OPENING STATEMENT…
“Oregon State is our next opponent at home. There a team when you watch them on tape they play in a lot of high scoring games, believe it or not. They have actually scored 128 points thus far in four games. Very competitive football team. They do a nice job of explosive plays with 30 plays of 20 yards or more. They have some players on defense that play hard and to the whistle. They have some offensive players that can make some plays for them as well. They are a team that always seems to be in the game. They play hard for their coach and it’s another Pac -12 game and we haven’t won a Pac-12 game yet. Were 0-1 right now. We have a home game and we have played two good games at home. Can’t seem to find the formula yet on the road. This is an important game for us because it is a Pac-12 game as well.”
ON INEXPERIENCE SHOWING IN MISTAKES AGAINST WASHINGTON…
“I think the games that we have fell victim to not winning, you have to give credit to the teams that beat us. But I think more than any is most games are lost rather than won and a lot of it has to do with you, which is not doing things correctly in a certain situation. As the coach, the object of football is to be excellent and that is what you strive to do. That’s impossible as we all know it, as we have been in this game long enough. I think there are certain errors in games that when you make them you don’t get a second chance. You just don’t against good teams. We made some of those errors in the opening game and we were able to overcome them. Against Michigan State, we made a few but we hung in there and we overcome them. The last two weeks not so much and I think as we go forward and learn from this hopefully that brings us to a point to where we understand you never know the play of the game that’s going to change the game or give you an advantage. You don’t know that and that’s what is great about the game of football, you play 70 snaps or 80 snaps, whatever it may be there is always a couple plays that define some things in the course of a series. Whether you get off the field, whether you extend a drive. All those things play a part in it. I think that there are moments in last week’s game that you look back and you reflect and you go, if we get off the field twice on third down they probably punt and maybe they don’t score. Now, I’m playing the game like fans because that’s what fans say. ‘Well If you make this play then.’ There is something to that and I just think momentum in football is important, but also when you have the ability to defensively keep people in a hole you don’t let them out and once they get out then it’s like, what’s going to happen at the end of the series. All those things are a part of it, same way with offense. When you are marching on the drive and you feel like we have some momentum then you fumble the ball. Against a good team you not going to get to many second chances at that stuff. Those are the things that I think in the two games we lost, we let some things get away. That’s all.”
ON OFFENSIVE SCHEME BEING DIFFERENT WEEK TO WEEK…
“I do believe this and I said this when I first took this job, good defense, and a running game travels. You have to be able to do that and I think to help our offense we have to have the ability to run the football. You have to play complementary football and right now we have a young defense, at times it plays good and at times not so much. It makes errors. So what do you do to help them? You take time off the clock and you stay on the field a little bit longer. I just like the sense of when you can run the ball consistently, to me those are the tough football teams - they are just tough. Now you become multi-dimensional. Do we run it or do we pass it? We kind of can dictate the terms of how we want the game played if we have a two score lead or something like that, you can still play offense and take time off the clock by running the football. You don’t have to throw it as much, right? I just think that that’s what we're going to become. I just think you figure it out after awhile. You say, hey look, we are going to be much better served going forward and this is always about going forward, never about going back. It's about going forward to what we want to become. On offense, defense as well as special teams. It’s a process and I think the more I learn this team and more I learn the players, I think we have to continue to develop things going forward down the road. Running the ball is going to be a part of it.”
ON BALANCE OF RUNNING THE BALL WHILE GETTING NKEAL HARRY TARGETS...
