Georgia Tech Football: Geoff Collins Press Conference before Western Carolina
After a tough loss to Clemson on Monday night, Georgia Tech football has to turn around on a short week and play Western Carolina. Head coach Geoff Collins spoke to the media today and addressed several topics, including playing his alma mater on Saturday.
Here is everything the Yellow Jackets head coach said today.
Opening Statement
"So obviously the game on Monday night, I have had some time to reflect on it, make the corrections, you guys were out there at the early part of practice and hearing the coaches reiterate all of the things that we are focusing on."
"Hurting ourselves pre-snap, a lot of time on the punt team as well this morning. Try to put the game on Monday night to bed as fast as we could this morning, didn't get to meet with the guys yesterday because it was their off day, and then get into our opponent Saturday, Western Carolina. We have done that, we have moved on. I know that there is going to be some questions about Clemson but with us being three days away, there is a sense of urgency to get back in there and watch the film and get the rest of the stuff done so I appreciate you guys being here."
1. On his thoughts about the 17 transfers in their first game on Monday...
"That is a really good question because that is a lot. We have a bunch of new coaches that got to experience the gameday with the entire roster and then some of us that have been here for a while. The new guys, that was the first time to see them in action on a really big stage and see what they do in those kinds of environments. I think it was a learning experience for everybody and a lot of the improvement that has to be done usually comes after that first week of live action. There was no better venue and a great opponent to get that experience with so now we have to learn from it and move on with a short week."
2. On playing his alma mater...
"The first thing is just you turn on the film, we did a lot of work in summer scouting and saw an explosive offense that they have, really good skill players on the defensive side of the ball and they do a lot of things so the big focus for me is the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 2022 team against the Western Carolina team that is coming in here. A tremendous amount of respect for their coaching staff, tremendous amount of respect for their players and once you guys see them play if you have not already, they have really good players across the board and we have a big challenge in a short amount of time to get ready to play at a high level on Saturday night"
3. On having two punts blocked against Clemson and if it is reasonsable to say it shouldn't have been a problem to begin with, even it it is a correctable mistake...
"I don't want to get to much into the scheme, but just did not get it cutoff on the back side and then the second level person that is supposed to work inside didn't, hats off to the kid from Clemson of finding his way and fighting his way through there, but we spent a lot of time working on that and we need to be better."
"I mean it is just one of those things that happened, you know, a really good player that was going through the gap and just did not use proper fundamentals and technique and the second level defender that was there was not able to clean it up so it was unfortunate that it happened but we gotta move on from it and gotta correct it and and get better on all of those things and all of those areas."
4. On getting the running game on track this week...
"Yeah, that is the goal and premise of everything that we do offensively is to start with the run game, you guys have been around Coach Key and know Coach Key well and the pride that he has in running the football and that is a staple of what we want to do. Be physical, execute at a high level and that includes pre-snap things as well and so we gotta get a lot of those cleaned up and we can't have those kinds of things happen against a front like that or really against anybody"
5. On the momentum shifting on Monday and Charlie Thomas getting ejected...
"I mean the bigges piece is, the fundamentals and technique, playing the ball with poise in the air to prevent any pass interferences but anything that comes up from an officiating perspective, we send those in and so I will leave those conversations there. Just the fundamentals and technique and playing the ball in the air, we gotta get better so we don't get put in those situations and then the same thing with the play with Charlie, obviously, send those in and the biggest thing is player safety. You guys have been around me, players safety means a lot to me on both sides of the ball. Whatever we can do when we send plays in, a lot of the time, it is for our knowledge so we can teach out guys to be doing the right things for player safety and so they don't get penalties and they don't get ejected. All of those kinds of things are teachable moments and there is some other plays to where we send in just for our own knowledge. Why is this kind of play, is this something we are missing and something we can teach better so that is something that we can do every single week."
"That was a big series of events and just find ways to make sure that we are helping ourselves in those areas."
6. On what to expect from the Western Carolina offense...
"I think they were one of the top ten offenses in all of college football last year and I think they put up well over 600 yards this past week and over 50 points. Tremendous skill players, a quarterback that can do a lot of things, a big offensive line and they have a tight end and a running back corps that has depth and has talent and has a lot of speed. They do a lot of formations, a lot of motions and shifts and a bunch of layered routes. It is going to be a challenge so we have to make sure that we are doing everything we can in preparation for all of the things that they do and they have really good players on top of the schematic things that they do really well."
7. On if he thought about adding a special teams coach to the staff...
"That is a fair question. So as we are going through the process and, (assistant head coach and run-game coordinator) David Turner was available and able to join our staff and was somebody that we knew had tremendous value, from a defensive line perspective and to help the run defense and then on the other side of the ball with Coach Weinke and to have a quarterbacks coach that can help the development of that position and then split up the special teams between (linebackers coach) Jason Semore and (running backs coach) Mike Daniels and obviously I am heavily involved as well and so just the things that needs to be cleaned up and we are all committed to doing that and I think one of the bright spots of the game too was (kicker) Gavin Stewart."
"One of the things of kickoff coverage is the fewer guys that you have to actually get on the ground, the easier, and I thought Gavin did a great job of, in that way, of getting the kickoffs cleared for us and there was great effort on all of those kinds of things so we just have to continue to build on those."
8. On what kinds of advantages that he thinks they can have on special teams...
"The biggest thing is the focus on what we have to do better every single day. We hit on every single special teams today, which we usually do, but in a condensed week, we had to today, so we have to focus on ourselves and put ourselves in the best position to play well in that area and just know that they have good players across the board on their special teams units."
9. On what he thought were the issues with the false starts on the offensive line...
"I don't want to give us an out or an excuse but we just have to do better and play the situations with poise and just make sure that we are doing the right things pre-snap, the focus, the poise and just make sure we are doing the right things to make sure we are playing at a high level from that and I am sure there are a lot of factors to contribute but we just want to focus on the things that we can control with our guys and our guys were great about it today, we were stimming and moving the front all day just to create those kinds of things. We have to be better on that end. "
10. On preparing to play in bad weather on Saturday...
"I don't want to give too many of those specifics away, but what we do do, you guys were out there in preseason camp, we had more weather and rainy days during preseason camp then I can remember in a long time and if it was not lightning, we would stay out in it to try to have some sembelance of preparation because you never know when you are going to get those kinds of days and you want to make sure you have some banked reps toward that end and we did that during preseason camp so obviously we are aware of it and we will make the necessary adjustments to give our guys the best chance to play at a high level against a really good team."
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