Sept. 18, 2001
Three of Baylor's head coaches spoke to the media at Tuesday's press luncheon. Below are excerpts from their comments.
Head Soccer Coach Nick Cowell:
On last weekend's cancelled games:
"We had an unusual trip to Arkansas... We drove 10 hours to Fayetteville, only to find out that there were no athletic events to be played. So, we spend the night there and promptly came back the next day... We were disappointed not to play, but we certainly understand why."
"We rushed and scheduled TCU for Monday, but there really is no chance of making up the other game."
On Monday's 3-1 win over TCU:
"The result was good... We felt good about the first half, not so good about the second half. We have a very young team, for part of the game, all 11 players on the field were either freshmen or sophomores... This team has a lot of talent, and they've shown flashes of brilliance, but they're not consistent the whole game."
On Friday's opponent, Rice:
"This is their program's first year, but Rice got a very good recruiting class. It should be a good game."
On the team's goalkeeper situation:
"We lost Emily Koch at the beginning of the season, so we put freshman Mel Pannell in goal. She separated her shoulder in the first game, so we put Emily back in. She's taking it for the team right now, playing through a lot of pain with a bad back injury. We've also activated Stephanie Dempsey as a backup goalie. She's probably our best athlete in terms of strength, speed and size, but she hasn't played goalie before. There is a high possibility that Emily might not be ready to go this weekend, so Stephanie could play. She's played sweeper, so we told her that she just needed to play 30 yards back, and she could use her hands."
Head Cross Country Coach Todd Harbour:
On hosting the Baylor Invitational this Saturday:
"We'll have over 50 high school teams and around 15 collegiate teams, including Texas A&M, TCU, and North Texas. This is probably the best collegiate field we've ever had, I think A&M is ranked around No. 18."
"Our men and women are very excited... I think you have to go back aways to find the last time our men and women both won the meet, and that happened our first time out."
Head Football Coach Kevin Steele:
On the effects of the past week's tragic events:
"Throughout all this, football and sports in general have been put in perspective. Our thoughts and prayers are with the grieving, the country and our leadership. It puts a different slant on things... We can be very selfish people sometimes, thinking that what we do is the most important thing in the world, but it's not... On the other hand, you do have to move on."
On the team's performance against Arkansas State:
"All in all, our defense played extremely well. Our defensive numbers right now rank among the nation's best in several categories, the key is to keep them there. Not giving up the touchdown was a big thing to the players. They are a cohesive group, they've got a personality, an attitude, they play with reckless abandon."
"Offensively, we did produce 366 yards. In 11 of our last 12 possessions, from the start of the second quarter on, we did not have a three-and-out except for the time we turned it over."
"The kicking game frustrated us, because we left some points on the board. We're frustrated, but not alarmed. It might have been first game jitters, it didn't show up before the game, and it hasn't shown up afterwards."
"I expect to see improvement in every phase this week. I expect to be better offensively, and I expect to be better defensively. Even the things we did well -- I think we can run the ball better, and we should play better defense."
On this week's opponent, New Mexico:
"They do a lot of things on defense, we'll just have to hunt and peck until we find where we want to go. In negative terms, you could say it's starting out slow. In positive terms, it's finding out what works and seeing quarters like the second, third and fourth quarters [against ASU]."
"Their defense will line up in some unorthodox ways. They come at you from the time they get off the bus until the time they get back on the bus to go home. In all situations, they come with some form of blitz 93% of the time."
"It will take some patience for us... They change things up from game to game. We'll have to hunt and peck a little bit to find out what works... They pose some problems with what they do defensively."
"They run the ball very well, they have a good running back... Their passing game the first couple of games was probably not where they want it to be, but they'll get it right. They are a good team, and this will be a challenge."
On adding Southern Illinois to the schedule:
"Because there is not one person who manages college football like there is with the NFL... there was no total unity to say that the last week all the teams would make up their games or that they would all be canceled.
"Our problem was being respectful of the Big 12 Championship on Dec. 1. We didn't want to schedule a game for that day. We would have preferred to have had two weeks to try and schedule something, but we were left with only a one-week window. You can't schedule for Dec. 1, what sort of message would that have sent?
"Minnesota has a game Nov. 24, so their only open date was Dec. 1, so that wouldn't work. [Associate AD] Paul Bradshaw has been on the phone for the last 48 hours trying to line something up. Just when you think you have something, they go somewhere else."
"I like that we're playing at home, but there are some other factors there [in scheduling a team other than Minnesota]. We've spent countless hours preparing for Minnesota, but now that's not going to happen."
