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Princeton University Athletics
Roger Hughes Chats About The State Of Princeton Football
February 03, 2003 | Football
Feb. 3, 2003
In the middle of Princeton's recruiting season, head football coach Roger Hughes took time to sit down for a chat about the state of the Tiger football program. Princeton went 6-4 last season, its first winning season since 1995.
1. With a few months to look back at it, were you satisfied with the progress your program made during the 2002 season?
Hughes: I would term last season as a good season. I wouldn't say it was a great season. A 7-3 season may have been a great season. I do think it's a great next step in the progression of the program. You always want to win more. But I do think getting a winning season is a logical next step, and we're hoping to take another step next year. As you look back at the emotion of last season, you always think woulda, shoulda, coulda, but as you get away from the season and turn around and see how far the program has come, it's the first winning season in seven years and you have to be satisfied. I should say "happy," not "satisfied." That's what I tell the players. Be excited that you've done this, but don't be satisfied with a six-win season. 2. Three of the classes were recruited under your watch. Your teams came from behind four times in the season. How important is character in your recruiting policies, and how would you describe the character of this program?
Hughes: Actually, this is two and a half really, because I was hired so late in the first year. I think it's directly correlated to the type of person we are recruiting. We're not looking for smart kids who play football, we're looking for football players who are smart. The innate characteristics we are looking for in those players are mental toughness, physical toughness, work ethic and people who are excited about playing football, in addition to doing all the academic things that make them special here. It's a direct relation to the type of kid we are recruiting: kids that step on the field and expect to win, kids that aren't phased by the adversity that goes on. I think now with the winning season we had last year, and some of the ways we did win games, there's a confidence level brewing and that's 90% of what winning is all about in this league. I don't think the talent level is dramatically different between the teams, but I think a will to prepare to win, having a confidence to win and believing you'll win is a lot of what gets you over the top, and gets you to that next level.
3. This season you coached a national scholar athlete, four academic all-district selections and a pair of academic all-Ivy selections. How much pride do you take in these honors for your players?
Hughes: I take a lot of pride in them, because it goes back to one fact. When you think of Princeton, you should think of one word: excellence. And when I recruit kids, when I talk to players that are here, I talk about being excellent in everything you do. You are here to take advantage of all the things that Princeton has to offer, you can't just be one-dimensional, and that's the neat thing about our players - they aren't. And I think the academic accolades they have achieved are a testament to that. It gives me great pleasure when I talk about the thesis projects of our kids. For example, Cameron Atkinson doing cancer research. Matt Peluse developing jet engines that were used in spy planes in the war on terrorism... all the way to the history of game shows. It's exciting for me to see that these kids aren't one-dimensional and this is what college athletics is all about. You shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other. Our kids do these kinds of things every day, it's not remarkable, it's not out of the ordinary.
4. Fans have seen the 2003 captains, David Splithoff and Tim Kirby, excel on the field. What can you tell them about these players that make you confident in their abilities as leaders?
Hughes: First of all, they lead by example. Their work ethic is remarkable. They are into football. They are the first ones in to watch film, and the last ones to leave practice. They follow the same approach in the weight room and I think the team has naturally fallen in behind these guys. They were elected student council members as leaders of the class, and I think again as they have excelled on the field, and more importantly, as they have conveyed the work ethic necessary, they have shown they are leaders. I think it was inevitable that one or both of these guys were chosen as leaders. And the neat thing is they are part of a very mature and motivated senior class. No one or two captains totally lead a team, but certainly they personify the kind of leadership we have in the seniors we have next year. So I wasn't surprised at all they were chosen and I think they will do an outstanding job.
5. As you and your staff go across the country, seeking out future Princeton players, what characteristics are you looking for in these recruits?
Hughes: I'm looking for kids who want to be at Princeton. The secret to winning in this league is that you don't always get the A+ players, but if you can get the C's to play like B's, and the B's to play like A- and the A- to play like A's, and get enough of those guys doing that, then you get a winning program going. And I think that's one of the things we did very well at Dartmouth when we had that streak of 22 wins. I'm trying to bring some of the same characteristics here. As I said before, we're looking for tough kids who are into football, with character and with a great work ethic. Those are the kind of kids who are going to overachieve once they get here. And I think once you get enough overachievers, and I think we're pretty close to having that now, I think that builds a program that is not a flash in the pan, not a one-year deal, but something you can sustain over a number of years.
6. How does the coaching staff prioritize its time during this stretch between the end of the season and spring practices?
