South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 09/19/2022

I was disappointed with the loss on Saturday. We had a group of guys who expected to win the football game. I thought we played really competitively. I thought we did some good things, and there were a lot of things you could point to that was what we call ‘winning football’, but we played inconsistent football. I got after them at half time, coaches and players alike. I didn’t think we were playing very consistently [in the first half]. I thought we improved some of those things in the second half, but ultimately for us, we didn’t play the consistent style of football that we needed to. In my mind, we probably should have pulled away, but we did not.

You look at some of the things offensively that we did really well. I thought Carter [Bradley] was very efficient. I think we’re getting better and better in the run game and establishing that and becoming better situationally in third downs and red zone. But, we had some communication issues early in the game and a couple of things that we didn’t execute well enough in the fourth quarter. We didn’t score in the fourth quarter and one of those was obviously because of lack of execution and poor communication on the first drive. Then on the second drive, our guys moved the football, but we got to a fourth-and-two scenario and I didn’t give them a chance to convert. A lot of factors went into it, but ultimately, we have to do a better job across the board executing consistently in big moments. We all came in here and watched the film on Sunday and met with the players on Monday, and I think we’re all pretty frustrated with ourselves right now, coaches and players alike, because an opportunity was dropped.

There were a lot of positives that can be gained from the game, but ultimately we have to be a very responsive football team. This is a massive week for our program and shows that after two weeks of being on the road, that we can show up and be a responsive team after a tough loss. If we can build that in our program, we will take a massive step forward as a football team.

On what he means when he said he didn’t give them a chance on the fourth-down call:

We have a fourth-and-two situation with I believe three minutes, 30 seconds remaining on the clock. On the third down play, La’Damian [Webb] had just come off the field because he was gassed and tired and had been cramping in the second half. We’ve got to continue bringing him along. His feeling the effects [like he did Saturday] at the end of a game [is a result of] him not going through fall camp. We’ve got to continue to bring along his conditioning, because you would have loved to have had him out there on the third-and-six scenario. Terrion [Avery] did a good job and got us to fourth-and-two and a half, but at that moment we knew we weren’t going to kick a field goal. We knew that we couldn’t keep it a one-score game based off how UCLA’s quarterback [Dorian Thompson-Robinson] was playing against our defense. The analytics backed that situation up and I’m going to utilize those things.

I would have liked to have kept the offense on the field and tried to draw them offsides on a fourth-down play, but we only had two timeouts left, so I knew we couldn’t do anything to keep our offense on the field.

We had to get our field-goal unit out there if we were going to go for it. We had seen something on film. We had been searching all offseason for a good fake field goal situation. We found this play that Alabama had run in 2011 and they utilized it well, even though it was in a different scenario, but it was against a similar defense in terms of their field goal rush. Our field goal rush is actually similar to UCLA’s. We ran it in practice and of course it went for a touchdown, so we went for it. There’s a 55 percent success rate on fourth and two situations. I’m not exactly sure that running the ball there would have been the right decision. That’s not great odds, but we certainly felt like it gave us the best chance to go for it. Obviously, we came up short in the fake field goal.

I think as I reflect on it, our offense was moving the ball. If La’Damian would have been able to come back in and potentially he could have. I’m not sure one play off was enough rest for him since he was gassed, but as I reflect on that situation and the decision I made to go for the fake field goal as opposed to putting the ball in our offense’s hands, I would have liked to have seen what our offense could have done in that situation. That was a good learning situation. I went for one of two scenarios in my mind, and I would have liked to have seen how the other one would have played out.

On what happened on the fake field goal:

We shifted to two wide receivers with an attached tight end, so there were three guys that were eligible. [UCLA] had shown a man-to-man type of scheme, so when we motioned one guy in, they balanced their coverage back into the boundary and took the wheel route into the boundary. We ran an over route to the field which the corner started to go with. We probably went just a little too early with our tight end delay coming back across, who came back from the field. We rolled out to the boundary and [on film] you could see No. 3 corner [Devin Kirkwood] start to take the over route, and at the very last second, he sees our guy. No. 15 [Laiatu Latu] their edge defender to the field was looking at the tight end, but Todd [Justice] went right by him and if No. 3 doesn’t come off and make that play, we’re going to put it right over 15’s head and certainly get the first down, and more than likely get the touchdown. Their guy made a hell of a play, he really did. I can sit here and say that I’d do that 10 times out of 10 and run that fake, but I’d liked to have seen what our offense would’ve done in hindsight. Those are tough calls in tough situations, and I’m not saying that it was the wrong call by any means. Frankly if we’d gotten the damn thing, everyone would be pretty fired up, but in that moment it’s a lesson to be learned; let’s keep our best players on the field and give our guys a chance to go win the game.

