On taking a different approach to prepare the team mentally or the same approach:
“No, there’s not a different process. This is the process. You’ve got to come to work every day, you’ve got to enjoy what you do and you have got to get better. That cultural piece of what it takes to be successful. There are zero changes, that will not change, and if you keep working. I used the term with the team today ‘Bamboo’. It takes 4-to-5 days to grow bamboo like a crazy person for 4-to-5 years, not understanding that in year five, it grows and it starts to grow about 60-feet in six weeks. Not everybody understands at times the growth that you’re making and at times you don’t understand the growth you’re making because the results don’t reflect it. But eventually, if you continue to water and you continue to do the cultural things necessary and to put the work in one day, it’s going to spurt and it’s going to grow like a wildfire and you just can’t lose focus on the end game and that’s getting better. Then eventually it’s going to grow.”
On where he found the bamboo analogy how he uses it.:
“That actually goes back ironically back when I was at Florida State, they’re going to laugh because I think I got destroyed when used that analogy when we started 0-4 in year two there, and not many people liked it. But now it’s turned into somewhat of a joke over there because it came into fruition. We started the year 0-4 but we ended it 5-and-3. Then the next year they went out and won nine regular season games and look at them now. It’s what I believe in. Is nobody knows the work that you put in and its a results-driven world. So when people don’t see results they just jump to a conclusion. They don’t understand that there may actually be some growth happening and it’s just happening under the surface. Those are the teams and when those jumps happen is when you go from an average team to a good team and then a good team to a great team and that’s when it spurts. Nobody knows when it’s going to happen but eventually, it’s going to happen.
Pretty wild note per ?@OptaSTATS? that ?@DougTammaro? will be amazed by. Since at least 2012, ASU’s 15 points allowed off turnovers vs Fresno St are the fewest by any team that committed at least 8 turnovers pic.twitter.com/8uPpGG1oiR
— Greg Mroz (@GregDMroz) September 18, 2023
On trying to divide the focus on the offensive side of the ball :
“I think when you watch the game on tape, it’s frustrating because there’s a lot of mistakes that are made that are so minor that if just that changed. The outlook of the football game is drastically different. And that’s offense, that’s football. A lot of minor issues, I wouldn’t say there was a lot of major issues. I think there are a lot of minor issues and those minor issues 25 times a game become major issues. I’ve really challenged myself to say ‘okay, why are we not seeing a perimeter screen?’ Well, maybe it’s on us and our signal pattern. Maybe we need to change how we’re doing that. Maybe I need to find a better way to get that done and that’s really what I’ve challenged myself. I’ve challenged our staff to do is it’s our fault, our job is to get guys to execute. If they’re not, its not their fault, its our fault. We have to find a better way to get it done.”
On changing how they practice due to injuries:
“That’s the only thing about the injury bug that is unfortunate is you don’t have enough people to practice how you want to practice. So even last week, we were getting half the reps, we would normally get in a week because you don’t have a two D and you still have to give a look squad to the other side. So that is the unfortunate part, but you know what? Nobody cares. So we got to be able to adapt around it maybe, be a little bit different, be creative instead of going five plays versus defense and four plays off. Maybe we go every other one to increase tempo. So we get a tempo rep, then a live rep, then a tempo rep, then a live rep.”
On the quarterback situation and the status of Trenton Bourguet and Drew Pyne:
“We still don’t know on those two (Trenton Bourguet and Drew Pyne) exactly on where they stand. The results were better than what they could’ve been but we got to see how they go out this week and I think Jacob (Conover) did a nice job coming in for getting no reps and just executing. His interceptions, one of them was one he would like to have back and another one was forcing the ball in a game where we got nothing going. I have a lot of faith in Jacob If he takes the field.”
On what is the message to the fan base right now:
“Same message, if you thought this was going to be easy, you're wrong. This is a process to get to where we want to go. And you know, that's the challenge that I've said all along is this is a state that likes winners and in order to win in college football, you need everybody behind you and we need people to stay behind us, stay behind our players and stay behind the process that it takes to be successful and we're going to get it done. It's just a matter of when it grows and I wish I could be in control of that and say this is the week. But you never know.”
On keeping the mentality and psyche going into the next game:
“[The injuries] don’t affect me and it shouldn't affect our players. We talked about being an underdog. Like who cares, go play the game and go to work this week and play the football game to win the football game. Very simple. And I think that our focus is be better every single day. I could care less what people say, what people do, and what people believe. None of that matters to me because I know we're doing the right things. And if I were to make a drastic change of, oh, we're going to drastically change our culture and say we're going to not practice on Thursday and practice Friday. That's more of a red flag than staying the course. I know this is a recipe that's been successful almost everywhere. It's been how we're practicing, how we're operating. So we are going to stay the course, don't waiver, and continue to get better every day.”
