Morgan State University Athletics

QUESTION: “Last week Morgan State had an open week. How did the Bears use that bye week to make them better?”
 
LEE HULL: “We took some time off to get some guys healed up. We practiced a couple days and put a lot of emphasis on not turning the ball over, and also stressing being penalty-free… so players would be penalized for penalties in practice. So getting healthy and fixing silly mistakes were what we focused on this week.”
 
Q: “Well coach it is a very tough matchup with title implications on the line against Bethune-Cookman this week. What are your thoughts about this pending game?”
 
LH: “ Well like you said it’s going to be a tough matchup. They’re a very good football team. They’re well coached and they have been on the top of the MEAC for the last few years. Obviously, this is a great game to test out abilities and see where we are. They have a great offense. They have two quarterbacks that are dynamic, so we have to find a way to contain them. Their running backs and receivers are also good. They have two speed guys and one big target that they throw the ball up to, so they are very explosive on offense. Defensively, they ‘bend but don’t break’. They are very stingy in the red zone, so we have to find a way to score once we’re there. It’s going to be a great matchup and we look forward to the challenge.”
 
Q: “We mentioned last week about the team having two losses and there being four teams ahead with one loss. So is this Saturday’s game a must win matchup?”
 
LH: “Obviously it is a must win for us this week in order to stay in the hunt and have a chance to win the league, or have a share of the title. But we aren’t looking at it that way. We are just going to go out and play our best and see what happens.”
 
Q: “This is the first time as a program that you guys will meet Bethune-Cookman since 2012. How does that effect planning or coming up with strategies for this team?”
 
LH: “It’s a little bit more difficult because usually teams play each team differently. Obviously there are some teams that do things similar to us. They are watching film on us, or teams that do similar things to us to try and get ahead on what possibly might happen. But it’s a tough situation, because we have no factual data on them by actually playing them in the last few years.”
 
Q: “They are in a similar situation because they haven’t played you guys either correct?”
 
LH: “Yes, it goes both ways. So I am sure we are both doing the same thing, scrambling trying to figure out exactly what each others tendencies are. But obviously their defense is different than other defenses we have played, and vice versa it goes with special teams. So you just have to watch film and try to make the adjustment.”
Q: “How can you revive the running attack? It seems in the last two games the running game has come to a stand still.”
 
LH: “We have to finish blocks. We have our eyes on the right guys, we just aren’t finishing the plays. That’s the biggest thing on offense is that we have to finish our plays and try to give our running backs some room to run. That doesn’t just mean the offensive line -- that includes everybody blocking. You just have to finish, and that was a big emphasis this week finishing.”
 
Q: “Has the running game lost some of its punch with Lamont Brown III going out for the season? “
 
LH: “Lamont is a great back and without him you do lose something, but it’s more about us finishing blocks and staying on our blocks to make room for who is running the football.”
 
Q: “Bethune-Cookman ranks 5^th against the run in the conference, how critical will it be to get the running game back on track this week to shed some of the pressure off of Moses Skillon.”
 
LH: “That’s huge. We have to run the ball, and I want to run the ball. So we have to figure out a way to do so effectively to alleviate some of the pressure off of Moses to win games and keep our defense off the field. Time of possession is huge in games like this. So we need to run to win.”