Transcribed by Bill Seals
On the play of the offensive line against Oklahoma:
“I said this about that offensive line group, against a big-time opponent that’s the best an offensive line has played since I got here against an opponent of that magnitude. Now what do we do with it and how does it go? Is this the group that continues to move forward? I’m really anxious to see that. There were some moments where some big-time players stood up and we haven’t done that. I’m anxious to watch that group continue to develop.
“I thought Colin Newell steadied the ship for us in a lot of ways and played really well. I felt that way after the game on Saturday and felt that way after watching the video tape. He played really well against a really talented interior front. I thought Julian Good-Jones was elite at times throughout the football game at tackle. Other than probably about two snaps, he played a high-end football game. What’s going on amongst that other group is that they’re settling in. That group needs practice, time and game reps. I’m encouraged about what the future of that looks like.”
On the status of injured tight end Chase Allen:
“No update right now. Chase got injured in his lower groin last week. Knowing exactly what extent that is and where he’s at, we’ll have a better understanding of timeframe and availability this week sometime during the middle part of this week.”
On Hakeem Butler’s big game on Saturday and his emergence as go-to receiver:
“We learned that a little bit a year ago having Allen (Lazard) in very similar situations. Hakeem gives us the ability to win one-on-one in a lot of different ways. Once you’re able to consistently show what you can do, at least what he was able to do last week, it forces defenses to have to recognize his availability. When you do that schematically, it opens things us up in the pass game and run game. We’ve got to continue to find ways to get the ball in Hakeem’s hands. He’s obviously really talented when that happens.”
On Matt Eaton being a good complement to Butler on the opposite side:
“With as well as Hakeem has played, Matt the last two weeks has done some phenomenal things. When Matt signed here, I said he’s got one-receiver type mentality. He brings that to the table. When the attention is going the other way, he’s a guy that can get open and catch the football. He can do things with the ball as well. Then you can throw in Landen Akers and Deshaunte Jones. We’re really fortunate. It’s one of those things that’s going to be a huge asset for us going forward…taking what the defense gave us. If you said where was your greatest growth from week one to week two offensively, it’s that we took what the defense gave us whereas in week one we didn’t do a very good job of that.”
On the first Akron game and how the season seemed to turn around following that:
“Last year was unique in the sense that we were trying to find ourselves a little bit defensively early in the season. We wanted to stay foundationally with what we do early in the year. We had a bye week after the Akron game a year ago and that was really critical from our end to have the ability to make adjustments. We knew going into the early start of the season is we would take the first four games and make the adjustments as needed after that fourth game.
“There were a lot of things in that game that we learned about ourselves and a lot of credit goes to Akron because I thought they did some really good things. If you remember that game, it was 21-14 and we didn’t play great early on and to Akron’s credit they played really well. We learned a lot about ourselves that game and what we needed to do to get our program headed in the right direction after that.”
On the role of Akron’s defense in the victory over Northwestern:
“Defensively, their front-four is outstanding and the reason why it starts to go their way in the second half. They’re able to get pressure on the quarterback and the strip-sack is the first thing. The next thing you know, they get pressure on the quarterback and instead of going down and taking the sack he throws the football. It’s a pick-six and goes 80 (yards). The next pick-six is the same thing, the quarterback is rushed out of the pocket and throws it away. Their guy makes an unbelievable play and goes in for a touchdown. Elite defense gives you the opportunity to be a really good football team and they have that.”
On last season’s game against the Zips not aligning with his expectations for program:
“It was tough and not what I wanted our program to play like. It didn’t matter in terms of what the score was and whether we won or lost. I think I’ve been pretty adamant about the scoreboard taking care of itself, but how you play the game, the intent you play the game with, I refuse to settle for that. If I don’t see it done that way, I’m going to address it and attack our culture every day. I felt like last year’s game was an attack on our culture in terms of how we played the game. It’s not what I wanted it to look like and expect it to look like.”
On if the Wildcat formation could be more prevalent in future weeks:
“The Wildcat is like cliché. What is the Wildcat? Is it when David (Montgomery) gets the ball and we direct-snap it? Is it when Joel Lanning gets the ball? We have a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things with the ball in their hands. We need to constantly find unique ways to get them the ball and do things. If you research us for the last 10 years, I don’t think anybody has successfully done more with that unique stuff than we have. That’s something that will always be a part of what we do offensively.”
