CONTRIBUTED BY ETSU ATHLETICS

JOHNSON CITY – With the first home contest in the books, the Bucs turn their sights to the conference opener on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m.

ETSU football met the media on Monday afternoon for the third media luncheon of the year where they discussed the Bucs’ home opener vs. Shorter as well as the upcoming Southern Conference opener against VMI on Saturday at William B. Greene, Jr. Stadium.

Below are comments from Coach Sanders:

Sanders on narrowing the focus of the team:

“I try to remind them that every game they need to play the next play. The difference between winning and losing, and even in the “lopsided” scores, is just two or three plays. There’s not that much difference in coming out on top on the scoreboard or behind, because you have to play each play and win each play.

Certainly, last year that was the case in this [VMI] game. The kicking game was huge for us last year and we need it to be big for us again this year. So, it’s going to be a total team effort and VMI is a much better football team than they were last year at this time.

So, our challenge is we have to be a much better football team than we were last year at this time.”

On VMI’s passing game:

“They do a good job in the passing game. I think the quarterback is a really good player. They have some receivers that do a great job catching the ball. They do a nice job running, and they throw it so much they’re getting a lot of reps at it.

They’re getting pretty good, and their protection I think is much better than it was when we played them last year at this time. I think the quarterback is much better than he was last year at this time and the same thing with his receivers.

So, our secondary is a veteran group and they’ve seen a lot of game action and a lot of good passers. This is going to be a good test for them. They need to show up.

We’ve also got do a good job rushing the passer and affecting the quarterback. You don’t always have to sack him, but we need to have an impact on him, whether it’s moving him off the spot or make him throw a little quicker than he wants to.”

How excited is the secondary to play a pass-heavy team:

“I would hope they’re excited about it. If you’re a secondary guy, it’s got to be more fun playing against a passing team than a running team. Just like if you’re a quarterback, it’s a whole lot more fun to throw it than it is hand it off.

You like to win and you’re going to do whatever you have to do to win. As a competitor and as a player, I would think it would be more fun for them.”

On creating turnovers in Saturday’s game:

“Hopefully we can create turnovers. That’s one thing we need to do a better job of defensively is creating turnovers. I think our defense is playing hard.

They’re doing a good job, but part of their responsibility is to get the ball back. Offensively, we’ve turned the ball over twice. You say “one turnover a game, that’s not too bad”, but one a game still gets you beat.

We don’t need to turn the ball over. We have to do a better job taking care of the football. We didn’t have a really long discussion about penalties yesterday in our team meeting, but I think they understand how I feel about them right now.

I don’t expect anything like that again. We had 11 [penalties] this past game and 13 last year against VMI. In many ways, the 13 penalties and turnovers on our part is what kept the game as it was.

We had a chance to control that football game and we did not control the game last year because of penalties and turnovers.”