Mike Houston after ECU's 20-14 win at Old Dominion

good win they're all good it's good to be two and0 um you know I told the kids in there I felt like we probably should have won that one by a couple of touchdowns and obviously we got some mistakes we got to correct but you know you cannot uh question how hard the players played uh how they competed our physicality uh just the the the conditioning that we're in I mean I I was looking we played 89 snaps on offense tonight ODU plays 75 plus special team snaps that's a lot of football and uh I thought our team handled everything very well you know there at the end we weren't panicked we weren't just dead uh we were able to get some guys in and out of the game that's that's what having great depth uh will do for you uh but so many positives bring out this week too uh a very good ODU football team and that team has South Carolina beat last week I don't know what happened with the Kentucky game today but South Carolina was leading the last I saw but uh that's a good football team they're going to win plenty of games this year and this is a quality win on the road you know defensively what can you say about those guys again coming up at the end stops yeah you know and the in the one long pass in the first half we had two guys run into each other you that's what you know gave up the big play but um you know time and time again there in the fourth quarter the defense responded and got stops uh that defensive line uh made life uh really tough on uh on seven back there in the pocket and uh you that was the difference in the ball game but uh just the experience I mean I think that's big I think the experience on defense The Experience on our offensive line I think those two things really stood out here tonight uh I'm just really really pleased with it you talked a lot about Raj just feeling good this year just having that that explosiveness kind of back me what does that do just down a lot of things means everything I told him I said now I'd been all in your butt if you got caught on that run you know cuz once he broke away uh he he talks about his Breakaway speed so that was good to see but I thought our offensive line did a great job giving him holes and I thought he did a great job of token Rock tonight to have a guy like rage that step up he lose JVS mid game I mean how important was his role kind of T the second half well I mean I think you know he and Marlon you know they had to both kind of carry more of the load JBS going out and uh I thought they did a great job but you know r j is a veteran he's an experienced guy did a great job there tonight what does a win like this say about your team facing adversity well we talked about it in the Hotel this morning that there was going to be adversity tonight we didn't have much adversity last week and we talked about just the the need to stick together when things got tough and we talked about having glue you know who ever had the most glue tonight tock together when things started getting hairy and you know really know volatile on the field you know for picks from Garcia what did you see on some of the decision making there well a little bit different than each one you know um the one on the screen I think he might have gotten hit as he threw it uh T really want to throw that at the at the feet of the running back if he's if he's getting pressured right there um you know the one in the back of the end zone to chase uh you know we had him had him open maybe just under through it just a bit but uh the throw was there um the other one you know one of those bang bang plays when ball just broken up and popped up into the air so um you know he's he's got to learn from him no doubt and uh we can't have him but at the same time uh he came back and didn't Flinch and made throw after throw after that and I'll tell you without him we don't win the ball game tonight so uh he's got to continue to mature you said You' give him a long Le obviously you know seven picks through two games yeah I'd like I'd like him to kind of cut that down a little bit but um but I I love the way he plays with decisiveness and he's he's aggressive and he pushes the ball down the field and you know I wish we could have connected on one of those deep throws early in the ball game uh but just even even the incomplete you don't know what that does to a defense you know what it does to soften the coverage um but you know I just I think he's going to continue to get better what so what do the deal with the field goal post I mean was that up there on Conrad's kick and that it was blowing really hard when I saw it and the the was blowing through the goalpost they said that it got hung when they tried to bring it back down uh but the wind was whipping pretty good at the beginning of the ball game so I tried to get an extra kick out of it but they wouldn't give it to me coach you got a big game next week with AB I know that's going to be big for you guys and I know you won't Dy pickl Rock in right oh no doubt but you know first I just want to we had a whole two sections lower and upper deck down there with solid purple and uh I just want to say thanks to our fans for showing up it means a ton to our players uh it shows what our program uh has and you know we talk about the passion of pirate Nation uh well you can talk about it but that's physical evidence uh all those people took their time this weekend to travel up here because they love the Pirates and so I just want to say thank you to them uh yeah and I want to see them next weekend uh we're 2 and0 we have a big ball game we're going to enjoy this one tonight U we're going to watch the film on the way back on the bus uh and then tomorrow we got to start getting ready for a very good Appalachian State team uh but you know I would I I would be disappointed if there's not 51,000 in daddy fickin next weekend coach it doesn't come back to bite you but you know that at the end of the first half you five seconds left but I I guess what was well so you know here's the deal on the play so you had about 40 some seconds left okay so you could you could you could kill it right there cuz we're out of timeouts you could kill it right there you know we had used our timeouts before the warning to get the ball back and try to go down I was really pleased with the drive but I just I I wanted to take one more shot at the end zone so the deal is on that play we talked about it it is first down get down and then you kill it and we just had some confusion on the sidelines and you know it's I knew what was going on but obviously I got to do a better job with making sure that everybody's on the same page uh that'll be on our situations in practice next week I'm I you the whole second half I'm thinking God I hope this doesn't bite Us in the rear end you know because you want to be aggressive because I I I knew it was going to be a game there was going to be limited scoring opportunities uh so you want to take one more shot at the end though and we should have been able to easily go up there spike it and kick the kick the short feet field goal the update on javius early on I don't know yet