“That was one of those games where here I go back to saying this. You have opportunities and they get away, whether it's an errant pass, whether it’s a dropped pass. All these things become a part of the process of the game and you are right, we have to get N’keal (Harry) the ball. With that being said, the windows aren’t as open against that defense as they are against other defenses. So you realize that these guys are 10th in the country. They play pretty good defense by the way and so the windows aren’t as large -tight fits in there. All those things become a part of it. N’keal is always in our plans every week and we do our best to get him the ball, we move him around. Were smart enough to move him around so he's not going to be in one spot so you have to figure out where he's at. Sometimes the read's when you go back to throw, there doubling him or something and you can't throw it to him, you have to throw it to someone else. I said this when I got here as well, I said, ‘the thing that I learned about this offense - we didn’t throw to the backs.’ Well, the backs are a big part of the passing game now, they have to be because only 35 catches for running backs. You don’t do that, you can't function that way you have to get the backs involved in the passing game. All of the sudden going into this game, N’keal had four less catches, more yards, and more touchdowns than he did in the first three games. Now, some people don’t recognize that but that’s true. Go look at the numbers. He had four less catches but the yards were better and he had four touchdowns and he only had two prior to this game. As much as we want to get him the ball, we're getting him the ball. We are going to get him the ball as much as we can but I know the numbers and I sit every week and I look at things and I go, okay - we have to do this, we have to do that. We have to get this person the ball, that person the ball. I just think its hard to do that as well when you don’t have a lot of plays and I realize that. Some of it is to our own doing. When you go three and out, it's not good. Prior to that, we had a quarter where we went three and out, three and out, three and out and the whole quarter was gone. You don’t give him the ball. No one is going to get the ball on offense. Quarterback hardly touches the ball. When you go three and out, three and out, three and out. You just sit there and you go, ‘that’s not a very good series boys.’ That’s not a good quarter and so the offense is about possessing the ball and to me its about making plays and making first downs. I’m a big believer every time you make a first down on offense that takes about four minutes off the clock. The defense sits and watches you, we cheer for you and you get three more plays and if you keep doing that eventually it will matriculate the ball downfield, as some great coach said and you will score.”
ON NEW CURL BAR CELEBRATION AFTER TURNOVERS…
“Yeah, I saw that. I don’t know, I was like, ‘what is this?’ I didn’t bring that on the plane. I didn’t get that one. I’m so busy doing other stuff and I saw that. I’m like you - what are we doing here? I have to ask the weight coach about that one, that one must be – I know Miami has a chain deal and some other teams do some other things. That was a new one. I don’t know. I just looked and went, ‘what are we doing?’ I didn’t know what to think, I was too busy after the interception. I’m on the phone talking to the offensive guy and I go I’m watching Chase (Lucas) do curls. Let’s talk about the series now because we are trying to score a touchdown. Literally, I was and I told (Rob) Likens, I said, ‘coach one second, Chase is doing curls’ and he said ‘What?’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about that.’ Then I got back to him, so I don’t know. I’m going to have to talk to the weight coach about that one. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m going to see him after I get out of here.”
ON CHALLENGES FOR THE PLAYERS TO BE HEAVY FAVORITES THIS WEEK…
“I think so. This is a big week for us. Pac-12 competition has begun. We have already lost one of them and we have eight games left. This is a home game and I think we need to get out to a fast start and play. If we play with energy like we did against Washington then I think things will work out but we have to play. This team is going to come in here and play hard. Oregon State - every game you watch they play hard, very competitive group. Our team needs to get off to a fast start at home, it really does. We have lost two now. We need to find a way to win a football game again.”
ON OVERALL EVALUATION THROUGH THE SEASON…
“I like our offensive line, especially this week. The changes and I thought what we did offensively was something that we can continue to build on. I think the offense has been in spurts a very explosive offense and I'm hoping now the running game will take it to another dimension. Defensively, after the first game, we really haven’t put a series of quarters together as a defense. We have had some poor quarters but here again we find a way to keep the game within reach, defensively. Like I said, we have a bunch of you guys playing and we have made some errors and we didn’t tackle especially well this week. We missed some tackles that we have to make that are critical to make. Special teams wise. The kickoff return had a little bit of awakening. We actually got the ball past the ten-yard line and its like, ‘momma we really did that.’ We learned how to fair catch the ball, that was good too. We learned something. It took three weeks but we finally learned that. Punt returns are still kind of up in the air. N’keal (Harry) makes a great play. He fields the punt on the five and I'm going he didn’t do that. Yeah, he did and the next thing I know he is running towards me. A 50 yard gain but that’s N’keal. A great player and great players have the ability to do that but the kickers have been really good. I think our field goal kicker has been excellent. The punter has been excellent as well. That is what we know so far. We will continue to build. I think we have to get better on offense and defense in the second and third quarters. For some reason, there is something there that I can't figure it out yet. Just look at us points wise and points scored and points allowed in the second and third quarter. I don’t know. The fourth quarter - good. We find a way to put points on the board, we find a way to do things in the fourth quarter. The second and the third quarter are puzzling. I haven’t figured that out yet.”
