Football Press Conference Highlights
Monday Oct. 6 Press Conference Quotes
Head Coach Bobby Petrino
On the Florida game“Obviously we spent the day yesterday evaluating the video. I sat with our players and we watched it all. We actually went out and conditioned; the guys that played in the game and practiced with the red shirts, which was good to get out on the field and do that. Watching the video, it’s kind of like I said after the game there was certainly improvement from the week before. We opened up the game executing on offense to about the 30-yard line but then we couldn’t get the ball in the end zone. Because of the wind we didn’t try field goals.” “Defensively in the first half with the exception of one drive we played well. We were running to the ball, tackling, we got pressure on (Tim) Tebow and we did a nice job defensively of keeping us in the game. Offense just needs to score points when we drive the ball. I like the way we came out of halftime offensively and executed the script the coaches did at halftime and went down and scored. We got to 17-7 and got a turnover and that was our opportunity to really change the game but we didn’t convert on a screen pass on third and five and then they scored. We came right back and drove the ball to the 11 and got the field goal blocked and after that I didn’t feel like we played very well.”
On the offensive line“They did a nice job. I thought [Offensive linemen Grant] Cook played really physical and did a nice job in pass protection and a nice job in the run game. [Offensive lineman Grant] Freeman really battled, I think he didn’t think he would be in there and after the first play he’s in there. He really battled and got a lot of respect for how hard he played, how hard he worked at his technique during the game, got better as the game went on. I think our players really got a lot of respect for his toughness and his ability to stay in there and battle.“I think [Grant] Cook played well and I would anticipate him having a good week of practice and being the starter there, but that’s still yet to be seen. [Michael] Aguirre’s going to be down for a little bit with his injury, whether that’s one week, two weeks, or three weeks I’m not sure yet. We’ll just have to wait and see how quickly he can come back from it. And then we’ll have to wait and see who starts at that weak tackle spot. [Ray] Dominguez will be back. He got back in town late last night so he’ll be back and he and [Grant] Freeman will battle it out at practice.”“It’s both an ankle and a knee [injury for Aguirre]. A sprained knee and a sprained ankle, the whole pile fell on him on the very first play.”“Our competition is always good and you’d like to really have everyone healthy and have the competition when they’re all healthy. You don’t want to have to jump in there and get your shot because of injury, but sometimes that’s the way you have your shot and you learn to step up and play. I was pleased with the way both of those guys played [Freeman and Cook] and they allowed us to keep running the ball and they protected the quarterback. It certainly wasn’t something where we limited what we were doing offensively because of the injury to Aguirre. We didn’t have to do that at all.”
On linebacker play and the play of Jerry Franklin and Wendel Davis“The two of them played very well. Jerry Franklin probably had his best game. His speed in that area and being covered up by a defensive tackle helped him utilize his speed. Wendel [Davis] really ran around and made a lot of really good tackles and showed his physicality. The combination of the two of them was a little faster and more physical so to me it’s a good combination.”
On wide receiver Joe Adams“The one thing about Joe [Adams] you find out on game day is how much of a competitor he is and how much confidence he has in himself. Obviously his athletic ability and his ability to run and elevate while he’s running full speed and make catches above his head and run after the catch, that’s what excited me so much is his ability to run after the catch. We’re going to need that as an offense to be able to throw the ball short and have somebody make a play after the catch. In [the Florida game] we had the most yards after catch by our receivers this year. Still not as much as we want, we still want to see him break the long one but it got a lot better between Joe and London (Crawford) getting yards after they caught the ball.”“He was on his way to California, but we were fortunate Tim Horton did such a good job of recruiting him the whole time he was committed to [USC], that we had a shot at him. Then it was just selling him that we were going to throw the ball and put the ball in his hands and he’d have a chance to make plays. I really felt like obviously we had the need at receiver for help by freshman and he was one of the guys who could do that. It’s worked out to pretty much what we said it would.”
