Video: Willie Fritz Weekly News Conference – ECU

Opening Statement:
“First of all, I appreciate everyone for coming, thank you very much. You know, just kind of wrapping up the South Florida game, I thought it was probably our most complete game. Definitely this season and maybe one of the more complete games we’ve had since I’ve been here. I thought we did a great job of establishing a dominant run game with 368 yards rushing. With (Darius) Bradwell and (Corey) Dauphine both going over 100 yards and I thought did a really good job understanding when to give and when to pull by Justin McMillan in just his second career start as a Division I football player. So, I thought he made some progress as well. Great job by the offensive line. Noah Fisher who’s been hurt quite a bit of the season really played well. He was one of our players of the game. Charles Jones, a local product from St. Augustine had an outstanding game. Maybe his best game at least since I’ve been here. He was very, very physical on the perimeter, had a big catch for us. Had a touchdown catch nullified by a penalty but really played well. Defensively, a team that was averaging close to 50 points a game we held to 15. We did a great job with the rush defense. I think they were one of the top rush teams in the nation and we held them to 110 yards of rushing offense. We got some good, timely takeaways. The interception by Zachery Harris, who’s playing at a high level from Holy Cross High School. And also, a nice strip by Tirise Barge. P.J. Hall took it back about 20 yards, so we had three takeaways that was excellent by our defense. And I thought we played really well in special teams. Good coverage with punting and kickoff units and good returns. In Amare Jones, we have a guy back there that can do something with the ball. Moving on to this week against East Carolina, you know, they’re a good football team. They’ve played a lot of teams close. They’re very, very athletic. We’ve got homecoming. I’ve got my t-shirt on to pack Yulman. I hope we get a lot of people out to the ballgame. As I’ve said many times before, this is a tremendous venue to watch a game. Not a bad seat in the house and hopefully we’ll get a real good crowd here on Saturday at 3 o’clock for the ballgame. So, I’ll go ahead and open it up to any questions anyone might have.”

On the challenges the ECU offense presents for the Tulane defense:
“They present a big challenge defensively. Their first-team quarterback got injured and they brought this true freshman in and he’s been playing great. The thing that makes him dangerous is that he can run the ball very effectively with designed runs and also scrambling. But they’ve got a lot of talent. I remember last year when we played them and they were warming up. I was very impressed with the length and also the speed and we had to go out there and play the game. So, yeah, they’ve got a very, very potent offense.

On the ECU defensive front:
“A lot of tackles for loss from them. A lot of sacks. No. 40 (Nate Harvey) pins his ears back and comes off the edge. He also comes underneath a lot on blocks. He does some things that are a little bit unorthodox. You think he’s a contained rusher and he comes underneath the back or tackle and makes a play. And then their other side, 44 (Kendall Futrell) is dangerous guys as well. They’ve got a good inside defensive lineman as well in No. 94 (Alex Turner). We subscribe to Pro Football Focus and they rank all those guys. Heck, I happened to watch a little bit of the Saints game the other day. Go Saints, really great job by those guys. But they had all the PFF numbers underneath everybody and I believe No. 40 (Nate Harvey) is top five in the nation among all Division I defensive ends. And I think that 94 is the No. 9 interior defensive lineman. So, they’ve got a lot of good athletes.”

On where ECU’s Nate Harvey usually plays along the defensive line:
“He’ll kind of go on both sides a little bit. But he just jumps off of the ball. Probably, originally, the design of the defense was for him to drop a little bit. But they figured out ‘maybe we just need to have him go this way.’ But he does a good job.”

On the challenge that presents for the Tulane offense:
“Big-time challenge. Because every once in a while, in protection you’re going to have to have a tight end or a back on him. A lot of the times a tackle. I’m sure we’ll have to do a few things to slow him down a bit.”

On having Noah Fisher back healthy:
“He’s a big guy. A legit 6-4, 320, 325 pounds and unfortunately, he got hurt and had to miss a few weeks. But he’s as healthy as he’s been for us and does an excellent job with run blocking and just a big body to have to get around when you’re pass rushing. He’s also a smart football player. He knows how to combo up at the next level and sees things happening before they actually occur. So, he’s done a real nice job for us.”

On if he’s seen anything different with the team the last few weeks:
“I don’t think there’s any difference in our tempo at practice. I pride myself on someone coming out and watching us practice, not be able to tell the difference after a win or after the worst outcome. But I think we’ve gotten a bit better every week. As I’ve mentioned before we’re a young football team. I’ve only got 12 guys on the squad who were here when I got here. We’re still learning how to play with each other and execute what we’re doing offensively, defensively and in the kicking game. I think our guys understand when we’re assignment-sound and play smart football we have an opportunity to be successful.”

On what the meetings certain position groups have been having brings to the table for the team:
“Accountability. Sometimes you’ve got to worry about your delivery is in the year 2018 compared to when I first started coaching a long time ago. I just told the guys that we’ll praise you when you do something good, but we’ll call you out when you do something bad. We needed to start getting a little peer pressure in here, and as I’ve mentioned before in order to have a good team you have to be player-led and you can’t be coach-led. I feel like we’ve taken these guys about as far as we can get them with coach-led. We’ve got to continue to do a good job coaching them, but these guys have got to invest in the program and they have. I have very, very, very few problems and we’ve got a good group of young men.”

On the rotation at the offensive tackle spots:
“I think it’s good with (Fisher). Noah’s doing a great job, John Leglue is playing well for us. We put Joey Claybrook, a freshman, in at right tackle and he’s had two good games. And then (Dominique) Briggs and Corey Dublin. So our size is starting to match up with other people in the league. You know last season we were a pretty small team, but now we’re getting bigger. And in order to have the success you want to have you have to have size and mass along the offensive and defensive lines.”