ON IMPORTANCE OF PRACTICE WITH SCOUT TEAM…
“The last few weeks due to the time we got home, that’s kind of been my second wake up call because I got here and started watching Oregon State tape, so I glad I got to go over to the bubble and coach the young guys. It’s fun for me because I watch guys from the first time when we do it too now after a month and they’re starting to get into it. There’s a lot of competition over there, you see a lot of guys getting better and that’s important. College football is about development as people in the classroom, development as men, and development as football players. So there are three phases to it. I enjoy doing it because it’s hands-on and I get to meet and talk to these guys. I get to watch guys get better and more confident. It helps you when you get into the spring because now they have been in the system where they know it and they’re not just playing the cards. It puts an onus on them too. If you don’t do that with guys that don’t play, you are off Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday because guys practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That’s a pretty good gig if you can get it. They are football players. When you have that many days off, you get out of shape mentally playing football. You are off more than you’re actually participating in football when it’s football season. For me, it’s a thing that most people don’t do and I have to put more time in it. But, when I took this job, I was fully committed to this. This is not a hobby. This is my job and how I can make players better. This is how I can make players better in the time I go out coaching players."
ON CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN COORDINATOR ABOUT SHIFTING OFFENSE...
“We were 2-0 and we ran the ball against Michigan State pretty good. When I came in, there was a system already built offensively because the quarterback is already here and I didn’t want to stray away from that. We have a talented quarterback and one of the most talented receivers in the conference and thought that I shouldn't change everything. Defensively, it was different. I brought in a new coaching staff and said we’re going to change the defense because I think in the long run when we build it, it’ll be really fun to watch them play. I just have that funny feeling. We’re not there yet, but we’re going to try. We will get that figured out too. Offensively, I said I’ll let it roll knowing that we’re eventually going to get it looking like this a bit more. I think we’ve got an eight-game season now and we’ve got to continue to do that. For whoever is going to play quarterback here next year, he is going to have to play in that system and it will be a system where we spread it out and throw it as much as we want. But, it will also be a system where we want to go pound it and do that too. So, I think that’s how we’re going to look offensively going forward.”
ON WHEN THE CONVERSATIONS TOOK PLACE WITH OTHER COACHES…
“When the coaches got in here that Sunday around 11 or 12. I didn’t go home. When I didn’t go home, I think my wife was the first person to know that something was about to happen. The coaches came in and we all said to each other, ‘Let’s get to work.’ We have got great coaches and we found a way to get it done with Coach (Rob) Likens. We started practicing and moved some guys around. It takes players and coaches to buy into that. In the end, it will help us for the program for what our offense will look like. I think that you have to do things sometimes as a head coach that sometimes makes people uncomfortable. I make people uncomfortable. It’s okay. That’s how I work and I just try to make good suggestions.”
ON HOW MANNY (WILKINS) HANDLED THE GAME…
“I thought he and the receivers did a good job because he knew going in that it was going to be hard to hit big explosive plays on these guys because of how they play and the style of defense they play. We had to be very accurate with the ball. I thought Manny understood that and N’Keal (Harry) is the same way. N’Keal walked up to me on the sidelines and told me that he just wants to win and he knows he will get the ball. But, we were running it at four yards a clip. I told them that’s a good clip because that puts us in a lot of third and short’s and so we can continue to move the ball. We got bogged down a bit and got behind the chains a bit and they have a good defense. I think our players bought into what we're trying to do to win the game up there. We knew it was going to be a tight game. We wanted to get it to the fourth quarter and we got it into the fourth quarter. We were all excited about that because we said at halftime that we were going to get it into the fourth quarter. It was going to be that type of game like Michigan State where it is about possessions. How many possession do you get in the fourth quarter and what do you do with them is important. It just didn’t work out for us.”
ON WHY TRELON SMITH GOT MORE CARRIES THAN ISAIAH FLOYD…
“Probably knowing the protections a little better. It was all about protection. Running backs have to be able to protect the quarterback. That was something that Isiah (Floyd), coming out of Junior College, wasn’t asked to do a lot of that. Trelon (Smith) does because he knows the scheme for that system and knew the protections. That's’ basically what happened for him. He is still a big part of it. It’s like the freshman guys. Junior College guys are similar in that they sometimes hit a wall when every week we change some things. I thought I saw it in Brandon Aiyuk, but then you watch him in this game when he made a wonderful catch on a hook route. It was fantastic. I was standing right there when he caught it. He was covered and he looked like the guy that we had recruited. I thought the one he caught against Michigan State or San Diego State where he caught the ball going down the boundary, jumped over the guy, and caught it. I thought that it showed me that he was starting to figure it out. But, 31 (Isaiah Floyd) will be a part of the offense.”
