we've been on third downs. Our red zone defense was really good, we put out the fire after Rookard fumbled the punt, which I thought was huge. We didn't allow a deep ball which is something we have don't in the first games.

"Offensively, we found a way to win. Really a sloppy performance offensively. Penalties, we have to do a better job. The negatives, penalties, delay of game procedures, our quarterbacks have to manage the game better than they did on Saturday. We didn't have enough explosive plays and we have too many negative-yardages plays. Positives, we had zero fumbles. We had success running the football, our run stats would've been really good against a group that I think will have one of the better run defenses in the country if you take out the negative-yard plays. I thought we played much better in the second half. If you look at the drive charts in the second half, outside of that four minutes that we completely botched the next-to-last drive of the game, we were really productive in the second half of that football game.

"Open conference play this week at Monroe and it's a critical game for us. I think the schedule came out March 1 and when it came out and I saw that we had to go to Monroe to open up the conference slate, I knew this was going to be a critical game for us. I thought Monroe along with Georgia Southern would be the two most improved teams in our league. Matt [Viator] has done a great job there, if you look at his career he has always won.

"Offensively they spread you out, they are multiple in what they do, and they are difficult to defend. The quarterback [Caleb] Evans, throws the ball down the field extremely well. He does a nice job running, he creates a lot of plays with his feet. [Marcus] Green is probably one of the best receivers in the league. He's dynamic and we have to know where he is at all the time. Then they have an outside receiver in [RJ] Turner who has made a ton of plays the last two years over the top and he's a huge deep ball threat. They are big at running back, their running backs remind me of the guys that we had here the past two years in Josh Anderson and Jordan Chunn. They are big kids that get downhill, are difficult to tackle and their offensive line is as good as anybody in our league.

"Defensively, they have changed up their front from a year ago. I think they are a really improved unit. They fly around and play with tons of energy. Up front they have [Sam Miller] and [Donald Louis, Jr.] who are really active second effort guys. They have two linebackers that remind me of Tron [Folsom] in [David Griffith] and [Cortez Sisco, Jr.], they are undersized, but they make a ton of plays. The secondary is going to challenge us, they are going to play man and see if we can win. Special teams, the key for us is that we have to tackle and contain Green. He is their punt returner, kickoff returner, he returned four kicks for touchdowns last year. Going on the road for your first conference game is difficult to win. We are going to have to play the best game to get the win."

About Trevon Sanders playing…
"He played well. He missed the FAMU game last week, wasn't really 100 percent in the game last week. We really planned on playing him for about 20 snaps, but he ended up playing 45. So, he was disruptive. I like the combination we have with Travis Sailo and Sanders at the nose. I think that is going to be a good combination for us moving forward. Sanders was really active, he was productive, but he probably missed three tackles for loss that he normally makes. I was impressed really with him bouncing back from a subpar week one performance against Boise, so it was really big for us for him to play this well."

Using last year's loss to South after LSU as a teaching tool…
"I think you learn as a coach. We are better prepared from a football program and athletic department standpoint to handle success now than we were a year ago. We've had a lot of media attention going on two-plus years here, we probably have had more national media attention in the past six months than we've had ever as a program. I think our kids know how to handle success better. From a coaching perspective, last year we had the win and you can see that our kids weren't handling it well. I probably went too far overboard as far as trying to prevent really what happened. What we are going to do today when we see our players for the first time we are going to wrap it up no different than we did with FAMU. It won't take our guys long to get locked in on Monroe when they watch them on tape because they are playing as hard as anybody we have played in my tenure here and they are explosive on offense."

BJ Smith success…
"I think good things happen to good people. I think he's a great teammate and a great kid and he's all in from a program perspective. I was proud of him on Saturday because we have seen that in practice, but it hasn't necessarily shown in a game yet at the running back position. He made a bunch of great plays for us on special teams over his first two years. But, I was really proud of him just to see his hard work pay off and hopefully that is the confidence he needs. We really need for him to takeover and be our featured back. We also need some other guys to help him, but we need for him to takeover and I think he has potential to do that and he needs to build off that performance and not take a step back."

Defense playing style…
"I thought we played like this more consistently. I've said this before, we didn't perform as well as needed to in fall camp. Maybe part of it was on the coaches, maybe we didn't give them as many full speed reps that they needed. We have done a better job of that the last three weeks, so they are playing better. One performance doesn't make the season though. Boise was a tremendous challenge offensively, Monroe in a different way is going to be a tremendous challenge in the same way. Boise stacked everyone in and threw one-on-one routes and max protected us, Monroe is going to spread us out and get us in one-on-one situations where you have to cover and tackle. There are still things we have to do better but I was pleased with our performance."

Troy University Athletics

Neal Brown Press Conference - ULM Game

Players Mentioned

Josh Anderson

Jordan Chunn

Travis Sailo

Trevon Sanders

Tyler Sumpter

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