Coach Sark recaps Texas football’s latest win, breaking down explosive plays on offense, key defensive turnovers, and standout performances from Arch Manning, Parker, and Cedric Baxter. He also addresses penalty struggles, the importance of mental intensity, and how the Longhorns are preparing for UTEP’s aggressive defense. Plus, Sark gives insight on developing young talent, the transfer portal window, and why explosive plays matter more than long drives.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Questions already. Just a couple housekeeping notes. First of all,
just to shout out to coach Elliott Women's volleyball. What
an awesome atmosphere last night in Moody, What a great
match and when they had over Stanford that was that
was an electric environment that obviously very cool. Got Hall
of Honor this week, and we obviously six team members
going in. Two football players, Rod Wright, a guy who's
(00:23):
obviously now in the coaching world and doing a great
job with the Texans, and Bobby Mitchell from football. So
that's exciting. And NFL season underway, and we got forty
eight guys on NFL rosters right now, thirty seven active
and then the rest on either practice squad, PUP or IR.
So a lot of guys you know, competing and contributing
in the NFL. So a lot of cool things happening
(00:44):
that way. As far as Saturday, just to reiterate, you know,
thanks to our fans. What an awesome turnout for eleven
AM kick season opener to have over one hundred thousand
people Saturday. Our thought, our students were amazing, staying till
the end, singing the eyes at Texas. That was. That
was awesome and look forward to them to uh, you know,
being back again this Saturday for an afternoon kick here
(01:07):
against UTEP. As far as the game goes start positively.
You know, I thought that things that we emphasized, you know,
we we got the rewards on you know, we really
went into last week talking about, you know, attacking the
ball on defense, and we created four turnovers. But you
could see the intent on those plays and on other
(01:29):
plays where we got our hands on the ball, whether
it was in the past game, whether it was the
second tackler in trying to get the ball out like
they were very intentional attacking the ball, and the result
was we got the four turnovers and some other opportunities
I think presented themselves. We got to stay down that
path offensively, you know, we really made it a point
to try to be more explosive, and you know, we
(01:52):
found more explosive plays. I think we were about twenty
percent of our plays we're explosives, uh nine passes, five rushes,
and so finding our ability to be explosive on offense
is a huge component of that thought. We were a
lot more efficient in the red area. You know, we
had the one turnover that like I said, I think
Archill will definitely learn from that experience of what that
(02:14):
felt like, what that looked like. But I think more
importantly was the ability to play complimentary football, which I
didn't think we did a great job of in Week one.
Got much better this week of When we got the turnovers,
we got the short fields, we turned those into points,
and so playing that style of game was important for us.
I think, you know, the couple of things that were glaring,
(02:35):
and the easy one to look at that because it's
very tangible, is the penalties. And you have twelve penalties
for one hundred and fifteen yards, which means there's some
major fouls in there, and they were in all three phases.
You know, on special teams, we roughed the punter and
we got a holding on a punt return. On defense,
you know, we had a couple off sides, we roughed
(02:57):
the passer. Offensively, you know, we have a holding by
a wide receiver, we have a holding by an interior
offensive lineman, we have a chop block, we have false starts,
and so it was kind of across the board, which
which lent myself to this idea that you know, where
was our mental intensity. Where was our mental focus Saturday?
(03:17):
I know human nature is what it is. And you
come off of a really big game on the road
for your season opener, and you know human nature is
let's take a deep breath and relax. We don't get
to relax. You know, our mental intensity needs to be
as high as it needs to be. We need to
play with the right type of discipline throughout the week
on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That discipline is
(03:39):
what's going to lead to the proper habits of how
we practice, which ultimately will lead to the consistency in
our play, which will lead to the growth that all
of us need to make. And so all that starts
with me. I don't point the finger at anybody else
but myself. We need to improve upon that, which we will.
You know, I think that we because of those penalties,
we put ourselves in some really difficult third downs. I
(04:01):
think we had twelve third downs Saturday. Six of those
were third and nine or larger. And that's not a
winning formula for success when you're trying to move the
ball on a consistent basis, And so we've got to
improve upon that. But I thought there were some nice
highlights in the game. Like I said, I thought Arch
had a very good football game. Again, he was not perfect.
(04:21):
I don't expect him to be. I expect him to
learn from some of the mistakes he had. Parker continues
to do the things that he's doing. I think he's
the SEC Freshman of the Week this week, which is great.
Jack Andrees. You know, Cedric Baxter got another fifteen touches,
so his growth continues to go. And like I said, defensively,
Anthony Hill, Jolana McDonald ty Anthony Smith, I thought Marod
(04:41):
Watson really starting to show up, starting to find his
groove on the defensive front. And then then Trey Moore
as well, So again that was good. And like I said,
I thought it was great for Mason Shipley, you know,
his first field goal attempts for forty seven yard or banged.
It looked very comfortable doing that. So all in all,
it's good to win in. You know, I've been down
in these other games. I got a chance by playing
(05:03):
at eleven AM. I got to get home earlier and
watch some other teams kind of kind of slug the
ball around on the field too. You know, in games
where everyone thinks you're just supposed to go out and
play perfect, and so part of that is the growth
of a team. But we need to improve and everybody
needs to improve individually, and I believe we'll do so
when we started to do that today. As far as
(05:24):
this week go, Scotty Walden and UTEP coming to town.
Skuy's had a nice Career's done a nice job, and
his team is drastically improved. A lot of transfers on
both sides of the ball. Obviously, Malachi Nelson at quarterback
was a very high level recruit. Guy we recruited here
is throwing it all over the field, and I think defensively,
very attacking style defense. Through two games. I think they
(05:46):
have ten sacks through two games, they have twenty three TFLs.
Their third down conversion rate I think is like twenty
percent on defense, so they're attacking defense that very active,
very wonder what we played last week. I think we
need to handle the movement much better than we did
last week at the line of scrimmage. But all in all,
(06:07):
to me, this week is about us and what we
need to do to improve as a football team individually
and collectively. So with that will open it.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Up the left between San Jose State and UTEP and
SAM Houston. It's a lot of different styles of offensive
and defensive football. I know you can't plan this out
when you're putting the schedule together a few years down
the road, But how nice is it that it turned
out that way that you've got run and shoot and
pace in space and.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Air raid and then equal variety on defense.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah. No, it's great for us, you know, I mean
as because we're gonna get ready to go into SEC
play and we're gonna get all of it then too,
you know, from the variety of offenses that you get,
to the style of quarterbacks that you play, to the
multitude of fronts that we get in the SEC. Uh
two teams stemming from one front to another front, you know,
(06:56):
right before the ball snapped. So you know, we're fortunate
that way. And it's and it's we we're we have
some growing pains from a player's perspective, but there's some
growing pains from a staff perspective too of what do
we really like, what works, what doesn't, how we're coaching it,
and so we need to use these these experiences as
(07:16):
valuable lessons, even when maybe things don't go exactly the
way we want are we are we be able to
adjust it in game? Uh and block it better later
in game. There's a there's a prime example we called
a run I think it was in the early in
the second quarter where their will linebacker ran through and
we had a TfL on Christian Clark. And we came
(07:37):
back to that same run later we fixed it and
Cole Hudson comes off on the will linebacker running through.
We hand the ball to Christian Clark and it's an
explosive run for about sixteen yards. And so, you know,
I think our guys being coachable, being able to make
in game adjustments in these types of games in particular,
I think is gonna serve us well down the road.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Right Steve, you said in your postgame comments you're not
getting the best version of Ryan Wingo right now. But
what what do you think needs to happen for that
to happen? And are you getting what you want out
of your punt returns through two games?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah? You know, with Ryan, you know, I just think
he's he's pressing a little bit, you know. He Ryan
is like one of the if not the most, one
of the most conscientious kids on our roster. He works
really hard, Like nobody practices harder than this guy. He
wants to do right. He's in the right spots, you know,
(08:31):
he wants to make all his plays. Sometimes, you know,
not trying so hard is the best avenue and and
just playing and relaxing and playing and and he'll get there,
you know. Again, you know, I think that we all
want him to get there sooner rather than later, and
I know he does too. But again I think that
(08:52):
you know, taking a deep breath and letting the place
come to him and not trying to go make it.
I think on that on that you know, glance throw
the other day, I think he was already thinking he
was making the safety miss, you know, like in his
mind because he's practiced it so many times and sometimes
this let's just catch the ball and go play. But
(09:12):
but again, he's a fantastic player, is a great teammate
and we need him and I think he understands that.
