The University of Akron Athletics
Ianello MAC Media Teleconference Quotes and Audio
October 18 | Football
Opening Statement:
"I felt Ohio University beat us in every phase of the game. They outplayed us, outhit us, and especially gave more effort than us and I thought we didn't play very well and a lot of it had to do with the kind of football team they have. I was very disappointed in the game, but we are looking forward to Western Michigan this week and seeing if we can improve on our performance from last week."
Regarding sophomore quarterback Patrick Nicely, who sat
out the fourth quarter of Saturday's Ohio game:
"Patrick (Nicely) is fine, his injury isn't as serious as it looked
at the time, but it was painful at the time. He is fine and we
don't expect any setbacks with him practice wise. A lot of the
positions I will say on this team are open after the way we played
on Saturday, but Patrick will be the starting quarterback heading
into Saturday's game."
Regarding Saturday's game at Ohio:
"They were up 24-0 before they put ice in the Gatorade buckets,
that changed our game plan. We felt as a coaching staff it was time
to go to our two minute offense. We felt like changing the tempo of
the game would be the best thing to do at the time and we did
generate some offense, but didn't score because we turned the ball
over. The three drives that we went into our two minute we scored
three points, and we couldn't do much in the third quarter and then
went back to our base offense."
Regarding the general mood of the team:
"I think we are disappointed and hopefully I will see a more
determined team on the practice field today to do something about
it. These players have put in a lot of hard work and effort, but
most of all have done everything I have asked them to do and we
haven't had the results we hoped for. We still have a lot of
football left in the season, we have five games in our conference
and have a lot to play for. Three of them in front of our home fans
and I'm anticipating a disappointed team ready to improve and get
better, which is a great opportunity to get this program pointed in
the right direction."
Regarding being a first-year head coach and teaching a
new system to the players:
"I think there is a transition period when you come in with a new
staff and your approach to the whole organization is very new. It's
not just offensive and defensive systems, it's the approach to the
organization and how we do things that's different than what the
players have done before, and are going through it for the first
time. As we grow with our program, there won't be as many things
that we go through for the first time because we will have done it
before. When you establish a program, you have a certain way of
doing things and those factor into building a championship program.
As you go through rough times on the field, as we are now, you are
still looking for tangible victories in other areas, and we are
doing that, unfortunately for our fans and players we haven't done
it on the scoreboard, but we will continue to work at it."
