On if there were any issues in the passing game versus Washington:
“No, they obviously played man more in the early downs. We had some opportunities with some one-on-one balls that if they go the other way and I told the guys that type of stuff, we’re going to make those plays. If we throw seven one-on-one balls, I feel confident that we’re going to catch three of them in a game onn a consistent basis. No, I don’t think there’s anything, they just challenged us more and played more man-to-man in the early downs.”
On the perspective of the game from an officiating standpoint:
“I definitely saw some things that were different, but I think from an US perspective not really. There were a few things in terms of how they were playing, the back-side of the zone, they brought a backside blitz and squeezing in pretty heavy that I didn’t see on game day. That may’ve altered a few run calls when we tried to get some locked runs or something along those lines. They were cut in the front there in the fourth quarter to try to negate the backside tackle. But other than that, it was pretty clean to what I saw other than a few things that I’m not going to talk about.”
On gaining confidence in the run game after being successful on Saturday:
“I think it all goes together. So if you want to get in and be a cut-split, speed, sweep-toss team, you can’t be everything. So if you want to cut him in and be that, you’re going to elaborate in the running game and create more problems in terms of the apparent pulls, and speed sweeps but you have to invest your time in that stuff. Which means you’re not going to invest your time in quite as much in some more open sets that feed into the passing game because you’re not going to pair the things together. The tighter splits you get, the more naked and true shots become your game plan. And we’re struggling right now with the shots. So it was kind of all went together. We wanted to control the clock in the game. We wanted to try to be efficient. And when you look back at it, we were efficient in a lot of ways. We only had very few three-and-outs. We had those four drives consecutively that took up 16 minutes of game clock, which is what you want to do against those guys. The issue is we weren’t consistent enough throughout the entire drive to actually put points on the board that was with field goals and our field goal unit where we were with the O-line was kicking them. But regardless of that situation, we weren’t consistent enough to play that style of game and then finish off with touchdowns. And that’s really the challenge. If we want to be that team that expands the running game with all that stuff, we’re going to reduce the box, we’re going to shrink the box. It’s not going to be as much of the quick passing game because you can’t do that. It’s harder with cut-splits because it’s harder to see what the pictures are. So you got to be able to hit the explosive plays for touchdowns. I got to do a better job getting a few more easy, dump, naked throws in, on early downs if that’s possible and then we got to be able to stay consistent throughout the drive because we’re playing really good defense.”
On being able to finish games in the fourth quarter:
“That cleaning the bus after the game. That’s the difference. Cleaning the bus. Defensive bus is clean but the offensive’s bus is dirty. That’s what goes into winning those types of football games. Literally cleaning the bus, picking after yourself.
On the injury update on players:
“Little update on Max (Iheanachor), he’ll be out 2-to-4 weeks. High chance we get Aaron Frost (Frosty) back this week, which would be huge for us. Losing one, we’re kind of in this mold where we get and replace mode right now. But it’s good that we’re getting him (Frost) back if we’re going to lose Max for a little bit. Everybody else I feel like is status quo, same situation, just trading out Max for Aaron which moves some guys out because Frosty is a guard instead of where Max was a tackle.”
On if anyone has taken Kenny up on recruiting big lineman:
“There was one guy somebody showed me on Twitter, it was pretty funny I’m not gonna lie. He was in a jersey, he was like a past setting. Field goal you don’t have to move, you just have to stand there, unless somebody runs you over. But no really I mean I did challenge myself in the meeting today. I challenged the defense that you know most defensive players don’t play field goal, unless it's a wing, we’re gonna have to use some guys on the D line and the reason for that is pure size, most defensive linemen and four down schemes aren't 315 pounds you know they are 270-40, so you know the physics of field goal does not fit to those, but the guys that are big like that like the Cj Fights of the world. I told Trey Brown he may have to play wing because we may have to move some of our wing size down. It is what it is and I did a bad job of getting us ready, for a situation like that, I should have practiced that rookie mistake by myself. I feel like it was a critical part of the game that we couldn’t kick a field goal just because we didn’t have enough depth there. We should have practiced our entire D line on field goal before based on our situation, which I have never had to do, never been a part of, so now that I have faced it and seen it I can learn from it and be better.”
