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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 12, 2016

Chris Ash

Piscataway, New Jersey

CHRIS ASH: Good afternoon. Good morning still, I guess. Getting close to good afternoon. But thanks for coming. Appreciate you guys coming every Monday.

Excited for another home game, another chance for us to play in front of our home fans, our student body. Really appreciate the support that we received last Saturday from everybody, and we're excited to be able to come back out and hopefully have another fun afternoon here at our home stadium.

I want to give special mention to Janarion Grant. As you guys know, he received the Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week, an honor well-deserved. He's been an outstanding kickoff return guy and even punt return, although he hasn't had a lot of opportunities. He's fielded a lot of punts, but he's been an outstanding returner for us in the first two weeks. He's had a tradition of doing that here throughout his career, and excited for him to be able to receive that honor.

Other special teams guy I'd like to give mention to is Larry Stevens. He was our Special Teams Player of the Week here on our football team. Larry is a guy not a lot of people know about. He came here as a walk-on back in May back at the beginning of summer workouts, just a -- doesn't say much, just works extremely hard, and when I pick up the remote and I push play on the remote, I really love the way this kid plays and what he brings to our football team on special teams.

We were in a team meeting yesterday talking about special teams and using him as an example of how we want the game to be played with our football team. We can't get enough guys like Larry Stevens. The guy is tough. He plays with relentless strain. Doesn't say anything at all. He'll knock people down, get knocked down, he gets back up, goes to the sideline and asks for his next mission. We'd love to have a team full of guys like Larry Stevens. But really appreciate what he brings to the table as a guy that came here as a walk-on, and he's going to earn himself a scholarship if he keeps doing what he's doing. Really excited about Larry.

Injury update, again, not talking a lot about injuries, but one that will be out for a while is Saquan Hampton. He'll miss the next few weeks. He will be back later on this season, but he'll be out for the next few weeks. Did not get a chance to play last Saturday against Howard and will not play again this week against New Mexico. Not sure when we'll get him back yet, but it won't be for a few weeks.

Talking about our next opponent, New Mexico comes to town. New Mexico is going to be a tremendous challenge for our football team. Got tremendous amount of respect for Coach Bob Davie and his staff. They're a veteran groups of coaches that have won a lot of games at a lot of different stops. They've done an outstanding job of turning New Mexico around. They've done it with a unique offense.

They run the option. They do it as well as anyone in the country. In the last three to four years, they've been able to run the ball on anybody. They've got unique schemes on defense. Defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove has been an outstanding defensive coordinator for his whole career, and again, got a lot of respect for those guys. Got to know Coach Davie during my time at Ohio State, and he's a first-class individual as well as a coach.

We have to have tremendous focus and great preparation to go out and try to play and win a game against a team like New Mexico.

Their option schemes will force us to be extremely disciplined, be tough and force us to tackle well out in space to have a chance to go out and win a football game.

With that, I'll go ahead and open it up for questions.

Q. Chris, at this point will Kiy Hester start in his place, Saquan's place for the first --
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, that's what he did this last week, and that'll continue.

Q. I know they do it out of the pistol, but how similar is what New Mexico does offensively to what like Army or Navy does, which Rutgers players have faced before, and I think if I'm correct you faced Navy last year, too, so you have some familiarity with it?
CHRIS ASH: It's quite a bit different. There's some similarities. It starts with the triple option but it's quite a bit different. They have a variety of plays that they run off of the same set. I think how they do it out of the gun and the sets they do it out of gives them more flexibility to create problems for your defense, so it's going to be a tremendous challenge.

I mean, playing the academies when they're humming, running the option the way they do is a challenge, but this one I think presents more challenges than the traditional double-slot type of sets that these guys will incorporate now, also, but it's a little bit different.