On the play of the offensive line against Oklahoma:
“I said this about that offensive line group, against a big-time opponent that’s the best an offensive line has played since I got here against an opponent of that magnitude. Now what do we do with it and how does it go? Is this the group that continues to move forward? I’m really anxious to see that. There were some moments where some big-time players stood up and we haven’t done that. I’m anxious to watch that group continue to develop.
“I thought Colin Newell steadied the ship for us in a lot of ways and played really well. I felt that way after the game on Saturday and felt that way after watching the video tape. He played really well against a really talented interior front. I thought Julian Good-Jones was elite at times throughout the football game at tackle. Other than probably about two snaps, he played a high-end football game. What’s going on amongst that other group is that they’re settling in. That group needs practice, time and game reps. I’m encouraged about what the future of that looks like.”
On the status of injured tight end Chase Allen:
“No update right now. Chase got injured in his lower groin last week. Knowing exactly what extent that is and where he’s at, we’ll have a better understanding of timeframe and availability this week sometime during the middle part of this week.”
On Hakeem Butler’s big game on Saturday and his emergence as go-to receiver:
“We learned that a little bit a year ago having Allen (Lazard) in very similar situations. Hakeem gives us the ability to win one-on-one in a lot of different ways. Once you’re able to consistently show what you can do, at least what he was able to do last week, it forces defenses to have to recognize his availability. When you do that schematically, it opens things us up in the pass game and run game. We’ve got to continue to find ways to get the ball in Hakeem’s hands. He’s obviously really talented when that happens.”
On Matt Eaton being a good complement to Butler on the opposite side:
“With as well as Hakeem has played, Matt the last two weeks has done some phenomenal things. When Matt signed here, I said he’s got one-receiver type mentality. He brings that to the table. When the attention is going the other way, he’s a guy that can get open and catch the football. He can do things with the ball as well. Then you can throw in Landen Akers and Deshaunte Jones. We’re really fortunate. It’s one of those things that’s going to be a huge asset for us going forward…taking what the defense gave us. If you said where was your greatest growth from week one to week two offensively, it’s that we took what the defense gave us whereas in week one we didn’t do a very good job of that.”
On the first Akron game and how the season seemed to turn around following that:
“Last year was unique in the sense that we were trying to find ourselves a little bit defensively early in the season. We wanted to stay foundationally with what we do early in the year. We had a bye week after the Akron game a year ago and that was really critical from our end to have the ability to make adjustments. We knew going into the early start of the season is we would take the first four games and make the adjustments as needed after that fourth game.
“There were a lot of things in that game that we learned about ourselves and a lot of credit goes to Akron because I thought they did some really good things. If you remember that game, it was 21-14 and we didn’t play great early on and to Akron’s credit they played really well. We learned a lot about ourselves that game and what we needed to do to get our program headed in the right direction after that.”
On the role of Akron’s defense in the victory over Northwestern:
“Defensively, their front-four is outstanding and the reason why it starts to go their way in the second half. They’re able to get pressure on the quarterback and the strip-sack is the first thing. The next thing you know, they get pressure on the quarterback and instead of going down and taking the sack he throws the football. It’s a pick-six and goes 80 (yards). The next pick-six is the same thing, the quarterback is rushed out of the pocket and throws it away. Their guy makes an unbelievable play and goes in for a touchdown. Elite defense gives you the opportunity to be a really good football team and they have that.”
On last season’s game against the Zips not aligning with his expectations for program:
“It was tough and not what I wanted our program to play like. It didn’t matter in terms of what the score was and whether we won or lost. I think I’ve been pretty adamant about the scoreboard taking care of itself, but how you play the game, the intent you play the game with, I refuse to settle for that. If I don’t see it done that way, I’m going to address it and attack our culture every day. I felt like last year’s game was an attack on our culture in terms of how we played the game. It’s not what I wanted it to look like and expect it to look like.”
On if the Wildcat formation could be more prevalent in future weeks:
“The Wildcat is like cliché. What is the Wildcat? Is it when David (Montgomery) gets the ball and we direct-snap it? Is it when Joel Lanning gets the ball? We have a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things with the ball in their hands. We need to constantly find unique ways to get them the ball and do things. If you research us for the last 10 years, I don’t think anybody has successfully done more with that unique stuff than we have. That’s something that will always be a part of what we do offensively.”
