On the importance of eliminating dropped passes against Texas:
I think from our standpoint, just period, this is an outstanding defense. We played these guys last year defensively and I thought without a question they were the best defense that we played against. They can run; they’re talented. And now kind of adding the element of even more pressure is really impressive in my opinion. So this will be a great challenge for us across the board, whether it’s running or throwing. I think all avenues of our football program we had to improve on and having a couple of extra days gave us a chance to really start to go back to our fundamentals and our details of what it takes for us to be successful. So I think all of that involved, we’re going to have to be better than what we have been for us to have success, and especially against a really talented and really aggressive defense.
On dropped passes being on more on quarterback or receivers or both?
I don’t think they’re Jacob (Park) related in so much to say as it is each situation’s a little bit different. And I think just consistency of catching the football, I think, as a guy that’s caught the football before and been in those situations, you say if the ball hit your hands you’d like to catch it. From a Jacob standpoint, just where you put the ball on those guys at times, I think you can certainly look at each situation differently. So I just think when you’re as aggressive as we’ve been sometimes with throwing the football, you’re going to have that a little bit. Is that an area where we’ve got to be more consistent, period, offensively? I think for sure. We’ve looked at all of it trying to just be more consistent in our entirety offensively. That goes to every unit that we have in our program right now.
On the preparation planning and scheduling for the week and a half between Akron and Texas:
Our emphasis in a bye week, or these three practices that we were able to have, were number one, really getting ourselves back to fundamentals and details. What did we learn about ourselves in the first three weeks that were positive and negative and how can we build on that on both sides of the ball as well as our special teams game? Number two, could we attack those fundamentals and details in practice? And then number three, can we prepare obviously for an opponent like this that’s coming in here, on both sides of the ball has some great talent? So I think we were able to accomplish that, feel really good about it. Last night obviously was a Tuesday practice, today’s a Wednesday practice. So really kind of fine tuning our game plan now in preparing for this football game.
On Allen Lazard’s weekend tweet about the president and on using sports as a protest platform:
I don’t know if I so much have a collective whole statement. One of the things I’m a big believer in is bringing everything that’s going on nationally to our attention. We talk a lot within our own walls and just have conversations. One of our jobs as coaches is to a) unify, and b) allow 18-to-22-year-olds to talk about various topics. Whether it’s certainly the political climate we’re in today or leadership or whatever that may be. We do talk about those things a lot within our walls. From my standpoint, I don’t know if I had any thought or really even know to what extent Allen did talk about. But I don’t have an issue with our guys taking a stance with what they believe in and certainly those are things we like to bring into our forum first and foremost to talk about. So we don’t offend anybody within our own organization but also have the ability to take a unified stance and educate our collective whole. Things that I do really enjoy about my job and something that I think is really important when you’re dealing with 18-to-22-year-olds. Instead of shying away from some of those things that are out there certainly talking about those as a collective group.
On if he would be okay with Lazard taking a knee during national anthem:
Again, I think the biggest thing from my end when you’re talking this realm right now of what we’re talking about is, whatever we choose to do, whatever our guys would choose to do, I hope it’s a unifying factor. What I am between 18 and 22 years old, what a powerful time in our lives where we’re learning and we’re growing and we’re making our own stances. I think when you talk team, that’s why you have conversations amongst the group. As those conversations come out and whatever it is, it’s unifying amongst our team and it’s educating amongst our team. So I think that’s a really hard statement, just a blanket statement to make. But I think the reality of it is, whatever our guys do, you hope it’s unified and you hope it’s powerful and you hope that it’s for a reason – whatever that reason may be. But it’s an educated reason why and understanding what it does. We’ve got some really bright guys on our team. We’ve had some really powerful discussions within our walls, really dating back to fall camp. I’m a guy like I said that really likes to have those conversations and those discussions because I think it’s important. I think it’s a really important time in our country and I think leadership and teaching young men what’s going on throughout the world is really, really important, rather than just being about football.
On whether something would happen on Thursday night:
Again, for your end, we don’t go out for the national anthem, so that’s not even a situation that would occur right now. But I do think the situation of what his stance is and what our stances are, do I support our kids and do we have really strong conversations? We do, and like I said, I think we’ve got really, really bright young men. Young men that aren’t just making statements to make statements. So again you hope that they’re unified, you hope that they’re communicative. But from our end, those are all talks that we certainly have within our organization.
