Opening remarks…
“Obviously, you always celebrate when you can go on the road and get a win. It’s hard to win games, period, particularly against a good football team. There were a lot of good things, and there were a lot of things we can improve and be better upon. We just had our truth meeting this morning and went through it with the team and our theme for this week. I thought our defensive line controlled the line of scrimmage. Without that, we could have been in for a long night. They really did throw it and catch it well on us, and I was impressed with their quarterback and their receiving corps. We didn’t play with the fundamentals that I’ve been able to see us do in camp, so we’ve got to figure out exactly why. I think both DJ (Durkin) and I would say we didn’t have them quite as prepared as we should, physically. We just didn’t look as fresh as I’ve seen us. I thought our D-line controlled it. Two big fourth-down stops were huge. Special teams-wise, huge play in the kickoff return. Too many penalties. Got a great kill punt down at the 6-yard-line, and then have to re-punt that. Then the 15-yarder, he just kind of lost his footing, that was kind of a freak thing there. Had too many penalties – nine – for sure. Two third-down and a fourth-down conversion for defensive penalties. Offensively, was pretty clean other than two false starts and the holding penalty on Perry (Thompson), which I thought he was doing a great job with the technique we teach. But I thought both our lines controlled the line of scrimmage. You can win a lot of games when you’re rushing for seven yards an attempt.
“We’re thrilled to get the win, on to the next one. That one goes in the trash. The goal is to be 1-0 this week. We get to come to the 16th straight sellout at Jordan-Hare. Our fans were incredible in Waco, along with our band, cheerleaders, and people who traveled there. But there’s nothing like playing at home. We’ve got to have an edge about us when we play here. It’s a special opportunity. This weekend is the Pat Dye players’ reunion, and it will be good to see all those guys back here. We’re thrilled to be kicking things off at home and finding a way, hopefully, to get better this week.”
On utilizing Jackson Arnold’s running ability…
“It totally depends what’s needed to win. That’s always been my philosophy of offensive football. What is it for this game that’s going to help us win the football game? If that’s needed and that’s what the game calls for, I think he’s very capable and willing to do that. So it’s all about the flow of the game and how that’s going. Some of those were called runs, some were pulling it down and using his legs. We’ll go into every game being willing to do that, for sure.”
On Darrion Smith and the pass rush…
“We played 28 kids on defense. I think the front was the reason we won the football game, really. We probably should have played him more. His production – now, he was fresh – but his production at the end, he was a factor. He was harassing the quarterback pretty well. I thought he made the most of his opportunities, which, ultimately should lead to more opportunities. Now, every game is a little different, too. Is he ready for the point of attack against the run game against every team? Maybe, maybe not. So we have to factor all of those things in. But in that game, he proved he probably could have played more.”
On Horatio Fields’ ability to bounce back with a big play…
“He definitely didn’t understand the leverage of that play on the block. That’s the deal about perimeter blocking is you have to understand where is the ball going to be when I am at the point of attack. It’s one thing if it’s handed off back there, he would have been in a good position, but when you’re throwing the swing that’s a totally different deal. We have to do a better job coaching the perimeter blocking on understanding where is the ball being delivered. That could have been a very positive play there had he had the right leverage, but to see him bounce back, and that was a tight coverage window, too. The throw was great on time, but him winning at the top end of that route was big-time, and then finishing it with a two-yard carry to get it past the chains. That was a big play in the game at that point, at that moment in time.”
On the running backs’ performance at Baylor…
“Just great to see them – they’ve waited their time and been developed, and it’s good to see them have success in their first real outing where it’s theirs. Hopefully they can build upon that. We’ll need them both, plus more. Damari (Alston) got a little banged-up shoulder in the game, so we will see how he is this week. If you run the ball that number of times, they are going to take some beatings, and we’ve got to make sure that we get the others ready also. But, really happy for Damari and Jeremiah (Cobb).”