ON DEBATE OF BOTH DECISIONS BEFORE HALFTIME AND PUNTING IN THE FOURTH QUARTER...
“The call was that if we hit a play, then we would have gotten the ball out to about the 35 or so. We could have opened it up, but we didn’t. We have been running the ball at about four yards on average. We felt good running the ball and we thought maybe squeeze one in there and then we could be more aggressive with it. But, we didn’t and we just said we will punt and get out of here because we knew that we were going to get the ball in the third quarter. We’ve been pretty fortunate to get the ball in the third quarter. When you feel a game in your belly as a coach and you look at the series prior to all of those things and what has just transpired, you say to yourself how should I leave this and what should I attempt to do. We weren’t making a lot of explosive plays in the passing game if you watch the game. If we turn the ball over, I would then be answering, ‘why did you do that because the game was right where you wanted it.’ There is a bad outcome too. I don’t think negative. I always think positive, but for me, I always feel like I have to think for the team, where we are emotionally, and where the game is at. For me, I thought about it if we should go for it. I thought if we bust one out and get a nice gain, then we’re going. In the fourth quarter, it almost worked out perfectly because we had all of our timeouts. The discussion was if we should onside or not. They had a fourth and one and took a delay. That told me that they respected our defense and they didn’t want to give us field position. That’s the decision you have to make. If you onside kick it, there’s a low chance of getting it and they would have a short field. They have a good kicker by the way. I thought we would really be in trouble if we don’t get it because if they move it at all, their kicker would kick a field goal. But, now I’ve got them backed up at the 25 and I’ve got three timeouts. It almost worked because the guy made a great catch, but all we had to do was hold them. If not, we would get the ball back. That’s why I saved the timeouts. I thought we could hold them if we kick it deep and we can hold them because they were going to be conservative too. They’re backed up. They don’t want to mess around and turn the ball over. I figured that they would make me use my timeouts and run the ball. They helped me on third down by throwing it, but then they completed it and that’s how that works."
“Oregon State is our next opponent at home. There a team when you watch them on tape they play in a lot of high scoring games, believe it or not. They have actually scored 128 points thus far in four games. Very competitive football team. They do a nice job of explosive plays with 30 plays of 20 yards or more. They have some players on defense that play hard and to the whistle. They have some offensive players that can make some plays for them as well. They are a team that always seems to be in the game. They play hard for their coach and it’s another Pac -12 game and we haven’t won a Pac-12 game yet. Were 0-1 right now. We have a home game and we have played two good games at home. Can’t seem to find the formula yet on the road. This is an important game for us because it is a Pac-12 game as well.”
ON INEXPERIENCE SHOWING IN MISTAKES AGAINST WASHINGTON…
“I think the games that we have fell victim to not winning, you have to give credit to the teams that beat us. But I think more than any is most games are lost rather than won and a lot of it has to do with you, which is not doing things correctly in a certain situation. As the coach, the object of football is to be excellent and that is what you strive to do. That’s impossible as we all know it, as we have been in this game long enough. I think there are certain errors in games that when you make them you don’t get a second chance. You just don’t against good teams. We made some of those errors in the opening game and we were able to overcome them. Against Michigan State, we made a few but we hung in there and we overcome them. The last two weeks not so much and I think as we go forward and learn from this hopefully that brings us to a point to where we understand you never know the play of the game that’s going to change the game or give you an advantage. You don’t know that and that’s what is great about the game of football, you play 70 snaps or 80 snaps, whatever it may be there is always a couple plays that define some things in the course of a series. Whether you get off the field, whether you extend a drive. All those things play a part in it. I think that there are moments in last week’s game that you look back and you reflect and you go, if we get off the field twice on third down they probably punt and maybe they don’t score. Now, I’m playing the game like fans because that’s what fans say. ‘Well If you make this play then.’ There is something to that and I just think momentum in football is important, but also when you have the ability to defensively keep people in a hole you don’t let them out and once they get out then it’s like, what’s going to happen at the end of the series. All those things are a part of it, same way with offense. When you are marching on the drive and you feel like we have some momentum then you fumble the ball. Against a good team you not going to get to many second chances at that stuff. Those are the things that I think in the two games we lost, we let some things get away. That’s all.”
