Schnelly's Wednesday Comments On The Mean Green

Green to the Bone · September 20, 2007

Here are the comments from Schnelly today and from one of their OLs. Emphasis added by me.

Feel free to get ticked off, but put aside any notion of Howie being, um, incapacitated.

Wednesday with Players and Coach Schnellenberger

FAU Prepares for Saturday's Game with North Texas

Sept. 19, 2007

Coach Howard Schnellenberger

On How to Stop North Texas' Spread Offense:

"We try to have more guys rushing the passer, and we hope to have our secondary up there close so that they don't have as many options to stop the ball real quick. We hope we're in a three-man rush when they're going deep. You've got to just call your defenses and just use the computer for what it's worth, get all the tendencies, and that's the best thing that you can do is just have a high probability of what's going to happen on the downs we're going to face. And if we can have a high percentage of tendencies that we can use the type of defense that would be best for that.

They (North Texas) don't run the ball much and they only have a few running plays. That doesn't mean they can't make yardage but that means that we don't have to spend time looking at various blocking schemes and angles. So we spent a lot of time on pass rush and coverage. The best thing for us to handle it is come out with an offense of our own, keep the ball for three to four minutes at a time and put seven points on the board and do that about three times in the first quarter, then again in the second quarter and then put the game in a one-dimensional situation."

Any worries about a letdown?

"I worry about so many things it's just one of the 20 or 30 things I worry about. I think we've always had a pretty steady group here that understands that the games that you appear to match up pretty well with don't always turn out to be that good of a matchup. I think we've been prepared 90 percent of the time with the teams we've played.

When you're on a mission, when you've had much less than the people that you play both in and out of conference, the desire to rise and carry on the mission doesn't allow you to have a lot of complacency. The setbacks that we've had have been greater than the good teams have had. One of the great things that came out of this game (the win over Minnesota) is that we were the first Sun Belt team to beat a team from the Big Ten, and that two of our players were singled out as the offensive and defensive player of the week. And I think we've had something similar to that at division 1-AA, but this is the first time we've had something like this on the 1-A level."

Was it surprising that Rusty Smith and Tavious Polo earned National Player of the Week honors?

"It surprised me that either one of them got it, because how could we have ever hoped to get two of our players to be players of the week. To be considered to have better game than Tim Tebow and for Polo to have the same thing with all these great defensive backs across the country is just great for the university."

David Matlock (sophomore offensive lineman)

How excited are you to face a North Texas team that has struggled on defense?

"I'm excited, you know you're going to put up points and yardage, but it comes down to which FAU team shows up. I believe that we're pretty consistent and that we're going to show up with some force."

Against Minnesota you went to no-huddle offense and a spread passing game, did you like playing that way?

"I did, I believe I think you notice that in the Middle Tennessee game that when we jump on teams early it tends to tire them out. And that's what we did against Minnesota. We just went into the no-huddle and it gives us momentum in terms of getting the ball rolling, I liked it a lot. We really didn't change the offense that much, we were pretty even in terms of running and passing, we just had guys make big plays."

eulesseagle · September 20, 2007

Coach S is predicting FAU may have 42 points by half time??

Wow. This game really will be a shoot out.

Hope it turns out like the Utah State game 10 years ago.... 51-48....there was probably 500 people watching the game.....probably like 2,000 realistically. That had to be one of the most exciting games I have seen along with the OT victory against FIU last year that went into 20,000 OT's. I ordered pizza at the beginning of the first OT and by the 4th OT Pizza Hut had it hot and fresh at Fouts ... now that is customer service.....BTW the guy who delivered the pizza wore a SMU hat.

island eagle · September 20, 2007

Coach S is predicting FAU may have 42 points by half time??
Wow. This game really will be a shoot out.
Hope it turns out like the Utah State game 10 years ago.... 51-48....there was probably 500 people watching the game.....probably like 2,000 realistically. That had to be one of the most exciting games I have seen along with the OT victory against FIU last year that went into 20,000 OT's. I ordered pizza at the beginning of the first OT and by the 4th OT Pizza Hut had it hot and fresh at Fouts ... now that is customer service.....BTW the guy who delivered the pizza wore a SMU hat.

Hope you didn't tip him!

eulesseagle · September 20, 2007

IslandEagle-

I was able to help the pizza guy by getting him the scholarship, he needed, to finish his Ph.D.

greenminer · September 20, 2007

Coach S is predicting FAU may have 42 points by half time??
Wow. This game really will be a shoot out.
Hope it turns out like the Utah State game 10 years ago.... 51-48....there was probably 500 people watching the game.....probably like 2,000 realistically. That had to be one of the most exciting games I have seen along with the OT victory against FIU last year that went into 20,000 OT's. I ordered pizza at the beginning of the first OT and by the 4th OT Pizza Hut had it hot and fresh at Fouts ... now that is customer service.....BTW the guy who delivered the pizza wore a SMU hat.

That FAU game last season was 6 OTs of hell and special teams tease.

Cr1028 · September 20, 2007

That FAU game last season was 6 OTs of hell and special teams tease.

That was F I U.

Edited September 20, 2007 by Cr1028

NT03 · September 20, 2007

If they start to play a 3 man front , could this be the return of..... SUPER JAMARIO !!!!!!!!!!

Todd Dodge has said all along his goal THIS year was to WIN the BELT. I think Mendoza has not shown all his defensive schemes and TD has yet to showcase the running abilities of our backs for a reason. We need this game , FAU is the 2nd best team in the BELT. We win saturday , think of the confidence it will put in our players,coaches, & fans!!!!