On the defense being more tired than expected after Baylor…
“We had a long talk yesterday with Coach Dom (Studzinski), myself, DJ (Durkin) and the defensive staff trying to figure out how to process what we felt. Feelings can be misleading at times and you don’t want to make too much of that. Obviously, we found a way to win the football game, but do we feel like we were crisp and fresh? I get making mistakes. You miss some tackles in week one, usually. However, I feel like we tackled really well in the live scrimmages, the two we had. It was 140 degrees when we got there and our emotions on defense, we’re an emotional group, and that adds to the drain. Then, give Baylor credit. They hit us in the mouth pretty early. I don’t know if it was just a combination of all of that, but it just seemed like we weren’t fresh and crisp. Even at the end, when we get a fourth down stop to win the game, there was very little emotion or celebration. It was almost like relief. I don’t know if we pushed too hard during the week. We looked at all of the load counts on all of the bodies to try to figure out where we not fresh enough going into it? We’ll try to make changes on whatever we process that to be with Dom’s help, nutrition’s help and DJ’s in the practice format and stuff. There were still some good things. Our D-line crushed the pocket in the run game. They only have really two decent runs, but the backend we did not play with great technique or eyes. We just didn’t play like I’ve seen us play. That’s the good thing is I know we can get better.”
On missed coverages from the safeties…
“On the explosive play, the one right before half when we kind of busted a coverage. Well, not kind of, we did. I’ve seen them do that 100 times in camp and execute it beautifully. Obviously, that coverage is based upon pressure getting to the quarterback and the ball coming out fast, which it did, but we were just flat-footed. I don’t know. I haven’t seen that, and it’s very difficult to explain. We just have to own what’s on the film. It’s us that coached it and us that executed it. I know they can show me they’ve done it right a bunch, but we didn’t do it right when it counted the most. I don’t know if they’re so used to the rush getting there faster and them not having to be in a backpedal to play your midpoints exactly right, where you can play a vertical ball, but the rush they did a good job with. It was getting there, but maybe they’re used to it getting there quicker in practice. We definitely didn’t tackle well there, didn’t play with the right leverage on the ball, didn’t understand a couple of times where our help was and got beat on inside routes by No. 1 a bunch. Now, I think DJ and I, we’d be the first to say we didn’t have the greatest plan for him. We probably should’ve played more dime and bracketed him some.”
On the offensive line…
“One of the better performances in a long time. The guy that I really want to point out is ‘Too Tall’ (Izavion Miller). In a world where it's hard not to be about me, this guy has started 30 games or so for us and is now ‘not starting.’ If there is ever a reason to pout, he would be at the top of the line, but he doesn’t. When he came in, he gave us a spark. He was moving people. I thought about the communication on the road, even though it wasn’t a crazy loud stadium, and obviously very disappointed we couldn’t use all of our cadences. We bailed on that after the two penalties, and that's got to change. We have to figure that out. Outside of that, I thought our offensive line played extremely well. We got one pressure that we didn’t set it the right way from the quarterback position, which really falls on our offensive staff. It was the first time they brought field smash and got us there. Outside of that, I thought our offensive line played about as well as we have.”
On keeping the team focused as a heavy favorite this week…
“You hope the focus is on us and not a given opponent, and it's on us getting better from last week, and there’s a lot on the film that we can. We don’t have to search for it; it’s there. If the leadership of the team truly wants to have a year that we look back on and are pleased with, there’s zero chance of that happening without us understanding that the task at hand is to better ourselves from week one to week two. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is or what people say. I’ve had a lot of those that you get into that’s a dogfight because you didn’t have that mentality. I hope we are at a point in year three that we have some leaders who understand it’s not about anybody other than Auburn and how we should improve each week, regardless of who we are playing.”
On Amaris Williams and other health issues…
“Amaris bounced back and got back in, so I think he’s fine. Unfortunately, Champ (Anthony) suffered a broken thumb that will require surgery, so he will miss some time. Damari ‘s (Alston) shoulder is questionable. There were a lot of bumps and bruises, but I think that’s the two. Champ will be out and Damari is questionable.
On the linebackers…
“Good against the run, not so good against the pass in technique and drops. If you’re supposed to hash, drop or be able to hash, we’ve got to improve those aspects of it, but there were some good things and some things we’ve got to improve on.”
