Toughest Challenge Yet
12/10/2011 6:10:00 AM | Football
Question - How tough of a challenge is Montana State?
Fritz - You hear me say it every week, but this is going to be the best team we'll play this season. You can't really find any weaknesses. They throw and run the ball well. They're physical.
Offensively, they've got enough speed to do things on the perimeter and stretch you vertically down the field.
Defensively, they're good. They've got a good front. They've got good (line)backers. They've got size, they've got speed. They're probably the best secondary we've faced. They're very solid in the kicking game.
We've got to play good, plain and simple. We've got to play four quarters, if not longer. It's going to be a great challenge. We've had a lot of challenges this year, so this will be another one.
Question - What makes Montana State quarterback DeNarius McGhee, who can be mobile when he wants to be, so effective?
Fritz - He has a very strong arm, so he can throw the football down the field. He runs the ball very well, both on called plays and scrambles. That's a little different element. We've played quarterbacks like that this season, so that's not totally foreign to us.
He's a very good quarterback. He's only 6-foot, but he's 210 pounds. You've really got to wrap him up.
Question - Was there some rust present last week when Sam Houston got off to a slow start against Stony Brook?
Fritz - I'm not sure. The thing that makes it difficult was the time off that we took because of Thanksgiving sitting in there. If it was a regular school week, we would've stayed throughout the week and done some things there. I thought the time off was good for us. We were fresh. We just didn't jump out of the gate real well. We certainly did in the second half. That was a good team we played. We didn't play great in all three phases throughout the game, but there was times when we played really well.
In the second half, offensively we had 273 yards. That might've been our best half of offense and we played excellent in the first half on defense and at the beginning of the third quarter. That's when we put it all together. We played good in the kicking game, we played really good on offense and really good defense in the third quarter.
Question - What are the similarities between Montana State and the Bearkats, if any?
Fritz - Offensively, there really isn't a whole lot of similarities. There are some characteristics that are the same. They don't really run much out of the option as we run. That's a little different. They're going to drop back (in the pocket) a lot more than we will.
Defensively, our initial structure is the same. They get a lot of their pressure out of the four-man rush. They'll play zone and make the quarterback hold the ball a little bit longer than he wants to. We don't get as many sacks because people want to get the ball out quick.
I think there are a lot of good players out there. There's a lot of ways to skin a cat, they just do it a little bit different than we do.
Question - How big of a part of the offense is McGhee's go-to receiver Elvis Akpla?
Fritz - (Akpla) is an excellent football player. He's the guy they're trying to get the ball to when they throw it. He's got at least double the amount of catches as the next guy. He's got very good speed, runs nice routes and can turn the short (receptions) into a long one, so we've got to be aware of where he's at on the field at all times.
Question - How important is it to have the crowd behind you and to have that advantage playing at home?
Fritz - It was just a sensational crowd (last week). I was really excited about our crowd, how loud they were, particularly in the fourth quarter. I thought we had a home-field advantage. I'm hoping to get everybody back and have it even better this week.
I think it's great. I think we're going to have a fantastic crowd. They're going to be louder than they were last week. I thought it was a heck of an atmosphere. I was very, very impressed. The two years I've been here as a head coach and my previous stints as an assistant coach, I don't remember having a crowd like that.
