Press Conference
Coach Haas: First I'd like to thank everyone for showing up. I don't have a lot of time as I have to prepare for the upcoming season and recruiting. I'm now open to any questions...
Reporter: Coach, you have only 3 years of head coaching experience under your belt and you're only 31, how do you think you'll fair this season knowing you're not as experienced?
CH: I think we'll do decent this year. There's no denying the fact that it'll be difficult. This team as a whole are actually quite young. So each of us will be forced to learn as we go. Everyone here is probably going to make various mistakes but we'll have to learn from them.
Reporter 2: Uh, Coach, you've come out and said you're gonna run a 4-2-5 defense this year, why go with that over the traditional 4-3 or even the 3-4?
CH: I decided to go with the 4-2-5 in hopes of having more speed on the field to try and neutralize big plays against us. I'm not expecting it to work to perfection, nothing does, I'm just hoping it'll help. If somewhere down the line I don't think it's working up to standards, I may change it a little. I just feel that this defense will give us the fastest and best players out on the field at once.
Reporter 3: When you coached high school you were known as a 'passy happy' coach. Most teams where you coached ran the ball most of the time. It was difficult for your team to adjust to that, thus causing a lot of mistakes. Are you going to run the same offense this year?
CH: No. I'm going to play to the strengths of what is already here. We have 2 good running backs that will share the load probably 50/50. As for the entire offense, it'll probably be 60% pass to 40% run. The transition from going to a prodominent running team in high school to a pass team was difficult. I assume me trying to hold back on calling the passing plays to be pretty difficult this year. (laughs)
Reporter 4: The previous coach lasted just one season, are you worried that you're age and inexperience could ultimately hurt you and you end up falling to the same fate after just one season?
CH: Simply put: No I'm not worried. I don't think age is a great of a factor as people make it out to be. I'm just a few years older than these guys. I can relate to them like probably no other coach can. I'm going to use that to my advantage to get through to them. Listen... nobody outside of us takes this team seriously. I'm sure nobody really takes me as a coach seriously. That right there shows we have something to prove. We have a chip on our shoulder. I'm not gonna say we're gonna go 12-0 or anything like that. But don't be surprised if we're able to rally to a few wins this season.
Reporter 5: Speaking of wins: what are your goals in regards to this season?
CH: I wanna win at least 6 games and hopefully go to a bowl game. I also wanna win at least one game against an instate opponent. Winning the Michigan MAC Trophy wouldn't be bad either. That is all for now though. Thanks for all the questions and we'll see ya sometime in the future.