Boston College Athletics
Tom O'Brien Looks Ahead To Navy And The Option
September 14, 1999 | Football
Sept. 14, 1999
Q: How do you see your matchup with Navy?
A: Obviously, they present some problems to us with their option attack
and the multiple formations they use. Defensively, they changed from a
year ago, they are now a 3-4 team, doing a lot of blitzing and stunting
out of it, we will have to work hard especially on our pass protection
phase to pick everybody up. We look forward to going to Annapolis this
weekend and playing on national TV again, and I'm sure it will be a great
game.
Q: How much do you gain by having the week off after the first game.
How valuable is the preparation in terms of getting the bumps and
bruises healed and also in terms of a routine understanding of what you
need to do?
A: I think it was valuable to us at this time in our season, especially
on the offensive side of the football where we have seven
new starters. We were not very satisfied with the play in the passing
game and that had to do with both the quarterbacks and the wide
receivers and their execution. So, (the week off) gave us a chance to
go back and work on those things that we have to get accomplished. We
were not really that beat up after the Baylor game.
Then, what it gave us the opportunity to go through a little bit of a walk-through on Friday, and on Saturday we practiced a little bit against the Navy defense. So, it gave us a day, maybe a day-and-a-half head start on what we are going to have to face, the Navy defense and offense this weekend.
Q: How much of a change-up on your defensive scheme do you think that
you'll be using for a game like this?
A: You have to make subtle little changes here and there. You try not
to change your whole defensive scheme because we are going to have to
play option out of our base defenses, anyway.
Q: Being a Navy alumnus, does it bring up any special feelings going
back there and taking your football team to Navy?
A: I look forward to some good crabcake sandwiches, I know that. I
love Annapolis, I am proud that I went to the Naval Academy, it is the
probably the greatest accomplishment of my life, to have graduated from
that place. But it is more important to me to have a well prepared
football team and go in there and play. And that is the most important
thing for me right now.
Q: In preparing for the option, what is most important for the defense?
A: Part of the problem, as I told the team last year, is that they
out-toughed us mentally. There is no way that we should lose that
football game a year ago. They were a much tougher mental football
team than we were because it is a very disciplined offense, it is a
very exact offense. And once you lose sight of that on defense, if you
do not have the courage of your convictions, that you have to tackle
the guy that you have the quarterback and you have to take the pitch,
then you are out of sync and you lose all continuity to what you are
trying to get done on defense and that is what they force you to do. I
think a great game for us right now, as far as our mental toughness and
our physical toughness, is to see if we can play 60 minutes of football
against a football team that we know is going to refuse to quit and
going to refuse to lose, and beat us last year because they were tougher
than we were.
Q: Can you talk about Darnell Alford's development and how much the
year away from football set him back, if it did at all?
A: I think Darnell has come back this year as a totally different
person and it has to do with his attitude. When I got here, he was
lost and searching for something, he left for a year and came back. He
played pretty well for a while but the last couple games of the year he
ended up losing his starting role and was the rotator into the system.
He came back (this year) and had an excellent spring, worked hard this
summer, stayed around campus this summer and he is a completely
different person. He understands now that he can make himself a lot of
money if he plays well and I think that he is pointing to that. He is
close to being graduated so a lot of his goals and aspirations are
almost attainable for him.
Q: The point you made before about the mental toughness, how much does the close win vs. Baylor enhance what you are talking about going into a game like this? What does that tell you about your team for a game like this? A: I think it puts us on the right track but it certainly does not put us over the hump. There are some things that we could have toughed out in that game that may not have forced it to that situation. We have to continue to work on that if we are going to have a winning football program. We are going to have to be mentally tough and fight through a lot of things.
