Coach Doeren met with the media this week to discuss the bowl game with Memphis, the college football calendar, and much more!
Thoughts on playing Memphis in the Gasparilla Bowl…
Well, we played in that bowl was different sponsorship than when we played in it years ago. Had a great experience. Obviously, the climate weather is great for the fans and players are excited.
Our footprint in Florida with recruiting and current players from Florida, they're excited. But playing earlier is a different thing for us. So it's really expedited.
What normally looks like in bowl games, it's almost like a bye week and then a game, getting ready. And so we had our last day of finals yesterday. And so now it's all football with them for a very short period of time. We play in eight days, I think.
But they are a good opponent, storied program, and won their last four bowl games. I have a lot of respect for how they play football and how hard they play. Our kids do too. So we're excited about the opportunity.
How do you handle giving veterans some rest and getting the younger guys some reps?
Well, last week, we did that, we had several walkthroughs last week to keep the guys polished. Got him in the weight room, gave him time off, and didn't hit it all last week. And then this week, with finals going on, had a couple days of lifting, and then yesterday and today and tomorrow, we're after it.
Because of our depth, there's just not a lot of normal practice time, if the bowl game was on the 30th or something, you'd have more developmental practices. So the way we're built right now with the injuries we've had, the young guys are playing the way they played this year. But the scout teams have done a great job, they gave us a great look out there and that's how they're getting evaluated right now.
How advantageous is playing an early bowl with the one portal window coming up that you can kind of have time to prepare for that rather than bowl changes?
Yeah, I think there is some advantage to that, probably. At the same time, our guys are gone sooner, and so I like being around them this time of year with all the stuff going on in college football and the different forces pulling on them at every turn, it seems like. So not being with them makes me nervous, to be honest.
I am excited that they get time off. There's been years where we play on December 31st and school starts on January 2nd, and it's like, wow, no time off for this team. We start later this year and we play earlier, so I am happy that the staff and the players actually get a chance to catch their breath.
I think that'll be good for everybody's mental health going into the second semester.
Obviously, there have been several teams that have opted out of their bowl games and there are people who say, some of these non-playoff goals don't matter, but this has been a really big emphasis for the program. What makes a bowl game so special for you and for the program?
Well, it's just another opportunity to develop and coach and compete, and you come here to play football, and I've always looked at bowl games as a reward that you earn, and it's a life experience for these guys, getting to go somewhere and have the bowl experience, five days in Tampa, Florida, togetherness, team camaraderie, all of that.
From a coaching side, normally you get extra time to practice and give your rookies a lot more reps, which we can't do as much in this one, but I don't understand opt-outs, period. Like, I think the whole thing, like football is about finishing, and so I look at football as a gladiator sport, and to me that's thrown in the towel, and that's just not how I'm built. I can't speak for other programs. I don't like the word opt-out, like in life, period. I just, I don't get that.
Like, I'm not wired that way. I hate that football, it's now acceptable for players to do it, and now teams are doing it, and it's just, there needs to be a lot of work on this calendar up top in a leadership role, and I've said it before, and I actually heard my friend Joey McGuire talking about it last week, the calendar needs to slide to the left in football. We need to start earlier and finish earlier, and build in a window where coaches can't be talked to so that they finish their jobs.
I mean, it's criminal to me that there's coaches that have made teams in playoffs and bowl games, and they're not there anymore, and I've dealt with that. Like, I've played in four or five bowl games without coaches because they're gone, and in the NFL, you can't have conversations with coaches until their seasons are over. Finish, like that's what this is all about.
But when the calendar's not made for a guy to be able to finish, that's the way it is. I think we can build a calendar that makes this a finisher's board, and that takes leadership, and we need the people up top to look at this thing, because it's broken bad when you look at the conclusion of seasons. Like, how can a game not be meaningful?
Every game matters to me, and I want to win every game we play, and I want our kids to feel that way, and our coaches to feel that way, and none of us should have other people trying to make us not finish the job we were paid to do.
You just talked about coaches changing jobs, especially we saw with the playoff teams even interim coaching staffs. I'm curious, from a game preparation, how much changes in a situation when you're looking at the film, but the coach is gone. Do they stick to what they know, or there's going to be wrinkles in the interim?
Yeah, I mean, there's going to be wrinkles. You have to expect that, but you have to also expect that they can't change their systems completely. Like, their DNA is going to be their DNA. Will he throw the ball more, run the ball more? Because he's not the guy to call it during the season, we'll have to find out on game day, but you're not going to see a team completely change their systems, especially in a fast bowl game like this one.