And his rapport with the arch is really good, and
so we'll we'll, we'll, we'll find his niche. It's great
for him right now that Parker's doing what he's doing,
you know, because that's getting a little bit of the
attention off of him, and Parker's making his plays when
they're coming to him. So that's a good thing. Oh,
(09:34):
I'm sorry on the part return. You know, we just
haven't had a lot of great ops unfortunately. You know,
we've the first game the Higo State punter. He was
punting the ball about thirty yards and those are tough
to get returns on. They're tough on the returner, they're
tough on your corners who are trying to hold up
on the gunners. This past week, you know, we really
went in thinking we could get a block and it's
(09:55):
unfortunate we just didn't execute it. It's two weeks in
a row. We had chances to we didn't execute it
very well. We've got to be better more detailed there.
Uh and two, we didn't block great form, and so
I thought all the decisions Ryan made were probably the
right ones. There may have been one late that he
could have returned, but it's tough when they're short kicks
and there's not a lot of you know that there's
(10:16):
not a lot of room, and so you know, we
tried to get one return and we were in the
long leverage at corner, so everybody's got to do their
part to allow the returner to get the return started.
And so that's definitely an area of improvement for us.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It's stark.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
The recommendation for the portal window came out, smaller window
early January.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
You like that, and from a coach's perspective, what are
the positives and negatives? Yeah, I was. I was in
favor of this, of this recommendation. I just felt like
it's gotten Really it was really difficult two years ago
when it was just December, uh and you were in
the playoffs. And then I thought about us last year
(11:01):
when we were all the way into the Semis and
the portal opened. But then I also thought about that
spring portal window and what that felt like. And you're
trying to assemble the team as quickly as possible to
build the camaraderie and so that you can grow and
so you can know who you're working with, and so
I feel like to be fair to the players but
(11:22):
also fair to the schools. You know, if you're one
of those four teams that are left and the portal
window opens for those ten days and the players will
still have their five days after, you know, whenever you're
done the national championship or the semis. Those are Champagne problems.
You know, that means you've got a pretty good team,
you're in the semi finals. But I think for the
betterment of the sport, that's the right window for teams,
(11:44):
for the players to have a chance to go in
and then decide where they want to go so they
can roll in the their next institution for spring and
be there for spring ball and then into summer. It's
fair for the school so they can build their rosters
predicated on who leaves and what they're trying to do.
And like I said, and if you're if you are
one of the four, you figure it out. You know,
(12:04):
we've all hired you know, big enough, you know, uh,
personnel departments and you know on our team, Brandon Harris
does a great job with all the people there, John
Michael Jones, everybody involved. And so they they've they've got
to do their leg work and they got to be
ahead of the game a little bit. But in the end,
it's sure a lot better knowing who your team is.
You know, as you go into spring, then what's happening
(12:24):
now in June and now you've got guys leaving, then
you've got new faces coming again. So I just think
for the betterment of the sport and the teams, this
is the right way to go.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You're right with arch Manning seemed to be having some
throwing pains.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
By the cod who arch Arch said that to you? No, oh,
according to who, it just looked like he was. He
doesn't have any is that.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Is there an explanation to why he was it looked
like that.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I've never filed I've never filmed any of you guys
when you're using the bathroom, so I don't know what
faces you make when you're doing that.
Speaker 7 (12:57):
Little Roger, Sorry, you talked about going home and watch that.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
I've been to ask him. You get another question coming up,
I'll come back to you.
Speaker 7 (13:09):
You mentioned going home and watching games every Saturday. There
are games that surprise people in this sport, and we
seem to think that this is set up for the
haves and have not. You look at Rosters and Malachai
and Nelson. You guys wanted how different is the perception
and the reality that there are still really good players
all over the country.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, it's challenging, you know, because a lot of players
like these guys have a linebacker that was playing at
the FCS level last year that one hundred and fifty
five tackles and now he's starting at linebacker for UTEP.
And so players get better in college and they may
not all have the three and four and five stars,
(13:47):
but we've seen these stories time and time again. It'd
be like Michael taff if he ended up not walking
on here and going somewhere else and then transferring to
a school, how good of a player would he be?
And so I think what the portal has done loud
avenues for good players to move up or move to
different spots. Maybe they weren't getting all the playing time
that they would have wanted other places. And the challenging
(14:08):
part for us is you don't really know them all right.
You go into the opening, you know, early games of
a season, and you're looking at like these guys. There's
a ton of transfers on UTEP's team, and you're trying
to do your research on this guy playing over here,
and this guy's playing over here, and how good was
he and what are his strengths and so a lot
of work goes into it, and you just don't know
until you start playing the games of Okay, this guy's
(14:31):
got a little more juice than we thought, or this
quarterback's a little more mobile than we thought. On top
of that, if they've got new coaches, what are the
schemes and so all these things add up to these
are really tricky games, especially in the front end of
the season when you don't have a lot of evidence
on the teams, and then the specific players on those
teams are right there.
Speaker 8 (14:52):
Steve, if you talked about the importance of explosive plays
and just curious from coaching perspective, is there a balance
between you know, trying to build those things into the
game plan and want to do it versus maybe assessing
the strength of your team and realizing like, all right,
maybe you know, we're more of an eight seventy nine
play drive team versus doing the explosive No.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I think there is. I think there's definite balance. I
just think the numbers bear out. You know, it's really
hard to score the more plays you run in a drive.
It's just that that's the analytics of our sport, you know,
is the reason people don't bun as much in baseball,
you know, I mean, you're trying to get extra base hits.
(15:32):
You're trying to get people around the bases faster, and
so football is not a lot different than that. Now,
there's a time and a place when you're trying to
ball control. There's a time and a place to be efficient.
But the numbers just don't bear out the fact of
like if you're going to go on ten and twelve
fourteen play drives over time, your success rate of scoring
(15:53):
touchdowns dramatically goes down. And so you got to find
a way to create explosive plays. And then you've got
to trust the decision making of your quarterback of when
to take those shots and maybe when to check it down,
because you don't have to throw the ball thirty yards
downfield to get an explosive play. You can throw it
to a running back in the flat. You can throw
it to a tight end over the middle. They can
(16:13):
break a tackle and create an explosive play. So you
got to work within the confines of the offense, and
then you got to be strategic of when there's a
time and a place really to take those shots down
the field.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
Coach, when it comes to penalties, besides getting on guys,
what do you do differently this week in practice. And
have you talked to Colin Simmons because he has a
few on the.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I think he's leading the country in penalties right now
with five. As a matter of fact, you know, I
didn't think. I don't think he thought after two games
that would be what he'd be leading the country in.
So you know, again, another guy who thinks just trying
a little too hard, you know, is trying to jump
the snap count and it's got to be more mindful.
At the end of the day. You have to point
him out. I think in game what happens is when
(16:56):
you get a penalty, there's a consequence the team suffers, right,
you go back five yards, you go back fifteen yards,
the opponent gets to continue to possess the ball because
you're rough a punter. There's consequences to penalties. Well, we
need to have consequences in practice too, right.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
He had a follow up Steve with Colin. I mean
he's got skins on the walls. Were still pretty young player.
Do you use tough love with him or is he
one of those guys you allow to try to figure
it out on his own.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
No, I mean there was tough love Saturday you know,
we took him out. He didn't start the second half,
you know, I mean, and I think we got his attention,
you know, I think he had the three penalties were
in the first half. He didn't have any in the
second half, and he got half a sack, you know.
So you know, I just think that you settling down.
You know, you don't get ten sacks in one play,
you know, And you play within the confines of the defense,
(17:47):
You play within the confines of the other defensive linemen
of you know, when your rush attempts are there, and
how to play, and you apply the game plan like
in for instance, in this game, I thought we missed
three sacks, you know, and he had one. I think
Brad Spence had another one, and I can't recall the third.
But our whole rush plan, if you were an edge rusher,
(18:08):
was to rush to the upfield shoulder of the quarterback.