Hughes: It's mainly recruiting. Once the season ends and our banquet is over, we hit the road recruiting. Recruiting takes up most of our time in December, January and February. We're not only completing our class for 2007, we are also actually going on to working with juniors for next year. Recruiting is a year-long process now, and we try and get a good jump on that. Once recruiting is over, and I think the last day is February 28, we turn toward improving schematically what we do and also analyzing what we do from a self-scouting standpoint. We'll go back and look at all our previous games, and actually cut up the games by down and distance, by types of plays and analyze what we can improve on, where our techniques need to get better and how our kids need to improve. The other thing we will do is actually go out and study other programs, both college and professional. We'll watch teams like Wisconsin, Texas, Stanford and the Miami Dolphins. We have a connection there [with Jay Fiedler, Hughes' former quarterback at Dartmouth] and at the Oakland Raiders. We'll do a lot of film study. We try to remain on the cutting edge of new schemes and techniques and try to talk to people with similar problems with what we do offensively and defensively. A lot of it is a self-improvement course, searching for ways to make our program better. It's not just on the field, but in the weight room as well, looking at new ways of conditioning to make our players faster and stronger. The amount of time we are allowed to be with our kids in the off-season is only six hours a week, so we have to maximize what I call the learning-to-time ratio, and maximize each kid's ability to improve in the short amount of time we have.
7. How important are those 12 workouts that your team gets during the spring, and what are the most crucial things you try to accomplish?
Hughes: Do those 12 days make a difference? Absolutely. When I first came into the league it was one day and that was a joke. Realistically, we couldn't do anything. These 12 practices help us to lock in the motor patterns that kids will need to have in the fall. It also helps us to have a lot more carryover into the fall. We come in now with a better idea of where people are going to fit. Say we've brought a kid in at wide receiver, we may find out he can play another position at defensive back. And because Princeton doesn't take transfers, we have to make sure that we have every position filled with the players we have. We can't go off the waiver wire like the pros and get somebody in here. So we have to be able to use the talent that we have and mould it to what our needs are.
8. Are there any specifics on the field that the coaching staff is really looking to improve upon during the spring workouts?
Hughes: There will be and that comes from our film study during February and March until spring practice starts. Off the top of my head, we need to better on defense. We need to be a better third down team, especially third and long. We gave up too many of those last year. Special-teams wise, I was not pleased with how our special teams performed. I thought we had a major inconsistency in our punting game. I thought our kickoff returns could have been much better, and frankly I think our kickoff coverage team was inconsistent. And I think hopefully that those inconsistencies will be improved by experience at the kicking position. Also I think we have to replace some returners like Atkinson and Andy Bryant. And generally I think your kickoff returns are pretty good when you have good returners, and we have to find those people this spring. On the offensive side of the ball we have to do a better job of scoring touchdowns once we're in the red zone. We got down there a couple of times and weren't able to put it in. The Lehigh game for example, and certainly the Harvard game, where for whatever reason we didn't get it in, and that cost us the game. And the Yale game we were inside the 20-yard line three times and didn't score. So in the games we did not win, I attribute that to red-zone inefficiency. We are also going to look at our run/pass ratio on offense. We had a great runner in Cam Atkinson, but he's gone. We do have two good runners coming back in Jon Veach and Brandon Benson, who can pick up the slack, but they don't have Cam's speed, so we will have to make modifications. Going back on defense a little bit, we're going to miss Kevin Kongslie in the secondary, we're going to miss Drew Babinecz, a linebacker, but I think we have enough people on defense coming back that we should be able to take our scheme to the next level. Last year you saw a much more aggressive team, you saw much more man-to-man coverage. Hopefully, Jay McCareins will be able to improve and be a dominant force on the perimeter. And Blake Perry needs to also improve, as does David Ochotorena, so that we can continue to be aggressive, and be a blitzing-type team. We do have a couple of linebacker positions that are going to be pretty young and we're going to have to see how that works out in the spring. I think Justin Stull, Alan Borelli and Abi Fadeyi are very talented kids, but they have to learn our scheme.
9. With seven and a half months before the Lehigh game, what will it take to get Princeton to the top of the league standings?
Hughes: I think you have to think forward and reason back. What is it that gets you where you want to be? The other thing is that old clich?: success makes you slow to learn and quick to forget. We can't forget what got us to this point, hard work, being thorough in our schemes, being tougher, and also having confidence. We are going to continue to send that message. The message of our philosophy is not going to change, but our schemes may change slightly, the way we do things on special teams may change, but our philosophy is not going to change. We need to run the ball effectively and we still need to stop the run. Our message is the same, but I think we are ready to take that next step. We should be able to put in even more schematics on offense, more motions, more formations. Defensively, certainly we should be able to block and disguise our packages much more effectively. Just the fact of playing with each other all the time is going to give us a lot more confidence that if we can just do our job we don't have to make up for other people. What gets us to the top of the league? It's continued improvement in what we are doing, and certainly reinforcing our mental toughness level and our will to win. The bottom line is if you had looked at Tampa Bay in the Super Bowl, all the so-called experts thought Oakland would have an easy time with them. They didn't have it, because those guys had a toughness, a confidence and an expectation to win. And I think that is our next step to get that belief, that confidence, and not only say we're going to do it, but to do the things in the off-season, do things in the weight room, do the things in spring practice that take us to the next level. We can't be satisfied with just a winning season. I think Lehigh had game experience on us last year, and for us to get to a Lehigh-type level with a playoff-caliber team, those are the things we are going to have to do.