But there are some unknowns, and having gone through it in multiple bowl games myself, it's hard. You've got GAs coaching positions, and analysts coaching positions, and those guys weren't coaching those positions all season, all offseason. And so, it'd be pretty difficult to put in too much other than a handful of new plays maybe, or new blitz on defense, and it'd be challenging to change it all the way up. So, you kind of bank on it being about 80% what it was, and adjusting to what's new.
Do you see any difference, or any comparisons to quarterbacks you've faced with the Memphis quarterback with his dual-threat ability?
Yeah, we've played a lot of athletes this year, and he's very similar to the ones we've played, whether it was the last two, I think pretty similar. Shoot, I don't know if we've played a stationary quarterback all season. This guy runs the ball a lot, QB draws, and zone reads, avoid keeps, and things, and he's a leading rusher.
If you take his sack yardage out, he's 860 yards rushing, so he's an impressive runner, nine touchdown runs, and so we've got to account for him. In every scheme that we run, we've got to have somebody that's assigned to that guy in the run game, and understand the scramble part of it too.
And it always comes back to the same conversation, leveraging the ball and having disciplined rush lanes.
What's your stance on players that might be looking to enter the transfer portal, and whether or not they'll play in this bowl game, and how much has that changed given the fact that it is a December 19th game, and the portal doesn't actually open until January 2nd?
Yeah, I mean, I've always felt like if a guy's in the portal, he's not all in on helping you win. And so, I've been fortunate enough to have a team that agrees with me on that, and guys understand my frame of mind. And every year, I guess, things change, and you probably have to take a one-year-at-a-time approach, and football now with everything.
But, going into a game with a guy that's not all in, it's hard. So you try not to put your mind there with guys. And they understand. And they understand how I'm built. I think that's why they came here. They want to play for a guy who believes in those kinds of things.
But it's the reality of football right now. We've played several teams. When we played K-State a few years ago, between the two teams, there were 47 guys that didn't play. And that was when the portal was in December. So now that it's after the bowl, I do think that helps with some of these teams.
This gentleman to my left. This gentleman to my left right here is his last game.
I know.
Can you speak to what he's meant to the university.
Tony, my good friend.
Tony Haynes: Feel free for no comment.
Doeren: I'm going to miss him, man. He's obviously a professional in what he does, but who he is and how he's been with me, it's a big thank you. I'm going to miss you. And he's just a great human being. He's a guy's guy. He can sit around and talk about anything. And, that job that he has is a difficult job at times. We come off a tough loss and the last thing I want to do is get beat up by someone that works for me. But he has to ask tough questions and he's always done it with the utmost respect towards me and this program. And so he'll be missed for sure.
As you go into the portal, I know we talked about recruiting, but a lot of talk about these over the cap numbers guaranteeing new coaches, 25 million extra to build their roster. As you get into the portal, I wonder, you thought you were going to have a cap, but now it feels like it's sort of an uncapped sport once again.
Yeah, it certainly seems like loopholes have won the day. And I don't know what's real or what isn't real anymore when it comes to this, and how this money's supposedly going to be approved through NIL Go and $600 or less. And the teams are going to have $30 million rosters on a cap that's less than that.
So, like I said, it's a mess right now. So you just got to do the best you can. And I know, as a program, Boo and I have met and we're going to do everything we can to be as aggressive as we can in this space.
But I think you'll see it. You can look at some of these teams that took advantage of loopholes, with what Virginia did in the portal last year to get to the championship game with their roster. Texas Tech's probably the greatest example of all of them with what they've been able to do. And they're not hiding it at all, right? Like, you know how much money their D-line's making? Someone said it was $7 million.
Okay. Well, no wonder the D-line's so damn good, right? So, it's like life, right? You get what you pay for sometimes, most of the time. And so that's what people are doing to rebuild. And, some of the schools have more than others. I don't understand how we can say there's a cap, though, if there's not.
How important is it for your team to end on a high note here?
It helps in the offseason. We won three out of the last four and would love to finish four out of five. It gives you a little momentum. And, for a coach and a player, when you lose a game, you don't get rid of that feeling until you play the next game. And that's a long ways from Brazil, right? So none of us want that.
We all want to finish on a good note, win four out of the last five games, which, I think, would be a hell of a season for these guys with all we've dealt with injury-wise. Thank you, guys.