His all over the tape. When he got pressure, he
scrambled around, he never went up in the pocket. Well,
we didn't do that, and we came flat and he
ran around us three times. And so we have to
apply the things that we work on in practice. That's
a snapshot of one thing in the game, but there
(18:28):
was other things that I think we need to be
better at as a team of applying what we're teaching
you to do throughout the week in game when the
moment comes. It looked like Xena had some moments where
he really flashed on Saturday. Who were what did you
think of him? And then maybe some of the other
younger guys that you saw. I thought Zena and Lance
Jackson both I thought did some things. Again, I think
(18:49):
I mentioned Marod Watson. I thought he got going once
the game started moving, you know, clearly Ty Anthony of
what he's doing on the defensive side of the ball.
I thought Xavier fills me little smaller sample size, but
I thought he played really well and that was intentional
to play him more to see what that would look like.
(19:10):
But I thought clik Lockett had a couple of catches.
It was great for him. I know it probably goes
unnoticed to everybody else, but that fourth down was a
big deal to me. What is how's this guy get
how they play? You know, with Matt Caldwell and and
Khalik on a fourth down and executing that play, same
play we threw with with Ryan Wingo on arch Manning right,
and so you kind of little different result. And so
the act that he could go in there and do that,
(19:33):
you know, I think there was a lot of learning
for Christian Clark, you know, his first real carries. You know,
the idea of you know, the intent of runs and
where they're supposed to hit. Not every run is meant
to bounce and try to run around people. We got
to hit runs a certain way and so a lot
of that type of stuff in game. You know, Cad
Phillips got in there, got his hands on a ball.
I think next time he probably picks it. You know,
(19:55):
so a lot of guys got opportunities. Now we got
to grow and learn from those opportunities.
Speaker 9 (20:00):
Hey, coach, there's only been two games. But from an
offensive standpoint, what do you like that you see? What
are some areas of improvement on that side of the ball.
And I know you talked you might have an intense, good, bad,
and ugly session today. Whatever details against share about that,
I'm curious, I.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Would say, offensively, you know, varying game plans. What I
like about our offense right now? I think these guys
are coachable when when we make an emphasis on things
to improve upon, whether it's individual players or as a unit.
They've responded. You know, we obviously challenged Arch from one
(20:36):
week to the next. I think he responded and there's
growing pain still in there when we challenged them on
you know, creating more explosive plays, breaking more tackles. I
think our guys have responded to that. Now we need
to be more consistent. We need to take practice to
the game. You know, I think the details in our
offense need to improve. And so but again we've got
(20:59):
some I hate saying young players. We have some new
faces and there's gonna be some growing pains. I wasn't
naive to that to think we were just gonna be
a well oiled machine the first month of the season.
But I want to see incremental growth. And there were
some airs Saturday that need to improve. Our third down
pass protection needs to improve, uh, not from a physical standpoint,
(21:21):
but schematically of understanding the stresses on our protections and
then who's responsible for those things when they when they arrive.
And we've had a couple of breakdowns now through two
weeks that we need to improve upon. So all in all,
you know, from from this morning, it was all encompassing
to me as a team, I feel a little bit like,
(21:44):
you know, they know we have good coaches and and
our players know we are gonna scheme people up, and
we're gonna scheme up free blitzers. We're gonna scheme up
coverages to disguise and and and get hands on balls.
We're gonna scheme up plays to get people open down
the feet. I don't want our players relying on the scheme.
I want our players relying on their fundamentals, their techniques,
(22:06):
their details, and their effort. That coupled with scheme, that's
when we become really dangerous. And so as coaches, maybe
we we pull back a little bit on scheme and
we get back to fundamentals, technique, effort, details of how
we execute plays. Then we can put those two things
back together, and I think that's when it will be
(22:27):
at our best as a team.
Speaker 10 (22:29):
Right Steeve, kind of standing on that, what are your
thoughts you and Kyle's thoughts and just the offensive line
and how they've looked over these first two week.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, I thought in week one, you know, we played
pretty good against that group, you know, two very different
style of defenses. You know where Ohio State was a big, physical,
traditional you know, it's mono and mono and you got
to block really good people right in front of you.
San Jose State was smaller. They were quicker, they were
moving every snap. We totally lost our fundamus. We got
(23:00):
on our toes. We were falling over ourselves. We give
up way too much penetration and that we have to
know what we're playing against, and then you have to
take it to practice. Every opponent's different. It's like you
got to wipe the slate clean on a Monday morning.
Here we go, here's the scouting report. Here's what they're
good at. Here's maybe what they're not so good at.
(23:21):
Here's how we're gonna try to exploit them. Here's the
guy that I'm lining up across the majority of the game.
Here's his strengths, here's his weaknesses. How am I gonna
play him? I didn't think we we carried enough information
into the game and applied it up front, and so
to me, I think that showed a little bit of
our immaturity upfront Saturday, that it wasn't the same game.
(23:42):
It was a different game. You can't play it the
same and so you know, That's something where I think
we need to grow this week and learn and understand
of who's my opponent, what are they trying to do
to me, how are they trying to beat me? And
then how am I going to combat that within the
ball game?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Je Sark The role of tight end is drastically different
in different schemes. What's the impact of tight end in
your system? And his Jack picked things up impressively quickly.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, you know, our tight end I've said this all along,
probably after the quarterback, might be the most important position
in our offense. It's definitely the most taxing when you
think about the multitude of formations, personnel groupings, motions, shifts
that they're responsible and part of, and then what we
(24:31):
ask of them, we're not. We don't. We don't use
the tight end in a one dimensional role. He has
to run, block, he has to pass, protect, he has
to catch routes, he has to block on the perimeter,
all that doing it in a way that is a
lot of movement, a lot of motion. And so to
Jack's credit, I think his experience at CAL has been
(24:51):
very helpful for him. He looks very comfortable when he plays.
There's there's some things in his game that that we
want him to do better like all the players. But again,
I have to remind myself, this is his second game
in our offense, and he wasn't a guy who was
here in springball with us. He got here in the summertime,
and so he just doesn't have as much volume of
running our plays. But he's a very quick study. He's
(25:13):
a quick learner. He works at his craft. He's very bright, uh,
and he's picked our stuff up really well.
Speaker 11 (25:20):
You mentioned that you after the game on Saturday, you
watched a couple of other games.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
What teams were you watching? And also when you get
the chance.
Speaker 11 (25:27):
To watch these other games, are you sit back, are
you you know, do you get to relax a little bit?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Are you also watch?
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I was holding my son. It was kind of fun.
He and I first Saturday watching college football together. So
that was that was kind of neat. I was jumping around,
you know some of these channels, I mean, you get
like four games going on on one on one screen.
So I was watching a lot of stuff and I
was watching Clemson in a dog fight with Troy. I
was watching Georgia and rain delays against Austin p I
watched Ou and Michigan have a great game. There was
(25:57):
a there was a lot of a lot of great
games on and you learn a lot, you know, and
you think, man, is this just us? Man? Are we are?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
We?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Are we screwed up? Or well? There's some pretty good
teams that were struggling around Saturday a little bit too.
And there were some other teams that looked really good,
you know, and maybe they're a little ahead of the curve.
I don't know. I just trust in our process of
getting our guys ready to go. But it was great
to have an opportunity to do that. You know, the
eleven AM kicks. I know it's not everybody's favorites, but
(26:24):
when you have eleven AM kick for a home game
and your home and the sun's still out and you
get to watch a little college football, it's kind of
fun for me. You should vote in the poll.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
You watch so many games.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I'd have a better I'd have a better feel this week.
I can be honest. I could be honest with you
about that better field.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I'll send me your top twenty five.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Oregon look really good. Anybody has to vote. They look
pretty good. Saturday.
Speaker 11 (26:46):
You mentioned consequences to the penalties in practice.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I was curious, you know what that process is.
Speaker 11 (26:51):
Do they run stadium steps?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Do you withhold meal money?
Speaker 5 (26:55):
What?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I might not give up all the all the things
that we do. But yeah, there's consequence to your point,
and I and I think there's a variety of ways
to enforce those things. I think one thing about penalties
that's important. When you get a penalty in the game, Yeah,
you have the you you have the public humility, humiliation
(27:15):
of getting your number announced on national television and in
front of one hundred thousand people, so you got to
hear your name number called out. But really, who suffers
when you get a penalty? All of us, the team suffers.
