Head Coach Jedd Fisch Postgame Press Conference: Weber State

e e e still yeah e e e I'm tired all right we're ready to begin with Jonah how' you feel just about the way the offense performed today relative to kind of what you you'd seen from the group throughout Camp uh a lot to learn you know today was our we're going to make this our worst game so uh looking forward to getting in uh meeting rooms and film room you know correct a couple things but uh for the most part I most importantly got uh got away with the win so we going to celebrate that how much combinations it look like they Chang some things up in that second quarter and led to your touchdown Drive did that play a role at all kind of Str sense the blockers in front of you tonight I mean whoever's in there going to do their job I don't really pay attention to the Personnel you know whatever change coach makes he makes and you know we're going to execute the play regardless Alano just you seem to be lining up all over the place in different positions in the back field quite a bit can you maybe describe and Define how your position this year and how they're using you differs from last year yeah just more versatile um on and off the ball a little bit more I'm more on the ball than I was last year but I'm still playing a good amount of off the ball backer so it's pretty pretty cool to have that part part of my Arsenal and show you know coaches and obviously help my teammates Mark and help them in different ways the better our team we become so so you gave up three points which obviously that speaks for itself but in terms of like just feeling the game and everything how how would you assess how this defense played tonight just based on what your expectations were first game um always a time to just you know evaluate and really just first time for everything like Jonah said it's going to be our worst game moving forward we have a lot of things to clean up but got to celebrate the win it's hard to get a win especially in this league in college football so we're going to celebrate that come in tomorrow and find out what our coaches and and communicate on what we got to work on as a defense but it's a great team win today John you obviously follow Jed fish up here just how important was it to you some of the other Arizona guys to make sure he started off here on the right foot with a win I was just trusting you know um not focus so on like what happened last year and you know where everybody came from just worried about the people that's in the locker room um the people that's suting up you know going on that the 11 guys that's going out there really just focus on that just having tunnel vision you know uh csel lot order noise and really just focus on us you know um it's great congrats to coach and the team getting our first win but um I saw a tweet last week that said from you that said zero watch lists and I'm thinking you're maybe motivated by that a little bit yeah for sure most definitely was that thing was like a week old last weekend no watch list at all you know no accolades from no one for no one on the team you feel me um I feel like you know we got some good guys on the team so it's it's a shame that nobody on no watch list but you know action speaks louder than words Alonso I don't know if you were on you know a couple of new rule changes this year but I don't know how much you were on the helmet comps and if you were maybe describe what that was like and then also with the use of the tablets did you have any usage of that was it of any help um yeah I had the mic a couple times it for sure was different from the previous years I've been playing from my previous film you can see it's all non-verbal communication hands signal so for sure it was kind of unique to be in that situation uh but it was it was cool you weren't the only running back who had a successful day in terms of Adam mohamd comes in as a true freshman rips off a couple big runs just being in the room with him what have you seen from him as a true freshman and what he's been able to show all right in year uh we got a lot of great backs in the room you know not just Adam but you know Adam's young and he do he does a good guy a good job of uh picking the older guys in the room brain you know uh taking coaching um all the good things like that um that's hard to do as a freshman like picking up blisses and you know Tempo and detail so I'm just seeing how far he's come since you know he first got here you know he's going to be a great player obviously mean he he had a big run deont threw a touchdown pass Decker caught a touchdown pass um thinking back to your freshman year how did Coach fish and this staff kind of talk to you about your opportunity to maybe play as a a true freshman when you when you were coming into Arizona our program built on competition so you come in compete you going to play you know what you're doing you making plays you producing that's how you get in the game and you know those guys make plays in practice you know when they came out here and they play in the game so coach going to play the best players Jonah what was your kind of first experience uh playing at a husy stadium uh as a Washington player the fans bought it the fans the the fans bought it today you know just to see the play rocking you know finally get my feet wet get the nerves out and stuff and just wondering um it was good though it it was it was fun to fly around my brothers uh see the defense you know do what they do and also see the offense do what we do so um yeah that's really it at what point did you see the penalty flag on your your first touchdown that that got called back seen it at the right when I got to the end I was going to go to the sideline and you know celebrate with everybody and then I looked over and I was next play sounds like you're the first Washington running back to run for 100 yards in his debut matter going back to I think 1960 right what does that mean extra to you and obviously this is your second career game with three rushing touchdowns did you know that when you came up the field no I didn't know any of that I was just focused on getting the win that's really it but uh that's cool anything else guys Alonso you're able to hold Munos to 11 of 32 passing today and only 98 yards what was the defense doing just as a toll as a as a whole Collective group to keep their offense kind of in check even though they were picking up a lot of yards on the ground communication that's something