Q. Through your first two games as head coach, how would you evaluate your preparation and process leading up for a game week?
CHRIS ASH: I guess it's measured on wins and losses, and we're 1-1, so what's that, probably a C? If you're looking at results, you're talking about just the actual process of preparation? It's similar to what I've been around for a long time.

We have a way that we're going to prepare the football team throughout the course of the week with meetings, with practice, with motivation. We have a way that we're going to prepare the football team when we get ready for a game on a Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and that's the way I've been around it for a long time, the way I was at it at Ohio State and at Arkansas and Wisconsin. Both of them are very similar, and we had a lot of success doing it that way, and it's what I believe in.

We have a process that I think works, and it's really an infallible plan in my opinion, but we've just got to keep fine-tuning it as we go forward here with this group of people, coaches and players alike.

Q. The fact that some of your kids have faced Army and they've faced Navy, they've faced the option, can that at all be of benefit as you guys get ready for this team on Saturday?
CHRIS ASH: I guess, but it's different. It's a different style of offense. It's not Army. It's not Navy. So when you hear option, don't confuse it with that. It's not the same. The sets are different. The plays are different. They have more threats at passing the ball, also. Quarterback is different. I mean, it's different. I mean, although there are some similarities, you say triple option is triple option, it's like calling spread offenses all the same. They're not all the same.

The triple option teams, there are similarities but there are a lot of differences, and New Mexico does it different. They're unique in what they do compared to just about anybody else in the country, and I think they've done an outstanding job putting together their offensive package that fits the personnel that they get year in and year out there at New Mexico, and they've had a ton of success with it.

Q. You guys have had some slow starts in the first quarter. How concerned are you about that, and what can be done to kind of fix that going forward?
CHRIS ASH: Well, I mean, you look at slow starts, we had a slow start this last week without a doubt. When you look back at the Washington game, I wouldn't call it necessarily a slow start. I think we got hit in the mouth by a pretty good football team who's in the top 10 right now. I think they're two different scenarios.

Do I think our football team was prepared and ready to go play in both weeks? Yeah, I do. But we did start slow against Howard. Can't deny that, won't deny that. We did. We can't do that against a really good-quality opponent or we'll put ourselves in a hole that we can't get out of.

What we've got to do is just got to continue to work and focus on the preparation. There's all kinds of excuses I could make and give you for why a team would start slow. I'm not into that, and I'm not going to do that. We have to start games better, and that's bottom line.

Q. What did you and Drew see from the three quarterbacks that played on film, and then any game plan changes with quarterback this week?
CHRIS ASH: Well, they were all three different because they played in different scenarios. The game was obviously in hand when we put in Gio and we put in Tylin Oden. We weren't going to throw the ball at that point. There was no need to. We just wanted to run the ball and continue to work on our run game and give those guys a chance to work on the run game, also.

It's like I said after the game, Chris Laviano did some good things. He did some bad things. Ball security continues to be a major concern. Quarterback fundamentals continue to be a major concern. We've got to get him better. Decision making continues to be a concern.

But did he do some good things to help lead our offense down the field and score points? Absolutely he did. He made some good throws. He made some good decisions, and the run game, he's got to be more consistent at getting us in the right protections at times based on the defensive look.

You put in Gio, there's really no pressure on those quarterbacks when they come in, the game is in hand, so they play more relaxed. Gio had very few reps and scored a touchdown. Obviously he had a good set of plays in there.

Tylin Oden came in, same thing. He was a freshman in his first college reps, but again, I think he was probably more relaxed because there was really no worry about the outcome of the game, and he was able to go in and run the ball effectively, and that's what we hoped he would be able to do.

Q. Do you envision a scenario in which you'll play multiple quarterbacks considering the success that they had?
CHRIS ASH: Not at this moment. Chris Laviano is still our starter, but we're still evaluating that position just like we are several positions on what we've got to do to get it better and perform better on Saturdays. Chris knows that, and we all know that. We're working diligently every day to try to work on the things that need to be worked on with him, and it's like any other position, if we keep going and the production isn't there or we don't feel like a certain individual gives us the best chance to win, then we'll look at other options.

