Aug. 16, 2016

Photo Gallery

Villanova, Pa. -

Andy Talley

Question: This is a transition year for you. So how is it working out for you looking towards the future?

Talley: "Yeah, well it is my last year of coaching, after 32 years here. You know I feel really good about what we have built. Our new football building/operations building is here now. It did take 32 years to get that, but we have it (laughs). Mark Ferrante and my staff. Mark will be new head coach. He has been with me for 29 years. The staff is intact. So the beat goes on as far as I'm concern. I have another year on my contract, so I'll be here to kind of keeping an eye on things, making sure we're doing ok. So it is as good as an ending as you can have."

Talley: I do look very proudly on a lot of the players that have been here, like John Robertson, Brian Westbrook, and Brian Finneran, and a lot of the walk-on players that have gone on and distinguished themselves. We have had a great family of Villanova football players over the years, and we seem to have continued the tradition of good athlete/good student/good person, and that is something that is really important to me.

Question: This season Andy, does it look like the defense is something you can build around?

Talley: I think so. From last year's defense we have seven starters. We gave up 18 points a game. I think we'll be in the 17-18 point deal again. I think with Zach Bednarcyzk having a year under his belt as the quarterback, we're going to be much better offensively. We only scored 20 points per game last year. I think we'll be in the high 20's. I think we will be back playing Villanova football; really good defense, high scoring offense.

Question: You got a sense last year of what Zach can do. What have you seen recently?

Talley: Well, I think the thing that he did last year was that he was a little bit of a gun-slinger. He threw the ball around a little bit. Now he's more judicious with where he throws the football, his outlet receivers, he's not trying to gun the ball in all of the time and make a play. Of course he could always run, and that ability to scramble, like John Robertson, is really going to be a core of our running game. He will probably be 400-500 yard rusher. I'm hoping a 2,000-yard passer. He has the skillset. We are not as good as we've been at wide-out right now, so we are developing a couple of young guys. I'm hoping some of our older wide-outs step up and help the cause, and our tight ends are better so we'll be throwing to them a little bit more too.

Talley: Jarrett McLenton, he will be one of the better recievers in the CAA. He has great speed and he can catch. He's a punt returner as well. A guy that learned his craft last year as a freshman, I think he's ready to step on the scene and be heard from as a terrific player in the CAA. He has a big skill set.

Question: What are you going to miss besides coaching?

Talley: Well I think the fact that you're around young players, and college football coaches that are in the same mix as you are. So all of a sudden now, you become John Q. Citizen again and I've never had that. It'll be very interesting. I hope that I can do some fundraising for Villanova and stay close to the program and be around football on a daily basis. Like I said, I do have another year on my contract and we have a little office up there, so I'll be around so I can keep an eye on everybody. I'll miss being around the players and the coaches and the everyday discipline of coming to work and having a goal which is to get the team ready and win the game.

Question: I guess one of natural thing for players, with you leaving, does it become a distraction? Is there any way you can guard against that?

Talley: I really low-keyed it. The press has been good with it. You know, it is a question everyone has asked me, which is a natural question. Because there is no question about who the next head coach is, because there is no question about who their positional coach is going to be. It's very, very comfortable for the team and me because I know that we have the head coach and the assistant coaches in place and I think the players feel that as well. So for me, the beat goes on.

Question: Can you talk about opening up the season against Pittsburgh?

Talley: Well, the Pitt game is a rough game. You got a bowl team that was 8-5 last year, and unfortunately we're playing them at the worst time. They have 18 starters back. We've played really good (Division) I-A teams before. I think West Virginia is the closest team that we've played to Pitt, in terms of the kind of skill set that they have. We're in harm's way. That game, I'm hoping we can step up and play well and not get anybody hurt.

Zach Bednarczyk:

How do you protect the ball and being more cautious of keeping the football?