It's not the individual got the you got the penalty,
but we all serve the consequences for that. So I
think it's a little easier when you when a guy
gets a penalty, it's not so much about the punishment
(27:39):
of the one player. It's the punishment of the team
because we all feel the effects of those penalties when
they occur.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Practice.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, do the math there, do the math.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It's Steve real quick. Do you expect to have Trey
Wisner this weekend? And you mentioned recruiting Malachi Nelson. I'm curious,
when you get back to see these guys after you've
had relationships with them, are they the same player or
are they totally different when somebody else has gotten a
hold of them.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, Trey Uh, I'd probably say today is doubtful. I'm
not ruling him out, but I would say it's doubtful. Again.
I'm at this juncture of the season. I'm just not
in a rush to push guys back out there if
they're not as close to one hundred percent or even closer.
Like I just I just know how long this thing goes,
(28:32):
you know, and I know what it's going to look
like in October and November and December and hopefully January.
Like is the juice? Is the juice worth the squeeze?
Right now for Saturday? Now, we're rehabbing them, We're trying
to get them ready to go, and then we'll make
a decision as we get closer to the ballgame of
what that looks like. As far as guys you recruit,
(28:53):
I'm always intrigued. You know, we recruit a lot of players,
and so they start stacking on top of each other,
and you remember some of them more vividly than others.
And you know, some of them evolve, some of them
are kind of who they were. I don't think there's
one way that they all go about their way, you know.
(29:14):
I think about like Jaden Daniels, for example, when he
was at in high school coming out, and then who
he was at Arizona State. He was really more of
a runner, and by the time he finished at LSU,
he was a prolific passer, right, And so guys can
grow and evolve throughout their time, and now he's doing
both in the NFL, and so I just I was
(29:37):
always intrigued by watching them, you know, when you get
your chances and when you get an opportunity to play
against them and see them. I think they're all different,
Some remain the same, some evolve into different players.
Speaker 12 (29:48):
Right, Coach, A lot of fans already have check marks
with games in the future, But Mississippi State I had
a heck of a win, Vandy came back. Do you
have a message to the fans that the SEC is
pretty good and don't put check marks out there just
because you think you're gonna beat them.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Who votes in the ap here raise your hands? How
many SEC teams are in the top twenty five this week.
Eleven eleven teams in the SEC are in the top
twenty five this week. And so our conference is real.
It is hands down the most challenging conference in college
football because it's week in and week out. There are
(30:26):
no breaks, there are no gimmes. You better show up
every Saturday ready to play physically and mentally.
Speaker 13 (30:34):
Yes, Steve, you talked about getting called well some reps
this past weekend. How do you manage when to pull
arch and give Caudwell those opportunities when maybe the offense
isn't as Chris Ebs you want it to be, like
you mentioned on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's just you just make the call.
You know, you're having some discussions as you're going through it.
You're you're kind of looking at the clock, like I
just got done telling the guys today. I know we
have a lot of guys on our team that wish
they played more Saturday. Well, and I know their buddies
on their team wishes they played more Saturday. We'll play
(31:07):
better earlier in the game, and then those guys can
get in the game sooner. Okay, So everybody's got to
do their part. Okay, if we want guys to get
more opportunities to play well, the guys maybe in front
of you to play a little better earlier, and then
that serves and gives opportunities for the other guys to
get into the game, to have more opportunities to grow
and get better. So we all got to help each
(31:28):
other out.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
So rk rod right, you mentioned going in the Hall
of honor another guy from that five team. For you,
you know what that year means to this program where
you are the head coach, but you know what it
meant to you back in five when you could have
had another ring at USC. I'm just curious about how
that kind of balances your emotions when you have to
constantly go back twenty years.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, they were really good, you know. That's what it
reminds me of, is like how many great players were
on that team and how many great players in that era.
You know, that decade of Texas football was was really incredible.
Probably extremely hard to to you know, replicate the amount
of players that performed at such a high level while
(32:10):
they were here. And I know a lot of times
we always want to look to we judge a team
of quality of players of how they performed in the NFL.
I tend to look at how did they play when
they were in college. You know, the NFL sometimes is
a different game. But those guys were really good, very talented.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I was thinking about that five team the other day.
I had. I had Jamal Charles on my radio show
a couple of weeks ago. That was a true freshman,
you know, and he was playing in the shoe against
Ohio State. Had some critical plays as a true freshman
in that game and on that team that season. So
you just think back to man that there's a reason
they won a lot of games, had really good players,
had really good coaches. Uh, they had a lot of
(32:51):
confidence and belief in who they were as a program.
Coach Brown did a great job and that's what we're
continuing to strive for, you know. And and they were
able to get to the pinnacle. And naturally, that's a
goal of ours, is to is to get to the
pinnacle of our sport. And it takes a you know,
it takes all those ingredients, right, good coaches, really good players, chemistry,
but then it takes being really good at critical moments.
(33:14):
And they were that night in that game against US
fourth and two, they got the stop fourth and three
or fourth and for whatever was v y scores like
at the most critical moments of that game and the
biggest game of the season and maybe of some decades,
they were better than we were. And that's where we're
trying to get to is to you know, assemble a staff,
assemble players, assemble chemistry and culture, but also be at
(33:37):
our best when our best is needed.
Speaker 11 (33:39):
Right coach, I know a lot of your players got
a chance to experience before, so what are just getting
into decare went on set two for their confidence.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
It was awesome. There's nothing like being back home. And
and this year in particular is a little unique that
you know, we only have six home games and we
got three right now in September, and then we're not
going to be home for six weeks and then we
come back. Uh, so we we we we got to
cherish these moments when we get them. And like I said,
I thought it was awesome atmosphere, uh for an eleven
(34:09):
am kick And I thought it was awesome that all
of our students stayed for the eyes. You know that
that means a lot to us.
Speaker 10 (34:17):
Head coach, I know you talked about the development of
the players. I'm curious in these next in these home games,
like you said, the three of them that you have,
what's the balance. I guess you know, from what you're
seeing physically and mentally and what you want to see
maybe in the numbers, the final scores and stats on
the in the box score.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, you know, I think, like I said, you know
the I told the team this morning my final my
final comment to them was our standard is the only
scoreboard that matters. We got to play to our standard.
That the scoreboard up there will take care of itself.
We got to play to our standard, and it doesn't
matter if you're a one, a two, a three on
the depth chart when you get in the game, played
(34:55):
our standard, and so that's what we're striving for. Monday's
tradition for us are a big twos and threes rep day.
They get a lot of work on Mondays because a
lot of our ones are still coming off of the
game on Saturday. So that process started today and then
they earn playing time predicated on the trust that we
(35:16):
get in them throughout the week and the way that
they practice and so a lot of those decisions don't
get made until you know, kind of Friday Saturday of
who's playing when and how much predicated on the way
we practice.
Speaker 11 (35:30):
Yeah, coach, you had a pretty even split of Connor
and Nato at left guard. Can you kind of assess
that position? And also, you know, we've seen the platoon
of a guard in your offense for a few years.
Is that kind of the expectation of what's coming this
year as well?
Speaker 6 (35:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I mean I just felt like both those guys with
the lack of experience that they've had and you don't
have a lot of information on them yet in with
live game live bullets. For now, you know, we'll stay
with that platoon. And then actually Connor went and played
some right guard when when DJ got nicked up there
for a second. So I thought that was a good
(36:04):
experience for him to have to go from left guard
to right guard. But we'll see, you know. I think
there's there's a physical conditioning factor that you get got
to get used to playing that amount of reps, and
I think there's a mental conditioning factor where you got
to stay locked in, you know, for twenty thirty, forty fifty,
sixty seventy reps and so if we can help them
grow into that, you know, I think that, and they're
(36:26):
both capable to do it, then that's probably the road
will go down until you know, something changes that. On
the first drive, Parker had a holding penalty. Two plays
later he goes for eighty three yards tops out of
twenty miles per hour.
Speaker 10 (36:39):
What does it mean for you to see him go
from a low point to the first score of the game.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, you know, the holding penalty, it was a great
teachable moment. You know. I would really challenged our receivers
on our perimeter blocking going into the game, in the
run game and and on some of those perimeter screens.
And Parker is a really conscientious guy, and so he
wasn't going to be the guy that didn't make his block.
(37:05):
But a lesson learned is you have to let go.
You know, when when the runner cuts up the field
and he goes to react, you can't tug him. That's
the easiest call for an official to make. You gotta
let him go and trust that DeAndre is going to
run through that. So I think he'll learn from that.
But I think it also speaks to Parker's kind of
metal fortitude. You know, he didn't get down on himself.