Against Tommy Tuberville and Auburn’s new spread offense“They’re always going to be very good on defense. He spends a lot of time on that and very good on special teams. We have to be on the top of our game special teams wise because they’ve always been excellent there. We need to look for some fakes. He’s always had fake field goals and punts. We have to be alert to that. They’re playing very good defense. They have a very physical, very fast defensive football team.” “We’ve watched a lot of their offense. I think we might see that version they pulled out the first half the other night where they run the ball and have a big physical offensive front running the football. Anytime you change schemes there’s an adjustment period and a lot of it is the quarterback play and you kind of go as your quarterback plays.”
Tight End DJ WilliamsThe teams mindset.“Just to look at the bright side of things knowing that for those first three quarters we’re up there with a team like Florida. If you take away some of those huge mistakes, the dropped punt, and mental mistakes on offense you can see that we can hang with a big caliber team like Florida. That’s something that we talked about all week is putting four quarters together, well we put three together and it’s not going to be to our opponents liking when we put four together.“If you put it into the perspective as us knowing that we’re not getting blown out like we did the 3rd and 4th game. When we were down there we were like ‘Wow we can win this game’ and that just lets us know that once again, we can beat ourselves, and so far that’s what we’ve done the past three games.”
Putting it all together“That feeling is definitely coming around, not just for me, but for everybody. You never really understand what people say, it takes time with a new coaching staff, it takes time for a new offense and defense to be put together. We came in thinking it was going to work right off the bat, but as you can see progressively things are starting to come together, and that’s just looking good for us and looking good for the future.“The tricky part is, like I said before, is to stop thinking about things and them becoming reactions. When we’re out on the field you can start to see that with the offensive line making calls, and calling out blitzes. Now it’s to the point where we can start making false calls to try and throw off the defense when they try to pick up on our offensive scheme. As far as Auburn goes, I haven’t seen much of their offense, but I know they have a really good defense, so it will be a good challenge for us this week.”
Preparations for Florida“[The coaches] did a great job preparing us all week in practice, we went with looks we thought they would show us and when we went to the game they were there. So we made those checks, and made those calls, and we started feeling pretty comfortable. Our offense did a great job of moving the ball, we just couldn’t get it into the end zone. If we did take care of that, I think the game would have been a lot different.”
On Joe Adams“He’s doing a great job, I’ve known Joe since high school, he was a big time player there and he made plays happen. If you watch game film he went from just making a catch to now making a catch and getting yards after it, going across the middle making huge catches, and I think he’s just going to progress and become that impact, dominant highlight maker player that he was in high school. You don’t see many freshmen that come in and see them comfortable on the field. You always see them walking around maybe running the wrong route or being hesitant about things, but he gets it. When he gets the ball he’s not hesitant about anything, he’ll run and go for contact or make a move, so that’s a good thing to see in a player like Joe.”
Defensive End Adrian Davis “The coaches have been preaching all week on making improvements, and coming out and playing harder, because they felt that we didn’t play hard the last couple games. As the [Florida] game went on, we just tried to make plays and keep the team in there. Now we’ve just got to finish in the 4th quarter. “
Improvements “Running to the ball, making plays, making key stops when we needed them, forcing field goals and turnovers. Those are things we need to do to try and win in the SEC. I think we’ve got the mindset to come out here every week and work harder. We know we’re playing some tough teams right now and we have to work some things out on defense and offense and continue to work hard. The SEC is a pretty tough conference anyway, so pretty much every team can be beaten every week. All of these teams can be beaten we just have to continue to work hard.”
A chance to win this weekend“I think there is a chance we can win this game, we have to go into this game with a mindset that we can win this game instead of settling for a loss. They just got a new offensive coordinator, they’re still trying to learn their offense just like we are, and they are trying to make improvements too. You never know what can happen. They can come out here and be rolling one week and not the next, we’ve just got to worry about our game plan.”
Without Ernest Mitchell“We had a little rotation going in [to the Florida game]. [The new players] have to continue to learn the system. I know they are being thrown into the fire, they just have to work hard.”
On Wendel Davis missing the first two games of the season“He was kind of down, with all of the stuff that he’s been through, but I stayed in his ear and told him to work hard, because we’re going to need him before the seasons over. His last two weeks he came out and worked pretty hard and played good for us. I tell him every day that he should be thankful that he’s still playing right now, with all of the stuff he went through in the summer, and his knee injury he should just be thankful he’s playing right now.”
