Everything Ryan Grubb Said Following Alabama's Loss to Florida State

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb spoke to media on Monday after the No. 8 Crimson Tide lost 31-17 at Florida State on Saturday. A full transcript of Grubb's comments about the game, including the performance of Ty Simpson and the rushing strategy, is below.

On the offensive line:

"There’s some good spurts there in the first half where I thought, especially on the left side, they played really well. I think the consistency to finish drives, you know, longer drives, I thought later in the football game kind of weaned out a little bit. And the guys bowed up a little bit in the third quarter and showed that they could do that, a little better job. So the biggest piece I think is the consistency part. We just got to be a little more consistent on how we finish drives."

On Ty Simpson and instilling confidence:

"Yeah, good question. Ty, he’d be the first one to tell you, the progression discipline is a big thing for any quarterback. So, I think when you get down in a football game, there sometimes can be the ‘I want to make the big throw every time.’ and there were some times there where, certainly, I know he’d just stay with his first read and just stay within the progression. So for him, I think you just got to keep instilling that in practice. Like, don’t pass on your number one. Take that, just keep moving. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll keep working on that."

On pass protection:

"I thought KP [Kadyn Proctor] had a pretty good day. There was a couple late pressures but he was holding up for a long time. Interior pressures were a couple times, we had a few problems, which is always the hardest for the quarterback to deal with because interior pressure’s fast. So they shored up later in the fourth on that. But I think they did a good job with some of the twist games that they presented. And overall, three sacks is not where you want to be. And I think we had 40-some attempts, so that’s not where you want to live either. But I thought it was OK. There’s certainly some ID things that we can continue to be better at."

On moving away from the run after the first drive:

"I think some of it, probably the later part is, you know the run game can be a softening process at times, and you hope that you can play with the lead or get into that third and fourth quarter and really put the hammer down on the run game. And obviously we didn’t get that opportunity late in the football game. We were playing from behind there for a little bit. So that certainly is part of it. I think that some of the run hits and adjustments that they made at some point, we had to try to overcome that. And they did. We had some nice third-quarter run hits but we gotta keep the lead and stay ahead of the chains. The biggest part for us was honestly just staying on the field, the third downs. Being able to stay out there and sustain the run gunning game and have that nice first drive like we had with some good first down runs. So, we’ve got to have some more efficiency on first and second down to keep the run game alive."

On whether he saw complacency from the offense:

"I think that hindsight’s 20/20. What we’ve asked our players and coaches to do is, when we see that, address it, you know? And so I did think there were some times there where we didn’t look as strong as we did in the first quarter. And those are things that we’re addressing in practice and certainly some things that have showed up that the guys know that the preparation part will show up in a game. So for us, we’ve just got to keep focusing on being strong throughout a practice, being strong throughout a game, and I think you could see that, yeah, that we didn’t have as good a second or third drive as we did the first."

On how Ty Simpson handled pressure:

“The toughest part, I think, for quarterbacks in general, is not letting one pressure or a bad protection bleed into the next play. And certainly, that can be the case. I think there were times where the protection was adequate, where Ty got a little bit antsy. He had a couple drives later where I thought he did a good job of not dropping his eyes. So I think the biggest part for him is trying to simulate some of those pressures in practice and create those hostile environments for him in the backfield that he's got to be able to keep his eyes down the field: poise. I know that's something that he's excited to try to work on.”

On the effort of the wide receivers:

“How I look at it is, I just start with Germie Bernard, and that’s what it’s supposed to look like. If you’re watching the game, I mean, the guy’s running in and blocking their Aztec player that’s running down the middle of the field and smoking that dude. Then he’s running down the sideline and catching a play-action pass. His desire and passion for the game, you just see how he plays, whether it’s a run block or a pass play. We just set that as the gold standard, and if it’s not what Germ’s doing, it’s not good enough. I know we’ve got some young guys. I thought Lotzeir, it didn’t show up necessarily on the stat book, but I thought he was in there flying around. Derek Meadows was stretching the field a couple times. Those are guys that will continue showing up. And then Rico Scott, I thought, played really, really hard. His Catapult numbers as always were just really, really high— his player load, just how hard he plays. So I think those guys are doing a really good job flying around. I think that room understands what it takes to win a football game. I know Isaiah got banged up a little bit early on, so it was a little tougher for him to get out there and play like he normally does. They know what it’s supposed to look like.”

On whether Jam Miller's absence affected rushing strategy:

“No. Kev, you’re right, showed up. He showed a good burst, and that was something we were excited to see was what game reps were going to show up from what running back. You always want to have, I think we had right around 20 running back touches in the run game. You’d love that number to be higher, like 25 or 30, but again, I think the fourth quarter and how it played out and having to play from behind at that point certainly hammered that a little bit. We’ve got to be able to run the ball in any situation, down two scores or not.”

On getting other wide receivers than Germie Bernard and Ryan Williams involved:

“Part of it’s reps and getting other guys in the game, making sure everybody’s staying fresh. Germ’s going to stay out there as long as we’ve got enough Gatorade in him. He’s going to be rolling the whole time. Ryan, as far as him, certainly one of our better playmakers, so you’re trying to highlight him with the ball. From there, sometimes the ball just doesn’t find guys depending on the coverages. Throughout time, our offense has shown that the ability to get the ball to the X the Z or the H typically balances out depending on what the defenses are trying to take away.”