Sam Houston Coach Phil Longo Praises Oregon State's Balance and Physicality
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On Saturday, Oregon State senior day pits the Beavers against the Sam Houston Bearkats (0-8 overall, 0-5 Conference USA). Earlier this week, Sam Houston coach Phil Longo spoke with local reporters about his team’s upcoming challenges in Corvallis. His press conference can be found on the Sam Houston athletics website. This piece features highlights from that conversation.
Sam Houston head coach Phil Longo’s opening statement
“With regards to the approach heading into this week, I’ll tell you that we closed this game [last weekend’s loss to Louisiana Tech] pretty quickly, and our focus now is on the final third of the season. A real good coach told me one time that you remember what you do in November. That’s our focus right now, and so we are locked in one game at a time, and we’ll start this trek through November with Oregon State on Saturday away.”
Sam Houston head coach Phil Longo on finding silver linings in a winless season
“In the sport of football there are a lot of little different worlds: you have the receiver room and that world, you have the defensive back room and that world, and you’ve got offense & defensive units - those two worlds - and then you have the whole team. At the end of the day, it’s the accumulative production by all three facets [offense, defense, special teams] that create wins. From Zack Patterson’s standpoint as the offensive coordinator here, we are doing some good things offensively, we’re trending in the right direction, we have gotten better week to week, regardless of what the injuries are or what the personnel is, we have continued to emphasize certain areas, improve certain areas, and progress.”
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Sam Houston head coach Phil Longo’s outlook on Oregon State’s offense
“Oregon State is very balanced on offense. They’ve got two quarterbacks. Maalik Murphy has played most of the snaps. I don’t know if it’s because of the coaching change or not, but I think they made a change soon after the coaching change, they have won both games under the new interim head coach. They’ve also played Gabarri Johnson. Those two guys are very, very different. You [Houston-area Sports Radio 610 producer Collin Neill] Colin asked me about the two quarterback system earlier in the season with regards to our defense facing a team that had two QBs, this one’s a little more challenging just because Maalik and Gabarri are very different. They’re very different quarterbacks, and Gabarri’s a very talented, gifted runner as well. They leaned on the run game a little bit more after the coaching change - and while Gabarri was out on the field - so we have to prepare for two of ‘em, don’t know which one we’re gonna see, we may see both of ‘em, they’re both very different, so we just gotta be ready for what that skillset is from whichever quarterback they choose on that particular down, drive, or quarter."
Sam Houston head coach Phil Longo’s outlook on Oregon State’s defense
“They do well in the box. They’re solid in the box, a very good defensive line, and linebackers are aggressive. It’s a very different look and a different feel from what we faced last week. They’re gonna stop the run first like most defenses want to do. In games where they’ve played well I think they’ve done a good job at stopping the run, so they’re going to try to force you to be a little bit more one dimensional, I think they want to force you to try to beat ‘em in the air, so we’re gonna have to be balanced. We were balanced this last game, we want to continue to do that."
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Sam Houston head coach Phil Longo on improving his team’s tackling
“There’s areas that we have that we feel confident about, there’s areas that you execute well in certain areas of the year. The last couple weeks I have not felt as comfortable with our open field tackling. This is a professional staff - you sit down, you talk to the side that it pertains to - we’ve had issues on offense, defense, special teams, and we address all of those, all three facets, every week. The defensive staff have the same frustrations, they have the same focus, the same emphasis, obviously the open field tackling is an emphasis for us. I do think we are gonna return DJ Jackson, we’re gonna return Dylan Frazier, and we’re gonna return Quardale Patt this week, so the three defensive linemen we lost last week will be back, they are practicing, and they will make the trip and play for us again Saturday. Hopefully we’ll get back to a little more normalcy up front on defense, emphasize open field tackling here, and put together a better four quarters defensively this week against Oregon State.”
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Matt fell in love with radio during his college days at Oregon Tech, and pursued a nine year career in sports broadcasting with Klamath Falls' and Medford's highest-rated sports radio stations. He currently lives in McMinnville wine country and is excited to talk about the Beavers again.