ON OFFENSIVE SCHEME BEING DIFFERENT WEEK TO WEEK…
“I do believe this and I said this when I first took this job, good defense, and a running game travels. You have to be able to do that and I think to help our offense we have to have the ability to run the football. You have to play complementary football and right now we have a young defense, at times it plays good and at times not so much. It makes errors. So what do you do to help them? You take time off the clock and you stay on the field a little bit longer. I just like the sense of when you can run the ball consistently, to me those are the tough football teams - they are just tough. Now you become multi-dimensional. Do we run it or do we pass it? We kind of can dictate the terms of how we want the game played if we have a two score lead or something like that, you can still play offense and take time off the clock by running the football. You don’t have to throw it as much, right? I just think that that’s what we're going to become. I just think you figure it out after awhile. You say, hey look, we are going to be much better served going forward and this is always about going forward, never about going back. It's about going forward to what we want to become. On offense, defense as well as special teams. It’s a process and I think the more I learn this team and more I learn the players, I think we have to continue to develop things going forward down the road. Running the ball is going to be a part of it.”
ON BALANCE OF RUNNING THE BALL WHILE GETTING NKEAL HARRY TARGETS...
“That was one of those games where here I go back to saying this. You have opportunities and they get away, whether it's an errant pass, whether it’s a dropped pass. All these things become a part of the process of the game and you are right, we have to get N’keal (Harry) the ball. With that being said, the windows aren’t as open against that defense as they are against other defenses. So you realize that these guys are 10th in the country. They play pretty good defense by the way and so the windows aren’t as large -tight fits in there. All those things become a part of it. N’keal is always in our plans every week and we do our best to get him the ball, we move him around. Were smart enough to move him around so he's not going to be in one spot so you have to figure out where he's at. Sometimes the read's when you go back to throw, there doubling him or something and you can't throw it to him, you have to throw it to someone else. I said this when I got here as well, I said, ‘the thing that I learned about this offense - we didn’t throw to the backs.’ Well, the backs are a big part of the passing game now, they have to be because only 35 catches for running backs. You don’t do that, you can't function that way you have to get the backs involved in the passing game. All of the sudden going into this game, N’keal had four less catches, more yards, and more touchdowns than he did in the first three games. Now, some people don’t recognize that but that’s true. Go look at the numbers. He had four less catches but the yards were better and he had four touchdowns and he only had two prior to this game. As much as we want to get him the ball, we're getting him the ball. We are going to get him the ball as much as we can but I know the numbers and I sit every week and I look at things and I go, okay - we have to do this, we have to do that. We have to get this person the ball, that person the ball. I just think its hard to do that as well when you don’t have a lot of plays and I realize that. Some of it is to our own doing. When you go three and out, it's not good. Prior to that, we had a quarter where we went three and out, three and out, three and out and the whole quarter was gone. You don’t give him the ball. No one is going to get the ball on offense. Quarterback hardly touches the ball. When you go three and out, three and out, three and out. You just sit there and you go, ‘that’s not a very good series boys.’ That’s not a good quarter and so the offense is about possessing the ball and to me its about making plays and making first downs. I’m a big believer every time you make a first down on offense that takes about four minutes off the clock. The defense sits and watches you, we cheer for you and you get three more plays and if you keep doing that eventually it will matriculate the ball downfield, as some great coach said and you will score.”
ON NEW CURL BAR CELEBRATION AFTER TURNOVERS…
“Yeah, I saw that. I don’t know, I was like, ‘what is this?’ I didn’t bring that on the plane. I didn’t get that one. I’m so busy doing other stuff and I saw that. I’m like you - what are we doing here? I have to ask the weight coach about that one, that one must be – I know Miami has a chain deal and some other teams do some other things. That was a new one. I don’t know. I just looked and went, ‘what are we doing?’ I didn’t know what to think, I was too busy after the interception. I’m on the phone talking to the offensive guy and I go I’m watching Chase (Lucas) do curls. Let’s talk about the series now because we are trying to score a touchdown. Literally, I was and I told (Rob) Likens, I said, ‘coach one second, Chase is doing curls’ and he said ‘What?’ I said, ‘Don’t worry about that.’ Then I got back to him, so I don’t know. I’m going to have to talk to the weight coach about that one. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m going to see him after I get out of here.”