On difference between Texas game tapes vs. Maryland and USC:
I just think in all honesty it’s a team that’s getting, I feel like we were in that boat a little bit a year ago. You’re trying to get to know your personnel. You’re trying to get accustomed to what you are. Brand new coordinators, brand new coaches on each side of the ball. You just a team who really knows who they are a lot more in the game three than they did maybe in game one. We know there’s really good coaches on that team and that staff and I think just trying to put their guys in position to be successful and have a better understanding. And I thought they did, really on both sides. You’re talking about a freshman quarterback that went in and started to do some really good things in the second half of that football game. Offense started to click and then defensively was obviously really, really good throughout the entirety of the game. I just think more than anything that group is going to get better each week because they have a really good understanding of who they are and maybe what their personnel can and can’t do as they get into the season. So I’ll expect an even better football team to be honest with you on Thursday night than probably what we saw last week. That’s the growth you see in good football teams.
On status of Kamari Cotton-Moya and benefit of bye week for healing:
I think health in general we’re in pretty good shape. Getting Kamari (Cotton-Moya) back to practice was our purpose. He certainly is back in practice. Would I say he’s full go yet and would I say he’s cleared yet? No. I still think that’s day to day. But he’s a lot closer today than we were a week ago and again, he’s back out there doing some things in a limited fashion right now. My hope is to make a really good decision by the end of today and maybe even tomorrow to know what his status will be definitely. But the competitor that Kamari is, if he can go I’m sure he will.
On Tom Herman’s success:
Well I certainly think Coach Herman did a great job at Houston. When he got the job, came into I think a really good situation, good football team, and made them better. Had some great wins and really did a nice job of putting that team together. Now you’ve got to remember from his standpoint, then Ohio State and what they did with Coach Meyer and that staff I thought was really good. Knew him a little bit from those days just because we were both in Ohio at the same time. Had a lot of respect for what they were doing on the offensive side of the football there. So I think the biggest thing from my end is he does a really good job putting his guys in great position to be successful. And that certainly looks like and you can see that in the early phases as he’s building this Texas program.
I think from our standpoint, just period, this is an outstanding defense. We played these guys last year defensively and I thought without a question they were the best defense that we played against. They can run; they’re talented. And now kind of adding the element of even more pressure is really impressive in my opinion. So this will be a great challenge for us across the board, whether it’s running or throwing. I think all avenues of our football program we had to improve on and having a couple of extra days gave us a chance to really start to go back to our fundamentals and our details of what it takes for us to be successful. So I think all of that involved, we’re going to have to be better than what we have been for us to have success, and especially against a really talented and really aggressive defense.
On dropped passes being on more on quarterback or receivers or both?
I don’t think they’re Jacob (Park) related in so much to say as it is each situation’s a little bit different. And I think just consistency of catching the football, I think, as a guy that’s caught the football before and been in those situations, you say if the ball hit your hands you’d like to catch it. From a Jacob standpoint, just where you put the ball on those guys at times, I think you can certainly look at each situation differently. So I just think when you’re as aggressive as we’ve been sometimes with throwing the football, you’re going to have that a little bit. Is that an area where we’ve got to be more consistent, period, offensively? I think for sure. We’ve looked at all of it trying to just be more consistent in our entirety offensively. That goes to every unit that we have in our program right now.
On the preparation planning and scheduling for the week and a half between Akron and Texas:
Our emphasis in a bye week, or these three practices that we were able to have, were number one, really getting ourselves back to fundamentals and details. What did we learn about ourselves in the first three weeks that were positive and negative and how can we build on that on both sides of the ball as well as our special teams game? Number two, could we attack those fundamentals and details in practice? And then number three, can we prepare obviously for an opponent like this that’s coming in here, on both sides of the ball has some great talent? So I think we were able to accomplish that, feel really good about it. Last night obviously was a Tuesday practice, today’s a Wednesday practice. So really kind of fine tuning our game plan now in preparing for this football game.
