Key Takeaways and Quotes from Brian Newberry’s Weekly Press Conference
Navy football head coach Brian Newberry talked to the media once again this week ahead of his team’s matchup with East Carolina this weekend. Here are some of the highlights and key takeaways from what he had to say.
Navy’s Quarterback Situation
Newberry opened up his press conference answering questions about their new starter Xavier Arline. Starting the season as a slotback, Arline returned to the quarterback room where he’s spent the previous four years at Navy due to a growing list of injuries at the position.
When talking about what impressed him the most with regards to Arline Newberry talked about his progress at the position, how he ran the offense, and was able to make up for some mistakes. He talked about how Arline couldn’t have handled the difficult situation he’s been in this year any better and that he was extremely happy to see his success.
On This Week’s Game Against ECU
Newberry gave a lot of credit to East Carolina. He stated “East Carolina is a really good football team, despite their record, they’ve had an extremely difficult schedule. Really good on defense, getting better every week offensively, got a ton of respect for Mike Houston”.
Newberry added “They’re a tough physical football team that plays hard, they’re blue collar”.
Newberry gave a lot of credit to the East Carolina defense and the job that Defensive Coordinator Blake Harrell has done this year. “I think they’re really athletic on defense, they play extremely hard. Blake Harrell’s done a great job. I know Blake, we’ve known each other for a while.”
“There’s a lot of similarities philosophically between the things that we believe in on defense, they’re multiple, he’s aggressive, and he’s got those guys playing really hard they’re really really well coached, all the things that they do they’re a problem.”
Lastly, Newberry added that he expects East Caroline to do a good job of defending the option due to Harrell’s previous experience defending it. Newberry stated “Not only do they do a great job of defending the option, they’ve done a great job of defending everybody this year.”
On This Year’s Senior Class
Newberry was asked about this year’s senior class and everything that they’ve been through with starting their Plebe year during the pandemic. Newberry described this class as “A bunch of tough dudes… Can’t say enough good things about this senior class, their work ethic, their attitude, their resilience, their leadership.”
He added “It’s a tough group to have gone through that, and stayed together and stayed the course.” Newberry also stated that he “Wants to win games here, but I want to win games for those guys more than anything and have them go out on a positive note. Really important that we finish this thing up the right way and go out on a positive note because they deserve it.”
On Building off of a Good Offensive Performance
Newberry said that “It’s critical” to build off of their offensive success last week. He stated that he thinks the consistency at the quarterback position will help with that. He also said that they “Did some good things offensively but there’s some meat left on the bone. One thing we’ve not done a great job of is leveraging blocks.”
On the Opportunity to Play in a Bowl Game
Navy still has a chance at postseason play this season. While Newberry acknowledged the great opportunity that would be, he was quick to dismiss it as a major point of focus beyond this week’s game. Newberry stated “I think we’d love to go to a bowl game, it’s obviously a huge goal for us around here, but right now all we’re focused on is beating East Carolina, going 1-0.”