ON CHALLENGES FOR THE PLAYERS TO BE HEAVY FAVORITES THIS WEEK…
“I think so. This is a big week for us. Pac-12 competition has begun. We have already lost one of them and we have eight games left. This is a home game and I think we need to get out to a fast start and play. If we play with energy like we did against Washington then I think things will work out but we have to play. This team is going to come in here and play hard. Oregon State - every game you watch they play hard, very competitive group. Our team needs to get off to a fast start at home, it really does. We have lost two now. We need to find a way to win a football game again.”
ON OVERALL EVALUATION THROUGH THE SEASON…
“I like our offensive line, especially this week. The changes and I thought what we did offensively was something that we can continue to build on. I think the offense has been in spurts a very explosive offense and I'm hoping now the running game will take it to another dimension. Defensively, after the first game, we really haven’t put a series of quarters together as a defense. We have had some poor quarters but here again we find a way to keep the game within reach, defensively. Like I said, we have a bunch of you guys playing and we have made some errors and we didn’t tackle especially well this week. We missed some tackles that we have to make that are critical to make. Special teams wise. The kickoff return had a little bit of awakening. We actually got the ball past the ten-yard line and its like, ‘momma we really did that.’ We learned how to fair catch the ball, that was good too. We learned something. It took three weeks but we finally learned that. Punt returns are still kind of up in the air. N’keal (Harry) makes a great play. He fields the punt on the five and I'm going he didn’t do that. Yeah, he did and the next thing I know he is running towards me. A 50 yard gain but that’s N’keal. A great player and great players have the ability to do that but the kickers have been really good. I think our field goal kicker has been excellent. The punter has been excellent as well. That is what we know so far. We will continue to build. I think we have to get better on offense and defense in the second and third quarters. For some reason, there is something there that I can't figure it out yet. Just look at us points wise and points scored and points allowed in the second and third quarter. I don’t know. The fourth quarter - good. We find a way to put points on the board, we find a way to do things in the fourth quarter. The second and the third quarter are puzzling. I haven’t figured that out yet.”
ON IMPORTANCE OF PRACTICE WITH SCOUT TEAM…
“The last few weeks due to the time we got home, that’s kind of been my second wake up call because I got here and started watching Oregon State tape, so I glad I got to go over to the bubble and coach the young guys. It’s fun for me because I watch guys from the first time when we do it too now after a month and they’re starting to get into it. There’s a lot of competition over there, you see a lot of guys getting better and that’s important. College football is about development as people in the classroom, development as men, and development as football players. So there are three phases to it. I enjoy doing it because it’s hands-on and I get to meet and talk to these guys. I get to watch guys get better and more confident. It helps you when you get into the spring because now they have been in the system where they know it and they’re not just playing the cards. It puts an onus on them too. If you don’t do that with guys that don’t play, you are off Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday because guys practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That’s a pretty good gig if you can get it. They are football players. When you have that many days off, you get out of shape mentally playing football. You are off more than you’re actually participating in football when it’s football season. For me, it’s a thing that most people don’t do and I have to put more time in it. But, when I took this job, I was fully committed to this. This is not a hobby. This is my job and how I can make players better. This is how I can make players better in the time I go out coaching players."
ON CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN COORDINATOR ABOUT SHIFTING OFFENSE...
“We were 2-0 and we ran the ball against Michigan State pretty good. When I came in, there was a system already built offensively because the quarterback is already here and I didn’t want to stray away from that. We have a talented quarterback and one of the most talented receivers in the conference and thought that I shouldn't change everything. Defensively, it was different. I brought in a new coaching staff and said we’re going to change the defense because I think in the long run when we build it, it’ll be really fun to watch them play. I just have that funny feeling. We’re not there yet, but we’re going to try. We will get that figured out too. Offensively, I said I’ll let it roll knowing that we’re eventually going to get it looking like this a bit more. I think we’ve got an eight-game season now and we’ve got to continue to do that. For whoever is going to play quarterback here next year, he is going to have to play in that system and it will be a system where we spread it out and throw it as much as we want. But, it will also be a system where we want to go pound it and do that too. So, I think that’s how we’re going to look offensively going forward.”