(37:26):
He just went right back to playing. And he's playing
fast right now. He's playing confident. You know, I think
he provides a real spark for us. You know, I
think the guys value his work ethic and the fact
that he's making his plays I think is really uplifting,
not only to the offense, but I think to the
entire team. All dyell, thank you.
Questions already. Just a couple housekeeping notes. First of all,
just to shout out to coach Elliott Women's volleyball. What
an awesome atmosphere last night in Moody, What a great
match and when they had over Stanford that was that
was an electric environment that obviously very cool. Got Hall
of Honor this week, and we obviously six team members
going in. Two football players, Rod Wright, a guy who's
(00:23):
obviously now in the coaching world and doing a great
job with the Texans, and Bobby Mitchell from football. So
that's exciting. And NFL season underway, and we got forty
eight guys on NFL rosters right now, thirty seven active
and then the rest on either practice squad, PUP or IR.
So a lot of guys you know, competing and contributing
in the NFL. So a lot of cool things happening
(00:44):
that way. As far as Saturday, just to reiterate, you know,
thanks to our fans. What an awesome turnout for eleven
AM kick season opener to have over one hundred thousand
people Saturday. Our thought, our students were amazing, staying till
the end, singing the eyes at Texas. That was. That
was awesome and look forward to them to uh, you know,
being back again this Saturday for an afternoon kick here
(01:07):
against UTEP. As far as the game goes start positively.
You know, I thought that things that we emphasized, you know,
we we got the rewards on you know, we really
went into last week talking about, you know, attacking the
ball on defense, and we created four turnovers. But you
could see the intent on those plays and on other
(01:29):
plays where we got our hands on the ball, whether
it was in the past game, whether it was the
second tackler in trying to get the ball out like
they were very intentional attacking the ball, and the result
was we got the four turnovers and some other opportunities
I think presented themselves. We got to stay down that
path offensively, you know, we really made it a point
to try to be more explosive, and you know, we
(01:52):
found more explosive plays. I think we were about twenty
percent of our plays we're explosives, uh nine passes, five rushes,
and so finding our ability to be explosive on offense
is a huge component of that thought. We were a
lot more efficient in the red area. You know, we
had the one turnover that like I said, I think
Archill will definitely learn from that experience of what that
(02:14):
felt like, what that looked like. But I think more
importantly was the ability to play complimentary football, which I
didn't think we did a great job of in Week one.
Got much better this week of When we got the turnovers,
we got the short fields, we turned those into points,
and so playing that style of game was important for us.
I think, you know, the couple of things that were glaring,
(02:35):
and the easy one to look at that because it's
very tangible, is the penalties. And you have twelve penalties
for one hundred and fifteen yards, which means there's some
major fouls in there, and they were in all three phases.
You know, on special teams, we roughed the punter and
we got a holding on a punt return. On defense,
you know, we had a couple off sides, we roughed
(02:57):
the passer. Offensively, you know, we have a holding by
a wide receiver, we have a holding by an interior
offensive lineman, we have a chop block, we have false starts,
and so it was kind of across the board, which
which lent myself to this idea that you know, where
was our mental intensity. Where was our mental focus Saturday?
(03:17):
I know human nature is what it is. And you
come off of a really big game on the road
for your season opener, and you know human nature is
let's take a deep breath and relax. We don't get
to relax. You know, our mental intensity needs to be
as high as it needs to be. We need to
play with the right type of discipline throughout the week
on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That discipline is
(03:39):
what's going to lead to the proper habits of how
we practice, which ultimately will lead to the consistency in
our play, which will lead to the growth that all
of us need to make. And so all that starts
with me. I don't point the finger at anybody else
but myself. We need to improve upon that, which we will.
You know, I think that we because of those penalties,
we put ourselves in some really difficult third downs. I
(04:01):
think we had twelve third downs Saturday. Six of those
were third and nine or larger. And that's not a
winning formula for success when you're trying to move the
ball on a consistent basis, And so we've got to
improve upon that. But I thought there were some nice
highlights in the game. Like I said, I thought Arch
had a very good football game. Again, he was not perfect.
(04:21):
I don't expect him to be. I expect him to
learn from some of the mistakes he had. Parker continues
to do the things that he's doing. I think he's
the SEC Freshman of the Week this week, which is great.
Jack Andrees. You know, Cedric Baxter got another fifteen touches,
so his growth continues to go. And like I said, defensively,
Anthony Hill, Jolana McDonald ty Anthony Smith, I thought Marod
(04:41):
Watson really starting to show up, starting to find his
groove on the defensive front. And then then Trey Moore
as well, So again that was good. And like I said,
I thought it was great for Mason Shipley, you know,
his first field goal attempts for forty seven yard or banged.
It looked very comfortable doing that. So all in all,
it's good to win in. You know, I've been down
in these other games. I got a chance by playing
(05:03):
at eleven AM. I got to get home earlier and
watch some other teams kind of kind of slug the
ball around on the field too. You know, in games
where everyone thinks you're just supposed to go out and
play perfect, and so part of that is the growth
of a team. But we need to improve and everybody
needs to improve individually, and I believe we'll do so
when we started to do that today. As far as
(05:24):
this week go, Scotty Walden and UTEP coming to town.
Skuy's had a nice Career's done a nice job, and
his team is drastically improved. A lot of transfers on
both sides of the ball. Obviously, Malachi Nelson at quarterback
was a very high level recruit. Guy we recruited here
is throwing it all over the field, and I think defensively,
very attacking style defense. Through two games. I think they
(05:46):
have ten sacks through two games, they have twenty three TFLs.
Their third down conversion rate I think is like twenty
percent on defense, so they're attacking defense that very active,
very wonder what we played last week. I think we
need to handle the movement much better than we did
last week at the line of scrimmage. But all in all,
(06:07):
to me, this week is about us and what we
need to do to improve as a football team individually
and collectively. So with that will open it.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Up the left between San Jose State and UTEP and
SAM Houston. It's a lot of different styles of offensive
and defensive football. I know you can't plan this out
when you're putting the schedule together a few years down
the road, But how nice is it that it turned
out that way that you've got run and shoot and
pace in space and.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Air raid and then equal variety on defense.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah. No, it's great for us, you know, I mean
as because we're gonna get ready to go into SEC
play and we're gonna get all of it then too,
you know, from the variety of offenses that you get,
to the style of quarterbacks that you play, to the
multitude of fronts that we get in the SEC. Uh
two teams stemming from one front to another front, you know,
(06:56):
right before the ball snapped. So you know, we're fortunate
that way. And it's and it's we we're we have
some growing pains from a player's perspective, but there's some
growing pains from a staff perspective too of what do
we really like, what works, what doesn't, how we're coaching it,
and so we need to use these these experiences as
(07:16):
valuable lessons, even when maybe things don't go exactly the
way we want are we are we be able to
adjust it in game? Uh and block it better later
in game. There's a there's a prime example we called
a run I think it was in the early in
the second quarter where their will linebacker ran through and
we had a TfL on Christian Clark. And we came
(07:37):
back to that same run later we fixed it and
Cole Hudson comes off on the will linebacker running through.
We hand the ball to Christian Clark and it's an
explosive run for about sixteen yards. And so, you know,
I think our guys being coachable, being able to make
in game adjustments in these types of games in particular,
I think is gonna serve us well down the road.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Right Steve, you said in your postgame comments you're not
getting the best version of Ryan Wingo right now. But
what what do you think needs to happen for that
to happen? And are you getting what you want out
of your punt returns through two games?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah? You know, with Ryan, you know, I just think
he's he's pressing a little bit, you know. He Ryan
is like one of the if not the most, one
of the most conscientious kids on our roster. He works
really hard, Like nobody practices harder than this guy. He
wants to do right. He's in the right spots, you know,
(08:31):
he wants to make all his plays. Sometimes, you know,
not trying so hard is the best avenue and and
just playing and relaxing and playing and and he'll get there,
you know. Again, you know, I think that we all
want him to get there sooner rather than later, and
I know he does too. But again I think that
(08:52):
you know, taking a deep breath and letting the place
come to him and not trying to go make it.
I think on that on that you know, glance throw
the other day, I think he was already thinking he
was making the safety miss, you know, like in his
mind because he's practiced it so many times and sometimes
this let's just catch the ball and go play. But
(09:12):
but again, he's a fantastic player, is a great teammate
and we need him and I think he understands that.
