Q&A With Coach Bonamego
9/27/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
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The Central Michigan football team lost, 30-10, Saturday to No. 2-ranked Michigan State on the road. The Chippewas (1-3) play host to Northern Illinois (2-2) in their Mid-American Conference opener next Saturday (3 p.m.) at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.
CMUChippewas.com: Saturday's game marked your third loss to a team from a Power 5 conference this season, in this case the No. 2-ranked team in the country. Your team has played well enough to legitimately make a claim that it could have won any of those three games. You've said time and again that you don't believe in moral victories, but what are the positives that you take from those results?
John Bonamego: "I think it gives you confidence knowing that you can match up and go toe-to-toe with anybody. There are really great teams in our conference and there are learning experiences and growth from every game. You take the good and you correct the bad and you just try to get better each week. I think from a physical standpoint I thought we held up, we held our own. That's a big plus. There are very few (defensive) front sevens in college football that are going to be better than what Michigan State had out there. You take Oklahoma State, their two defensive ends and their two linebackers, and then the pressure packages and the variety of different things that Syracuse threw at you. We've seen pretty much just about everything that we can possibly see in those three football games. On defense you've seen spread, you've seen option, you've seen more of a pro-style attack, and some pretty good quarterback play from the three teams. If anything, if there's a positive, we should be better prepared going into our conference and compete."
C: Against Michigan State, you had two first-quarter field goals blocked. What happened on those plays?
B: "We didn't execute properly inside. We got too high. They've got people who are going to provide a pretty good surge. You've got to keep your pads down. You've got to be disciplined in your technique. You can't guess. We did that to ourselves. We didn't execute. It's a sore subject with me right now because it's something we take a lot of pride in and we cannot allow those things to happen."
C: Both of those kicks were relatively long, over 40 yards, doesn't the kicker change the way he kicks it from that distance?
B: "The trajectory changes a little bit. When you're on grass - and we practiced on the grass and Brian (Eavey) had plenty of opportunities to kick out on the grass - going from turf to grass can affect the trajectory of the kicks sometimes as well. Bottom line is we've got to give him a chance and we can't get pushed back like that."
C: You took false-start penalties before both of those attempts, adding an additional 5 yards to each kick. Did that adversely affect those attempts?
B: "Maybe more mentally than anything else. It shouldn't, but we can't be offsides. Those are examples of ways we're hurting ourselves right now, whether it's offensively or defensively or the kicking game. That's a concentration thing and you just can't aspire to be a championship team and program and make those kind of mistakes."
C: Penalties played a crucial role in Saturday's game, including the false starts. Was it difficult for the offense to communicate based on the fact that you were playing before 75,000 fans?
B: "No. No it wasn't. We've handled noise. The Carrier Dome was noisier than that place. It's an open stadium. We can't say that that was a factor at all."
C: You go into a Michigan State and you're within a touchdown in the fourth quarter, with a chance to win, and you go into the Carrier Dome with Syracuse and you go to overtime and the result is a game you certainly could have won. Down the road, just being in those situations against teams like that, how does that help you?
B: "Again, having the confidence that comes knowing that you can line up against the very best and go toe-to-toe and compete with those people. It's the confidence factor. I want to make it perfectly clear that as a program, as a team, we expect to win those games. We don't care who we're playing. Our objective is to win. We're not happy with a loss, we don't except losing, ever, and never will. We just have to find a way in the future to finish those games out and win them."
C: What steps does the coaching staff take to ensure that penalties are minimized going forward?
B: "To me they fall under two categories. There's the ones that are pre-snap penalties that are self-inflicted. Those are concentration errors. Those are things that you emphasize daily in practice. Then there are the ones that are judgment calls, that are aggressive penalties. Those are ones that, as a coach, are a little bit easier to live with. Ramadan Ahmeti's penalty where he peels a guy off the pile who's laying on Cooper Rush - and I don't even want to say what the kid was doing -- but those are little easier to live with, more understandable, they're hustling type penalties. The ones that irk you are the procedures, not getting lined up right, because those are completely, 100 percent, totally in our control. Those are the ones you want to eliminate. There's an education process that goes on, but it really comes down to focus, concentration and attention to detail in all the things that you do."
C: Your defense played very well in stretches against an MSU, how would you assess the unit overall?
B: "I thought there were times we played very, very well and there were instances where we weren't as good. Michigan State gives you a lot to defend. They're a lot like us with the motion and those sorts of things. They can get you out of position very easily. I thought there were times where we didn't tackle as well as we have, we maybe missed tackles. And again maybe part of that may be the personnel that we were facing, but when you have missed tackles at the linebacker level or in the secondary those usually result in big plays. That's something we pride ourselves in, being a great tackling football team and we'll continue to work to improve."
C: Starting defensive end Joe Ostman did not play against MSU because of an injury, will he be in the lineup against NIU, and were there any significant injuries against MSU?
B: "Joe is going to be day-to-day. He's got a chance to be back this week. We made it through the game clean. We didn't have anybody sustain any additional injuries. We're in a good spot."
C: Northern Illinois lost by a touchdown to No. 1 Ohio State and on Saturday lost, 17-14, to Boston College, which plays in the ACC. In that sense, NIU may be a lot like CMU in that the Huskies have made good showings against some very stiff competition. It's the league opener and homecoming. How big is this game for CMU football?
B: "They're all big. We're playing at home again, in the conference against a team that's won the league four out of the last five years I believe. They don't get any bigger than this."
C: How would you assess the first four weeks of the season overall, taking into consideration the level of competition that you've faced?
B: "That's a difficult question to answer because I'm disappointed that we're not 4-0. We're here to win games, not to be competitive. How we've competed, the toughness, the effort, we expect that. That's part of our culture, that's part of who we are, that's our program and our tradition, that's the way this thing's been built. Again, we'll never be satisfied with a loss, no matter who it's against. We'll never fall into that rut."
C: Your run game against Michigan State was inconsistent, but does show signs of life. Last week against Syracuse, Ben McCord and Devon Spalding caught 10 passes each, but combined for just two receptions against Michigan State. But others had big days, such as Anthony Rice, Jesse Kroll and Corey Willis. Is this offense performing as you envisioned it would?
B: "Yeah it is, absolutely. You're seeing our quarterback spread the ball around to a variety of different targets. That's because he's taking what's there, not locking in one playmaker and just trying to force the ball in there. He's truly going through his progression read and putting the ball where he needs to put it. The run game is coming along. I thought Spalding did a great job, I think Jahray Hayes had some nice runs in there. Michigan State, again, it's a stout front. I thought we did some good things with the run. It's difficult to measure against an opponent like that. We stayed with it and we got some plays out of it and I do think that it's improving."
