Opening Statement
“Looking back at this week’s game, we had a lot of guys that played really hard. Unfortunately, we didn’t play very well as a unit in any phase. We did create some explosive plays offensively, but we couldn’t run the ball again this week. If we’re going to improve offensively moving forward, we’re going to have to be able to run the football and still be able to create some explosive plays.
“On the reverse side, defensively, we didn’t tackle very well. We had lots of busts on defense, which is kind of uncharacteristic since the opening game. We have to go back this week and improve, improve tackling. We have to create an edge on special teams. When you look at South Carolina, all of Coach Muschamp’s teams have always been well coached, they’re physical, they play hard. They’re opening it up offensively and they’re spreading the ball around. They’ve got good wide receivers, good runners. They play hard on defense and they get off the field on third down, so we’ve got a tremendous challenge this week. I think it’s a great opportunity for us. It’s a hard place to win, in Columbia, especially at night. It’s a tremendous challenge for our team moving forward.”
On slow starts:
“It’s usually when you start a game, you’ve had the whole week to kind of go ‘okay, these are the plays we’re going to start with,’ and it’s an opportunity to put the defense on their heels a little bit. For whatever reason, our execution has picked up as the game has went every week. We’ve talked about it as a staff. We’ve been heavily involved in trying to figure out how to get going offensively to start the game. Some of it has to do with who we play.
“As the season has gone along, we’ve definitely improved offensively, but so have our opponents. We’ve got to figure out a way to score some points in the first quarter. We’ve played from behind almost every single game, which our kids have continued to try to play the right way as the game goes and have made adjustments, but we have to figure out a way to put some points on the board early.”
On the running game struggles:
“We have to be able to block the guys up front. We still have way too many mental errors on the offensive line and the quarterback, tight end, wide receiver positions. You should know what to do. I’m talking about getting in the correct stance, stepping with the right foot. There’s lots of ways, when you talk about running the football, you can say, ‘Hey, you know I’m going to run zone to the left side over here,’ and you know you have to guard the tackle and the tight end. If they put five guys over there, you probably shouldn’t run that way. Well, to give your guys a chance, you need to have ways out of it. When we make checks and things like that, you have to be able to adapt and understand where the MIKE’s at and where we’re going from there. To me, that’s where some of the issues have shown up. If you’re going to run the football, you have to have RPO’s set up. Maybe you can’t block a defender there. Well the answer is, you have an RPO behind it. Well that comes on the quarterback getting the ball out of his hands, so there’s lots of different ways. You can go back to the good old-fashioned hat-on-a-hat, everybody’s fitted up, but maybe we get defeated there. Sometimes your running backs have to run the ball the right way, too, so there’s lots of things that go into it.”
On the offensive line struggles:
“Riley Locklear wasn’t able to practice until Thursday. Jahmir [Johnson] was out and couldn’t take any reps. Chance Hall, we’ve had him on a pitch count all year because of his knee. The one way to get better at something is to do it over and over, and if you haven’t had a lot of practice, it’s pretty tough to go out there and play against some of the better defensive linemen in the country. We’ve got to get some guys healthy up front, and we’ve got to execute better.
“It’s one of the things I just talked about, if we make checks in the run game, we have to be able to get it done. If we have RPO’s tagged to the run game, we have to recognize what we see and we have to get the ball out of our hands so the box is fair. We have to finish blocks. The running backs have to run the ball, and we have to stick it up in there. Sometimes in this league, getting back to the line of scrimmage isn’t a bad run and every run isn’t going to be a home run. If you keep sticking it up in there, zeros will turn into two, and then they’ll turn into four and that will turn into six, and eventually you’ll have a chance to spit one out.”
On Jarrett Guarantano’s status:
“I think Jarrett’s going to be fine. He took a pretty good shot. He took a couple pretty good shots. He’s a tough guy and I expect him to be out there.”
On how the two quarterbacks performed against Alabama:
“We probably had more errors from that position than we’ve had all season combined. We’ve got to improve on that and there’s lots of things that go into playing the position. If you’re going to be playing against a team that’s as well coached as Alabama that gives you multiple looks, you’ve got to be able to redirect the fronts and protection. You’ve got to be able to know where you’re going with the ball, because they do a good job disguising it to the quarterback.
“There’s lots of ways you can affect the quarterback. You can hit him, you can get your hands up, you can get him off the spot, or you can just disguise so that he has to hold the ball. We got a little bit of all of that Saturday. We tried to give formations that indicated what they were going to do, but there were too many times where we started on the wrong side or had possibilities of changing the front or changing the protection, and we didn’t get it done. So, we’ve got to improve there.”
On Micah Abernathy’s status:
“He’s day-to-day. Micah wants to play. It’s his last year. We’ll see when we get out there today, but we’ll probably know as the rest of the week goes.”
What he noticed on film that he didn’t see during the game:
“We made a lot of mistakes. They were unforced errors, to me. I said it after the game and I said it at halftime. We have a lot of guys that try to compete and play to the standard and expectations, but unfortunately, you have 11 guys out there and it takes all 11. Even the guys that are trying to do it the right way, they’re not going to win every battle. That’s part of it. You have to give yourself a chance and it’s unfortunate for some of the guys in our program that do it right all the time. If we don’t get everybody else to do it, nobody knows how hard they actually play.
