Derek Dooley post game comments

Here are Derek Dooley’s post game quotes in sorta-semi-quoted ‘FreakNotes’ style.

It’s our number one maxim. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win. We played a hungry, motivated, talented team who had to get a win and we made it easy on them. We aren’t good enough to play anybody and turn the ball over three times in the first half and expect to win. Then we had the snap error. That’s almost like four turnovers in the first half. The game got behind us and we could never compete our way back.

Did the team have a hangover? I think that’s an excuse. I felt like we were over it but we didn’t play the way we needed to today. I was disappointed in how we competed. I felt like we got affected in the game. It was what you would have expected last week in the first road game, but the environment never got hostile last week. This week, bad things happened that we did and the crowd got in it. They were playing hard and we got affected that we could never punch our way out.

On the special teams turnovers. You can’t do it. Eric had a great return, it was a big play and the guy makes a good hit and pops it out. Then he’s looking up and deciding whether to fair catch the high hanging punt and he muffs it. To his credit, he bounced back, but a bad two plays in the game.

On continuing to play Eric Gordon. We put him back out there. I thought about switching him. I switched him on kickoffs. I put Neal out there, who is showing some good promise. My gut said get him out but we don’t have a lot of options. That’s where we are. It’s not like we have the next guy sitting there waiting.

On Rajion Neal. We still aren’t giving him enough touches. He’s going to keep getting more. He showed some promise. That last drive on offense we had seven true freshman in the game and we went right down the field and just missed on fourth-and-three. Tyler was a little late, but Tyler did a good job throwing the football. Justin Hunter made some great plays down the field. Rajion made a nice play. He’s proving he can play fast. We had the three offensive lineman competing out the pretty good. It was a bad day but there’s a lot of good signs for the future on offense.

On Dallas Thomas. I don’t think Dallas played very well but we knew he wouldn’t. We ended up finishing the game with Shaw at left tackle but that was the least of our problems.

On Tyler Bray. Matt wasn’t doing bad but threw a bad interception. He didn’t put enough air on the ball. He wasn’t getting a lot of help either. We felt like we just weren’t generating points so we put Tyler in. Tyler did some nice things. It was obviously a different situation in the game with no consequence but he showed that he’s a talented guy and I think he’s really improving on schedule.

He’s got a very strong and accurate arm and that’s his greatest strength and he’s a tall guy. So he can see very well. He starts off with two great qualities: his stature and his arm.

What does he need to do to be an SEC quarterback? Learning the offense, understanding the offense, learning the reads, where to put the ball, how to minimize mistakes, how to manage the game and the command you’ve got, knowing what all the other guys are doing out there, and that will come with time.

On Georgia’s play action. We were struggling. Every time we blitzed we couldn’t hold up in coverage and he (Murray) would get rid of the ball. Then we would play coverage and he would find a little crease because we couldn’t get to the quarterback. So nothing was really working on defense and it made it tough to call it all day.

After the game spoke with team. I was disappointed how we got affected. Mistakes are going to happen. I just felt like we were so caught up in the result, the score, and less into the competing, the playing, and the process, that it really affected us in the game.

Plans for the open date. Four main objectives in an open date. We need to evaluate our personnel looking to the second half. We need to evaluate schematically what we are doing. We need to get a jump start on our next opponent and we need to catch up a little bit in recruiting.

Injuries. Montori hurt his ankle and Prentiss Waggner is banged up a little bit.