Q. Robert Martin as your starting running back, how did he move ahead of Justin?
CHRIS ASH: I think Robert was our starter going into fall camp, and he was our starter through fall camp until he was slowed through an injury. He came back and had a really good week of practice last week. I thought he showed some signs of burst and speed and change of direction at the running back position that we're looking for to help our run game, and really excited to have him back.

When we look at our list of top potential playmakers on offense, we put Rob Martin in the top group of guys that needs to get the ball, whether it be in the run game or in the throw game, and I'm glad he's back and he's healthy and he had a good game.

Q. On Saturday I saw you used Zach Heeman in place of Tariq Cole for a little while. Is that an open battle? What's that like looking into this week, and do you plan on using both again?
CHRIS ASH: No, Tariq is the starter, and he had a rough patch of some plays there in the game, and just felt like he needed to come out and get his mind right and to go back in like he did in the second half and played really good football in the second half.

We do some highlight clips to show the team, some good effort and finishes after each game, and he was actually on that highlight tape with some good finishes in the second half.

But for whatever reason he was a guy that just didn't come out of the gates playing well Saturday, and we just felt like it was better to get him to the sideline, let him recover and get his mind right and then go back in, and it worked.

Q. Just to elaborate a little bit on Janarion Grant, you and the staff have talked about getting him the ball any way that you can because he's pretty much the most dynamic player on this team. One kind of imagines you --
CHRIS ASH: How did you figure that out?

Q. One kind of imagines you, because of that, in a room somewhere huddling up trying to figure out ways to get -- how does it work? Do you just get him in the game and what you can get him, do you draw things up specifically for him?
CHRIS ASH: Well, yeah, we have an offensive system that we believe in and are excited about as we move forward. But part of that plan with our offense is to identify who our playmakers are and find different ways to get them the ball. Janarion obviously is probably -- he is at the top of the list when you look at the playmakers on our football team, so we have to be able to get him the football as many different ways as we can, whether it's at wide out, quarterback, running back, in the run game, in the pass game. Those conversations have been going on. They started last spring when we first got here after we really identified Janarion as our top playmaker. They've been going on all through training camp, and you look in the first two games, how has Janarion gotten the ball. I think you see it a lot of different ways, and that trend will continue.

Q. I'm sure you guys probably keep some sort of snap count. What can you tell us about how much Darius has been able to do the first two games? Is he playing about as much as you thought he would, or will he pick up more of a workload as we go forward?
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, he's played -- the first game he didn't play as many snaps as he did this last game, and that, again, was all by design. We were going to work him back into hopefully getting three fourths of the snaps, so really it's not even about a rep count. It's about how Darius feels, his body is as he goes and his conditioning and how the flow of the game is going. But he played more snaps in the second game than he did the first game. They were all productive snaps. We are a better football team, better defense with him out there, and the more Darius can be out there, the better.

But he feels great. I don't think he has any -- other than just typical bumps and bruises from playing, he has any issues with his knees like he had in the past. We're excited to see him continue to increase his rep count and be out there to help us as we get moving forward into Big Ten play.

Q. Jawuan Harris, obviously didn't see a whole lot of him from the spring, but has he progressed quicker than you thought just to be able to start three weeks into the season?
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, Jawuan has done a nice job in the summer. Once he came over to football full time and we really got a chance to work with our team and our staff, he showed right away that he had the ability to potentially be a playmaker for us. He had a great summer, had a really good training camp. I think he's off to a pretty good start in the first two games. Anxious to see him continue to grow and progress and learn the offense and become a bigger part of our offense.

Again, when I talk about the list of playmakers, I've already mentioned Janarion and Rob Martin as two of them. I would throw Jawuan Harris as another one that has playmaker ability that's in that top group of guys that we need to find ways to get the football to.

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