South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 10/24/2022

Obviously it was a very disappointing earned loss from us this past week against Troy. I do credit the game plan that they had. I thought they did exactly what they had to do to win the game. They were going to try to limit the number of possessions that we had and play very conservative, and put the game in their defense’s hands, which certainly was their best unit. We did not take advantage of the opportunities that we had for a number of reasons. When you look at the game in real time, I thought from a physicality standpoint, [Troy] did some really good things. There were more ‘misfits’ from us defensively and missed execution on offense, which is very uncanny of us. We’ve been able to establish the run and fit the run very well [this season] and we had some very disappointing things [happen] that we have to get corrected moving forward.

Ultimately, that game was about us and us not operating at a level that we’re capable of. That was a hard loss to take and a hard loss that was earned. I didn’t sugarcoat that with the players in the locker room after the game or when we talked this morning. I feel the key for us is to be a responsive football team. We’re in this position and have gotten to where we’ve been this point in the season because of our level of execution, our process and our standard from Monday through Friday. Those things have shown up on Saturday, but we didn’t see that well enough this past Thursday. Everyone in the building’s needs to respond with a certain demeanor and urgency in this week of practice and that sense of urgency needs to show up on Saturday.

On this past weekend following the loss:

I did not have a very good weekend. When you earn a loss like we did and take a loss that did not have to happen if you execute to the level you’re capable of, that’s a hard pill to swallow. Especially on a Thursday night game with an opportunity like we certainly had. We don’t talk about outcomes. I know that’s not fun in the media or fun to talk about with our fan base, but you say you’re going to be a process driven program then you better actually be about your process. Either that or the formula doesn’t actually work. For us, we don’t talk about all the other external postseason play or standings, or bowl games. Those are things I know when we put our heads on the pillow at night that people are going to dream about doing, that’s just a given in college football and that’s why you do things. You want to compete at the highest level and win championships, but for us in this building what we talk about is being relentless in our process and then that process showing up on game day, and it did not [on Thursday night]. When those things happen, it’s a hard pill to swallow and certainly one we need to get corrected moving forward. The mentality of this team needs to be responsive. Hopefully that’s what we’ll see this week and then that response has to show up on Saturday [against Arkansas State] in Jonesboro.

 On this being the point in the season when things got away last year:

It’s a fair point and you see that in some teams. Great teams continue to strive to get better and stay relentless in their process or they start to fall to the wayside. We fell short of our process and standard as the season wore on [a year ago]. Some of that was due to injuries. Some of that was because the team wore down and didn’t take advantage of opportunities as the season went. You certainly can point to some responsiveness at the end of the year in how we played against Coastal Carolina and some of the response that we had against Troy in the second half a year ago, but I do think this is a different team this year. You will see a different response from us this week. I think we are very aware that we didn’t play anywhere near the standard, and I don’t mean to say that to take away from Troy. I thought [Troy head coach] Jon [Sumrall] and his staff did a tremendous job, they really did, but that was an earned loss by South Alabama plain and simple. Those are the ones that are hard to swallow. It’s the thing that’s hard and [at the same time] great about college football. It wasn’t our last game of the season, so we get a chance to respond.

On if La’Damian Webb’s struggles against Troy were due to health or just the overall struggles of the offense on the night:

It was a little bit of both. Coming off a midsection injury, I thought he was okay in the game, but not at full capacity. The good thing is he went through the game and felt pretty good the day after. On a positive note, we did come out of the game pretty healthy where this week we will be as healthy as we’ve been since before UCLA as a team, which is certainly a great sign. That’s something you think about looking back to a year ago and the amount of injuries we had and the lack of depth that we had as a team. That’s certainly a possible indicator of how we weren’t able to execute towards the end of the season. For us to be in a healthier position than we’ve been in in five weeks is a good spot for us to be in heading into the last five games of the year.

On what stands out about Arkansas State:

When you look at them, they’re playing a little more of a team-style game. They seem more committed to running the football than what they were a year ago. Last year, they tried to utilize tempo best they could and spread you out, and dink and dunk you in the passing game, and then take their shots down field. This year, you see some different personnel groupings and a little bit more motion shifting where they can slow the game down a little bit with a little bit more of a commitment to running the football. Sometimes it’s effective and sometimes it hasn’t been effective, but they’re still committed to it. Their record isn’t reflective of where they want to be, but the scores are closer in the third and fourth quarters. From a defensive standpoint, [Arkansas State defensive coordinator] Rob Harley, I’ve known him for a very long time. He’s a great man and a great coach. He comes from that Pat Narduzzi system. For lack of a better term, they’ve always been a little bit of a feast or famine style defense just because they are so aggressive in the first 10 yards; the game is really played defensively in that window. It’s more of a zero-man type concept where they bring pressure with six bodies from the first and second [levels] and even potentially the third levels. They play a three-deep, two-underneath type zone [defense] behind it.

At times, we’ve got to take advantage of their aggressiveness both in the run and pass game. Their linebackers are very downhill, one-gap oriented. You’re going to get a lot of one-on-one matchups in both the run and pass games. We have to be able to win a majority of those one-on-one matchups in both of those scenarios in order to be successful. You look at [how we were in those situations] this past Thursday, and we didn’t win enough of our one-on-one matchups and we didn’t push the ball down field consistently enough to go hit big plays in a very tight game. The plays we did, either came up short either on a ball that ruled to be dropped or we had a couple of penalties. We have to do a better job of staying committed to pushing the ball down field. We certainly need to be mindful of that in this week’s game plan.