On what is the challenge like for the offensive line with USC aggressive defense :
“You are gonna get one-on-ones, we got to put our guys in the best position to create leverage and create matchups to where they are not on islands as best as possible. I actually thought our O-Line was one of our bright spots of our offense that game when you go back and watch it. There were a few clips and some twist games stuff that caused issues but I thought our O-Line actually made a huge jump. Those guys that were on field from the Oklahoma State game to last week I thought there was a growth there. People aren't going to like the fact that I just said that but me as a coach there was a huge growth there and we just gotta keep growing and keep learning and keep getting better.”
On facing one of the top teams in the country:
“One thing our players know about me is that if I get on a team, if I go play hoops in the morning, if I go do something, I wanna be on the team that's not expected to win, I mean it’s not as fun. I wanna be on a team that you have to grind and scratch, crawl, and compete and fight, and dive for loose balls. Where you have to do everything necessary to give yourself a chance to win. This is my world, just in life this is my world and I love it that's what I love. If you are scared to play somebody, like leave, we don't need you in the building, right we are going to win the football game, we are going to play to win the football game and that's why you go out there and anybody who doesn't have that belief regardless of what the world thinks, right there's a problem and that's the mindset we have to have. That we are going to play to win the football game, we are gonna prepare to win the football game and we are going to do everything we can to win the football game. I mean that's it any other mindset is unacceptable to take the field with “oh lets keep it close” no, there is not a moral victory, we are either gonna win the game or we are gonna lose the game. If we win the game we are gonna learn from it. If we lose the game we are gonna learn from it, it's that simple.”
On how the team has responded to the messaging the last couple days:
“I think the guys have responded well, they showed up to workouts today— had a good attitude. They had a good attitude in meetings and just like I told them in the meeting room you have to learn how to respond to not getting the result you want but that doesn’t mean you learn how to accept it. You can’t accept losing, you can’t accept feeling this way, you just have to learn how to respond to it but once that feeling becomes comfortable now you have a problem, so we should never be sad, we shouldn't be happy go lucky, oh this is great I'm over it. No, it should bother you, it should bug you, it should affect you in a mindset that you wanna do everything you can to fix it. I think our guys are in that mindset. Today was the first day in a long time our entire offense was there 10 minutes early. Like I pointed out to them it’s interesting, right we’ve been rolling in offensively 3-4 minutes early and today was the first day they had everybody there 10 minutes early. Well, that tells me there's probably a little more of a focus to get things done this week just by that little action of everybody showing up 10 minutes early and that's what we are trying to build and get to on a consistent basis.”
On why everything is going well for the defense but the one aspect:
“I think when you're early in a scheme, that's a pressure scheme with a lot of man eyes. Guys aren't as comfortable getting their eyes off of a guy, right, as quickly or they're not as comfortable in the scheme, and when you're not as comfortable in the scheme yet, you’re going to have a less likelihood of seeing tip passes of getting your hands on balls and stuff like that. I think as we progress in the scheme, you're going to continue to see the aggressiveness and the attacking. I think you'll see the back end get more and more comfortable as they get more and more comfortable. I think their eyes will allow them to make more of those plays than they do now, but I think that's a comfort level in the scheme with the pattern matching and everything just having full comfort. I think that will come naturally as we progress.”
On what changed with his philosophy of using only one quarterback:
“No, I don't like doing that. There wasn't a real clear-cut guy going into it, so we wanted to give them both a chance and see kind of who ran away with it was our thought was hopefully one of these first four possessions. We would kind of know which guy showed up there on game day and had the hand and rolled. Unfortunately, I mean, for Trenton, he got hurt and then Drew's injury, so obviously, I don't like that. I like rolling with one guy. I think one of the reasons I don't like that, to be honest, is it forces kids to play very conservative or it forces kids to press and when you play very conservative, it's hard to sustain drives down the field when you press, you turn the ball over. I think a lot of the goes back to me, a lot of the mistakes on game day this last week are my fault because I put our guys in a situation to try to make plays, try to force plays because they're trying to stay on the field. I think that goes back to the decision that I made to play them both. That's something that I don't like doing, don't hindsight – what is it 2020. It goes back to just my belief of why I don't. I probably should have stayed true to that belief and not put the pressure on those guys. I think a lot of the mistakes for me at a quarterback were on me 100%.”
On what makes Caleb Williams special:
“Everything. He's smart – we joked about it today. We were gonna have, just because we may have to use Hunter, our quarterback who's on the scout on, on our offense. So we talked about, hey, putting another quarterback back there like a Jake Smith or something. And I'm like, well, that's good. He can move around like, like, Caleb and I'm like, but you can sling that thing too. “Jake, can you throw it?” It was just funny like he's great at everything. He's smart, he's elusive, he's calm, he can throw from different arm angles. He can make the big throw. He knows when to get out of plays, he knows when to get into plays. And him and coach Riley are on the same page. They've been together three years so they know what each other are thinking. Not many flaws if any in his game, one of the best quarterbacks in the country this year, but one of the best quarterbacks for sure, since I've been coaching college football, he could be one of the best to come through. He does it all and it's a great, great challenge for our guys.”