On grading Jackson Arnold’s performance in game one…
“Very patient. Truthfully, the first thing I tell our kids is how many times I put them in a bad situation or if our offensive staff did. By the way, I thought (Derrick) Nix and the offensive staff did a really nice job of game planning first downs and getting ahead of the chains. He did a nice job throughout the game of getting us off to a positive drive. He (Arnold) was really patient. He only had one play where I thought he was careless with the ball and that was the pressure one. I allowed him and I regret it, we had a drive where we were really getting some chunk yards and it was second-and-four, and allowed him to throw an RPO to Malcolm (Simmons). In normal situations, that’s fine, but the run was another gash. (Jeremiah) Cobb was going to rip that counter off for a lot of yards. That’s on me. I gave him the green light to do it even though the safeties, they just were not going to attach themselves to the box. They were sitting at 10 yards and were not moving. Our normal rule for that is that you hand the ball off, but boy, I get greedy sometimes. It's hard when you have the receivers we have. But you’re averaging about seven yards a gain, you probably need to fight that urge to take the shot there. Particularly, I think we would have scored on that drive and made the outcome a little easier. But I thought his (Arnold) decision making, when they are flat footed, he knows we have guys that could run by them. But the box is still light. That’s a temptation that a quarterback that can throw it with the arm strength to the outside that he has and the throw he made there actually hit Malcolm in the hands. The guy was kind of in his vision. It was good throw. Just put an eye on that. Not him. I thought his decision making was really good other than the one carelessness with the ball.”
On finding more opportunities in the passing game…
“I think that will come when, at some point, you’re going to have a box that you don’t like and you’re going to have to throw the football to win football games. And those days are coming. The good thing is I think we have the ability and people that can do that. It’ll be good to get Jackson (Arnold) some of those reps sooner than later, but in that game, in particular it was just very difficult when you’re ripping off good runs, not to continue to do that. Control the clock and not give that ball back to them, because I think they’re a really good offense. So I think that time’s coming where we get to see the full aspect of what we can be.”
On assessing Arnold’s decisions to run…
“The scrambles were, truthfully, only three. The others were some types of run where he has the option for it to be him or somebody else. It wasn’t a large database to really look at his true progression-type throws and then deciding whether to use his legs or not. The sample size is really small on that. Most of the others were called runs where he has to read a certain defender to decide. One of the first touchdowns was a great decision where we have Eric (Singleton Jr.), I thought he could have gotten it to him, but looking back I’m glad he didn’t. He could have gotten it to him, but we also have inside zone with a tailback insert for him to run a sort of draw-type mentality, which ended up scoring. That decision was really good. As far as others, whether to pull it or give it. But the sample size of ‘hey, did you really go through your progressions before you left the pocket’ was so small for that game. We’ve got some more determining to do on how he handles that.”
On the tight ends…
“I thought (Brandon) Frazier had his best game. I thought he played at a high, high level. Preston (Howard) battled hard too, they had two big catches and great drop step on the one. B. Frazier, (would have) liked to see him come up with that ball, obviously it was not a fumble, but still don’t like to see it loose on the ground. But I thought he played at a high level. Then Tate (Johnson) coming in with our big 12 package. Did some good things, he had a great block on that fourth-and-one, so I thought they played a very high level in the run game. Pass game again, not enough sample size, but the ones that did come their way I thought they handled very well.”
On Eric Winters as a potential replacement for Champ Anthony in the defensive backfield…
“I really don’t know on who’s starting and who’s not, but as far as more time, I think it is reasonable to expect that for sure. I think the opportunity is there for several guys. That was my challenge this morning: go have a great week. Those of you who didn’t get the number of snaps that you’d hoped, go have a great week and make this a different week. Eric (Winters) played a lot of snaps, but it’s a reasonable assumption to say if Champ (Anthony) is down that his snaps go even go up more.”
On Gus Malzahn helping lead Florida State over Alabama…
“There are friends in this business and then there are close friends, and Gus and I are just genuine really close friends. He’s walked with me through a lot, and I think he’d say the same. He’s loyal and I couldn’t be happier for him. Seems like he was having fun coaching the game and doing what he’s good at, so I enjoyed talking to him after it and just really happy for he and Kristi.”
On finding more explosiveness in the running game…
“You would like to see them break a few, the way they were playing their safeties flat-footed. They did a good job tackling. You would like to see us break more, but an average of seven is pretty good. You don’t want to complain too much, but certainly you would like to see some of those become more explosive, 15-20 yarders, make somebody miss in that seven-yard range.”
On the rotation on the defensive line…
“We rotated a lot of guys. I think we had six inside guys and five outside guys, maybe six. Really good rotation, I thought all of them played solid, and established a presence at the line of scrimmage. There weren’t any standout performances, but all of them played really solid, established the line of scrimmage, and got push on the pocket, where the pocket got crushed. I thought all of them played well.”