AZTECS FOOTBALL PRESS CONFERENCE WITH ROCKY LONG: GOING ON THE ROAD

By Liz Alper

Full quotes courtesy of SDSU Assistant Athletic Director Darin Wong

September 13, 2016 (San Diego) - After a heart-stopping 45-40 win against Cal on Saturday, San Diego State football head coach Rocky Long, senior running back Donnel Pumphrey, Kick returner Rashaad Penny and cornerback Derek Babiash sat down with the media for their weekly press conference.

“It’s nice to have a win like we had and it’s nice that DJ broke the record. We knew he was going to do it sooner or later so it’s nice he did it sooner rather than later," Long began. "But now we have to turn our attention to the next game. We can’t think about that anymore; we can’t talk about it much anymore."

The Aztecs are heading out on the road this season for the first time to face Northern Illinois on Saturday.  The Huskies are 0-2, but Long says that they have "an amazing home record" and play well at home. 

Long noted that the Aztecs and Huskies are similar teams.  “I think we have similarities. They’ve been to eight straight bowl games. They want to run the ball first and they want to use the play action pass. They do it a little differently than we do; they use a lot of tight ends instead of a full back. They’ll use two tight ends, three tight ends at times and the other tight end ends up being a full back most of the time. They have what we call 12 personnel or 13 personnel: two tight ends or three tight ends a game and one tailback. Then if they get into long yardage or they get behind like they did last week, they go over to the spread and they’re pretty good at the spread. They run some plays that are unusual and their quarterback carries the ball a lot. They’ll block it so the quarterback has power plays and such."

Though the Aztecs came up with a big win on Saturday, Long noticed a lot of mistakes. "The receivers are fast and we weren’t ready for their speed and their quarterback is good. But you have to give their offensive line credit; we didn’t put the type of pressure on them that we needed. We did make some mistakes on combination routes and in man coverage. That’s the best thing about it; we made a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball but we still won. We can be pretty good if we can stop making mistakes. I think we need to be better about throwing and catching the football. We can’t drop snaps. On defense, I think we need to tackle better."

Coach Long cautioned that Northern Illinois has a fast defense. “This will be the fastest defense we’ve played this year. They’re not as big or as strong as Cal was but they’re much quicker and faster. We have to be able to maintain blocks and keep our angles correct on blocking schemes so they don’t jump around us and make the tackle."

Long took a lot of pride in Pumphrey being named Mountain West Player of the Week. "He’s not very big; that’s the one downside. But he runs big.  He catches the ball well, he runs with it well, he blocks well, he does everything. The best part about it is that he’s a team guy first." 

Pumphrey, on the other hand, is surprised at how his career turned out. “Honestly, I am surprised about it, but I’d say, hard work pays off. I came in just really working my tail off and looking up Adam Muema and seeing the things he was able to do. I’ve just try to work on my game every day and now, I’m here.”

Pumphrey also had a lot of praise for fellow Mountain West Player of the Week Penny. "He just comes to work at it every day. Every time we’re working on kick returns, he’s getting all the reps.  He’s able to make guys miss and he uses that running back instinct back there and he’s able to find seams that a lot of kick returners can’t. That’s what makes him special.”

Penny is generelly a halfback, but is welcoming his kick returning role. “In high school, I wasn’t about returning kicks. I didn’t want to do it. But when I got to this level, I felt that maybe I’d be up for the challenge. When they first put me back there, I was nervous and I never wanted to do it again. But then I started to get to used to the game and the speed of college and how fast they were going. Then the blocking was getting better and I started to find seams.”