big that we've been trying to harp on before before this week and leading up to the week so I think that was one thing we just trying to emphasize on communicating communicating and obviously our effort and and keeping Integrity to what your job is so it was a great four effort from all 11 that was on the field no matter if it was me Carson or whoever else so I think that's what our plan was and I think we did a cool job at for our first time executing executing that Jonah just any Impressions first game at Husky Stadium with a crowd just your general Impressions I was just really taking in the moment you know uh sucking everything in you know um you never know when it's going to be your last time on the field so you got to play every play like your last and um definitely like my experience being in college has been flying by so um this year I definitely been trying to take take in the moments take in the uh time that I you know spend with the guys just running out there was just I was just taking everything in you know filling everything in so that's really what it was e e e e e e e e okay um all right thanks for staying late tonight appreciate it I'm excited for next week that we're uh going to be able to do this at 4 pm so uh that will make life uh fun for everyone uh we hope as long as we play well the um I would say that uh as we get going uh to start off I thought it was a good team win I thought our defense you know the idea of keeping a team with three points really good really good uh can't be much better than that and uh special teams seemed to have done a good job uh I would say we had one chance for a long return got called back we got to clean that up we covered kicks for the most part pretty well uh they had one return that uh was a 30 y that was a little bit too much uh outside of that I would say we handled the punts well we handled field goal field goal block well uh we were able to force a uh we were able to force a Miss field goal and then offensively I would say we were very much a uh team that was efficient um most of the game not all of the game but most of the game and you know that's an important part of uh of playing so we were able to move the ball we were able to get what we want and from that point uh I was moderately excited about the some of the things we can do in the future but uh we got a lot of work to do do you want me to have both of these microphones up here or okay got it like you were mix and matches switching guys around and putting a lot of different guys in you know preliminary before looking at the film did you learn anything um well I would say that uh I think we put some good combinations together that we were able to run the ball pretty well um really for the most part we ran the ball well throughout the whole game regardless of what the mix and match was regardless of who was at we played probably three different left tackles in that game we played um two or three right tackles two centers four guards I think so if we can continue to uh figure out exactly who and what we are up front that'll help us a lot but we'll just uh we'll keep working through it until we get that right group rotating guys in like that is that something we can expect to see in the future or would you like to just settle on Five Guys I don't know um not something that I've been a part of doing for a while now but uh I've certainly done that at different places coach Carol and I were together at Miami we did that often so uh I think we'll see uh what's best for the team and we'll do that uh no real promises either way there how did Quint more come out of this are you a little concerned about your depth at tight end now because there were two others that were not in uniform tonight yeah well we've uh you know Quinn's injury we'll have to look at it exactly um probably tomorrow is uh once the docs get a look at it but I don't think it's um too bad I don't think it's too bad uh we have you know we have four tight ends right now that are healthy good to go um and we've got to figure out exactly what that looks like but we have flexibility to move linemen out there if we need to get big and um most of our season last year we were in 11 zebra 11 personnel so uh we'll figure out what's best and we'll roll with that how much of it was Jonah Coleman being a great Runner and how much of it was on the offensive line opening those H tonight I think it was on everybody I think there was a lot of downfield blocking by the wide receivers there was some great blocking by the tight end um it was getting the right call by the quarterback a lot of it were check with me based on looks uh it was fantastic uh running by Jonah he's very hard to tackle and if you it seems that we had some pretty gaping holes there at times that Jonah was able to run through untouched for the first few uh first few yards and then when you give Jonah the head of steam uh he's a very hard guy to tackle uh with just one guy think on that note I know that you obviously are familiar with Jonah but um how do you rate this performance here tonight and and um the way he fits this sche I think it was his best game of his career if I was to guess I don't know exactly but I've had him his whole career so I should know that but I don't ever remember him having a 100 plus yards and three touchdowns um and he did a really good job there uh so he fits his scheme perfectly because he's been in the scheme since he graduated high school and our scheme really fits him more than he fits our scheme we we try to make our sche for the players um but I also thought I want to give credit to Cam Davis I thought Adam muhammd got in there he had two carries for 39 yards was a yard short uh we were going to give him a ball there to get in the end zone for a touchdown but we false started so um got Denzel touchdown there instead but um I look forward to watching all of our backs thought Sam Adams ran the ball really hard there at the end as well and if guys are willing to rotate and get in and play hard then that's a really good thing for us you think will played good uh I think it was 20 for 26 something to that effect uh so he's pretty close to being 80% completion no turnovers um probably took one too many hits at the end of the half I told him you know we were looking to get one certain look and if we didn't have it throw it away so he didn't end up taking a hit there he took two hits under a minute left in the half I'd like to avoid that um maybe you know he probably would