Press Conference: Head Coach Willie Fritz Previews UNLV

Willie um you know this being your first year a lot of new guys coming in do you expect this you know too deep to be more fluid than maybe some other years or does that not matter how do you we're going to play a lot of guys Saturday you know we've got a lot of competition at a multiple positions it's going to be hot I think you're foolish not to play a lot of guys early in the year because of that you know you can do all the you know my strength coaches out standing Kurt H but he can do all the running he wants to in the summer and we can do all the practicing it's a little different once you begin playing real games you know and uh sometimes you find out then and and we've increased reps with our guys we used to do we're doing three and out at the beginning of preseason camp then we went to four and out five six seven eight got up to eight plays and uh you know we we just want to build that stamina up and and uh you know yeah we'll we'll play quite a few guys so it's it's uh it'll be very fluid right now and I'd say by week three we'll we'll pretty much understand our rotation who's the guys who were starting who's the guys who going to play a lot who the guys going to play a little bit uh who's going to be a kicking game guy played a little bit maybe on offense and defense and uh but uh you know it's something that uh you know we evaluate every day with our guys but playing a real game is a different kind of eval valuation Willie coming out of the spring and and camp and monitoring Donovan where's the Comfort level in terms of how you feel going into the season uh in terms of the the shoulder and just kind of the knowledge of he he's 100% he's great he uh you know we we tried to put him on a little bit of a pitch count and you know he's a competitor he didn't want us to do that so we we you know just treat him like any anybody else the surgery was very successful and uh he's he's doing everything that we're asking of him and and more coach just how excited are you to get this thing going oh I'm very excited I really you know the you know I tell our guys most of the players and uh most of the coaches probably work you know 350 days a year you I'm and uh you know for these 12 opportunities and one of them is going to be Saturday 6:05 kick off so you know you want to take advantage of every single minute of preparation and it's easy for me to say at my age you know doing it but uh we want to make sure that we we understand how important the preparation is leading up to the Ball Game and and uh you know this is why these guys work you know and do things for 350 days a year you know for these 12 opportunities and one of them's one of them is going to be over about 9 9:15 on Saturday night so might as well put everything into you possibly can with being the new coach um and it finally being game week can you now wrap up what that whole off season was like for you and oh it just you know it's been really busy I I've one of the things I've tried to do is is go go to any speaking event that anybody un connected with the University of Houston asked me to go to and I've done quite a few of them over these uh I guess nine months that I've been here I've gotten to meet a lot of people I wish I was a little bit better with faces and names and than I am sometimes seems like I meet about five new people a day I just met a couple at lunch here a second ago but yeah it's been it's been a a whirlwind but you know it's that's how it is when you take over a job this is you know my sixth job that I've I've taken over as a head coach and they're all different unique uh but you know that first year you know you're just working working working around the clock to you know have as much success as you possibly can so it's it's been a lot of work but it been it's been a labor of love this is what I love to do so didn't really feel like work well I got to find all that out Andrew is just talking to me about after the game and coming in here you know after the locker room we come in here and all that stuff so it'll be new uh we're going to come over on Friday as a team and you know really go through how we warm up for a game you know where we go at when we get to the locker room you know where we break into offense defense kicking game when we come in at halftime you know I'm going to talk to my coaches about where they want to position everybody because it is new I got a lot of guys that have been with me in the past but you know we we're all in a new place now here at the University of Houston so uh you know I try to leave no stone unturn but I'm sure there's going to be something that happens on Saturday that I wouldn't quite ready for hopefully not Willie want to ask you specifically about the secondary and just maybe what you saw from them in Camp uh in terms of what the production they yeah I'm excited about our secondary we've got a lot of depth back there in the back end we really got I think five or six guys that can play corner for us you know to what what extent and how much we'll find out Latrell McCutchen he's been chopping at the bit for a year uh he's going to be at a corner uh AJ Carter uh will be another guy that'll be playing corner for us uh Jeremiah Wilson uh Chris Davis uh you know then then the safety positions for us we we have what we call a anchor position and Hershey McLaren and Joan Gaston both guys who've played a bunch of of football you know Hershey was a starter last year West Virginia and then contrell web who started for us at two lane last year and made the trip over here Houston Teegan wil who started at uh East Carolina last year and they had a really good defense AJ Hy who's uh played a ton of snaps for the Cougars and Noah Guzman as