Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Head Coach Dale Lennon press conference transcript
09/28/2015 | 12:00:00 | Football
By Tony McDaniel
SIUSalukis.com
Opening Statement:
"This is it, the beginning of the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The excitement that should exist, with this conference especially, should be there. You look at the matchups across the league; it's anybody's guess how this thing is going to work out. Our focus is on Western Illinois. We have a great opponent to start off with. We're going there for their homecoming. They have looked very impressive in their first three games of the season. They have done some things extremely well. I think you've seen a football program take some steps forward there with Coach Nielson and his staff, a staff I'm very familiar with and we're very familiar with. A couple of former coaches coaching there with Coach Nielson and coming up through the same coaching ranks, we share a lot in common. I guarantee this will be one of those games that will go down to the wire, and you have to play your best game because that's what its going to take to win it."
Q: What's the biggest thing you've learned about your team?
"We knew we had a good football team. Could we put it all together, play a complete game, not make those mistakes that can beat you? That's what we saw on Saturday night. I thought the complement between the offense and the defense and the special teams. Our special teams, especially our kickoff cover, created a long field for the most part for Liberty to have to operate with; that helps us defensively. Offensively, it was just taking care of the football. We had the one turnover, and there was a positive from the turnover that we committed: Our defense answered by creating another turnover. There was adversity during the course of the game; going into the fourth quarter the game was undecided. I was very happy with our guys stepping up, and they were able to close the door on Liberty and seal the deal convincingly at the end. Those things are encouraging. Now, we've got to be able to do that again. I do think you have the capabilities and the talent; we just need to go out and do it."
Q: Would you consider this a game of two similar teams with deceiving records?
"The records are deceiving. Again, that's just with the Missouri Valley Conference. All the teams are capable. I've been watching Western Illinois over the past couple years. They've done what they need to do to build that program. Now, they're at a point where a lot of those young players three years ago, or two years ago, they're upperclassmen now. They're juniors and seniors. They've played a lot of football. They're playmakers. That's where they've made their strides. They've invested into a couple of classes. They've done well for them. That's why they're a very challenging team."
Q: Western has a new defensive coordinator. Are they doing anything different defensively than they've done in the past?
"They're still doing the same defensive schemes, the Tampa 2-type concept; very similar to North Dakota State. They have ties with the North Dakota State coaching staff and Wyoming. They're doing along the same lines there. Tyler Yelk, he's one of the coordinators, I'm familiar with him, I coached against him when he was playing. There's a lot of familiarity between the two programs. There's a lot of similarity. Ted Schlafke, he was an undergraduate assistant here for us. You'll see similarities in what we're doing offensively and what they're doing offensively. It's going to be a challenge."
Q: Defensively, you guys have made pretty rapid improvements each week. What do you attribute that to?
"It's a process, too. With Coach Elson taking over the defense, we changed some things up defensively, so there is a learning curve that needs to go with the defense, and I think they've done a good job. You've been able to see the improvement from week to week. I do want to say, Indiana is a pretty good football team. They're currently undefeated at 4-0, so throwing that defense out there against a very capable offense, we learned under some extreme conditions. We saw improvement against Southeast Missouri. We did some things very well. We had some opportunities for turnovers. That was probably the most disappointing thing is we just didn't make the play to help win the game. I think this past weekend against Liberty, we kind of saw it all come together. We made plays to help the team win the game; we had some fourth down stops that were very encouraging. It was just a much more confident unit out there. What you're seeing is familiarity with the package and probably the biggest thing is the confidence in what they're doing. We need that to play in this league."
Q: What is the best part about opening up conference play?
That's what you prepare for. The conference championship is always the first goal that you have, the promised land as far as making the playoffs and competing for a national championship. If you're high up in the conference and competing at that level, you know you're going to have an opportunity. I do think, especially with a conference like the Missouri Valley, when you have a conference this strong, you just want to be a part of that race. You want to be a contender. You want to be a team that everyone is talking about. That's what conference play does. It really gets a buzz going as far as who is doing what. Everyone one in the country is looking at this conference and trying to figure out what is going to happen, so it's fun to be in the mix.
Q: Would you consider this year's conference race more wide open that it has been in the last couple of years?
"I would agree with that. It's anybody's race. There are a lot of questions. Can North Dakota State continue to do what they've been doing? Was the Montana game just a stub of their toe? Are they human? Looking at Youngstown, everyone is wondering about Youngstown. Northern Iowa is looking tough. What South Dakota State has done up to this point has been extremely impressive. University of South Dakota is making some noise now. Western Illinois almost knocked off Coastal Carolina at their place in front of a record-setting crowd. Every program has something they can point at and brag about. That's the neat thing about being a part of it."
Q: Is Western's defensive line their best defensive attribute?
"That is their most experienced position. They've got some good size up front. They do make the run game difficult. They have some new people. They're young in the secondary. They did have some people to replace there. The linebackers have played a lot in that scheme, but they haven't been starters necessarily. Their defensive front is pretty experienced. "
Q: We're you surprised at the amount of fans and how packed the game was on Saturday?
I was very happy with the fan support that we had, the atmosphere that was out there during the game. We want to keep that number of fans for the second half. You always have that halftime attrition. There was noise out there on the field. The players were aware of the fans input, so I thought that was a big part of the game. Coming up, when you get North Dakota State, Youngstown, and Illinois State--those type of teams coming--we want to pack this place. It's going to be entertaining football. I do think the fans had a good time at the game Saturday night, and we've got a product that we're pretty proud of and we know is going to be entertaining.
