Sept. 24, 2003
Head coach Frank Tavani:
On the bye week:
We're certainly looking forward to playing again. Having the bye week, obviously, can be an advantage or a disadvantage and I think we utilized it extremely well. We worked extremely hard. We gave the team an extra day off. We came in the Sunday after the Towson game as we normally do and lifted and ran and watched the film. Monday is normally a day off, so we took Monday off and Tuesday off, then came back and worked hard Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and early Saturday morning. There were four hard days in there, almost like preseason camp with a lot of conditioning and very physical full-pad practices. This week we took Sunday off, which is different, and were out there yesterday getting a jump start on Princeton. We'll have full-pad practices (Tuesday) and Wednesday and then back off a little on Thursday.
On Princeton:
From a personnel standpoint their defensive line certainly concerns us. They're all seniors, a veteran group. We're particularly concerned with their two defensive ends Kirby and Weiss who are probably as good of a pair of defensive ends as we'll see all year. At linebacker they have a few new people in there after losing some guys in the off-season. They have a couple new guys in the secondary but as always, they're Princeton and they're athletic and physical. Offensively they have all the weapons you need to get things done. They have a great wide receiver, a very athletic quarterback with Splithoff sounding like he might get in there and he is very dangerous particularly on the option. And they have two pretty effective backs. We're well aware that we have a very difficult football game ahead of us. Our team is more than ready to play. We've had a bitter pill to swallow and we had to have that taste in our mouth a little longer and hopefully we're ready to take it out on the Tigers.
On concerns following Towson:
Mental errors, breakdowns and turnovers in wet conditions that you can't really control. Balls going through our best receiver's hands and into the opponent's hands, things that just don't happen, but when they do happen you have to be able to handle. I think we lost our poise a little bit out there - guys showed outward frustration out on the field. There were things I haven't seen in my four years. There were some penalties in there, some personal fouls that are unnecessary, and those are things we need to get cleaned up. We need to be more consistent on offense and finish off drives. There were certainly a lot of things that we had a lot of time to work on.
On the kicking situation:
That continues to be an interesting situation. I think in his own personal frustration, Rick Ziska injured himself the other day and in talking with the training staff this morning it sounds like he has a little bit of a quadricep problem. The odd thing is we put him under a lot of pressure last week in practice, kicking during team period where we actually run on and off the field as in a game situation, and as fate would have it he didn't miss a kick all week. Now, as fate would have it, he shows up yesterday with a swollen quad and was unable to kick so your guess is as good as mine what will happen on Saturday.
On the defense against Towson:
Outstanding. We put them in a little bit of a hole early and they held to a field goal instead of a touchdown and, I thought, just played outstanding football all day long. They got after people. It's interesting the things you worry about going into a game and then end up worrying about afterwards. I was most worried about (Towson) being able to run the ball on us and, except for the one drive, for the most part they weren't able to do that. Certainly I was pleased with the way they came out and played.
Senior center Curt Wilson:
On the bye week:
I would have rather played on Saturday, just to get the taste out of my mouth from the loss. Nobody likes to lose and it's been difficult dealing with this loss for two weeks.
On practices since Towson: We've been doing a lot of first-team on first-team and second-team on second-team rather than the scout team and we've been working a lot more technique rather than specific plays. We just got back to basics.
Sophomore linebacker Maurice Bennett:
On the bye week:
I would have rather played. I don't like taking days off. I came here to play football and that's what I want to do.
On the physical practices:
Anytime you go first-team against first-team there's a lot of physical play in there. But that's what makes you better. I like going first-team against first-team rather than against the scout team.
