Coach Stockstill Comments On Brent
“You guys that saw the game, he got hurt on the fist play of the second quarter. He got hit and kind of got pile driven onto his right shoulder. He finished out that drive, but it broke his collar bone.
He came to the sidle lines and they tested it out. They knew it was broke then. Took him to get x-rays where we found it was broke in two places.
Brent asked the doctors if he could go back in. He was told no, it could kill you, the bones could puncture something. Brent then asked, has anyone ever played with it. The doctors told him no again. Brent asked if he could be the first. That just shows the toughness, the competitiveness, the leadership and the love he has for this team. He will be missed, but John (Urzua) will come in and do a good job. Our other players really have to do a good job of rallying behind him.
It was a disappointing game Saturday. Brent had surgery yesterday, got the plates, screws, all that stuff. He will definitely be out the remainder of the regular season. We will see how fast this progresses, I don’t know about the bowl situation, but Brent is definitely out these next three weeks.
Moving forward to Marshall this week, another good team with a bad record. They’ve struggled in some games, lost some close games. Going to play them at their place is very difficult. This is their 45th anniversary of the plane crash to honor the victims. It’s going to be a very emotional game for them. They are a very prideful football team and very prideful program. Doc (Holliday) has done a wonderful job and those guys will be ready to play.
This is more about us then Marshall, as always. We’ve got to correct the mistakes that we made against San Antonio last week and get better and improve. This is a talented team Marshall has, again with a not so hot record right now. We know we’re going to get these guys best shot.”
Q. Coach, does anything change offensively? If not, what does John (Urzua) bring to the table as far as a skill set and what’s his best attribute?
A. When you get this deep in the season, your not going to change what you do schematically offensively or defensively, when you loose a player. John has to play within the system and not try not to do too much, live for another down. We have to protect the ball better, obviously you can’t turn it over four times and expect to win against good teams. John has been here a year and half, almost two years. He did some good things in the game Saturday and he did some things he’ll learn from. The players around him have to rally, make sure that those guys are playing to the best of their ability. We have to play better in all phases of the game. If we do that, we play better defensively, offensively, then he’ll have more success. It’s just a combination of everybody playing their responsibility.
Q. Loosing Brent is a big blow, but obviously your team isn’t going to fold. How do you take this and turn it into a positive?
A. It’s hard to say, you loose this guy or that guy then you say this is the positive that is coming from it. You don’t say that, you don’t look at it that way. You lost the heart of your team and now here is an opportunity for us, we lost a guy and we got four games left. We rally behind him and each other and continue to make this year special. This team has the chance to make this year really special. Your sitting here 6-3 after 9 and we’ve got a chance to play this game this weekend. There’s a lot left out there for this team to play for. We’re not going to walk around here and step on our lip, mope around. Pick yourself up, everybody play a little bit harder, a little tougher and see what happens.
Brent Stockstill takes Podium
Q. Did the doctors give you a timetable on how long you’d be out?
A. Yeah, they said it’d be at least the rest of the regular season. This isn’t just a normal rehab where it’s whatever your body will tolerate, it’s when the bone heals is when you can come back. That’s the tough part about it, I can’t really push it. So, we’ll just get me all the treatment we can and try to give it a shot for the bowl game.
Q. Brent you had to go through a pretty tough injury as a senior in high school. Your never ready for it, but did that get you anymore ready this time around? Knowing what you went through with your knee.
A. Yeah, I think so. It’s never easy to get injured, it’s tough. Not being able to be out there with your teammates is the toughest thing. It’s not really about me, it’s about what I give to this team. In high school I was able to finish out the year, so this is a little different. It prepared me a little bit, I’ll know how to attack the rehab and we started that today.
The Blue Raiders go back on the road when they travel to Marshall to play the Thundering Herd. Red-shirt freshmen, John Urzua, will step in as the starter under center in his first career start as a Raider.