want one throw back and there was really a miscommunication on the fourth and four uh with Denzel between he and Denzel that will clean up so uh for the most part I thought he played real well deand in for the fourth quarter was that kind of scripted that you wanted to get him in at that point or no it was score-based you know if we got to a point that I felt like we're now in in control of the game and I was not concerned about uh the out at that point I didn't think the outcome uh was going to be an issue um going into the fourth quarter that or I think the end of the third we tried to get him in um it worked out well it was great to get him a drive it was great to get him a touchdown pass I tried to get Giles 100 yards so he had 10 for 98 uh I was trying to get him that extra couple and he didn't run the route he was supposed to on third down and then uh we tried to get Denzel that touchdown there at the end because I thought the way he's been practicing so it worked out well that we were able to get guys what they needed to get um I would have loved to seen uh us hit a couple more plays here there but uh it's a good start Jed with so many new pieces how did you feel the whole operation kind of function tonight with the coaches and the guys that you were shuffling in and now yeah very clean very clean I didn't feel like we were close at all to any delays um except for the Tak a knee at the end it was a little not clean but we were trying to get that formation squared away um I I think it was clean I think it was good I had no issues with the communication with Steve on when we were going to everything from penalties to time outs to um certain substitution patterns and getting certain guys in the game at certain times thought they did a great job on defense as I was listening to their communication um Steve I thought called a really good game gave him a game ball for his first uh game as a college defensive coordinator holding a team to under seven points so he got a game ball for that and um offensively we've worked together for a long time so uh we don't have any issues on the headsets there t cph can you break that play Down course yeah it was a play we put in for uh you know a certain look on defense that we feel like we could have we got from them we've run that at different times throughout different years at different places but it was an opportunity to hopefully get them to double on the Z receiver and let the tight end run a wheel route up the sideline and um we got what we wanted uh coverage wise we got what we wanted in terms of how they defended it and uh we got what we wanted in terms of it was a great row and a great catch and uh that's not an easy catch for your first ever touchdown as a guy that was playing High School football a year ago over your shoulder up the sideline and uh he was he caught a beautiful ball mention Adam Mohamed what is it about him as a true freshman that makes him ready for this moment and ready physically mentally to be able to do what he's done uh physically he's clearly built in a way that he can handle uh this type of of game he's 215 pounds he's one of our stronger young players on our team he eats right he does things right he lives right his body can handle this type of um this type of game um he's smart he studies he makes great decisions off the field all those things add to his opportunity to become the type of back that we want him to be and he's mentored by Jonah and Jonah uh as you all have seen over the this six months that you've met Jonah or eight months uh Jonah is really committed to doing things right guys who didn't play Jon Parker and Maximus Creed can you offer any updates on either of those guys yeah Jayvon was a game time decision we tried to get him in a workout before Pro before the game two hours before the game and we just felt that he would needed probably one more week um and Max uh we we're still working through some things there to to get him into the game but uh hopefully we'll be able to do that here soon J your first win Washington I guess um what was this experience like for you and what does it kind of mean to start on the right foot here well um it's fun it's fun to win and it was awesome running out of the tunnel and looking around and seeing a full house there uh I thought the crowd was great uh you know I was told oh Labor Day weekend it might be a bit of a challenge 8 o'clock at night and I felt that that Stadium um that's going to be you know our goal is this is going to be our worst game in every game after this we're going to play better if this is going to be our worst attendance at every game after this it's going to be better I can't wait to see how it's going to look as the year progresses so um the dog walk was great uh it can be better the crowd was great they're G to be uh I'm sure they can be better and um but they were awesome the fans were awesome and it was fun man w win here and get a big 10 win as a head coach uh I don't take that lightly what was it like to share this moment with some of the players you've been with for a long time like Jonah yeah I was special um I don't know I I'm really much better at being the sentimental guy the day after um I get like wrapped up and you know I don't get as sentimental as I should after games but the next day is when I really get appreciative of the guys and of the team and uh I do a much better G ball job of giving out game balls the next day uh I get all caught up in the emotion of the game and uh calling the game that I lose focus a little bit postgame yeah it seemed like a really solid Performance top to bottom from the DB room is there anything before you go back to the film and everything is there anything that kind of stood out to you from that room today I thought there was a lot of pass breakups I thought there was uh sticky coverage like there wasn't a lot of open you know there wasn't a lot of open guys um when we were playing man they were they were pretty much uh it was really hard throws to make I think we held the quarterback to 33% or 35% something to that effect uh they threw it 30 something times and completed 13 balls so uh proud of our guys we got a lot we got to get better okay it's just game one it's uh we now got to get better for and be able to beat Eastern Michigan who's also one and them so they're coming off of a win we're coming off of a win neither one makes a difference it's all about this coming Saturday at 12:30 thank you a great night thanks for staying e e