Sports
NOTEBOOK: Takeaways from Ohio University Football head coach John Hauser’s week two press conference
By: Ty Carpenter
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Ohio athletics held their weekly football press conference with head coach John Hauser Monday morning ahead of Saturday’s matchup against Jacksonville State. Here’s everything you need to know:
On Jacksonville State:
“The QB [Caden Creel] is a really good player. I mean, he makes the thing go. He can run, he can throw. He’s competitive. He had a big game last week. … Really good team coming in here offensively and defensively. They’re pretty good up the middle. … One of their safeties is a really good player, you can tell he kind of runs the show back there.”
“There’s the way they run the ball and the way they’re balanced. It’s hard to say. You can’t just say we’re going to put two guys on the 6’8” guy [DeAndre Johnson] the whole game. I think we got to disrupt them with reroutes and timing and things.”
On the offensive line after week one:
“Zero sacks. You know, I think Nick fell once and we, I don’t know if that counted as a sack or not, but we said, the O-line, no sacks against Nebraska, which is really good. Now, Nick did a good job in the pocket often, but credit to our line for doing that.”
“Nebraska, they forced the issue at the line of scrimmage and we didn’t handle it great. Some of their size and things. So we gotta look at better ways to run the ball. But I thought the positive was our pass protection for sure. And the game was very solid.”
On establishing the run game:
“Yeah, we got to establish the run game. We didn’t have many opportunities last week. We had a couple missed assignments that we thought could have led to some bigger runs. We got to take advantage of some of the light boxes we’re getting and run the ball. We got to do better up front.”
“And I think Nick’s a good threat to pull it as well. Which is nice to have. Him, the ability to run. I know a lot of our rushing yards were probably him as well. So it’s going to be a point of emphasis this week. We got to run the ball.”
On cleaning things up:
“Our philosophy is don’t lose games. Don’t do things to lose games. Ohio doesn’t beat Ohio.”
“It was just a matter of some missed assignments in the second half and tackling. You know, we had guys in position at times. Credit to Nebraska, they out ran some angles, we didn’t take great angles. We got to get that stuff corrected.”
“There’s good missed tackles and there’s bad missed tackles. We lost too many tackles to our leverage side, which creates an explosive play.”
On what makes a successful week:
“Seeing guys improve on the field with execution and cutting down on some of the missed assignments. Cutting down on the missed tackles. When the moments are the moments, … we got to have our best players playing our best football.”
“I want to see us continue to play clean from a penalty standpoint. We got to take away the ball. We got to protect the ball. … So just really the basics and the fundamentals.”
On defending the Frank and the home crowd:
“Come support. Come support us, man. We’re very grateful for the town of Athens, the students of Ohio U. Everybody that comes to pack Peden and gives our guys an advantage.”
“It’s a big part of our winning tradition here. … It’s a great atmosphere, right? … So we’re very grateful to our fans for the support they give us and continue to support.”
The game will take place Saturday Sept. 12 at 6 p.m.