Opening Statement:
“I think for three days now our guys have worked hard to improve. We’ve got a long ways to go. I think they understand that. We’ve been working all year trying to get it right. Lots of competition out there today. I saw guys competing all the way to the end of practice, which is a good thing. Not that we haven’t been, but you could see a little more sense of urgency. I think a lot of that is – a little bit is maturity – I think some of it is confidence, so that’s a good thing. We’ve got to continue to work the next two days to get ready for a really good football team in Georgia.
“When you go on the road in the SEC, you find out a lot about yourself. To me, one of the best things about being a player or coach in this league, is you find out really who you are when you go on the road. Everybody is against you. It’s a tough environment. You have to overcome a whole lot, but you find guys who have maturity, who can focus and do the little things that it takes to have success.”
On the environment at Georgia and the time he spent there as a coach:
“I would think that Georgia is a hard place to play. To start with, like all the schools in the SEC, they have a lot of passion for their team. They have a very good football team that’s very well coached. In my time there, the players, the relationships that I got to build and be a part of, (I) had a lot of fun memories there.”
On if they have looked at bringing anybody in due to the new redshirt rule and the subsequent transfers:
“I think after four games there have been things that have been brought to my attention that’s happened nationally. I think you’ve got to kind of adjust with what the rules are. We’ve really been focused with trying to improve our team. You obviously couldn’t bring anybody in right now, so to answer your question, I have not focused on bringing anybody in. (We) haven’t worried about it, (we’re) trying to get the team we’ve got right now better.”
On knowing a lot of the coaches at Georgia and other SEC schools:
“Yeah, I think if you work on staffs that have success, guys on those staffs get an opportunity to move on and kind of get promoted. I’ve been fortunate to do that, so a lot of the guys that I’ve worked with have become head coaches or have become coordinators. We know lots of guys on all the staffs really, but particularly Georgia, working with Kirby [Smart] for six years. When he was the defensive coordinator, one of the things I did was I assisted him, I wasn’t an on the field coach yet, so we spent a lot of hours together. You’ve got Glenn Schumann there, who was a grad assistant when we were there. Dan Lanning was at Alabama and I was there for a little bit with him, so there’s lot of guys there. Then you’ve got the guys that are still there from Georgia that worked in administration and all around the building. There’s probably no secret to why they’re having success. They’re committed to what they’re trying to get done. They’ve done a really good job. Kirby’s got a vision and they’ve worked hard to get there.”
On K’Rojhn Calbert and if any injuries will play a part of this game:
“I do not think from an injuries standpoint that any will affect us. K’Rojhn is a very unique individual. I think he has had three ACLs, two before he got here, so he has not played a lot of ball. He is a big man that can bend (and) has power. He was even contemplating when we first got here not playing anymore. He was that frustrated, but he has worked really hard. He has lost weight and got into shape. I see the guy working every day to improve as a player and he is only going to get better. He has finally got an opportunity where he can go practice and you see it every day.”
On Jarrett Guarantano’s status going into this weekend:
“He has been out there every day. Jarrett is a tough guy and that is not surprising to me. He will be ready to go.”
On the similarities between Kirby Smart and him:
“To me, I think Kirby’s defense is a little different now, then they were 10 years ago. We all keep evolving a little bit. They probably run a lot more ODD, we call MINT now, then we did years ago, but I would say there is a lot of similarities. They are a lot further ahead of us because this is their third year, and probably when they took over, there was a lot of carry over. Not all of it is the same, but there is a lot of carry over because it was the defense that we run here, so we steal from each other. I watch their tape and I am sure that they watch someone else’s tape and you are always trying to find ways to improve as a coach.”
On if it is hard this year to have patience:
“What I want everybody in our program to do is to be at our best all the time. If we are at our best all the time, then the rest of it will take care of itself. That is what we are working to do every single day. I know where we want to go, and I know where our players want to go, but you do not get what you want, you get what you earn.”
On schematics and the coaching styles between Kirby Smart and him:
“Both of us worked in the same system when you talk about schematically, beliefs and how you go about structuring things. I have not worked with him in several years, but I know from a baseline that it will probably be very similar. I watched them on defense and they play tough. They are physical and fly around the ball. They recruit the type of players that you are looking for. Big, fast men that can deny the ball and put pressure on the quarterback.”
On the progression of freshman linebacker JJ Peterson:
“Well if he had gotten here in June, it probably now would have been like it was the middle of July. Everybody else was here in June, and they have all these practices, so for him, the reality of it is that by the time we get to the end of the season, it would almost be like the end of fall camp, but we don’t have football everyday like you do in fall camp. We’re not practicing threes and fours, we’re practicing ones and twos and getting ready for ball games, so right now he’s competing on the scout team and doing a really good job. His body is changing which is important. He’s doing a good job for us and he’s getting better every day.”
On Jarret Guarantano’s ability to read the defense and make decisions as well as his freedom to make changes at the line:
“Well I think that probably one of the most important things is that you want to stay out of bad plays, and when you talk about the quarterback being able to do that, sometimes you can change the play or run a combo run, or you can run a run pass. But, when you start doing that type of stuff, then the rest of the guys have got to think pretty fast to snap the ball. I don’t think Jarret has any problem doing that, but sometimes, if everybody can’t do it, it puts limitations on what he can do.
On how Keller Chryst handled being the backup and how he has stayed ready this season:
“We really hadn’t talked about who the guy is. We’ve played both guys. I know going into the first game we had a plan and we executed the plan, and then we had a plan the next couple of games. We’ll have a plan for this game and we’re going to try to the play the players that give us the best opportunity to have success and we’ll make decisions on that each week.”
On Kyle Phillip’s play so far and if he is a leader on the team:
“I think we have lots of guys that can be really good leaders for us. Everything is new, whether it was winter workouts, whether it was spring ball, summer conditioning, fall camp, how do you handle a win, how do you travel, how do you do meetings on the road? So, at times, I think that some of the guys are trying to figure out exactly what we want them to do. And to me, about being a leader, we’re trying to encourage it, but it’s not about what we want, they’ve got to do it themselves. It’s still a little bit of a feeling out process and when you’ve got a lot of guys that are working hard that are trying to do the right thing, I think the best way a lot of these guys can lead right now is to lead by example and just do their best every day. I think Kyle is one of the guys that tries to do that.”
On how Keller Chryst played against Florida and his confidence in Keller Chryst:
“Well, it didn’t matter who played quarterback against Florida. First of all, we were behind in the game because we put ourselves in a hole by turning the football over. Secondly, we didn’t protect very well, which wasn’t just the offensive line, there’s more to it than that. So, when you put yourself in a tough situation like that, it’s hard to have success. It takes everybody, and one guy can’t do it. I haven’t seen Jarrett or Keller or a lot of the guys in our program change. I see guys that continue to work as hard as they can to be the best that they can possibly be, which excites me.”
-UT Athletics
