South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 10/25/2021

On what the team didn’t do at ULM last Saturday:

Execution didn’t show up in the game. Our margin for execution is too wide right now, and that narrows the margin for success that we can have in a game so those two things have to flip. We’ve operated and shown that we can play at a very high level 40 minutes of the game against Louisiana and obviously with what we were able to do against Georgia Southern, but then we’ve had these inconsistent moments where we’ve played with such poor execution at the end of the game against Texas State ‚Äì particularly on defense ‚Äì and the majority of the game last weekend against Louisiana-Monroe. In such a short span of time we’ve had such a wide margin of execution where we are doing things at a very high level and also doing things at such an inconsistent level, and that has to diminish to where on our worst day we’re still operating very close to what our best day looks like. If we’ll narrow that margin of execution we will widen our margin for success, and that’s how you turn things around as a program.

On the second-half run game at ULM:

I think part of that is when you’re starting to go down and time is running off the clock. They converted three third downs on the last drive to extend their lead to 10 points, if we execute on any of those third downs and get off the field it changes the way that [offensive coordinator] Major [Applewhite] and the rest of the offense has to operate. Because we were not doing our job as a defense, it forced our offense to be a little bit more aggressive in the passing game as opposed to those body blows in the run game that we were able to do against Bowling Green, where you flip it around and we struggled offensively a good part of the game but because defensively we got stops ‚Äì particularly in the fourth quarter ‚Äì we were able to establish a run game and play nice, complimentary football/. We were not able to do that [at ULM] partly because we weren’t stopping them with consistency on defense.

On how much pressure was on the offense against the Warhawks:

It is what it is and it takes what it takes to win a football game. I have a defensive background obviously, but at the same time we’re going to have to win some games 42-41. We’re also going to win some games 22-19, but for us if it takes 42 points to win the football game then we have to score 42 points and everybody in this program has to realize that just a few more guys making a few more plays changes the outcome of a game. I can’t tell you when those plays are coming, but we don’t know when those plays are so play as hard as you can with as much consistency as you can for as long as you can, and then come out of the game. Right now we are way to inconsistent as a program.

On the program’s struggles on the road:

I do think it’s harder to play on the road, there are more variables that you have to deal with. There are a lot of teams that play with a little more momentum because they are in their comfort zone ‚Äì Louisiana-Monroe is probably the best example of that ‚Äì and we were that way when I was here before. We had some tremendous road games, you think of Mississippi State my first-ever game here as a defensive coordinator where we go down 17-0 at halftime and then they don’t score a touchdown the rest of the game and we knock off an SEC opponent. We’ve been more inconsistent on the road over the years, but we are an inconsistent program period. Until we get to the point where we are operating with narrow margins of execution and we know what we are going to get, when we have a good week in practice we have to go execute on game day. That’s what it always comes down to, all those habits that you have in practice lead to being able to show up on game day ‚Äì and they are important ‚Äì but ultimately it is about how you execute on game day. We got punched in the mouth in the first half we rallied back in the third quarter, and then we got punched a second time and we didn’t handle it very well and I thought ‚Äì on defense in particular ‚Äì we started playing not to lose. Defense is inherently reactionary, and when you play slower on top of that, that’s where you get exposed and I thought that’s exactly what their staff and players did to us.

On what stands out about Arkansas State:

I think obviously their explosiveness offensively. This is the same system that I came up in as a player under Blake Anderson and Larry Fedora, and as a coach starting out as an offensive line graduate assistant at Southern Miss. There have been some tweaks, I think Keith Heckendorf has done a tremendous job of bringing stability to the things they have done in the past year with some new personnel going into this season. Layne Hatcher does a tremendous job of operating their offense, he’s been involved in it a long time; he knows where to go with the ball and is decisive. He can make all the throws and I think that is why they are throwing for more than 90 yards more per game than anybody else in the Sun Belt. They are a little bit more inconsistent in the run game but they will pop some runs off that you can’t allow them to get, but from a defensive perspective for us it’s about limiting their explosives ‚Äì none for touchdowns ‚Äì and making them earn the length of the field the old-fashioned way. You look at their defense and there has been some inconsistencies there both in the run and passing game, and yet at the same time they probably played their best football last week against Louisiana in large part because of the intensity that they played with. That’s a credit to [head coach] Butch [Jones] and the rest of their staff, when you are 1-5 as a program to be able to come out and compete at the level that they did against Louisiana was a tremendous tip of the cap to their program.