ON WHEN THE CONVERSATIONS TOOK PLACE WITH OTHER COACHES…
“When the coaches got in here that Sunday around 11 or 12. I didn’t go home. When I didn’t go home, I think my wife was the first person to know that something was about to happen. The coaches came in and we all said to each other, ‘Let’s get to work.’ We have got great coaches and we found a way to get it done with Coach (Rob) Likens. We started practicing and moved some guys around. It takes players and coaches to buy into that. In the end, it will help us for the program for what our offense will look like. I think that you have to do things sometimes as a head coach that sometimes makes people uncomfortable. I make people uncomfortable. It’s okay. That’s how I work and I just try to make good suggestions.”
ON HOW MANNY (WILKINS) HANDLED THE GAME…
“I thought he and the receivers did a good job because he knew going in that it was going to be hard to hit big explosive plays on these guys because of how they play and the style of defense they play. We had to be very accurate with the ball. I thought Manny understood that and N’Keal (Harry) is the same way. N’Keal walked up to me on the sidelines and told me that he just wants to win and he knows he will get the ball. But, we were running it at four yards a clip. I told them that’s a good clip because that puts us in a lot of third and short’s and so we can continue to move the ball. We got bogged down a bit and got behind the chains a bit and they have a good defense. I think our players bought into what we're trying to do to win the game up there. We knew it was going to be a tight game. We wanted to get it to the fourth quarter and we got it into the fourth quarter. We were all excited about that because we said at halftime that we were going to get it into the fourth quarter. It was going to be that type of game like Michigan State where it is about possessions. How many possession do you get in the fourth quarter and what do you do with them is important. It just didn’t work out for us.”
ON WHY TRELON SMITH GOT MORE CARRIES THAN ISAIAH FLOYD…
“Probably knowing the protections a little better. It was all about protection. Running backs have to be able to protect the quarterback. That was something that Isiah (Floyd), coming out of Junior College, wasn’t asked to do a lot of that. Trelon (Smith) does because he knows the scheme for that system and knew the protections. That's’ basically what happened for him. He is still a big part of it. It’s like the freshman guys. Junior College guys are similar in that they sometimes hit a wall when every week we change some things. I thought I saw it in Brandon Aiyuk, but then you watch him in this game when he made a wonderful catch on a hook route. It was fantastic. I was standing right there when he caught it. He was covered and he looked like the guy that we had recruited. I thought the one he caught against Michigan State or San Diego State where he caught the ball going down the boundary, jumped over the guy, and caught it. I thought that it showed me that he was starting to figure it out. But, 31 (Isaiah Floyd) will be a part of the offense.”
ON DEBATE OF BOTH DECISIONS BEFORE HALFTIME AND PUNTING IN THE FOURTH QUARTER...
“The call was that if we hit a play, then we would have gotten the ball out to about the 35 or so. We could have opened it up, but we didn’t. We have been running the ball at about four yards on average. We felt good running the ball and we thought maybe squeeze one in there and then we could be more aggressive with it. But, we didn’t and we just said we will punt and get out of here because we knew that we were going to get the ball in the third quarter. We’ve been pretty fortunate to get the ball in the third quarter. When you feel a game in your belly as a coach and you look at the series prior to all of those things and what has just transpired, you say to yourself how should I leave this and what should I attempt to do. We weren’t making a lot of explosive plays in the passing game if you watch the game. If we turn the ball over, I would then be answering, ‘why did you do that because the game was right where you wanted it.’ There is a bad outcome too. I don’t think negative. I always think positive, but for me, I always feel like I have to think for the team, where we are emotionally, and where the game is at. For me, I thought about it if we should go for it. I thought if we bust one out and get a nice gain, then we’re going. In the fourth quarter, it almost worked out perfectly because we had all of our timeouts. The discussion was if we should onside or not. They had a fourth and one and took a delay. That told me that they respected our defense and they didn’t want to give us field position. That’s the decision you have to make. If you onside kick it, there’s a low chance of getting it and they would have a short field. They have a good kicker by the way. I thought we would really be in trouble if we don’t get it because if they move it at all, their kicker would kick a field goal. But, now I’ve got them backed up at the 25 and I’ve got three timeouts. It almost worked because the guy made a great catch, but all we had to do was hold them. If not, we would get the ball back. That’s why I saved the timeouts. I thought we could hold them if we kick it deep and we can hold them because they were going to be conservative too. They’re backed up. They don’t want to mess around and turn the ball over. I figured that they would make me use my timeouts and run the ball. They helped me on third down by throwing it, but then they completed it and that’s how that works."