by Bill Seals
On the status of freshman tight end Chase Allen, who is no longer in depth chart:
“Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I would certainly love to redshirt Chase. His situation is a tough one. He was playing really well for us in fall camp and did a good job in the summer, but some injuries and we all know of the situations that happened to him and his really getting sick. It really hindered him. Do I really want to put this young man at risk of not getting a full season? I don’t know if that’s fair to him. I’d rather play a young man too late than too early. I don’t think it’s right by Chase.”
On if it’s been a bigger struggle resetting the culture with program veterans than the freshmen:
“It’s the older guys. Sometimes that’s been our hardest challenge in eight months, is resetting the mindset and the focus of what it takes to be successful. Sometimes you can get engrained in a culture where success isn’t happening. How do you define success? That’s why you hear me so much talk about how much I’m invested in how we play, what’s our effort look like, what’s our attitude look like and how do we prepare? The score of the game takes care of itself when you deal with all those other things. To me, that’s been our greatest challenge, resetting the mindset of this football program of our process that it takes to be successful.
“A lot of the young guys are guys we’ve recruited and have come from a culture that looks like that, because we put a priority on that in recruiting. They’ve been able to adapt to that maybe quicker than our older guys. But I don’t know if I can be any prouder of the growth that a lot of our older guys have made in our program over the past eight months and especially last month and a half.”
On the status of injured players Patrick Scoggins, Bobby McMillen and J.D. Waggoner:
“Patrick is going to be in good shape. It was definitely cramps and he practiced yesterday. I don’t see him missing any time whatsoever. Bobby is probably questionable for the game. It’s an ankle sprain and really swelled up on him. That will certainly affect us at times on special teams if he couldn’t play. The other guy questionable right now is J.D. Waggoner. He got dinged up in the game and we’ll have to figure out where he’s at by game time this coming week. I still think we’re in really good shape for this part of the season.”
On what was behind Lanning having his most effective game of the season:
“Efficiency in two ways. Number one is moving the offense and he was able to use his feet and use his arm to do that. Number two you look at our third-down conversion rate. There were some huge third downs in the course of 14-play, 16-play, 18-play drives. You don’t sustain that unless you’re efficiently moving the football. We have to do that at times. We have to help our defense and especially against a team like Baylor who is certainly excellent on the offensive side of the football. Joel did a really good job of that. He delivered consistently throwing the ball and then obviously using his feet in some big situations. That’s the most efficient I’ve seen him play and it was fun to watch.”
On how the rush defense can be shored up in the course of one week:
“The biggest thing is 22 missed tackles. Some credit has to go to Baylor, but a lot of it has to go to how we get better in those areas. Who we funnel the football to? Whose missing those tackles? Why are they missing them? We need to get better at those. Its showed up at Iowa and it showed up again here. Some of that is our ability to get better at those spots. It’s not scheme. You’re talking about guys that are two or three years in the backfield and (missed tackles) turn them into 20- and 30-yard gains. We have to do a better job of coaching it and our kids have to get better at executing it.”
On how he felt after his team came away with a near-miss against the Bears:
“I couldn’t wait to get here Sunday. It stinks we lost the football game, but I watched our kids play their tails off for 60 minutes. I would be disappointed if we didn’t play hard and with great effort. The scoreboard will take care of itself and always does. The reality of it is what’s our character, how do we control our attitude and effort, and are we getting better? In those things we are. We’ve got some older guys here that have been here for a while and are making great progress. They are gaining some confidence.”
On if he will change practices up in order for defense to get more work on tackling:
“We certainly talk about it. How do we continue to grow in those areas? Sometimes you say ‘let’s just tackle in practice’ and there’s a difference between game speed and practice speed if you decide to do that. The one thing we are is a very physical practice. We’re not on the field forever. I know how critical it is to get our guys to the game. We have to find that fine line to where we can help our guys better at that fundamental skill. One of the hardest things to do in football today is tackle in the open field. That’s hard to do because of some of the athletes you’re tackling and the amount of space a team like Baylor creates to tackle in space. We need to do a good job of putting our kids in position to do it and creating that in practice.”
