LOGAN, Utah – Utah State head football coach Gary Andersen addressed the media on Monday, recapping the Aggies' loss against BYU last weekend and previewing their Mountain West road game at Fresno State this Saturday. A complete transcript of the press conference can be found below.
 
Head Coach Gary Andersen
On the BYU game:
"We are disappointed, obviously, with the BYU game. Everybody that is an Aggie is disappointed. It was a tough football game. BYU played well. They deserved to win the football game. It came down to a lot of the same things at the end of the game. The turnovers were huge. The missed tackles were a big part of it. Two mobile quarterbacks gave us problems at times. BYU made some big plays on the offensive side of the ball. If we can convert in the red zone, get an opportunity and ball up a little bit on defense in the red zone, it's a different score. I don't know if the outcome would have been different, but the score could have been different, but it was not. We have to buckle up, dive in, keep on grinding and keep on fighting. These guys will do that. They've already come back this morning, and they'll come back this afternoon, and get themselves prepared for another tough game against Fresno State."
 
On Fresno State:
"Fresno State is an athletic team, as always. They've had some solid games as they've gone through the year and have continued to battle through the year. We're in very similar spots. They are last year's Mountain West champions. They have a good football team, and they understand how they're going to be able to win football games. We've got to get on an airplane, fly down there, play them in Fresno on their home field. It's a great opportunity, and we look forward to getting back to work. We have four games left that are all guaranteed, and we'll see what we get done to move onto another one as we go through time. We're in the fight, and we're in the race. Our guys will be excited to come back and battle, which they will."
 
On the difficulty of not losing conference perspective after the BYU game:
"The BYU game has, obviously, great importance. You grow up in a rivalry and whatever side you're on, it's huge. To lose, it stings, and it hurts a lot. You have to sit and you have to stare at that empty spot where the wagon wheel is supposed to be for an entire year. That's sports, though. That's what we signed up for. Is that the way we want it to be? Absolutely not. We have to be able to move on and get to the next game, but it stings; it stings bad. It's a tough deal. There is always a little bit more that goes into a rivalry, and anybody that says that there's not, you either need to understand it as a little bit more important, or your feelings are wrong – one of the two. We have to go on the road and play well, which we've done in the past. We beat a very good San Diego State team on the road. They proved to be that as they moved through the year. Opportunities will be there. The Aggies need to continue to work to grow and develop. There were some good signs in the BYU game, and there were some signs that weren't good. We'll look to address them all and work to get better."
 
On improving the tackling:
"There are a lot of things you can actually do. There are opportunities to leverage the ball a little bit differently with some other defenders that are on the field. It's important to look at the whole field and what's getting you into those one-on-one tackling scenarios, and those one-on-one tackling situations. You always want to try and make it be as condensed of a field as you can with the other defenders that are leveraging themselves back into the field on the defensive side. You can improve angles, even if you're not really physical in your tackling and you're getting guys down to the ground. That's a big part of it, obviously. There's more to it. There's the point to where the tackle takes place that you can strive to improve on as you work through practice. There are times where you need to lay your hands on people and wrap them up, sometimes to the ground and sometimes just to get into the position to physically be able to take them to the ground. There are things we can work on. It's disappointing, but the bottom line is we need to coach it better. That's always been my philosophy. When something's not good, we need to look at and take responsibility. And the players will, too. We'll make sure we do, and we'll work on it."
 
On if tackling has been the biggest defensive issue he's seen in the last two weeks:
"There is a lot that goes into that. It would be a cop-out sitting here in any way, shape or form as a coach to just sit say, 'Oh, well, if the guys tackled better, or our scheme is perfect, we're great coaches and we just have to tackle better.' That's not the case. We can work to tweak the schemes and help the guys to get where they need to be and have a better understanding. There's no real reason to sit back when you're struggling and you're dealing with adversity. If you've done this long enough, which, obviously, I have, there will be times where it's really good and you can sit up here and pound your back and say, 'I'm great.' There are times where you can sit up here and say, 'I'm not great.' That's just not my style. My style is to look back and say we'll work to get the guys better, and when it's good, it's all the players. We can help them. That's the key thing to help them and make sure that's crystal clear in their minds and it's clean, they play fast and precise. Just because it looks good on the board all the time doesn't mean it always looks good out on the field, so we'll work to do that. Last week, our goal was to play fast, physical and smart. We need to be more physical. We need to put the players in a position to be more physical, also. We can help them do that."
 
On not having junior linebacker David Woodward for the remainder of the season:
"Not having David is a huge blow for every Aggie, at every level. It's the hardest for him, trust me, it's the hardest for the kid. He'll go through it, but it's a devastating blow for a young man to be in that spot. As a player, I had two half-seasons taken away from me, and it's tough. The key is to help him, and then to help the young guys that are playing. We need to continue to help Elijah (Shelton) and AJ (Vongphachanh) to get better and to work out there as a unit, and make sure that Kevin (Meitzenheimer) doesn't feel like he has to just take care of the freshmen all the time, and get him lined up so that Kevin can do his job as well as he can. It's a big blow, our kids need to pick it up from where it is and go from there. I said it earlier today on an interview, we lost David now, and I don't think it's fair to Fua (Leilua) if we just forget about Fua, because he wasn't there the first game of the year. If we're talking about guys that have been gone for the year that are great players, Fua has to be mentioned in that spot, also. It's not an excuse because we lost him, that's where we're at and the way that we're playing, but I think it's in fairness to Fua to recognize him as a great player that was with us and is no longer with us as David is now."
 
On how balanced of a threat the Fresno State offense presents:
"On tape, it's balanced, it's a good attack. Jeff Tedford is a heck of a coach, he does a great job of coordinating the defense and running a football team, and has had a lot of experience doing it. They want to be balanced, they want to cause you some issues with formations in different scenarios, which is what every good offensive coordinator does. They have their plan and they've done a good job with that for years, from what I can see. I haven't watched them a bunch in the past, lately, but I've watched enough to go back over the summer to see that they want to physically run the football, and they want to stretch the edges of the defense and make sure that they force you to hone in on the fly sweep and some other things that come with it, then they throw the ball vertically. They do a good job of using the full football field, which a good offense does."
 
On handling a mobile quarterback like Fresno State's Jorge Reyna:
"He's a mobile guy, he's very smart, much like the two young men we faced last week. They're savvy-smart football players, they make good decisions, they're not going to cost their team, and when he has an opportunity to run he'll go out and run. He's been a very good quarterback for the scheme that they're asking him to play, and I think he plays right within the skill set of what coach Tedford and what his offensive coaches expect."
 
On the Fresno State defense:
"They're an athletic, talented group that I think is well-coached and sound. They replaced a bunch of guys from a year ago, and they seem to be battling and fighting their tails off every single week. I guess the most noticeable thing to me is, scheme-wise, they're sound, they play hard, and they're a group that's going to make you earn your way. That's what a quality defense does, is give you an opportunity when you have a chance to make a play, to make a play. They haven't been a team that's given up huge amounts of big plays. They're a good football team. We're going in to play a good football team, and we'll do that the next week and the next week."
 
On Fresno State in general:
"Fresno State's always been a team who is going to be who they are. You get an identity of a team and what their position is, and they're physical, tough, athletic. I think they're very well coached. You don't win a championship a year ago and be where they were and not have a great group of kids that are very talented and have great coaches."
 
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