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Will Hall Media Conference - Rice game week

9/28/2021 1:44:00 PM | Football

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Southern Miss football coach Will Hall met with the media Tuesday morning following practice to discuss the team's Conference USA Opener this weekend at Rice.
 
The Golden Eagles play the Owls at Rice Stadium this Saturday for a 5:30 p.m., contest. The game can be streamed through ESPN3 and also be heard on an affiliate of the Southern Miss Sports Network from Learfield.
 
Here is some of what Hall said to the media on Tuesday:
 
Opening Statement…
"Great competition Tuesday, can't wait to get in there and watch the tape. We're continuing to grow as a program. You can see the light coming on for a lot of these young guys. We're getting better as the season is going on, which is what you want to happen. We believe in what we're doing, the way we run a program is tried and true. We know how to build programs. These young men are bonding and believing and every day we're getting a little bit better and working to get this great program back."
 
On what he feels after getting the experience against Alabama…
"Just hope. Like the good Lord tells us, we remain positive in our confident hope. We've got so much hope still left in the season, we've got so much hope for this program and where we're heading. Just to see the strides that Ty (Keyes) made and our O-line made against a great football program. Obviously there's things to fix in the kicking game, but we've played well in the kicking game. We've got to get those things shored up, and we can. Just knowing that we've got hope and we're building and pushing toward something and we've got a detailed plan to get there. Just embracing that right now and embracing the work."
 
On Ty Keyes and the O-line…
"It's pretty normal, it happened last year with us at Tulane. Young kid comes in in the middle of a game, plays well. Then he gets his first start, doesn't go good. Then he starts kind of resetting himself and understanding what college football is about. You saw that against a tremendous opponent and he just really raised his game and played well. He really got better as the game went on and our O-line played much better. Gave him more time and hatted things up, and that's a credit to them. Just as an overall program, outside of two glitches in the kicking game right there, where we didn't have some guys where they're supposed to be. That's kind of an aberration for us. We've got a chance to build off that going into conference play."
 
More on Ty Keyes… 
"He is, he's made for this. He's a great quarterback, he always has been. It's football, right? We're playing at Alabama, but this program is going to play in more and more big games. Like we said after the game, we're not ready as a program yet to go into that environment and win a game yet. But what we were ready to do was to go in there and spill everything we had. That's what we did and that's what we can control. We're building toward getting back to getting into that arena and having a chance to compete and win and getting back to what this program is used to doing. We're growing, every day. We're sticking to our plan and we feel good about where we're headed."
 
On Rice…
"They play extremely hard, one of the hardest playing teams I've ever coached against. They get after you on defense, they're hard hitters, they really come after you to try and stop the run. Offensively, they're extremely physical, they play a lot of tight ends and come at you. They're built kind of like Stanford was back in the Harbaugh days, like they still do now, that's where Coach Bloomgren was at. I've got great respect for them, their special teams coordinator - the special teams coordinator at Alabama comes from there, so their analyst took over for him, so very similar to Alabama in the kicking game. Well coached football team that's played some really good teams and battled. They're 1-3 like us with their whole season in front of us, so it'll be a great challenge."
 
On Ty Keyes development…
"We've got to keep growing, that's part of football. Nobody's going to feel sorry for us. I would rather be talented and young than old and not talented. Ty is talented. We're going to keep growing and keep maturing and keep giving him the looks. He's only going to get better and better as the year goes on."
 
On Running Back Frank Gore Jr….
"There's other ways to get Frank involved than just handing it to him. We've got to find ways to run it, but also get him involved in the passing game, which we've done a good job of throughout the year. We didn't get it to him too much last week, but he's going to be involved in everything we do, not just the run game."
 
On Chandler Pittman and the super back package…
"Amare Jones played that spot for us at Tulane, we've had guys all throughout our past, Denarius Appling, who just got elected into the hall of fame at West Georgia, played that spot for us. We've had guys throughout our career, that's always been an integral part of what we do and we know Chandler would fit that role when we signed him. He's just continuing to grow too, he's another one of those young kids that's just getting better and better and showing what the future holds for this program." 
 
On Tight End Grayson Gunter and if he will be a big part of the game plan against Rice…
"Yes, and he's been a big part of the game plan every week. It just happened because we played a little better up front and played better at quarterback, so the read progression got him the ball. The game plan was not any different as far as trying to get Grayson the ball, Grayson is a great player, it's just everybody executed better. So many things have to happen right to complete a pass. Those things started happening in the last game."
 
On Ty Keyes and if his progression will mirror Coach Hall's progression…
"To win championships you've got to be good at quarterback. This is our sixth time to play a freshman quarterback in our 18-year career. The other five had been some version of freshman of the year in the league and ended up being some version of player of the year in the league. (Michael) Pratt hasn't had that opportunity yet at Tulane, but I'll imagine he will. I think Ty is on that same progression. We've done it before, we've always got better as the year went on and it's not the first time we've done this, so I feel like Ty is going to continue to progress. And everybody is around him. I see us getting better and we got better again today."
 
On if Ty reminds him of anyone he's coached in the past…
"Not so much me, I think everybody wants to compare him to somebody from here from the past. I'd say his style is more Brett (Favre) than anybody, because he's a gunslinger. He's going to run around and make plays with his feet. He really trusts his arm and his natural ability and he loves football. He was up here until 9:00 last night, we started the day at 6:30 yesterday morning. Like I said, the future is bright, he's doing everything he's supposed to be doing."
 
On if he has to fix things from Ty's game from high school…
"Going against Nick Saban and Pete Golding is much different than going against Mize and Collins. That's no knock against Coach Booth at Collins and no knock against the great job they're doing at Mize. The amount of volume of defense you see every week is so much different and catching him up to speed and learning to access all that and handle it. There's just a natural growing progression. No different than when you're in arithmetic. You're in seventh grade and you're in math and you're rolling. All of a sudden, you walk into eighth grade and on the grease board it says 2x=6, you're like 'what the heck is x?' But then you're a junior in high school and you know x is three and it's fine, and that's the same way with Ty. He's going through a little algebra, he's going to be fine."