On the status of freshman tight end Chase Allen, who is no longer in depth chart:
“Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I would certainly love to redshirt Chase. His situation is a tough one. He was playing really well for us in fall camp and did a good job in the summer, but some injuries and we all know of the situations that happened to him and his really getting sick. It really hindered him. Do I really want to put this young man at risk of not getting a full season? I don’t know if that’s fair to him. I’d rather play a young man too late than too early. I don’t think it’s right by Chase.”
On if it’s been a bigger struggle resetting the culture with program veterans than the freshmen:
“It’s the older guys. Sometimes that’s been our hardest challenge in eight months, is resetting the mindset and the focus of what it takes to be successful. Sometimes you can get engrained in a culture where success isn’t happening. How do you define success? That’s why you hear me so much talk about how much I’m invested in how we play, what’s our effort look like, what’s our attitude look like and how do we prepare? The score of the game takes care of itself when you deal with all those other things. To me, that’s been our greatest challenge, resetting the mindset of this football program of our process that it takes to be successful.
“A lot of the young guys are guys we’ve recruited and have come from a culture that looks like that, because we put a priority on that in recruiting. They’ve been able to adapt to that maybe quicker than our older guys. But I don’t know if I can be any prouder of the growth that a lot of our older guys have made in our program over the past eight months and especially last month and a half.”
On the status of injured players Patrick Scoggins, Bobby McMillen and J.D. Waggoner:
“Patrick is going to be in good shape. It was definitely cramps and he practiced yesterday. I don’t see him missing any time whatsoever. Bobby is probably questionable for the game. It’s an ankle sprain and really swelled up on him. That will certainly affect us at times on special teams if he couldn’t play. The other guy questionable right now is J.D. Waggoner. He got dinged up in the game and we’ll have to figure out where he’s at by game time this coming week. I still think we’re in really good shape for this part of the season.”
On what was behind Lanning having his most effective game of the season:
“Efficiency in two ways. Number one is moving the offense and he was able to use his feet and use his arm to do that. Number two you look at our third-down conversion rate. There were some huge third downs in the course of 14-play, 16-play, 18-play drives. You don’t sustain that unless you’re efficiently moving the football. We have to do that at times. We have to help our defense and especially against a team like Baylor who is certainly excellent on the offensive side of the football. Joel did a really good job of that. He delivered consistently throwing the ball and then obviously using his feet in some big situations. That’s the most efficient I’ve seen him play and it was fun to watch.”
On how the rush defense can be shored up in the course of one week:
“The biggest thing is 22 missed tackles. Some credit has to go to Baylor, but a lot of it has to go to how we get better in those areas. Who we funnel the football to? Whose missing those tackles? Why are they missing them? We need to get better at those. Its showed up at Iowa and it showed up again here. Some of that is our ability to get better at those spots. It’s not scheme. You’re talking about guys that are two or three years in the backfield and (missed tackles) turn them into 20- and 30-yard gains. We have to do a better job of coaching it and our kids have to get better at executing it.”
On how he felt after his team came away with a near-miss against the Bears:
“I couldn’t wait to get here Sunday. It stinks we lost the football game, but I watched our kids play their tails off for 60 minutes. I would be disappointed if we didn’t play hard and with great effort. The scoreboard will take care of itself and always does. The reality of it is what’s our character, how do we control our attitude and effort, and are we getting better? In those things we are. We’ve got some older guys here that have been here for a while and are making great progress. They are gaining some confidence.”
On if he will change practices up in order for defense to get more work on tackling:
“We certainly talk about it. How do we continue to grow in those areas? Sometimes you say ‘let’s just tackle in practice’ and there’s a difference between game speed and practice speed if you decide to do that. The one thing we are is a very physical practice. We’re not on the field forever. I know how critical it is to get our guys to the game. We have to find that fine line to where we can help our guys better at that fundamental skill. One of the hardest things to do in football today is tackle in the open field. That’s hard to do because of some of the athletes you’re tackling and the amount of space a team like Baylor creates to tackle in space. We need to do a good job of putting our kids in position to do it and creating that in practice.”