On how ready the team is to be back home:

I’d say the feeling in our building right now is urgent. Obviously, you can sit there and look at that game and say ‘That was a freebie. We took our shot’, and all those other things, but we should have won the game, plain and simple. We did not execute well enough and we lost the football game because of that. I made poor decision, coordinators made poor decisions, players made poor decisions, and we lost the game. Because of that, I think our players and coaches have a feeling that certainly we’re excited to be able to go respond, but there’s also an urgency to respond. We need to step back up. We need to play to the level that we’re capable of. Take the logos off the helmet. Take the Power 5 stuff off. It doesn’t matter who we are playing this week, even though I feel they [Louisiana Tech] are a very good opponent. They are getting better every single week.

We have to respond this week. Our fan base needs to show up in [Hancock Whitney Stadium]. I’m excited because we had fans at the game Saturday that were 2,000 miles away [from Mobile] and every time we did something well in that stadium, I heard the South Alabama fan base. Our fans are excited about what we’re doing. We’re going to have more fans [on Saturday] in [Hancock Whitney] than we’ve ever had, so don’t make me a liar. Let’s show up, bring some energy and let Hancock Whitney Stadium be what we feel the expectation of our fan base and football stadium can look like. Let’s let tailgating look at what it can be like and then certainly the product on the field. Excitement yes, urgent absolutely.”

On the production of the offensive line and the offense:

The offensive line is the most improved unit on our football team, and it’s not close. That’s saying something considering what our backfield is doing right now, what our linebacking corps is doing and how much we’ve improved in the secondary and as a wide receiver unit. Not necessarily what Jalen Tolbert and Jalen Wayne were able to accomplish a year ago, but our offensive line is physical. Three weeks in a row, we’ve been able to move people off the ball. I thought we took the biggest step forward in terms of protection against UCLA. We were very firm in protection. I thought our backs did a really good job of picking up and recognizing some things in terms of pressures.

Everybody can point to some of the throws downfield by Carter Bradley, and they were pretty tremendous, but there were three check-down throws that he made in very tight windows as the rush was closing in that kept us ahead of the chains. I’m very impressed with the steps we’re taking forward.

I’ll be honest and say that I think this week is going to be our most challenging week that we’ve seen yet in terms of our offensive line being able to execute. [Louisiana Tech] plays hard and they’re schematically very challenging. They present a lot more challenges because of those two things than what UCLA presented for us. They have a lot of third-down mixes and pressures, a lot of interior movement on first and second down, so we have to establish the run game because they are going to take away a lot of tight windows out on the perimeter. You’ve got to be able to establish a run game and be in position to capitalize on explosive plays down field. It’s going to be gritty, it’s going to be bloody, it’s going to be ugly, it’s going to take a tough gutsy performance from our offensive line because Louisiana Tech is going to get some negative plays. We just have to stay in our process and wear them down. All of us are pretty excited and urgent about the challenge ahead this week.”

On what Louisiana Tech does offensively:

There are some things that we do both schematically and from a talent level with our linebacking corps and defensive line that makes us difficult to run the ball against. We do some things to take away tight, easy access throws, but they work very hard to find those open windows. They’re a team that takes what’s given to them. They are very patient. [head coach] Sonny [Cumbie] has done a tremendous job during his career of being a patient play caller. He’ll take what you give him all day long. We’re going to have to mix windows up. We can’t give them easy access throws. We also have to be intentional with some of the deep shots they’re going to take as well. We have to keep the main thing, the main thing. Let’s limit their run game. Let’s not give them easy access throws so they aren’t able to dink and dunk us all day.

We also have to step up in terms of our defensive production. We’re not producing to the level that we’re capable of. Myself as a defensive guy is well aware of that, [defensive coordinator] Corey [Batoon] is well aware of that, and our players are well aware of that. We are doing some really good things on defense, but we haven’t hit our stride yet on that side of the ball. We’re looking forward to creating some more ‘game-changers’. We need to create some more TFLs [tackles for loss], we need to create more sacks and three-and-outs. We did get four three-and-outs last week in some massive situations, which was really good to see. We need to create more takeaways, which is something this defense has always been built on.