BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. - Every Tuesday during football season, Gardner-Webb Head Football Coach will hold a weekly press conference over Zoom at 9:30 AM EDT/8:30 AM CDT to discuss the Gardner-Webb football game each week. This week, Coach Lamb met with the media to discuss Gardner-Webb's bye week.
 
OPENING STATEMENT
"First of all, we had a young man injured Saturday night at East Carolina. He was carted off on a stretcher with a spine injury. I am happy to report that he is doing very well. He is moving all his extremities, and he made it home Sunday morning. I want to thank our training staff, ECU's training staff, and the local hospital in Greenville for getting him top-notch care. He's doing great and will be further evaluated by our doctors. Honus (Wagner) is doing great. We'll see what he wants to do about playing the rest of the year and what he wants to do."
 
"That's the worst part of this beautiful game we have. It's a great game that teaches you so many life lessons. It teaches you how to better yourself as a man, as a son, and as a future dad. You learn a lot from this crazy game. But it is a collision sport. And those spinal and neck injuries are always terrifying. Just continue to pray for Honus, and we're glad he's part of our program."
 
"As far as East Carolina is concerned, they put it to us. Not our best showing, really in any phase. Congrats to them. They out executed us, out prepared us, and they have really good players.  They put it all together in the game. We had 11 possessions and lost five fumbles. We're not going to beat anybody doing that. We have to get back to the basics. We have to make good habits, and worry about our culture and ourselves. Any time you lose a game like that, even if it is to a bigger school with more scholarships and resources, you have to take a hard look at yourself and see what to tweak. How can we get our guys prepared to play with less anxiety and with more confidence."
 
"Any coach can go yell 'hold on to the ball.' That's not coaching. Anybody can do that. It's getting the guys prepared mentally and with less stress. And then the players have to go perform. If they don't and these fumbles continue to be an issue, they'll be sitting on the sideline next to me. Eleven possessions with five fumbles lost. Yes, weather and playing in a tropical storm affected that, but no excuses. They held on to the ball and we didn't."
 
"We have some guys banged up. A couple of key starters are hurt. But we're going to practice a little this week and go out recruiting as a staff. We're going to check out some local guys in the area and some from upstate South Carolina, along with some coaches going down to Georgia and Florida and try to improve our roster for next year."
 
"For this season, I'm still very encouraged about what we have moving forward. We're 1-3 with a quality win over Elon who's now 2-0 in a tough CAA. We have a last second loss to Tennessee State on two career-long field goals. We could be here 0-4 or 2-2 with two Group of Five losses. It could be better, it could be worse. But I'm encouraged. We were in much worse shape last year at 1-5 with FBS Liberty still on the schedule. No one is hitting the panic button here, but there is certainly some urgency needed."
 
"We have to get some things fixed on our end that are absolutely gutting us. Offensively, we have played very poor for the last six quarters. It's my job as the offensive coordinator and the quarterback coach to evaluate why that is. We're working. Our players are enthused. I am glad we have a bye week to continue to work and hopefully go out and get a conference win over a good Robert Morris team in two weeks."
 
Q1 – Do you think this bye week is coming at the right time for your team?
 
"Yeah, I do. We have to get some guys healthy. We have to get in the weight room and get some pounds back on some guys. We're light across the board because we've been going at it for the last eight weeks. We have to get some strength back and get healthy."
 
"And then we have to hone in on what we're good at, and get back to it. Any time you play bad, like we did Saturday night, there's reasons. Those reasons have to get figured out by me. That's what they pay me to do. We'll be better. We're going to simplify and get back to focusing on things more culturally from a leadership perspective, rather than the X's and O's."
 
"We're a good enough football team to win a bunch of games. We're talented and older. We're in good shape. The ball didn't bounce our way at Tennessee State, and we laid an egg offensively on Saturday night. The message is clear; it's on you, it's on us, and if you can't get the job done, you'll be watching the game on the sideline with me. We have to coach better and we have to play better."
 
Q2 – What does a bye week look like for you as a team and a staff?
 
"We didn't get back home Sunday morning until 5:00 AM, so we gave everyone off on Sunday. Players had Monday off this week. We have a captain's meeting and a team meeting today, then practice today and tomorrow. We'll do some mental health exercises on Thursday, along with individual meetings with each coach and player in the organization. Coaches will go out and start recruiting on Thursday afternoon. We need to make sure we're getting the Gardner-Webb logo out in certain areas that need to see it and help bolster our roster. Saturday, we'll watch the Robert Morris game as a staff, and then Sunday it's back to a normal game week and we get rolling. Our keys this week is to hone in on what we do well, get our players healthy and make sure they are in a good mental state, and then to get on the road recruiting and find players for next year."
 
Q3 – Would some of the injured players be available next week vs Robert Morris thanks to some rest during the bye week?
 
"Yeah, for sure. Jamari Brown, Narii Gaither, and Jayden Brown are all banged up. Jonathan Burns and Anthony Herock haven't played much. We're banged up for sure. And those guys have been playing at around 70 or 80 percent, and we need them to be as close to 100 percent as possible."
 
Q4 – Is it better to play your two FBS games in the first half of the season or the back half of the year, or does it really matter?
 
"I think we like playing them earlier. Your margin for error is so freaking small in those games. Everything can get exposed if you're not in the right spot. Everything just moves faster, especially against those much better players. Their players are good. There's a reason they're at App State or ECU and playing in the Sun Belt and the American. I think the earlier you realize how fast everything goes; it sharpens you for conference play. That happened last year when we played three FBS opponents. We played two of them this year. That's our mantra moving forward. We have to use both the good and the bad and learn from it."
 
For media interested in joining Tre Lamb's weekly Zoom call, please contact Richard Martin for more information.
 
Gardner-Webb returns to Spangler Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 7 against Robert Morris. Kickoff is set for 4:00 PM. Fans can purchase tickets to the game at gwusports.com.