If there's one thing I want for Christmas, it's a person to transcribe interviews. But I can't have that right now for many reasons, including the fact I don't have a lot of money. So I transcribe my own and there's a lot of notes that come up that a journalist doesn't use and I figured I'd share that with readers.
So in the first of what could become a series, I share my full interview with SDSU football coach John Stiegelmeier prior to the Nebraska football game Saturday. This took place Monday, Sept. 16, prior to much of the fallout at Nebraska regarding to Bo Pelini but some of the circus in Huskerland is touched upon. Very little of this made the actual story I wrote, so I felt like sharing.
On this game being
hyped similarly to USD or NDSU with everyone looking forward to it but only
playing Nebraska for the third time in school history.
“I think it’s natural to look forward to this game. I don’t
think we’ve overlooked any of our opponents to this point. But I don’t think
it’s the Super Bowl and you get so high that you lose track of how to play your
game of football. It’s going to be a great test because we’re not going to face
better athletes this year or a more storied program. Let’s go play our best
football in a very storied environment.
You’ve talked in the
past about eliminating awe from your players when the arrive in a place like
Memorial Stadium in these FBS games. It's a nice idea but how do you go about that?
“I think it’s how you approach it. You don’t talk down about
Nebraska or their program and make fun of the fact that they lost to UCLA.
We’re not UCLA. And so I think the main thing is that when you walk into the
stadium on Friday, you say “This is what’s going to happen. Get it out of your
system,” your parents are going to be here and they’re only going to be excited
about you playing your best football. You’re not here to be a tourist. I come
by this naturally because when we went Division I everyone talked about “Look
where you get to go play.” And the minute I heard that I thought, “That has
nothing to do with it.” These guys work way too hard to go in and say look
where I got to play. As opposed to, look how well I played.
Given that there’s
been a couple Valley teams who have upset BCS teams, does that give your team
confidence that they could be next?
I think it’s a unique year for that to happen. When
Appalachian State beat Michigan, I did the math. One out of every 82 of those
games was an FCS victory. This year is a little out of whack. All I care about
is that we go in there and do what we’re capable of doing and not worry about
what other teams have done. Being the football team can be what we can be.
On being 3-0 in 2013
going to play Nebraska, as opposed to being 0-3 in 2010 going to play Nebraska.
I think it does, yeah. Although we took the field in 2010,
with a unique confidence. We were probably disappointment in where we were that
year and we had to prove something against our toughest test. We were ranked high
early in that season also, so there’s some similarities between the two. I
think these guys because of the success so far, our guys have a little bit more
mature attitude about what we can do this time.
On the importance of
scoring early
It’s really important. Unfortunately, in our business, after
Nebraska losing one game, there’s a lot of pressure on them. That’s an intense
environment. Not against us but against them. That’s unfortunate. These are 18
to 22 year old guys and they work hard and there’s way too much importance put
on yards and points and wins and losses.
You have a handful of
players who got playing time in 2010 at Nebraska and are on the team now. Do
you lean on those players to lead your team going down there again?
I may have some of those guys say something. I love the
leadership of our football team. I’m sure a number of those guys will probably
go to the younger guys on the bus and tell them “Hey, it’s just a football game.”
It’s our toughest test and don’t overlook it but don’t get caught up in, “I
mean Holy Cow!” It’s not any different from last week except there’s 10 times
as many people and you know. [laughs] I’m not making light of the level of
play. We just need to go down and play our best football. That’s all we can do.
On the keys to the
game
“Put a lot of pressure on our offense. I’ve seldom, if ever,
have done that. But we’re going to have to move the ball. They have given up
some yards. Again, different matchups but our offense should be able to find
its niche and find some advantages. They’re not going to be at too much of an
advantage because they are sound but maybe the guy tackling Zenner is at a
disadvantage. The guy tackling Cam Jones is at a disadvantage. We have to be
better in special teams. We have stunk up the joint the last two games. We just
can’t do that down there. Sometimes those are the biggest plays in football, we
don’t want that to be big against us. We have to shore that up rapidly and I
have faith we’ll do that. Defensively, if we continue to take the ball away,
those are huge plays. I think we can do that. For whatever reason, this year
has been magical in that regard. Don’t worry about yards, control their speed
and take the ball away.
You mentioned your
team has been very strong in the takeaway-giveaway category this year. How do
you continue that success against a better team like Nebraska?
We want to keep it going. It adds some belief to the fact
that penalties and turnovers and mental errors are huge in the game. Sometimes
you look at the box score and you wonder how a team lost the game and then look
at those key categories that nobody talks about. There’s a lot championships
won by the teams that make the fewest mistakes, as opposed to the ones that
make the big plays.
Your defense has
allowed a lot of passing yards. Nebraska has a couple of strong passing
defense. How will you go about improving your team in that regard?
Coaching with confidence. Too often we’ve coached our guys
not to give up the big play. We’re going to try to teach the technique and give
them the confidence to make the play. Trust your reads and make the play. We’ll
be coaching them up and giving them the best chance. There’s a bunch of
matchups in football. If they beat you on a play, it’s one play.