And his rapport with the arch is really good, and
so we'll we'll, we'll, we'll find his niche. It's great
for him right now that Parker's doing what he's doing,
you know, because that's getting a little bit of the
attention off of him, and Parker's making his plays when
they're coming to him. So that's a good thing. Oh,
(09:34):
I'm sorry on the part return. You know, we just
haven't had a lot of great ops unfortunately. You know,
we've the first game the Higo State punter. He was
punting the ball about thirty yards and those are tough
to get returns on. They're tough on the returner, they're
tough on your corners who are trying to hold up
on the gunners. This past week, you know, we really
went in thinking we could get a block and it's
(09:55):
unfortunate we just didn't execute it. It's two weeks in
a row. We had chances to we didn't execute it
very well. We've got to be better more detailed there.
Uh and two, we didn't block great form, and so
I thought all the decisions Ryan made were probably the
right ones. There may have been one late that he
could have returned, but it's tough when they're short kicks
and there's not a lot of you know that there's
(10:16):
not a lot of room, and so you know, we
tried to get one return and we were in the
long leverage at corner, so everybody's got to do their
part to allow the returner to get the return started.
And so that's definitely an area of improvement for us.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It's stark.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
The recommendation for the portal window came out, smaller window
early January.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
You like that, and from a coach's perspective, what are
the positives and negatives? Yeah, I was. I was in
favor of this, of this recommendation. I just felt like
it's gotten Really it was really difficult two years ago
when it was just December, uh and you were in
the playoffs. And then I thought about us last year
(11:01):
when we were all the way into the Semis and
the portal opened. But then I also thought about that
spring portal window and what that felt like. And you're
trying to assemble the team as quickly as possible to
build the camaraderie and so that you can grow and
so you can know who you're working with, and so
I feel like to be fair to the players but
(11:22):
also fair to the schools. You know, if you're one
of those four teams that are left and the portal
window opens for those ten days and the players will
still have their five days after, you know, whenever you're
done the national championship or the semis. Those are Champagne problems.
You know, that means you've got a pretty good team,
you're in the semi finals. But I think for the
betterment of the sport, that's the right window for teams,
(11:44):
for the players to have a chance to go in
and then decide where they want to go so they
can roll in the their next institution for spring and
be there for spring ball and then into summer. It's
fair for the school so they can build their rosters
predicated on who leaves and what they're trying to do.
And like I said, and if you're if you are
one of the four, you figure it out. You know,
(12:04):
we've all hired you know, big enough, you know, uh,
personnel departments and you know on our team, Brandon Harris
does a great job with all the people there, John
Michael Jones, everybody involved. And so they they've they've got
to do their leg work and they got to be
ahead of the game a little bit. But in the end,
it's sure a lot better knowing who your team is.
You know, as you go into spring, then what's happening
(12:24):
now in June and now you've got guys leaving, then
you've got new faces coming again. So I just think
for the betterment of the sport and the teams, this
is the right way to go.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You're right with arch Manning seemed to be having some
throwing pains.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
By the cod who arch Arch said that to you? No, oh,
according to who, it just looked like he was. He
doesn't have any is that.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Is there an explanation to why he was it looked
like that.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I've never filed I've never filmed any of you guys
when you're using the bathroom, so I don't know what
faces you make when you're doing that.
Speaker 7 (12:57):
Little Roger, Sorry, you talked about going home and watch that.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
I've been to ask him. You get another question coming up,
I'll come back to you.
Speaker 7 (13:09):
You mentioned going home and watching games every Saturday. There
are games that surprise people in this sport, and we
seem to think that this is set up for the
haves and have not. You look at Rosters and Malachai
and Nelson. You guys wanted how different is the perception
and the reality that there are still really good players
all over the country.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, it's challenging, you know, because a lot of players
like these guys have a linebacker that was playing at
the FCS level last year that one hundred and fifty
five tackles and now he's starting at linebacker for UTEP.
And so players get better in college and they may
not all have the three and four and five stars,
(13:47):
but we've seen these stories time and time again. It'd
be like Michael taff if he ended up not walking
on here and going somewhere else and then transferring to
a school, how good of a player would he be?
And so I think what the portal has done loud
avenues for good players to move up or move to
different spots. Maybe they weren't getting all the playing time
that they would have wanted other places. And the challenging
(14:08):
part for us is you don't really know them all right.
You go into the opening, you know, early games of
a season, and you're looking at like these guys. There's
a ton of transfers on UTEP's team, and you're trying
to do your research on this guy playing over here,
and this guy's playing over here, and how good was
he and what are his strengths and so a lot
of work goes into it, and you just don't know
until you start playing the games of Okay, this guy's
(14:31):
got a little more juice than we thought, or this
quarterback's a little more mobile than we thought. On top
of that, if they've got new coaches, what are the
schemes and so all these things add up to these
are really tricky games, especially in the front end of
the season when you don't have a lot of evidence
on the teams, and then the specific players on those
teams are right there.
Speaker 8 (14:52):
Steve, if you talked about the importance of explosive plays
and just curious from coaching perspective, is there a balance
between you know, trying to build those things into the
game plan and want to do it versus maybe assessing
the strength of your team and realizing like, all right,
maybe you know, we're more of an eight seventy nine
play drive team versus doing the explosive No.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I think there is. I think there's definite balance. I
just think the numbers bear out. You know, it's really
hard to score the more plays you run in a drive.
It's just that that's the analytics of our sport, you know,
is the reason people don't bun as much in baseball,
you know, I mean, you're trying to get extra base hits.
(15:32):
You're trying to get people around the bases faster, and
so football is not a lot different than that. Now,
there's a time and a place when you're trying to
ball control. There's a time and a place to be efficient.
But the numbers just don't bear out the fact of
like if you're going to go on ten and twelve
fourteen play drives over time, your success rate of scoring
(15:53):
touchdowns dramatically goes down. And so you got to find
a way to create explosive plays. And then you've got
to trust the decision making of your quarterback of when
to take those shots and maybe when to check it down,
because you don't have to throw the ball thirty yards
downfield to get an explosive play. You can throw it
to a running back in the flat. You can throw
it to a tight end over the middle. They can
(16:13):
break a tackle and create an explosive play. So you
got to work within the confines of the offense, and
then you got to be strategic of when there's a
time and a place really to take those shots down
the field.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
Coach, when it comes to penalties, besides getting on guys,
what do you do differently this week in practice. And
have you talked to Colin Simmons because he has a
few on the.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I think he's leading the country in penalties right now
with five. As a matter of fact, you know, I
didn't think. I don't think he thought after two games
that would be what he'd be leading the country in.
So you know, again, another guy who thinks just trying
a little too hard, you know, is trying to jump
the snap count and it's got to be more mindful.
At the end of the day. You have to point
him out. I think in game what happens is when
(16:56):
you get a penalty, there's a consequence the team suffers, right,
you go back five yards, you go back fifteen yards,
the opponent gets to continue to possess the ball because
you're rough a punter. There's consequences to penalties. Well, we
need to have consequences in practice too, right.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
He had a follow up Steve with Colin. I mean
he's got skins on the walls. Were still pretty young player.
Do you use tough love with him or is he
one of those guys you allow to try to figure
it out on his own.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
No, I mean there was tough love Saturday you know,
we took him out. He didn't start the second half,
you know, I mean, and I think we got his attention,
you know, I think he had the three penalties were
in the first half. He didn't have any in the
second half, and he got half a sack, you know.
So you know, I just think that you settling down.
You know, you don't get ten sacks in one play,
you know, And you play within the confines of the defense,
(17:47):
You play within the confines of the other defensive linemen
of you know, when your rush attempts are there, and
how to play, and you apply the game plan like
in for instance, in this game, I thought we missed
three sacks, you know, and he had one. I think
Brad Spence had another one, and I can't recall the third.
But our whole rush plan, if you were an edge rusher,
(18:08):
was to rush to the upfield shoulder of the quarterback.
His all over the tape. When he got pressure, he
scrambled around, he never went up in the pocket. Well,
we didn't do that, and we came flat and he
ran around us three times. And so we have to
apply the things that we work on in practice. That's
a snapshot of one thing in the game, but there
(18:28):
was other things that I think we need to be
better at as a team of applying what we're teaching
you to do throughout the week in game when the
moment comes. It looked like Xena had some moments where
he really flashed on Saturday. Who were what did you
think of him? And then maybe some of the other
younger guys that you saw. I thought Zena and Lance
Jackson both I thought did some things. Again, I think
(18:49):
I mentioned Marod Watson. I thought he got going once
the game started moving, you know, clearly Ty Anthony of
what he's doing on the defensive side of the ball.