On DeCarlo’s Brooks being back and helping the run game:
“That was huge. It was good getting a mix between keeping Scott fresh with DCarlos and having that back and forth, both being similar backs, but just a little bit different in their own style, very, very minor but just a little bit different, is a good balance for us and you can see that. You can see the freshness in both those guys. That was a huge positive without our backs is hard. I thought our O line did a nice job in the running game. I think part of that is we opened things up with what we were doing, with all perimeter runs and the perimeter screens, we were trying to open the backside C gap open up.”
On Washington State’s Offense:
“To be honest they are kind of significantly different. They both throw the ball a lot but Washington is a vertical passing game, throws the ball down the field a lot. Washington State does some of that but if you watch their last game versus Oregon its screen, screen, screen, screen, screen, shot but similar styles but in terms of open sets they don’t get into as many formations. They really try to play that we got good looks so you will see them check into some good plays, you’ll see War change the play, at the line of scrimmages sometimes. So they’re more trying to get into good looks or certain defensive structures. Whereas Washington’s shift motion creates the confusion we know slash anticipation what you’re gonna do throw the shots getting in some good runs a little bit different way to attack both trying to throw the football in different philosophies.”
On preparing to play against Washington’s structure:
“Yeah I mean Penix is gonna throw the ball from the pocket a little more and Ward is gonna extend plays a little more but they both play within the system. You know the Washington system is very structured based on when the ball should be out timing. Washington State’s system is very free and they do a really nice job with him, I mean he extends plays a lot, he knows where to go with the football. He looks really confident this year, so he’s been playing really well.”
10. On what homecoming week means to him and the program:
“That’s awesome. Come out, we've had two last two games be sellouts. It would be unbelievable if we could get three games in a row as a sellout for homecoming. Our guys are battling.I think everybody should be proud of how our guys are playing.Anybody who watches us knows that our guys are playing hard, they're practicing hard, they're preparing hard and we just got to keep getting better”
On the defensive performance:
“Our defense has been playing really, really, really good football the entire season. I mean the only reason that we're not statistically probably a top 15 defense is our offense has struggled. Special teams have punted short fields and then they didn't get takeaways early in the season. So you have to use all three downs to get somebody off the field every drive most good defenses have one or two drives a game where they just get off the field with turnovers and you saw that. So hopefully that continues to build, but I couldn't be happy with our defense plan. Like I showed them today, we played really well and there's still areas to get better at and improve and that's always the challenge is when you have success, there's two sides of adversity. And the fun part is our football team is facing both sides of that adversity. In the same week, we have one side of the ball that failed and is facing that adversity. We have another side of the ball that had extreme success and is facing the adversity of people telling them they're good. So it's a really, really tough challenge for our football team to both stay both sides of the ball, stay focused on the task at hand. That's just being the best version of ourselves today tomorrow and every single day we take the football field.”
On winning the 50/50 battles with the wide receivers:
“I always look at myself in those scenarios and I say ‘ok, well maybe we get more of those in practice’. We've been doing a lot of one-on-ones but maybe we put the ball in a hash and we go to the lower red zone. Maybe we get some more of the 50/50 fade balls for our guys to the field. What can I do to help that scenario because we did have those opportunities. So I have a lot of confidence in our guys going to make plays and I think we had nine of them in the game and you make any one of any one of those and you could win the football game. But I go back to, what can I do to get us to make those plays? We can practice those scenarios better, practice them more, and practice them with more intensity.”
On establishing the culture by returning home Saturday:
“I don't ever look at the game as a reflection of are we working in the right direction? Culturally, I look at as do we show up early on Monday? Are there people on the list? Do we have a good Tuesday practice? Saturday is a reflection of everything you do throughout the week, how you live your life. So I don't look at the game as a reflection of our culture. I mean, it's obviously gonna reflect that we work hard, we compete and that's gonna show, but I don't look at the result. So I'm not looking at the results of Saturday's game to say, is this working or is it not? I'm looking at the process and that's why when somebody asked the question earlier and I said the bus was dirty because I mean that and I think that's just where we are as a program. Do the little things. That's what winning teams do. Unless you're gonna be a team that has unbelievable talent and can do whatever they want, you've got to be able to do the the little things and you have to take pride in the little things and if you don't think that little things matter, then you're making a decision that you know what wins. You think that you know what wins. The fact of the matter is there's a lot of guys who don't and we have to teach them that this type of stuff wins because the defensive bus is spotless. The bus driver says it was the cleanest bus she's ever had but it was different on the other side. That’s why it's a decision.we have to make as a team to be better.”