“It’s a challenge to the players, that in my opinion, aren’t doing it the right way or willing to turn it loose and go. We got beat 58-21, so, I mean, what would it have been if everybody would have just let it go? It might have been 58-21. If it was worse, would it have mattered? I think the guys on our team know where they stack up in that deal. For us to get where we need to get to, we need some of the guys that do it the way to demand that—whether it’s their roommates, their friends, their teammates—that they get on the same level as them.”
On the players who aren’t doing it the right way:
“No, because we had guys that played really well against Auburn that didn’t play nearly as well Saturday and it had nothing to do with who we were playing. I’m talking about mental errors. I’m talking about just—I kind of said maybe the moment was too big. I don’t think it’s too big. I just think the team on the other sideline changed and I think it affected some of the guys in our program which is unfortunate because we had a lot of guys that played really hard and played the right way. When you’re playing against a team of that caliber, it takes all 11. And hey you know what, we might have had all 11 of our guys play the right way the entire time and may not have won the football game, but that’s okay. It’s like I told our staff, if we’ve been playing over here in the scrimmage or we’ve been practicing, there’s an expectation, the standard that we should play every day and we had a lot of guys that did that and we had some that didn’t and it affected everybody else.”
On if he felt that everyone played the right way in the Auburn game:
“Most of the time, not all the time. There were some guys who didn’t and we got them out and got them calmed back down and got them back in there, just a little bit of poise and confidence and all that. To me, this is about building our program. I’ve said it two or three times, we’ve got a young team, an inexperienced team. I think on Saturday until Keller [Chryst] went into the game and Todd Kelly [Jr.]—Todd played a little bit Saturday—we’re playing four seniors. The bulk of these guys are going to be back and there’s lots of guys that are doing it the right way, practicing the right way, preparing the right way. Until we’re going to be at our best, we have to get everybody doing it. Trust me, these guys didn’t wake up on Saturday and say I’m not going to be at my best today. Some of it has to do with who walks out on the other field. Some of it has to do with the scoreboard. Some of it has to do with how you feel, but you can’t let that affect you. It’s clutter. You have to go be at your best if you’re going to have a chance to compete against guys like them or anybody else. To me, that’s the standard. We want to be at our best and if we’re good enough, we’re good enough. If we’re not, we’re not but at least our guys play at their best.”
On if he was surprised that guys didn’t play that way:
“You know John, it was a little disappointing. It was disappointing because we have made tremendous strides in this program in the last 10 to 11 months of guys from where they were at in January to how they’ve started to competing. It was and I wasn’t as much frustrated for me, I’m frustrated for the guys that were doing it the right way because they deserve their teammates to help give them a chance.”
On JJ Peterson and what he sees in South Carolina:
“I think JJ ran down on a couple of kickoffs. Just kind of what I said, they’re going to be very well coached. They’ll be hard-nosed. They always are. They are throwing the football a little more probably than they have in the past. I know Bryan McClendon and Dan Werner being there, they’re spreading out. They’ve got a good quarterback, good wide receivers. They’re balanced, but really for us we need to fix us. I’ve said it every week and that’s the thing is our goal is to be at our best, play at our best and prepare to do that.”
On the four seniors being defensive lineman and managing that situation with getting younger guys in:
“No, those guys work really hard to be at their best. They’ve played really well for us this year and we’re going to keep letting them play. They deserve to play. We’ll worry about next year next year.”
On being able to go to leaders on the team:
“I do think that we’re getting close because you can sense some frustration with guys doing it the right way. It’s easy to tell. All you have to do is watch the film. They’re out there every day at practice. They know what guys are capable of, of what calls we’ve worked. It’s hard to run from the video. I think as this season goes, I see more and more of it which is positive.”
On confronting players about doing the right thing when they aren’t players he’s recruited:
“I’m the head football coach so everybody under me I’m responsible for. The guys not playing at their best, ultimately that’s my responsibility. It’s frustrating for me and it’s a challenge for our coaches, for me, for everybody associated with our program. It’s the beauty about being a football coach, being involved in this game. It’s easy to coach the best team in the country. I’ve had an opportunity to do that a couple times. The challenging part there is to get them to stay at that level. To me, if you want to know how good a coach you are, just look at what you put on the field because what you put on the field, that’s yours, that’s mine, that’s ours. We’ve got to do a good job of getting these guys to play at their highest level all the time and that all comes back to me. Then to me, I’m looking forward to the next five weeks starting today to get our guys to do that. That’s just why you get in this business.”
On how the secondary played against Alabama:
“We didn’t play like we needed to play. We gave those guys too many easy plays. When you look at the tape, there’s lots of mistakes that we need to improve on and those guys can play better. We’re going to work hard this week to get them to do that.”
On South Carolina quarterback Jake Bentley:
“We recruited him and his dad, Bobby, used to be the head coach at Byrnes, so I’ve known him for many years. He used to bring his team down to Hoover High School and we had 7-on-7 there. Jake’s a coach’s son. He understands what they’re trying to get done. He’s tough. He can get the ball out of his hand, makes all the throws. Very unique situation that he leaves, really he could have played his senior year in high school, leaves and goes to South Carolina and ends up being the quarterback. That says a lot about him. We’ll have to find ways to affect him Saturday because if you let him sit there and stand in there in the pocket, he can deliver to some really good players.”
Jeremy Pruitt full press conference transcript 10/22