I thought Xavier fills me little smaller sample size, but
I thought he played really well and that was intentional
to play him more to see what that would look like.
(19:10):
But I thought clik Lockett had a couple of catches.
It was great for him. I know it probably goes
unnoticed to everybody else, but that fourth down was a
big deal to me. What is how's this guy get
how they play? You know, with Matt Caldwell and and
Khalik on a fourth down and executing that play, same
play we threw with with Ryan Wingo on arch Manning right,
and so you kind of little different result. And so
the act that he could go in there and do that,
(19:33):
you know, I think there was a lot of learning
for Christian Clark, you know, his first real carries. You know,
the idea of you know, the intent of runs and
where they're supposed to hit. Not every run is meant
to bounce and try to run around people. We got
to hit runs a certain way and so a lot
of that type of stuff in game. You know, Cad
Phillips got in there, got his hands on a ball.
I think next time he probably picks it. You know,
(19:55):
so a lot of guys got opportunities. Now we got
to grow and learn from those opportunities.
Speaker 9 (20:00):
Hey, coach, there's only been two games. But from an
offensive standpoint, what do you like that you see? What
are some areas of improvement on that side of the ball.
And I know you talked you might have an intense, good, bad,
and ugly session today. Whatever details against share about that,
I'm curious, I.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Would say, offensively, you know, varying game plans. What I
like about our offense right now? I think these guys
are coachable when when we make an emphasis on things
to improve upon, whether it's individual players or as a unit.
They've responded. You know, we obviously challenged Arch from one
(20:36):
week to the next. I think he responded and there's
growing pain still in there when we challenged them on
you know, creating more explosive plays, breaking more tackles. I
think our guys have responded to that. Now we need
to be more consistent. We need to take practice to
the game. You know, I think the details in our
offense need to improve. And so but again we've got
(20:59):
some I hate saying young players. We have some new
faces and there's gonna be some growing pains. I wasn't
naive to that to think we were just gonna be
a well oiled machine the first month of the season.
But I want to see incremental growth. And there were
some airs Saturday that need to improve. Our third down
pass protection needs to improve, uh, not from a physical standpoint,
(21:21):
but schematically of understanding the stresses on our protections and
then who's responsible for those things when they when they arrive.
And we've had a couple of breakdowns now through two
weeks that we need to improve upon. So all in all,
you know, from from this morning, it was all encompassing
to me as a team, I feel a little bit like,
(21:44):
you know, they know we have good coaches and and
our players know we are gonna scheme people up, and
we're gonna scheme up free blitzers. We're gonna scheme up
coverages to disguise and and and get hands on balls.
We're gonna scheme up plays to get people open down
the feet. I don't want our players relying on the scheme.
I want our players relying on their fundamentals, their techniques,
(22:06):
their details, and their effort. That coupled with scheme, that's
when we become really dangerous. And so as coaches, maybe
we we pull back a little bit on scheme and
we get back to fundamentals, technique, effort, details of how
we execute plays. Then we can put those two things
back together, and I think that's when it will be
(22:27):
at our best as a team.
Speaker 10 (22:29):
Right Steeve, kind of standing on that, what are your
thoughts you and Kyle's thoughts and just the offensive line
and how they've looked over these first two week.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, I thought in week one, you know, we played
pretty good against that group, you know, two very different
style of defenses. You know where Ohio State was a big, physical,
traditional you know, it's mono and mono and you got
to block really good people right in front of you.
San Jose State was smaller. They were quicker, they were
moving every snap. We totally lost our fundamus. We got
(23:00):
on our toes. We were falling over ourselves. We give
up way too much penetration and that we have to
know what we're playing against, and then you have to
take it to practice. Every opponent's different. It's like you
got to wipe the slate clean on a Monday morning.
Here we go, here's the scouting report. Here's what they're
good at. Here's maybe what they're not so good at.
(23:21):
Here's how we're gonna try to exploit them. Here's the
guy that I'm lining up across the majority of the game.
Here's his strengths, here's his weaknesses. How am I gonna
play him? I didn't think we we carried enough information
into the game and applied it up front, and so
to me, I think that showed a little bit of
our immaturity upfront Saturday, that it wasn't the same game.
(23:42):
It was a different game. You can't play it the
same and so you know, That's something where I think
we need to grow this week and learn and understand
of who's my opponent, what are they trying to do
to me, how are they trying to beat me? And
then how am I going to combat that within the
ball game?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Je Sark The role of tight end is drastically different
in different schemes. What's the impact of tight end in
your system? And his Jack picked things up impressively quickly.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, you know, our tight end I've said this all along,
probably after the quarterback, might be the most important position
in our offense. It's definitely the most taxing when you
think about the multitude of formations, personnel groupings, motions, shifts
that they're responsible and part of, and then what we
(24:31):
ask of them, we're not. We don't. We don't use
the tight end in a one dimensional role. He has
to run, block, he has to pass, protect, he has
to catch routes, he has to block on the perimeter,
all that doing it in a way that is a
lot of movement, a lot of motion. And so to
Jack's credit, I think his experience at CAL has been
(24:51):
very helpful for him. He looks very comfortable when he plays.
There's there's some things in his game that that we
want him to do better like all the players. But again,
I have to remind myself, this is his second game
in our offense, and he wasn't a guy who was
here in springball with us. He got here in the summertime,
and so he just doesn't have as much volume of
running our plays. But he's a very quick study. He's
(25:13):
a quick learner. He works at his craft. He's very bright, uh,
and he's picked our stuff up really well.
Speaker 11 (25:20):
You mentioned that you after the game on Saturday, you
watched a couple of other games.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
What teams were you watching? And also when you get
the chance.
Speaker 11 (25:27):
To watch these other games, are you sit back, are
you you know, do you get to relax a little bit?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Are you also watch?
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I was holding my son. It was kind of fun.
He and I first Saturday watching college football together. So
that was that was kind of neat. I was jumping around,
you know some of these channels, I mean, you get
like four games going on on one on one screen.
So I was watching a lot of stuff and I
was watching Clemson in a dog fight with Troy. I
was watching Georgia and rain delays against Austin p I
watched Ou and Michigan have a great game. There was
(25:57):
a there was a lot of a lot of great
games on and you learn a lot, you know, and
you think, man, is this just us? Man? Are we are?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
We?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Are we screwed up? Or well? There's some pretty good
teams that were struggling around Saturday a little bit too.
And there were some other teams that looked really good,
you know, and maybe they're a little ahead of the curve.
I don't know. I just trust in our process of
getting our guys ready to go. But it was great
to have an opportunity to do that. You know, the
eleven AM kicks. I know it's not everybody's favorites, but
(26:24):
when you have eleven AM kick for a home game
and your home and the sun's still out and you
get to watch a little college football, it's kind of
fun for me. You should vote in the poll.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
You watch so many games.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I'd have a better I'd have a better feel this week.
I can be honest. I could be honest with you
about that better field.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I'll send me your top twenty five.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Oregon look really good. Anybody has to vote. They look
pretty good. Saturday.
Speaker 11 (26:46):
You mentioned consequences to the penalties in practice.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I was curious, you know what that process is.
Speaker 11 (26:51):
Do they run stadium steps?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Do you withhold meal money?
Speaker 5 (26:55):
What?
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I might not give up all the all the things
that we do. But yeah, there's consequence to your point,
and I and I think there's a variety of ways
to enforce those things. I think one thing about penalties
that's important. When you get a penalty in the game, Yeah,
you have the you you have the public humility, humiliation
(27:15):
of getting your number announced on national television and in
front of one hundred thousand people, so you got to
hear your name number called out. But really, who suffers
when you get a penalty? All of us, the team suffers.
It's not the individual got the you got the penalty,
but we all serve the consequences for that. So I
think it's a little easier when you when a guy
gets a penalty, it's not so much about the punishment
(27:39):
of the one player. It's the punishment of the team
because we all feel the effects of those penalties when
they occur.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Practice.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, do the math there, do the math.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It's Steve real quick. Do you expect to have Trey
Wisner this weekend? And you mentioned recruiting Malachi Nelson. I'm curious,
when you get back to see these guys after you've
had relationships with them, are they the same player or
are they totally different when somebody else has gotten a
hold of them.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, Trey Uh, I'd probably say today is doubtful. I'm
not ruling him out, but I would say it's doubtful. Again.
