Everything LSU Interim Head Coach Frank Wilson Said after Loss to Alabama

LSU interim head coach Frank Wilson took to the podium after LSU's 20-9 loss to No. 4 Alabama. Here is everything Wilson said.

Full Transcript

Opening statement

“I thought — here’s what we asked of our team: that they go out and compete and play with a style and brand of football representative of our university. I thought we did that. I thought we played hard. I thought we competed throughout the duration of the game.

“At the end of it, our best wasn’t good enough tonight, so we finished second. But I thought there were some good things that happened, and there are things we’ll continue to need to improve on. We have to score touchdowns and not just field goals. Glad to see the field goals go through, but we’ve got to be able to score touchdowns, and we’ll continue to try to remedy that issue so we can score touchdowns.

“I thought we need to take care of the ball a lot better than we did. Three of them on the ground, two picked up by the opponent, and that was the difference in the game for us. I told the team: pick your heads up. You fought, you competed. There’s no moral victory, but there’s a lot to be said for how we played the game.”

Why they subbed in quarterback Michael Van Buren Jr...

“Yeah. As we discussed as a staff, we knew there could be opportunities in the quarterback run game and at the back end. As they tried to bring closure to it, they would make it difficult to just sit in the pocket. We wanted to move him around and do some things. We thought he gave us a chance to do those things, and that went into the thought and why we put him in.”

How Smith would evaluate Van Buren’s performance...

“I thought he was solid. There were some things that were obvious: pushing the pocket, stepping up, delivering passes, escaping extended plays, and picking up first downs with his legs. I’d like him to have two hands on the ball in the pocket so we don’t get that last one swatted away. But I thought he did a good job.”

How Smith would evaluate starting quarterback Garrett Nussmeier’s performance...

“Yeah. I thought he did some good things early on. We moved him out of the pocket, and I thought he started the game extremely well. As we went deeper into the game, we thought it was an opportunity to change up and throw their defense off, so we went with the change. I don’t know if it’s something he did badly; we just thought it would be an advantage in what Michael could give us.”

How Smith would evaluate LSU’s defense...

“I thought our defense played extremely well. You take away some of those big plays we gave up. They weren’t necessarily drives they just took down the field, but they did get behind us a couple of times.

“I thought Blake Baker and our defensive staff did an outstanding job game-planning. I thought they gave us opportunities to compete. They didn’t rush the ball extremely well. We contested passes like we said we wanted to do, and eventually we were able to start moving the quarterback off his mark, which was advantageous for us.”

How Smith would evaluate offensive coordinator Joe Sloan...

“I thought he did a good job. I thought he did a good job managing the game and managing the clock. There was one in the second quarter that was on me, that I would take back, not giving them the ball back.

“But I thought he did a really good job. I thought our entire offensive staff did a good job of doing what our players could do, protecting our offensive line and their vulnerabilities because we’re so youthful. As you saw, we put Young or Williams in there as well, and we tried to do our very best to keep our quarterback upright.

“So I thought he did a good job.”

On how LSU’s team handled the past week after the firing of Brian Kelly...

“I thought they did a good job of managing that. You look at us in our preparation. You look at us in pregame. You look at how we played this game. That wasn’t a team that had quit in them. That wasn’t a team that was submissive or not willing to fight back. It just wasn’t our day, unfortunately, to capitalize or to win the football game. But I thought our kids handled the two weeks well, and I thought they did some things well. When you’re playing against a team like this and you have opportunities, you have to seize the moment, and we fell short on doing that.”

On LSU’s 10 penalties...

“We had 10 of them. A couple of them were five-yarders, just procedural deals with some young guys who were antsy to want to go and strike somebody. Others were some that occurred that we will need to clean up. That’s part of the game. When you say to them, you’ve got a license to go play and let your personality show and you’re that aggressive, sometimes that happens. I’m disappointed that they were called. I’m not disappointed that we played with aggression.”

On if there were issues with communication between play callers and Garrett Nussmeier...

“No, we substituted at one time and the clock continued, and it caught us, so I wound up calling a timeout there. And then when we got to the sideline, he’s a warrior. He wants to play and he wanted to stay in the game, and I told him this is what we’re going to do. He was a great teammate. He was supportive of his teammate. He stayed engaged, and I was very proud of how he supported his teammate and his team.”

On how LSU will move forward from this loss...

“I know that we have a team that has no quit in them, that they’ll continue to play the duration of this season and will play a very dangerous Arkansas team next week. We’ll put this tape to bed and immediately turn our attention to them and build on the things we did well — the things we did well defensively, the things we did well offensively, and in special teams as well. I think there are a lot of things you can take from this game to allow us to progress, and we’re going to try to take advantage of it.”

On who will start at quarterback next week...

“I haven’t put that kind of thought into it right now. Right now, I just want to be there for our players, to let them know we’re going to be all right, to pick their heads up and let them know we’re standing by them. We’re in this thing together. Decisions of depth and what’s moving forward — we’re not at that stage right now.”

On how he liked his first game as a head coach...

“I like the way our team played. I like the way our team prepared. I was hurt for our players. They wanted to win. I wanted them to savor that, to have that moment, and so I hurt for them. They were extremely disappointed in the locker room because they prepared so hard and so well. The key was to let them know: pick your chin up, hold your head high, and we’ll continue to build off this.

“There is no disappointment. Although we didn’t get the win, the way we played mattered most. When you play the number four team in America and you put yourself in position, that’s something you can build off. And so we’ll build off that, and we’ll be better next week.”

On LSU’s struggles in the red zone...

“We’ll look at what we’re doing down in that area again to find out what suits us best. I take that from the kids — I put that on us as coaches, on myself, to try to find a way to put them in the best position to have success.”

A status update on wide receiver Nic Anderson...

“I’m not sure. He was gone from the game, and I think he was going to get some X-rays. I’m not sure beyond that, though.”

On if he wishes he increased the volume of the run game...

“I thought it was appropriate because the game got to a situation where we had to do what we needed to do to try to win. At times that takes away the run, but I thought we ran the ball appropriately at the right times and had some positive yards throughout the game at the back end. In a perfect world, certainly you’d like to continue to do so to open up your passing game as well. But once it became a 10-point lead, we had to do what was necessary to put ourselves in position to win the game, because that’s ultimately the goal.”

Full Transcript

Read more on BamaCentral: