It was only Coach Leipold this week, no player, so he got some more time. Unfortunately, a good chunk of that extra time went to fluff questions, so we didn't learn much more than usual. Click the video above to watch and read on for the juicy quotes from yesterday's press conference.
Lance Leipold:
Getting offense and defense synced:
Yea, you're kinda waiting for that complete game. ... We've gotta be able to take a more positive step offensively and really improve ourselves special teams-wise as well and put the whole thing together. You're always waiting for that perfect game and all things to come together and we're gonna need to take that next step.
On the defense:
I think in our short time here Brandon [Berry]'s really matured. He's taken his game up a notch as a junior linebacker finally getting a chance to play on a regular basis. We're going to need that from him. Nick Gilbo continues to play pretty solid as well.
We're getting solid play up front. ... As we continue to rotate up there, there's times in the fourth quarter now where the game hasn't been decided and the defensive line is true freshman, tfreshman rfreshman ... rfreshman, tfreshman corner and tfreshman safety out there. Thats a lot of youth getting valuable experience and I think they're holding their own right now.
On Justin Brandon:
He's got the size. And here's the thing about Justin: He probably played more offense than defense in his high school career. When we arrived on a full time basis in January we looked at him athletically we looked at his size and thought he could be an interior player for us. De we anticipate him being a thtis stage probably not, probably hopes that we would have been able to redshirt him but he's played on strong. fr ayoung player hit a litte bit of plateau as we came out camp come back into is own now again .. he's got a bright future
On what Nevada does well:
The experience on their front seven on defense: I think six of them are seniors. A team that has pretty good length on the defensive line, it's an impressive group that runs well. Offensively the zone read game, the pistol offense was essentially invented there and they've continued it, they're still using the zone read game. It poses issues for you defensively; you have to be assignment sound, being gap sound, and doing those things or those things get exposed pretty quickly.
Some of that we thought if FAU had gone with their senior qb we would have saw some of that but we didn't. So this'll be a first full test of that type of scheme. Receiver wise good speed and length. Sometimes I think schools out west ... when you have the California junior colleges out there and it's close by and you recruit JUCO it can be a huge benefit for you because you can instantly gain players with college experience ... really can supplement depth... infuse speed along with experience.
Is there any one thing going on with the offense?
No, I wish there was. If there was one thing we could put our finger on it could probably be a lot more easily addressed and corrected. ... There's some things there we just have to get more consistent, and we need to because there is experience on that side of the ball. We've gotta be able to click a little better and hopefully being back home will do that for us.
Did FAU exhibit good defensive team speed or was it as much you as them?
You have to give them credit. ... There wasn't a lot of they came out with something completely new, no. ... I think you have to give them a compliment of execution and what they've done too we knew that it would be difficult but maybe not quite to the level of difficulty that we had
False starts? Better coming home?
I hope so. ... It's a matter of concentrating whether it's a play that's being checked - sometimes when you hceck plays you're gonna go to a different snap count - guys have to stay locked in.
How seriously do you take a team like Nevada, a team that's given up 44 points consecutively? (ed note: what?)
Extremely, because I look at the two teams they've played. ... You better take into account who they've played, too.
What have you seen in Nevada: spread or power?
They'll power up on you. They use a lot of different formations. You see extra fullbacks in the game and things like that. ... Very creative. I think there's some similarities in philosophy in some of the things that we're doing, except they probably implement a little more QB run that what we're doing right now.
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There's more if you watch, but I didn't feel like transcribing fluff, including what might be the 150th time LL has been asked about the transition to D1.