well so we we'll uh you know I feel like we got good depth and we'll play a lot of guys and not only those guys play on defense but a bunch of those guys are going to play you know for us in the kicking game covering punts and kicks and kickoff return Frontline guys and and a PBR uh you know pump blck return unit uh so those guys will play a bunch for us probably probably eight of them will play quite a bit in the in the secondary fours for those guys uh who who are returning played in the Big 12 in the you know programs first year and it last year how does that getting through that first year kind of primed them for having success in the conference in the second year well I think they've you know gone against that level of competition you know game after game after game after game that'll be the part that's probably new for me with the you know playing in a power four League you know we always played good teams every place I've been at but maybe you didn't play this level of competition week after week after week after week you know so uh uh you know and you LV our our first opponent had an outstanding season last year year I got a ton of respect for coach odm and how he does things I've known him a long period of time and you know they've done excellent job recruiting and uh you know really look good across the board offense defense and kicking game will he Kelvin Samson has said he sacrificed some wins you know his his first few years to establish you know his culture how do you start a balance that you know trying to win with also you know setting to your stand well you get you know you do that every single day you know obviously you want to do both if at all possible but you know I want to make sure our guys are doing things the right way this will be different form playing a game under under uh you know My Toot ledge and our coaching staff and all those kind of things so that'll be a little different for you know I got high expectations of of how we're going to do things out there we talked about a little bit this morning in our team meeting we had team meeting at 7 talked about getting out there and playing the game and not worrying about all the peripheral things you know sometimes guys get in there and put their uniforms on the lights come on it's on TV and they they act differently than they should be acting you know you saw that over and over again this weekend with all the games you know on on TV you know guys doing things and putting their teams in bad position probably would have never done it in a practice but you know the light was shining on them they decided to do something you know that that they weren't supposed to do so that's what uh you know I I told a little story this morning just about you know when I when I was coaching a blend my first head coaching job and you know it doesn't matter where we're playing matter who we're playing I I kind of take it as blind vers Cisco and might had 100 people out there watching the ball game and you know that's how all all I'm worried about is what's going on you know 53 and the third width of the field 120 yards length of the field that's all I'm concerned about and that's what I got to get the guys to understand how important that is too you know not worrying about the stands who's up there got plenty of time to give Mama a hug postgame and all those kind of things we just we need to concentrate on the game and that's harder than you think nowadays first of all you had at least 200 for Trinity Valley and Navaro we had more we had more than half of those games those were at home how many will unlv's uh go- go offense uh lot of formations motions and stuff how do you what do you see on that and then also preparing for not knowing who the quarterback's going to be well you you know we've looked at all the quarterbacks we we'll figure that out soon enough they're all good athletes and can you know can you know throw it and run it you know uh I would say not all of them equal ability but uh as far as running and throwing but they they they do both they're not going to change your offense dramatically when one guy's in as opposed to another uh you know yeah offensively they do a really nice job they they they really do a bunch of window dressing with Back Field sets and formations and motions and shifts you know which a lot of people are doing nowadays we've worked a lot against a huddle you know Tempo huddle and breaking the Huddle and getting lined up quickly I I think with the sideline to quarterback communication that's going to be part of the game that you're going to have to work on every single week week I think a lot of people are going to be doing that now because it really gets everybody on the same page and you know that's how you outflank people and get people out of position is breaking that huddle and getting lined up quickly uh they showed some Tempo last season as well so uh a lot of similarities to things we do offensively you know we go fast we go uh moderate Tempo and then we also uh will huddle at times as well coach could you just talk to the cougar fans out there that tell them what they can expect out of your squad this year and and when they come here or even watching them on TV this year Well we want to be a disciplined team you know we talk all the time about the cougs don't beat the cougs and early in the season this is huge for every team playing you know you know you don't want to beat yourselves with uh you know not having you know 11 the correct 11 guys on the field or two guys in motion or not enough guys on the line of scrimmage or line up in the neutral zone or you know plays that anybody who come com the game can call from from up in their stands drinking a cold beer they don't it's not anything complicated right