Tennessee Tech Head Coach Bobby Wilder's UGA Week Presser

yep Tennessee Tech head coach Bobby Wilder the team cut off on narrow loss against FBS fo and and rival Middle Tennessee um this week a second fpso this time the number one ranked team in the country Georgia so coach let's just get some thoughts and then we'll go to some questions about you and your team what do you want thoughts of middle or Georgia just let start with middle performance first yeah very very disappointed with the loss as I emphasized with everybody associated with the program we need to start to be really disappointed at Tennessee Tech when we lose a football game regardless of the fact we were 23o underdogs we were on the road we had a three-hour delay starting quarterback went down in the first quarter iPads never worked uh headsets went out for a while pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did and we stayed focused on the process of winning we stayed focused on developing a culture of Tennessee Tech football and then it was 215 at the half it was 2111 going into the fourth and with a minute to go we we scored to go up 2524 uh middle had a veteran quarterback kid played a lot of football a lot of respect for him he took him 75 and they scored to beat us 16 seconds left 3225 so clearly very disappointed with that loss even a team we were 23 Point underdogs too we had the opportunity we we gave ourselves the opportunity to win win that go down middle or you need something else yeah let's do that and just a basic question just basic thoughts on Georgia and then we'll then we'll go to the questions we have my basic thoughts on Georgia are this there are 5.9 billion people in the world and there's a tiny tiny percentage of them that can ever say they had the opportunity to play the best in the world at their sport at their age group which is what we have the opportunity to do this weekend this is in my opinion I've been doing this for 31 years so I feel like I have knowledge of what I'm talking about this is the best football team in the country they're they're not only sound in every every area they're excellent uh in my opinion Kirby Smart is the best coach in college football I truly believe he's the voice of college football right now with Nick Sabin uh retiring I always feel strongly you need a voice you need a strong voice that uh presents himself in a manner that uh a professional manner that younger coaches can emulate they can follow they can listen to um I felt like I felt that way about Kirby for a long time I felt that way when he was the de coordinator H for Coach Sabin at Alabama just his presentation how he handles himself Under Pressure you watch the way he coaches on the sideline it's very detailed you watch their sideline everything's detailed everything's purposeful um does a really good job with communication with young people and that's that's an exceptional football program um if I was being honest I would tell you that I'm not thrilled to be headed to Athens Georgia this weekend so I'll be dishonest and say I'm very excited to be playing a game in Sanford Stadium in front of 93,000 thanks coach we'll go to the questions we got here uh chip from the Atlanta Journal Constitution go ahead whatever questions you got feel free to asking yeah coach I I have so many questions starting with that you have a dog in your office is that is that your dog what's what's the dog's name yes the name is kisi pop quiz does anybody know where the name kesi comes from is that the dragons thing yes does anybody know the name of it highest grossing show in history Game of Thrones oh hey yep kisi is um so my oldest son what kind of dog is five years ago my last year at Old Dominion right before I got fired he thought I needed a dog and a puppy of all things and I said I gotta have an original name I can't you know Rob whatever it can't be the same name so I was Big Game of Thrones fan and she's female so she's kisi she's the mother of dragon she's kisi of the Great Grass sea she's the breaker of chain but yeah she just went over my my DFO just just uh took her out of the office so I could give this professional appearance what kind of dog is she real quick she's an English plot Hound one of the fastest dogs in the world and and I won't bore you with the whole back story but my son oldest son dererk had rescued a dog that was probably three days from dying was a Belgian mwa police dog and had a lot of issues and he researched the breed and this breed was best for a dog that had issues she's just very comforting loving it was big help to to Jack the Belgian who is to this day one of the all-time great Rescue Stories ever well I know there's a lot of people that want to ask you question on here so uh kind of cut into Chase I do want to know you know like what what you did in that interim between Old Dominion and getting this job uh you know coming back to football I assume he coming back from football I'm not sure what you did right before you came back to Tennessee Tech I played so much golf that was so much fun I was living the dream no and all serious a lot of professional development I have a lot of really close friends that are head coaches so a lot of time to uh develop I was um a private trainer um awesome I loved it high school middle school kids I was training about 225 kids just having a blast doing that but you know missed this wanted wanted to get back so I interviewed for a number of jobs finished second probably the 11 my last year killed me even though I'm 77 and 56 overall so so grateful to be back but I was I was having a lot of fun playing golf did you uh and this will be my last question here let it go on to other people but how long did it take you to see oh we got Georgia on the road in week two um when I interviewed for the job it was and I'll cut this short it's a long story but that was a major conversation with the president and the athletic director was a scheduling model as you guys know a lot of FCS schools have been taking it in the teeth the first couple weekends to pay bills and truthfully that's what this is about it's about paying bills in the athletic department I think uh I could be wrong on this number maybe the guys that are going to ask me will know better I think George's Collective is 20 million our athletic depart Department budget is 17 million that's the Gap now the gap between P4 and even G5 look at the scores the past two weeks look at the Gap Oklahoma 51 Temple 3 that's that's G5 and P4 now look at the Gap with the FCS so and I'll do credit to those schools and for those kids I'm so excited the kids are are receiving additional stien and compensation it's awesome I love it um correct me if I'm wrong the sec's got a $65 million TV deal this year there's a lot of money there I'm happy for the kids but the Gap it's created from the time I started coaching 31 years ago to now is is insurmountable the level of Gap and we're playing these games um to pay bills it's unfortunate and and we're working to change that scheduling model here at Tennessee Tech thank you I appreciate your time you're welcome does anybody else have other questions if not if you have something else chip you can you can ask away oh yeah we could we could we could definitely do this you said you lost your start