Murray State University Athletics
Press conference comments from head coach Joe Pannunzio
8/21/2004 11:00:00 PM | Football
Opening statement: "We're at that point in the training camp where we're ready to see a different color jersey. It's been a good training camp for us. We spent a lot of time on fundamentals, a lot of time on technique. More important than all that is the camaraderie and the chemistry that we have to have, and our kids have responded. It's probably been the toughest two-a-days that we've put our kids through. We have been working hard."
Pre-season injuries: "We have some injuries that, right now, concern me. Heath Wilson's probably out for the season. That happened early in training camp. We had to move Doug Fashaw to take his place at defensive end, to be our second-team tight end. He's responded well, and we've really been fortunate. I recruited a tight end out of Starkville, Miss., a young kid (Jamile Owens) that has come in and helped us a whole bunch, so maybe that'll fill that gap.
"Marcus White hasn't practiced in over a week. He had a knee injury. He thinks he'll be able to play Saturday, but I have my doubts. We've held him out up to this point in time, and we'll try to get him to work Tuesday or Wednesday. He won't start; I don't know how much he'll play.
"Laroni Gallishaw had an Achilles tendon that's been nagging him, and we've held him for over a week, and he's going to try to practice a little bit tomorrow. He's another one that won't start, and I don't know how much he will play, either. That scares me, because both of those kids are probably a little bit better than our level, talent-wise. Both are on defense, so that's concerning to me.
"The rest of our kids seem to be in good health, other than our punter, who bruised his foot, and he hasn't been able to punt for about a week, also, and he couldn't punt this morning, so those are the three kids that I'm worried about."
About the opening-day opponent: "Glenville State, they're a Division II team, but they're a team that received two first-place votes in their league. They throw the ball all over the place. They have an offense that could give us some problems. They have a new coaching staff, so that's a little bit of a problem, because you don't exactly know what schemes you're facing.
"The thing that scares me the very most about all that is they have 20 kids coming back. Whenever you have 20 starters coming back, obviously a year older, they've been in the battles before, and they will be pretty good. What we need to do is worry about ourselves, and hopefully, we'll have a good week of practice here, and get ready for our season to kick off here on Saturday."
About the scrimmage Saturday: "In our first scrimmage (Aug. 14), we didn't move the ball, and when we did move the ball, we had penalties or made mistakes, so I thought, 'Well, maybe our defense is really pretty good,' then we gave up a bunch of big plays on Saturday, so now, I'm concerned about the defense. I think it's about like every year: When you're playing yourself, you don't really know how good or how bad you are. Obviously, you're somewhere in the middle. We still, offensively, had too many turnovers for my liking, so we still have a lot of mistakes that we need to work through. That's probably what every team in America does, too, for the first couple of weeks."
On quarterback Adam Fisher: "He's our guy. He's the guy who's going to lead us and take us. There is a battle at the second position. I thought that Ryne Salyer had a decent spring, but the freshman kid that we brought in, Geoff Nixon, has really stepped up and is pushing. He'll play some Saturday night, probably."
On other unresolved positions: "The first three games that we have, they're all non-conference games. They're games that we've got to find out where they can play, where they can't play. We're putting in a new scheme on defense. There's always kids that surprise you and play better than you thought they'd play, and there's always those kids that, for whatever reason, the light doesn't go on. Even though I said that Adam Fisher is not getting pushed very hard, he's going to have to play and perform, and if he doesn't, then that's what stops us from where we need to go, then we'll have to make a decision.
"Really, for the first time since I've been here, we have nine kids that could really push for starting positions (at offensive line). I don't think we have a real standout guy. At the same point, we don't have a guy who's like, 'Oh my gosh, he's in there -- don't run the ball his way.' I think we have some battling going on there. On defensive end, we have some battling going on; at inside linebacker, we have a little bit of battling going on, and the corner spot for us probably will be a battle when it's all said and done when we get 'G' (Gallishaw) back with Derrick Parrott and Champ Whitaker. The Parrott kid probably is the biggest surprise to me. Here's a redshirt freshman that came to us, was going to play corner, and will probably play a lot for us. He's had a good camp for us.
"Our tailback, I think Chad Cook has really stepped up. It's amazing what a difference a year makes. He's more mature, he's tougher, he's able to go through what we've put him through. At wide receiver, we're about where I thought we'd be. At tight end, about like we thought. Laquentin Irvin at left guard has become on of our top two or three offensive linemen. He's had a good fall for us. Our kicker, Morgan Riley, a kid has kicked pretty good as a true freshman. You just hope that we get into a game and he makes his first couple, and he has some confidence, because kicking more than any other position is more of a confidence deal.
"Defensive line-wise, Greg Archer has shown signs of getting back to his old way. 'Big Baby' (Brandon Dixson), for as big and clumsy as he looks, has proven to be pretty nifty. The McClain kid (Keith) who's a linebacker who transferred to us will be a good, good linebacker for us and push for a starting position. Ronny Delusme is a transfer from Clemson, is going to be a good player for us. Tony Ryan, it looks like the position that he's playing -- before he could play for us because we didn't think he was athletic enough -- is really in a position to fit into what we're doing, and we're excited about that.
"I think our most steady player is DeSean Hammons. We've got him playing X-back, and the first thing that you'll notice is that we're probably deeper at running back than we've been since I've been here. But, we don't have that Michael Slater, Deandre Green guy at wide receiver, but DeSean is a steady guy, kind of like a Fred Biletnikoff, so we'll have to change our style a little bit there.
"Milt (Erin Milton) had a good training camp for us; he's playing Z-back. Terrence Biggers looked like he was good early, but for whatever reason, we haven't been getting him the ball the last week-and-a-half, and he's an exciting player, but we need to find a way to get his hands on the ball. The one thing I hope we have all fall long is Jimmy St. Louis, because you can get away with not having a dominant outside guy if you have an inside guy that make some plays, and he can do that for us, if we keep him healthy."
On this year's offense: "We expect to win, whatever it takes to win. If we have to run the ball 75 times or throw it 75 times. The biggest problem we have is at running back; we have three guys. How you distribute that ball and how that whole thing works out -- who's going to be our No. 1 guy, who's going to be our No. 2 guy, who's going to be our No. 3 guy, how you keep those fragile egos without going off the deep end on us, and all that kind of stuff. We really have some talented kids, and we need to make sure that it works effectively for us. We're blessed right now, because we do have some talented running backs."
On the upcoming schedule: "For me -- and I don't know if it'll ever happen again as long as I'm here -- I don't think I could have a better schedule. We're going to open up with a Division II team, and it ain't going to be an easy game for us. We've never done anything the easy way here. Then, we go play UConn, who's a pretty good football team, might be as good a Division I team as we've played. Then, we have a week off, which I think is huge after you play a Division I game, to regroup, then we go to Indiana State, a team that's beaten us the last two years. I think we'll find out a lot about our football team when we go to Indiana State.
"And then, we start our league play, then when you look way down our schedule, we go about eight or nine weeks in a row, then we get an off week, which is huge, because now you get everybody healthy for the home stretch, then we have Martin and Tennessee State, and if you're lucky enough to get into the playoffs, that off-week in November should get our kids back to healthy, and maybe we can make a run in the playoffs, if we're lucky enough to get that far."