and uh so we want to you know eliminate those you know when the ball's snapped whether it's pass interference whether it's a old that's at the discretion of the official sometimes it is Guy does the exact same thing the next player they don't call it you know so we want to control the controllables and and uh in the first ball games that is really really important the other part is communication we've worked on it all throughout Camp we're going to crank up the noise here the next few days in the stadium and you know get our guys used to hand signals and communicating and making sure we're all on exactly the same page that's also important you know all coaches talk about doing your oneth but if uh one guy doesn't do his oneth and he's at the point of attack you got issues and problems so those are some of the things that come up in week one coach you say you were hoping to kind of set your team have an idea by week three is there other goals you're kind of wanting to hit as the season goes or are you kind of just filling it out week by week oh we're just you know we want to go one and0 every week you know I I know that's uh I've been using that slogan for decades and I think it's really important we just want to I had someone one of the kids tell me this morning man I want to you know coach we're g we're gonna get after him and win on Saturday I said let's win today let's do that first let's take care of that and then we'll take care of tomorrow and then the next day and the next day I after that so it's uh you know we would just want to go one and0 every week and you know when the game's over you press that reset button and you you go after the next opponent to the best of your ability and I really think it's you know it's so important to not waste these days of preparation coming up you know I it's a we work year round for these 12 opportunities and there's going to be 11 of them at you know 9:30 on you know Saturday night so we want we want to do prepare and play the very best we possibly can and see where that takes us yes Willie how do you feel about your uh you know kick and uh punt return you know coming into good I feel good about kick and punt returners Brian Massie is going to do our kick return you know Brian had a couple kick returns for touchdowns when he was playing at SMU McKai Muse who the punt returner and kick returner at University of Georgia the last couple years and he's a dynamic returner so I think we've got two excellent returners but you know that it's important to have a great returner back there they got to make great decisions they they got to be able to have that make you miss ability out in the open field but they're not anything without the other 10 guys you know holding guys up blocking people on k whatever the case may be and that's what that's what I'm interested in seeing that's hard to replicate in practice you know a kickoff first kickoff return we haven't done a lot live yet Saturday will be the first time that we do that live good good special teams over the years I mean what's that take to you know make you got to emphasize it and you got to play your best players on there you know I I play my best guys if you're a if if you you you're a a guy that can't run and hit and you're aren't you're not Dependable you're not going to play in the kicking game for us so I tell our guys all the time I've got a really good relationship with a head football coach I get to pick the guys that I want to play in the kicking game so we're going to play our best players in the kicking game will the two guys you're very familiar with with Keith and kendre and obviously if Corey was available he would have seen a lot of action having guys like that that you're familiar with that not so much getting to know but know what they've done how how key is that especially well it's good you know I also think it's good for those guys I'm sure they've had conversations with some of the other some of our other student athletes you know on on how I do things and what my expectations are and and uh you know k trell i i he I said an outstanding Camp Force he's uh control web he's played extremely well back in the back end and then Keith Cooper uh another guy who's played a ton of football for us at at two lane and and uh he'll do a great job here as well and and uh they understand what I'm looking for how you what's the biggest improvements you you've seen in Donovan since you first got here obviously had some you know injury things in Spring but what's the biggest stry you've seen him make you know he just uh he was as ad advertised you know he's a great leader he's he's got he's got great body language all the time you know body language you know never Whispers it always screams and his is always screaming positivity and uh he just just enjoyable to be around and then and then i' I've W watched his progression throwing the ball and uh you know probably after our first week during preseason camp you could see that he was he was full go he could make the the you know the the one ball the two ball the three ball I kind of call him and and he he can throw all of them extremely well and and uh you know and then he moves sometimes you got to get up next to him to see how big he is because he he's got he's got good movement you know and and something else too I think he's really helped the quarterback room Zeon Chris I've been extremely impressed with you know and and uh zeon's a guy that we won't hesitate you know if we need to put him in there he's he's a big guy he's you know 6'2 205 210 and can run it uh super movement great speed and he also throws the ball really well so I've been very impressed with both those guys questions everybody good thank you thanks for coming out appreciate it go cougs