quarterback in the uh last great game by the way uh certainly had Derek Mason sweating it there a little bit a guy that Kirby has all kinds of respect for uh but uh you lost your or so you are you coming down here without your starting quarterback and I did notice your roster look like a lot of kids from Georgia looks like this is an area you guys recruit a good bit Atlanta and all yeah we did we lost our starting quarterback in the game he's actually in Nashville as we speak having surgery no timetable on on the intent of it it was it was an unfortunate circumstance that happened uh in the game that the backup quarterback Jordan Potts came in and played well he's a he's a young man that played uh last year for the previous head coach Dwayne Alexander is a true freshman towards the end of the year so he has some has some game experience um but but very unfortunate losing uh Dylan liel a young man that that got here in January transfer from from Missouri just worked his tail off for 10 months and um unfortunate part of our game and then you know obviously there there's so many disparities you talked about the money but uh I mean Georgia has a a a tackle a freshman tackle that played in the game is 6'1 370 PBS I assume your defensive lineman the ones I saw you know tend to be closer to 6 feet and 250 and 260 uh you don't want to get anybody hurt I mean kind you know what what's the general approach to this I'm sure you'd love to shock the world uh it that might be one of the biggest shocks ever uh but just what's your philosophy on that part of the game well I played I coached in 10 of these games when I was at Old Dominion and your your approach coming in is your goal is to play play Tennessee Tech football that has to be the goal the one goal is to play Tennessee Tech football it's it's clear to everybody this is superior opponent it's the number one team in the nation for a reason they should be we have to play Tennessee Tech football play as hard as we can for 60 minutes and learn grow continue to develop remember this is only our our second game of this new era of Tennessee Tech football so the most important thing to me is the growth and development of the football team if there's nobody else Kyle I guess go ahead go yeah just yeah I'm I'm sure you watched the Clemson game and have broken it down since then just your first impressions of Georgia 2024 yeah it's a it's a typical uh Kirby Smart football team uh they play smart they play really sound field position everything coach smart does is always prepping himself to improve throughout the season and what I mean by that is when you play sound detail football you're allowing your team to improve throughout the season and that's what you always get from a from a coach smart football team they're not going to beat themselves they're not going to make poor decisions with field position their players are very adapt at where the chains they're very adapted down in distance uh their special teams are very detailed in terms of being field position oriented which is Championship caliber football when you play that way and then all their players know they're accountable for performance play byplay because the the backup one at Georgia sometimes is just as good as the one so the players know that and then the big thing I've always been impressed with a Cirby smart team is you watch their sideline um when you watch their sideline during a game everybody everybody has a job I don't care if it's the assistant coaches I don't care if it's the trainer strength coaches video ball boys everybody has a very detailed organized role plan that they follow and and I have a similar model here and what you find is the Players see that they see it they appreciate it they appreciate the way the game is played they played the game the same way when it was z0 as when they were up 34 to3 coach smart and his staff coach is the same way and that's the level of detail that we're working to get at here at Tennessee Tech and um that's what impresses me the most about uh coach smart all the years I've been watching him from the time he was a coordinator now a head coach that's the that's the job that he does and he sets a really good tone for for all the other college football coaches did I did I see you have some BC ties I did yeah I worked for Jack pcell in uh 88 and ' 89 as a as a graduate assistant that's that was pretty good pretty good game they played this weekend down in Tallahassee yeah they they sure did that you see Bill O'Brien he's um smart detailed um those kids I watched I watched that game last night just the way they play field position quarterback smart everything they do yeah that was that was a lot of fun being a graduate system for Jack mcnell it's one of my alltime all-time favorite coaches this this was post fluty era it was about three years after the miracle in Miami that you and I are dating ourselves right now yeah people listening weren't even a twinkle in their mother's eye yeah well I I saw that and and obviously I watched the game last night so I really appreciate your time I always uh uh I enjoy these games you know particularly for you guys who come in and you know it's a tough um you know road to ho or whatever you want to call it but uh you know it's necessary Kirby talks about it too he he wants to play these gamesz he wants to stroke that check because he says it's important that you know people play football wherever it is you got to keep the game alive and um so I don't know I don't know how uh I'll have to go back and check and see what the check is y'all are getting but I'd imagine it it's going to represent a pretty good piece of your budget for the year oh it's certainly from that standpoint there's no question coach Mart's right you know that that certainly helps when you look at particularly when you're looking at FCS programs that don't draw 93,000 people at at $50 a ticket and have a $5 million gate every game you know our team led the the league in attendance last year drawing about 8,000 people that's more along the lines of what you see at FCS football so the financial part of it uh certainly helps you at this level it's critical the the fundraising piece is critical you have to do those things as as an FCS coach to to help yourself in those regard the the biggest issue right now is unlike when I first started coaching you didn't have the portal players generally went somewhere and red shirted and stayed five years most of your leagues were Regional for example when I was playing at the University of Maine that was a that was a bus League we played Regional teams the original Ohio Valley Conference that Tennessee Tech belonged to that was Regional even look at the Southeastern Conference it was more Regional in the past so now with the expansion of these Leagues with the the trips you got to make we've gotta you know we gotta play Western Illinois this year that that's a 10hour bus ride um a lot of these leagues have have changed and split so it does be it's even more relevant in situations for the um for the athletic department to to play these games well I appreciate your time thank you so much yeah coach thank you for your time this morning best of luck this weekend we'll talk to you again next week all right my pleasure guys have a great day