On Allen Lazard’s weekend tweet about the president and on using sports as a protest platform:
I don’t know if I so much have a collective whole statement. One of the things I’m a big believer in is bringing everything that’s going on nationally to our attention. We talk a lot within our own walls and just have conversations. One of our jobs as coaches is to a) unify, and b) allow 18-to-22-year-olds to talk about various topics. Whether it’s certainly the political climate we’re in today or leadership or whatever that may be. We do talk about those things a lot within our walls. From my standpoint, I don’t know if I had any thought or really even know to what extent Allen did talk about. But I don’t have an issue with our guys taking a stance with what they believe in and certainly those are things we like to bring into our forum first and foremost to talk about. So we don’t offend anybody within our own organization but also have the ability to take a unified stance and educate our collective whole. Things that I do really enjoy about my job and something that I think is really important when you’re dealing with 18-to-22-year-olds. Instead of shying away from some of those things that are out there certainly talking about those as a collective group.
On if he would be okay with Lazard taking a knee during national anthem:
Again, I think the biggest thing from my end when you’re talking this realm right now of what we’re talking about is, whatever we choose to do, whatever our guys would choose to do, I hope it’s a unifying factor. What I am between 18 and 22 years old, what a powerful time in our lives where we’re learning and we’re growing and we’re making our own stances. I think when you talk team, that’s why you have conversations amongst the group. As those conversations come out and whatever it is, it’s unifying amongst our team and it’s educating amongst our team. So I think that’s a really hard statement, just a blanket statement to make. But I think the reality of it is, whatever our guys do, you hope it’s unified and you hope it’s powerful and you hope that it’s for a reason – whatever that reason may be. But it’s an educated reason why and understanding what it does. We’ve got some really bright guys on our team. We’ve had some really powerful discussions within our walls, really dating back to fall camp. I’m a guy like I said that really likes to have those conversations and those discussions because I think it’s important. I think it’s a really important time in our country and I think leadership and teaching young men what’s going on throughout the world is really, really important, rather than just being about football.
On whether something would happen on Thursday night:
Again, for your end, we don’t go out for the national anthem, so that’s not even a situation that would occur right now. But I do think the situation of what his stance is and what our stances are, do I support our kids and do we have really strong conversations? We do, and like I said, I think we’ve got really, really bright young men. Young men that aren’t just making statements to make statements. So again you hope that they’re unified, you hope that they’re communicative. But from our end, those are all talks that we certainly have within our organization.
On difference between Texas game tapes vs. Maryland and USC:
I just think in all honesty it’s a team that’s getting, I feel like we were in that boat a little bit a year ago. You’re trying to get to know your personnel. You’re trying to get accustomed to what you are. Brand new coordinators, brand new coaches on each side of the ball. You just a team who really knows who they are a lot more in the game three than they did maybe in game one. We know there’s really good coaches on that team and that staff and I think just trying to put their guys in position to be successful and have a better understanding. And I thought they did, really on both sides. You’re talking about a freshman quarterback that went in and started to do some really good things in the second half of that football game. Offense started to click and then defensively was obviously really, really good throughout the entirety of the game. I just think more than anything that group is going to get better each week because they have a really good understanding of who they are and maybe what their personnel can and can’t do as they get into the season. So I’ll expect an even better football team to be honest with you on Thursday night than probably what we saw last week. That’s the growth you see in good football teams.
On status of Kamari Cotton-Moya and benefit of bye week for healing:
I think health in general we’re in pretty good shape. Getting Kamari (Cotton-Moya) back to practice was our purpose. He certainly is back in practice. Would I say he’s full go yet and would I say he’s cleared yet? No. I still think that’s day to day. But he’s a lot closer today than we were a week ago and again, he’s back out there doing some things in a limited fashion right now. My hope is to make a really good decision by the end of today and maybe even tomorrow to know what his status will be definitely. But the competitor that Kamari is, if he can go I’m sure he will.
On Tom Herman’s success:
Well I certainly think Coach Herman did a great job at Houston. When he got the job, came into I think a really good situation, good football team, and made them better. Had some great wins and really did a nice job of putting that team together. Now you’ve got to remember from his standpoint, then Ohio State and what they did with Coach Meyer and that staff I thought was really good. Knew him a little bit from those days just because we were both in Ohio at the same time. Had a lot of respect for what they were doing on the offensive side of the football there. So I think the biggest thing from my end is he does a really good job putting his guys in great position to be successful. And that certainly looks like and you can see that in the early phases as he’s building this Texas program.
