Neal Brown Press Conference - Florida A&M Game

Neal Brown Press Conference – Monday, September 3, 2018

Opening Statement
I appreciate the fans on Saturday for showing up. I thought we had a huge student turnout and the Trojan Walk was the best that I have been a part of in the eight years I've been here. We were soundly beaten by a better football team. Credit to Coach (Bryan) Harsin and his team, they were ready to go and really took control of the game in the second quarter. I thought our guys competed in the second half and we played closer to who we will be moving forward.

Special teams wise, much improved from a year ago. Overall we performed well. Positives, we did a really good job getting down on kickoff coverage. Our punt coverage team, we held their all-conference punt returner to 1.5 yards-per-return. Negatives, bad snap for the field goal right before the half. If we make that snap, then we make that kick and at least have some positive momentum moving into the locker room.

I thought we missed some opportunities on the kick-off return, we had some solid returns, but I thought we had a couple opportunities to take them to the house. Overall pleased with special teams, I thought it was an even game on special teams.

Defensively, a very disappointing performance, too many explosive plays and zero takeaways. I thought our communication was poor and our attention to detail was not good enough. We played much better in the second half which was an improvement. Honestly, we probably needed a wake-up call on that side of the ball.

Offensively, the four turnovers killed, obviously two of them went right back for a touchdown. We started slow, which was not overly surprising. The biggest issue we had offensively was the protection, we gave up five sacks which is crazy, and we had 15 hits on the quarterback and 54 yards of negative plays.

I thought we ran the ball pretty well and had a bunch of explosive plays. I thought there was some positive things but you're not going to beat any quality opponent turning the ball over four times.

We have a starting point, we saw one of the best teams in the country up-front and personal. I was impressed with how Boise played Saturday and honestly there is a lot to learn from how they approach the game, how they play the game and I'm going to use some examples from them with our football team today. I think they play the game the right way from a physicality standpoint, an effort standpoint and we are going to use that as a point of reference moving forward. It's been a long time since we have been beaten like that and those types of defeats hurt, but I think life is about how you respond to adversity. We got hit in the mouth and we are going to see how we respond."

Second consecutive home game and I encourage our fans to come out to the game this Saturday, we will be a much-improved football team. With Florida A&M being close, I know they are going to travel well. It's an old rivalry from the Troy State times. They are coming off a big win. I respect Willie's football knowledge overall. On offense they are multiple, they get the ball to a bunch of different guys. They had a big rushing attack on Saturday. Defensively, a lot of team speed. They have some guys that are undersized but really physical and really aggressive.

On special teams they did a nice job, they have a nice kicker and I was impressed with what he got done. They didn't have to punt very many times, so I think we will see some different things out of their punt unit.

The game is going to be a good challenge and we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1968 national championship team. It is going to be a big weekend and we are looking forward to get back and playing the game of football the right way.

How the team responded…
A lot of them were in the facility yesterday on their day off which I think is a positive sign. I want to see ownership of the fact that we didn't get it done and there are clear areas where we have to be better and improve. The way we performed in the second half really has me coming out of that game a lot more positive than the final score indicates. I think our football team will respond in the right way, but I don't know because this is the first time we've had some adversity. My gut tells me that they will respond in the right way and we will have a great week of practice, great week of preparation and we will be ready to go on Saturday night.

Biggest point of emphasis heading into Florida A&M…
Strain. I'm going to show the team a video of Boise of all three phases and really show them how they strain, how their attention to detail and how their fundamentals are the reason the outcome was like that on Saturday. I just want us to get back to playing physical, playing hard, playing the game the right way, trusting each other and communicating. I think everyone is excited about getting back to the practice field.

Thoughts on Kaleb Barker running the offense…
I thought he did a nice job. I thought he was under control and I never thought the moment was too big for him. He has to take care of his body better, he has to a better job of protecting himself when he pulls the ball down and runs, which he is going to do because that is a part of his game. I'm for him when he scrambles around, he made a bunch of big plays the other night against a quality defense doing that.

The mindset after a loss…
Each loss is different. This is a loss that should awaken some folks. This is a loss that we have to grow from. That game isn't going to make or break the season, every goal that we have both in-house and as far as a fan base is concerned is still there. We have to get better and it starts this week against Florida A&M. We need to take pride in playing at home and playing well and we didn't do that on Saturday. We are going to use that game as a learning curve and move on and not overly dwell on it."

Difference in watching the game multiple times…
When you look at it from an offensive standpoint there are some positives from that game. If you take away the negative yardage plays, which some of them come on fumble recoveries, the production we had on offense versus that level of defense was pretty good. Our efficiency in the pass game was pretty good.

So, I think there are some positives that you take out of that. We have to protect the passer better and take care of the football better and those were clearly our Achilles Heel the other night.

When I watch the game on special teams, I'm really encouraged because that was a team that really took advantage of us on special teams a year ago and I thought we played extremely well on special teams.

When you look at defensively it is a different story. It is really discouraging because we got hit with so many big plays. I thought that we didn't do a good job of communicating, which put ourselves in some bad situations. Now we did play more like we are accustomed to playing in the second half but by then it was too late.

Grade stopping the run…
I thought we did a pretty good job the other night, the quarterback got out of the pocket a couple of times and that hurt us. We did a much better job of covering the running back than we did a year ago. There were some takeaways from there, just overall we are going to have to play defense at a much higher level than we did on Saturday night."

Troy University Athletics

Neal Brown Press Conference - Florida A&M Game

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