"I think last year, I was trying to make every play a huge play, which was my downfall for sure, but this year I learned that you don't have to make every play a huge play, and that even sometimes the good thing to do on a certain play is to throw the ball away. So I think this year I'm just trying to focus on protecting the football and only make good plays, no bad decisions."

What are you expectations for this year/team?

"I know the outside guys don't have much expectations for us, but as a team our goal hasn't changed at all, we want to win a National Championship, and win the conference, so we've been working our butts off to get to that point."

Do you like being not on the radar?

"I mean, I don't like it, I know it kind of takes a little pressure of us, because no one thinks were going to win any games, we don't really let the standings get to us. I mean last year, we were preseason ranked first, and we all know how last year turned out, so we don't really let the standings get to us. We just work hard and try to win every game."

What were the spring and summer things that you were technically focusing on?

"I would say, not to force the ball, certain plays last year, even if it was third down, sometimes punting the ball is better than throwing an interception."

How do you practice that?

"You can't have it in the front of your mind playing, because that'll effect how you play. I think I try to keep it in the back of my mind. When I'm watching film of practice, I think about how I shouldn't try to force the ball. It's hard to explain. You don't want to have it in the front of your mind because it'll effect the way you play, so you just try to keep it in the back of your mind so you don't turn the ball over or make any bad decisions. I would say really, that's the only way to do it."

Your arm is your strength right, so you want your strength to be a strength?

"Yeah, that's the thing, you want to stay right in the middle. You don't want to be too cautious where you won't be able to make any plays, but you don't want to make any hard decisions that could affect the team negatively."

How easy is it for you to start the team this year with already having some experience under your belt?

"It's definitely a lot easier, we know that practice is pretty much as hard as it gets because we face the most difficult situations. I know going into a game, kind of what to expect now, so I think that will definitely give me a little edge this year. The same with all the other guys who got experience last year, you have a different mindset, you know what you're going to get into a little bit, so it definitely helped me."

Is your personal mindset, where you're one to shrug things off, or for interceptions, are you one to really take them hard?

"Well, everyone takes an interception hard, but I think I'm pretty good at brushing things off and moving on to the next play. I try not to let it get to me, I think that's why I was a little too cautious last year, I would be like alright, I didn't just do that, they got lucky just that one play. So I think this year, even though I didn't let the interceptions get to me, I would say I'm more of a cautious quarterback."

Tanoh Kpassagnon:

When did you decide on football?

"I visited my friend in the summer of sixth grade in North Carolina, I used to live in North Carolina, and I saw him playing football, and I said to my mom, "Mom, I want to play football," so I had to beg her a lot. I signed up myself, and did all the paperwork, I got on a middle school team and the rest is history from there."

Where in North Carolina?

"Raleigh, North Carolina."

How did you get to North Carolina?

"I was born in Michigan, and moved to Ohio, stayed there until I was three, then moved to North Carolina. My dad was born in the Ivory Coast, and my mom was born in Ghanda. They met at Ohio State actually."

They are telling me NFL scouts are coming out here, what's going on with that, did you ever have any thought that, that was a possibility?

"I mean, last year, yeah, I started hearing a little buzz and stuff. Definitely coming in, I was not expecting it. I was like I'm alright at football, and my mom is really hard on education, so the business school is a really big factor of me coming here. But then I fell in love with football, I actually got hurt two years ago, and I realized how sad I was, I was sad for no reason, and then I realized it was because I'm not playing football."

What was the injury?

"I bruised my MCL and my PCL. I pretty much bruised every ligament in my knee except my for my ACL, and that was the only good news they had for me."

Why do you like football so much?

"I like hitting people, I'm not like a violent person, but it releases some stress. Just the team atmosphere too, I'm kind of an introvert naturally, but my freshman year automatically, I had 90 other guys I became friends with instantly."

What's the goal for the coach's final year, your final year?

"The goal is definitely a National Championship, we all believe we can do it, it's something we all have in the back of our heads, and we were definitely disappointed with last year's results, but were definitely still focused with getting better."