OPENING STATEMENT:

“One thing after watching the film a couple times, I thought, contrary to what one of our players said, I don’t think we had anyone give up in the ballgame, I saw guys playing hard for 60 minutes. The issue that I have with our team right now is we aren’t playing smart on some occasions and we aren’t making plays when we have the opportunity to make them. I think that’s a big difference in someone saying guys gave up. I need to do a better job with some of these guys, they get in there, they talk and they say things that they really don’t know what they are talking about, so I need to do a better job of counseling  them or keep them out of the interview room because nobody did that. The thing that disappoints me, especially defensively and even offensively, but defensively, we had guys in position to make plays and to tackle and we didn’t tackle. I don’t think that was anything with guys giving up, but that was just guys not using good technique and didn’t go attack the ball carrier, they kind of waited and then lunged. That’s the thing that was disappointing to me. We didn’t really bust a lot of coverages, except the one on the first touchdown where we didn’t have the guy take the tight end down the middle. We had guys miss gaps and I think some of that is some guys were trying too hard to make plays instead of taking care of their responsibilities. The other thing is when you have as many young guys as we do, this is what is going to happen at times. You don’t want it to happen, but they don’t know any better. They are getting better in the things that they do each and every game. Do I like the score? No. Are we going to get better? Yes. Are we better in some areas? Yes. This is something that we have to live with right now.”

“Offensively, we had the opportunity to make a couple plays too and we didn’t. We need to get more physical up front, come off the ball and have to be able to win one-on-one matchups. You can’t turn it over four times either. One of the things that hurt us a little bit on Saturday was making the decision I made to curtail some of those freshmen. It didn’t help us on special teams in some areas. We knew they had some good players on special teams, but these are the decisions that we make and what I and our coaches have to continue to do is we have to teach these kids everything because they aren’t as far enough along in terms of being as aware as I would like them to be in some situations, in football situations. Some of them haven’t played enough football yet to really understand those things. Until they get enough experience, we might be going through these things. If you take a look, through six weeks, I think our schedule is tied for 6th with the toughest schedule in the country. All that plays into it, but we need to just keep working, keep getting better. We’ll have this week off, a chance to heal our bodies a little bit, take a step back from it, we are out recruiting this whole week. The coordinators are in, they’ll do some work on Tuesday and Thursday. They’ll lift weights and watch film on Wednesday. They’ll have Monday, Friday and Saturday off and we’ll get back to our regular schedule on Sunday.”

IS THIS A GOOD TIME FOR THE BYE TO COME?:

“Yeah it is. When you to about the halfway point and some of these guys coming in, these freshmen and some of these young kids playing for the first time, it is. It’s time for this break to come and for them to get away and still do some things, get their bodies healed, continue to learn. They are watching film today with the coordinators and Eddie Allen is running over the special teams with them. We’ll do some things to keep them in tune. But this is a good time for the bye to get away. One of the things, I had Scott Lutrus on my radio show the other night and I posed a question to him and asked him, “How long did it take you to understand the game and do the things you had to do?” He said it was really the third year, he didn’t really know what he was doing until that third year. He redshirted, was then a redshirt freshman and it wasn’t until that third year that things started to click for him. The problem is we don’t have that right now. We have all these guys playing for the first time, playing as redshirt freshmen or finally starting as a sophomore or redshirt sophomore and didn’t play that much. We just need to continue to work and get better each and every day.”

DO YOU WANT THE PLAYERS TO BE THINKING ABOUT FOOTBALL DURING THE BYE WEEK?:

“Like I said, they came in on Sunday, lifted weights and watched the game film with the coordinators. Monday they are away from football all day. Tuesday they’ll go in and go helmets and shoulder pads. We’ll go 1’s against 1’s, 2’s against 2’s, 3’s against 3’s and just do some base stuff, some situations, first and second down, short yardage and goal line. Each group will have 17 plays, we’ll do individual, we’ll cover punt and kickoff return on Tuesday. When practice is over, they are done for the day. They don’t have to come back for dinner, they can eat on campus, they can go out, they can do what they want. They can get away from football, get away from the building. Wednesday they’ll come in a little later. The offense and John Dunn will meet and the defense will lift weights. Then they’ll switch. Then they are done for the day, obviously they have their classes. Thursday they’ll come in normal time and we’ll do 3rd down, red zone and two minute. It will again be 1’s against 1’s, 2’s against 2’s, 3’s against 3’s, so we’ll get everybody working. When that practice is over, they’re done. If they don’t have classes on Friday, they can go home for the weekend. There’s nothing on Friday, unless they have treatments. Saturday they have nothing. This is the way I feel is best for us at this point in time. It will be good for them to get away for a bit and be a normal person for more than a few hours a day.”

OFFENSIVELY, THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF SUCCESS EARLY ON IN GAMES, BUT THEN OPPONENTS ARE ADJUSTING. GIVEN OC JOHN DUNN IS IN THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME AND IS LEARNING AS HE GOES, DO YOU FIND THE NEED TO HELP MAKE ADJUSTMENTS DURING GAMES TO WHAT OPPONENTS ARE DOING?:

“No, John knows how to make adjustments. I don’t need to do any of that stuff with him. Sometimes the people you play, you scout them, but then it’s personnel against personnel and sometimes you are going against better personnel. That’s when you have to win the individual matchups. Early on, maybe we are doing some things that they haven’t seen or we haven’t shown before and we make some plays. Then they make some adjustments and then what happens as the game goes on, you need to be able to win your individual matchups. That’s the one thing that we haven’t been doing as good a job.”

ON IMPROVING TACKLING, HOW MUCH OF THAT IS GETTING GUYS IN THE WEIGHT ROOM OR TEACHING PROPER TECHNIQUE?:

“I think it’s a combination of both. This isn’t a negative when I say this. We aren’t big enough, we aren’t strong enough and we aren’t fast enough as a team yet. When you take a look at the make-up of our roster, the number of young kids that we have and as I’ve said before, we are a developmental program. We need to develop these young men. Maybe some of the upperclassmen didn’t work as hard as they should have worked in the three or four years that they’ve been here before, making themselves bigger and faster. We’re changing that. I think it’s a combination that we have guys that aren’t big enough, aren’t strong enough and aren’t fast enough yet, they’ll get there because they’re going to work hard because we aren’t going to recruit guys that don’t want to take that challenge on. Some of it is experience too. They haven’t been in these situations. They haven’t played at this level. They don’t understand the speed of the game. There’s a lot that goes into it and right now, we have to do all the teaching. We have to do everything with these guys in all those things. When our program gets to where we want it to be, we won’t have to do those things, but right now, we as coaches have to explain every little detail to them because they don’t know it, they aren’t experienced enough to know some of those things. Right now, there’s a lot of stuff that they have to process. Just like yesterday with Marvin [Washington], when he scrambled around. I appreciated that he’s trying to make a play, but know the situation. Throw the ball away so we can go play third down instead of being a little careless with the ball and trying to make a big play with all those people around. That’s experience. Some guys have that. Some guys were born with better football instincts, better football savvy and better football knowledge than some other guys. Some other guys it takes a lot of reps, it takes a bunch of situations to be involved in live to understand those things. That’s all the things that we are dealing with and trying to teach with these guys.”

MATT SCHONVISKY / SITE CREATOR