I'm at this juncture of the season. I'm just not
in a rush to push guys back out there if
they're not as close to one hundred percent or even closer.
Like I just I just know how long this thing goes,
(28:32):
you know, and I know what it's going to look
like in October and November and December and hopefully January.
Like is the juice? Is the juice worth the squeeze?
Right now for Saturday? Now, we're rehabbing them, We're trying
to get them ready to go, and then we'll make
a decision as we get closer to the ballgame of
what that looks like. As far as guys you recruit,
(28:53):
I'm always intrigued. You know, we recruit a lot of players,
and so they start stacking on top of each other,
and you remember some of them more vividly than others.
And you know, some of them evolve, some of them
are kind of who they were. I don't think there's
one way that they all go about their way, you know.
(29:14):
I think about like Jaden Daniels, for example, when he
was at in high school coming out, and then who
he was at Arizona State. He was really more of
a runner, and by the time he finished at LSU,
he was a prolific passer, right, And so guys can
grow and evolve throughout their time, and now he's doing
both in the NFL, and so I just I was
(29:37):
always intrigued by watching them, you know, when you get
your chances and when you get an opportunity to play
against them and see them. I think they're all different,
Some remain the same, some evolve into different players.
Speaker 12 (29:48):
Right, Coach, A lot of fans already have check marks
with games in the future, But Mississippi State I had
a heck of a win, Vandy came back. Do you
have a message to the fans that the SEC is
pretty good and don't put check marks out there just
because you think you're gonna beat them.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Who votes in the ap here raise your hands? How
many SEC teams are in the top twenty five this week.
Eleven eleven teams in the SEC are in the top
twenty five this week. And so our conference is real.
It is hands down the most challenging conference in college
football because it's week in and week out. There are
(30:26):
no breaks, there are no gimmes. You better show up
every Saturday ready to play physically and mentally.
Speaker 13 (30:34):
Yes, Steve, you talked about getting called well some reps
this past weekend. How do you manage when to pull
arch and give Caudwell those opportunities when maybe the offense
isn't as Chris Ebs you want it to be, like
you mentioned on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's just you just make the call.
You know, you're having some discussions as you're going through it.
You're you're kind of looking at the clock, like I
just got done telling the guys today. I know we
have a lot of guys on our team that wish
they played more Saturday. Well, and I know their buddies
on their team wishes they played more Saturday. We'll play
(31:07):
better earlier in the game, and then those guys can
get in the game sooner. Okay, So everybody's got to
do their part. Okay, if we want guys to get
more opportunities to play well, the guys maybe in front
of you to play a little better earlier, and then
that serves and gives opportunities for the other guys to
get into the game, to have more opportunities to grow
and get better. So we all got to help each
(31:28):
other out.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
So rk rod right, you mentioned going in the Hall
of honor another guy from that five team. For you,
you know what that year means to this program where
you are the head coach, but you know what it
meant to you back in five when you could have
had another ring at USC. I'm just curious about how
that kind of balances your emotions when you have to
constantly go back twenty years.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, they were really good, you know. That's what it
reminds me of, is like how many great players were
on that team and how many great players in that era.
You know, that decade of Texas football was was really incredible.
Probably extremely hard to to you know, replicate the amount
of players that performed at such a high level while
(32:10):
they were here. And I know a lot of times
we always want to look to we judge a team
of quality of players of how they performed in the NFL.
I tend to look at how did they play when
they were in college. You know, the NFL sometimes is
a different game. But those guys were really good, very talented.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I was thinking about that five team the other day.
I had. I had Jamal Charles on my radio show
a couple of weeks ago. That was a true freshman,
you know, and he was playing in the shoe against
Ohio State. Had some critical plays as a true freshman
in that game and on that team that season. So
you just think back to man that there's a reason
they won a lot of games, had really good players,
had really good coaches. Uh, they had a lot of
(32:51):
confidence and belief in who they were as a program.
Coach Brown did a great job and that's what we're
continuing to strive for, you know. And and they were
able to get to the pinnacle. And naturally, that's a
goal of ours, is to is to get to the
pinnacle of our sport. And it takes a you know,
it takes all those ingredients, right, good coaches, really good players, chemistry,
but then it takes being really good at critical moments.
(33:14):
And they were that night in that game against US
fourth and two, they got the stop fourth and three
or fourth and for whatever was v y scores like
at the most critical moments of that game and the
biggest game of the season and maybe of some decades,
they were better than we were. And that's where we're
trying to get to is to you know, assemble a staff,
assemble players, assemble chemistry and culture, but also be at
(33:37):
our best when our best is needed.
Speaker 11 (33:39):
Right coach, I know a lot of your players got
a chance to experience before, so what are just getting
into decare went on set two for their confidence.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
It was awesome. There's nothing like being back home. And
and this year in particular is a little unique that
you know, we only have six home games and we
got three right now in September, and then we're not
going to be home for six weeks and then we
come back. Uh, so we we we we got to
cherish these moments when we get them. And like I said,
I thought it was awesome atmosphere, uh for an eleven
(34:09):
am kick And I thought it was awesome that all
of our students stayed for the eyes. You know that
that means a lot to us.
Speaker 10 (34:17):
Head coach, I know you talked about the development of
the players. I'm curious in these next in these home games,
like you said, the three of them that you have,
what's the balance. I guess you know, from what you're
seeing physically and mentally and what you want to see
maybe in the numbers, the final scores and stats on
the in the box score.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, you know, I think, like I said, you know
the I told the team this morning my final my
final comment to them was our standard is the only
scoreboard that matters. We got to play to our standard.
That the scoreboard up there will take care of itself.
We got to play to our standard, and it doesn't
matter if you're a one, a two, a three on
the depth chart when you get in the game, played
(34:55):
our standard, and so that's what we're striving for. Monday's
tradition for us are a big twos and threes rep day.
They get a lot of work on Mondays because a
lot of our ones are still coming off of the
game on Saturday. So that process started today and then
they earn playing time predicated on the trust that we
(35:16):
get in them throughout the week and the way that
they practice and so a lot of those decisions don't
get made until you know, kind of Friday Saturday of
who's playing when and how much predicated on the way
we practice.
Speaker 11 (35:30):
Yeah, coach, you had a pretty even split of Connor
and Nato at left guard. Can you kind of assess
that position? And also, you know, we've seen the platoon
of a guard in your offense for a few years.
Is that kind of the expectation of what's coming this
year as well?
Speaker 6 (35:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I mean I just felt like both those guys with
the lack of experience that they've had and you don't
have a lot of information on them yet in with
live game live bullets. For now, you know, we'll stay
with that platoon. And then actually Connor went and played
some right guard when when DJ got nicked up there
for a second. So I thought that was a good
(36:04):
experience for him to have to go from left guard
to right guard. But we'll see, you know. I think
there's there's a physical conditioning factor that you get got
to get used to playing that amount of reps, and
I think there's a mental conditioning factor where you got
to stay locked in, you know, for twenty thirty, forty fifty,
sixty seventy reps and so if we can help them
grow into that, you know, I think that, and they're
(36:26):
both capable to do it, then that's probably the road
will go down until you know, something changes that. On
the first drive, Parker had a holding penalty. Two plays
later he goes for eighty three yards tops out of
twenty miles per hour.
Speaker 10 (36:39):
What does it mean for you to see him go
from a low point to the first score of the game.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, you know, the holding penalty, it was a great
teachable moment. You know. I would really challenged our receivers
on our perimeter blocking going into the game, in the
run game and and on some of those perimeter screens.
And Parker is a really conscientious guy, and so he
wasn't going to be the guy that didn't make his block.
(37:05):
But a lesson learned is you have to let go.
You know, when when the runner cuts up the field
and he goes to react, you can't tug him. That's
the easiest call for an official to make. You gotta
let him go and trust that DeAndre is going to
run through that. So I think he'll learn from that.
But I think it also speaks to Parker's kind of
metal fortitude. You know, he didn't get down on himself.
(37:26):
He just went right back to playing. And he's playing
fast right now. He's playing confident. You know, I think
he provides a real spark for us. You know, I
think the guys value his work ethic and the fact
that he's making his plays I think is really uplifting,
not only to the offense, but I think to the
entire team. All dyell, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.