Boston College Athletics
Q And A With Tom O'Brien
October 12, 1999 | Football
Oct. 12, 1999
Q: Your thoughts on the Temple game?
A: You have to give Temple a lot of credit for the way they came back
and won the football game. They took control of it. We're very
disappointed with our effort. We didn't play very well, and we have no
one to blame but ourselves. We have to get back on track now. We have
Pittsburgh coming to town. They're playing well, they have a good
football team and a good coaching staff. We'll be ready to play
Saturday night.
Q: It seemed that Temple won the turnover battle. Your comments.
A: I think you're right. If you win the turnover battle, you give
yourself a 75-80% chance to win a football game. We had our
opportunities, we just couldn't make them work for us.
Q: What did Temple do in the second half that threw you off?
A: I don't think they did anything different. We were just
disappointed in the way we played. We had our opportunities. We
missed blocks. We didn't tackle. We didn't do the things you have to
do to be a good football team.
Q: What problems does Pittsburgh bring to the table for your team?
A: I think they'll try to move a lot of people up front, keep them
moving, probably blitz us a lot. I think they'll try to slow down the
running game and make us throw the football. We've been facing that
for a couple of weeks now, and we have to do a better job at those
kinds of things. That's the normal way they play defense, so I don't
think it will be a big change for them.
Q: Do they look like a strong defensive team?
A: They're very active and they run well. They close on the ball
fast. They have an excellent cornerback, and their safety really
supports well. They'll play good defense. We have to take care of
ourselves. That's the biggest thing we have to do this week. We've
got to get back to where we were three weeks ago.
Q: Do you have any changes planned on offense?
A: Not right now, but obviously we have to get St. Pierre ready to
start, and see how it goes with Tim.
Q: If Brian starts, does that put more pressure on the running game?
A: No, we're going to play the game the way we always have. That's
how we've played when Brian has gone in all year.
Q: If St. Pierre starts, do you think Pittsburgh will throw a lot of
blitzes at him to try and confuse him?
A: I'm sure they will. That would be smart on their part. But that's why we've gotten him in the game and gotten him experience every game. So it's not like he's going to be fresh and having never seen anything. If he has to play, he'll do fine.
Q: Was the pass protection adequate Saturday? A: I think Saturday the receivers did not do what they were supposed to do. For the most part, the protection was good. Tim was fine in what he was doing. Sometimes, though, we couldn't get open.
Q: Your special teams this year seem more aggressive going toward the
ball, but the 'roughing the kicker' penalty was a tough one. Do you
think that will hold back on their aggressiveness the rest of the year?
A: No. I've made a commitment to do that. What happened on that
block was that we expected Mickens to be blocked and they turned him
loose and blocked the guy behind him. It kind of surprised him, and he
was going so fast. If he was a step quicker, he would have blocked it.
Where he was, he couldn't stop in time. It gave them the ball back.
They ended up throwing the same pass deep that George White had
intercepted going the other way, and we don't collision anybody. They
bring in the other quarterback, and he makes a great throw down to the
one-yard-line, then we don't stop them getting in.
Q: The defense gave up a lot of yards. Do you see things that can be
corrected for Pittsburgh?
A: We missed a ton of tackles in this game. They made a lot of yards
after we missed tackles. They must have run 10 or 12 draws, and I'll
bet that we didn't play well on 9 or 10 of them with our front four
people. We were out of our lanes and not where we were supposed to be.
Those are things that we, as coaches, have to take responsibility for.
They have to be in the right spot, they have to be in their lanes and
squeeze and not open up those gapers that were in there.
Q: What does it mean to a conference to have a team like Virginia Tech
contending for a national championship?
A: I think it's great for the conference. You look at every
conference in the country that has one of those teams ranked in the top
five or top ten, and it gives a great deal of respect to your
conference throughout the country. They know you play good football.
