Everything From Offensive Coordinator Mike Shula During His Media Availability Session

On how the offensive line played…

“It was some really good things at times, and some things that weren't as good. The good things were, I'm sure, as Shane has probably talked about, you know, we got off to a good start. Stayed out of the third downs and in that first drive, except for the last one. The negative plays are what kill you on offense. We preach about it, and you know even if you kind of get a little momentum, then all of a sudden you have a negative play, then that kind of just stalls, and you're playing behind the sticks, and so we've got to avoid that. Try to avoid that much more than we did the other day after the good start. We kind of fell into that a little bit, but I was proud of the way they just kind of continued to stay focused, stay dialed in. You know, that's hard when the emotions of the game, how the way your feelings go after a drive when you score, and then you come back and you go three and out or you have a negative play or whatever, take a safety or whatever it is, you just got to kind of, and they did a good job with that. Now, it wasn't perfect by any means, but you know, overall, obviously, it's good to win, and it's all about winning and getting better. That's kind of been the theme for today. The offensive line was probably a microcosm of what I just talked about.”

On what his talking points was with LaNorris after the safety…

Our number one goal is to get a first down, and you know the worst thing that can happen is to take a safety. So, we got to be better there, and all of us can be better offensively, coaching, me and all of us. Learn from it is the main thing, you know. Hey, and then once something like that happens, whether or not it's a safety, a negative play, a turnover, whatever, you got to figure out what happened, why it happened, and then move on. You know, it's in the past. There's nothing you can do about it. Go on and stay focused. These are things we're going to talk about for the next drive moving forward.”

On how much he wants to see the tight ends be involved in the passing game…

“Yeah, I just think we want to be diversified, and you know everybody that has the ability to touch the ball. We want to make sure that if teams are looking at us as an offense that you know everybody is a target, not just certain receivers or backs or LaNorris or whatever. We need to be able to be balanced in that regard. So we have to have that ability going into every game, and then depending on how defenses play us sometimes it's the ball goes to the running backs a little bit more, goes to the tight ends or the wide receivers. Just to have the ability going into a game and, you know, as coaches and then collectively as an offense, but each guy individually, each position, hey, you never know, in practice all week, you may have not, we may have run that same play, that same pass play, and you didn't get the ball all week, and then all of a sudden in the game, it's maybe a little bit different than what we thought. So that was up every week and, whether or not the tight ends are in the first in the read or third in the read.”

On if the plan going into the game was to run LaNorris on designed runs on third and short….

We want to have the ability to have him, run the ball kind of at any time. There's not really any like, hey, this week we're going to run him a bunch in this situation. Or run him a bunch, you know, in this manner. I kind of said all along that he's talented. He's a talented runner. We want him, you know, uh, whether or not it's obviously a called quarterback run is different, but as far as him running the football on his own, we kind of want him running it because, you know, he wants to maybe as opposed to, you know, I didn't quite see the read correctly, so I just took off and ran. That's our goal of him getting better. He's very talented. There's a lot of quarterbacks in college, in the NFL, that, you know, that have the ability to do that. I think probably every coach is kind of saying the same thing. So, but he did some, you know, some really good things there for us.”

On Oscar Adaway III and what he saw to feature him a lot in the offense..

“That group's a good group. I'll say that to start with. They've worked hard, and they played physical. They played really hard the other day. Physical. He's probably been the most consistent throughout, going back to day one of spring ball. He's got a very, you know kind of a lunch pale mentality of just you know being that steady force whether or not it's running the football, catching it, pass protecting. You kind of want guys like that. Again it's not really ever dictated kind of especially we talked about with the running backs last week on how we're going to kind of substitute those guys. It's just kind of the game starts one way and then sometimes you have certain plays for like Oscar or maybe for Rasul or whoever, Isaiah, whoever, and then after that we just kind of let it go. The biggest thing for us is, hey, let's stay on the field so they all can kind of get into a groove, but he's been really good. He's been a steadying force.”

On if LaNorris ran a lot of time when he didn’t want him too.

“No, I mean, probably not more than some of the other games in the past. You kind of look at it after the game, kind of how many touches he has and all that kind of stuff. And then you kind of look at how many called runs you have. I don't think there's any exact science to it, going back to some of the other guys I've been around that I've coached or been with coaches that have coached quarterbacks. He's a weapon, both throwing the ball and running the ball. So we want to make sure we use that, but we also want to kind of keep him healthy. Not kind of, we want to keep him healthy.”

On his opinion on the catch rule and the Nyck Harbor catch being called back…

“Yeah, you know what? I got enough to worry about with the offense and getting those guys ready. I literally was telling somebody I did not even look at the scoreboard. I didn't look at anybody else. I was just kind of pacing back and forth. Had it been second down, I was getting ready. I was get ready for the third down call. That's all you can do. You can't control that. So, get ready what with what you can control. Now, that one was going to be fourth and nine. So, just kind of hoping. That stuff happens, and we tell our players, hey, no matter what happens, until that clock strikes zero, after that play's over, your mindset's got to be on to the next play, whatever it is, and not get caught up in the emotions. You kind of do that after the game. If we ask our players to do that, we need to do that as coaches, too.”

On if he remembers a specific moment back at Fall camp and the touchdown play from LaNorris to Nyck Harbor …

“Yeah, he did a good job reading the play. It's kind of like a lot of pass plays in the game. You kind of have certain plays where you're trying to look, you know, look one way and if they give you the deep ball and you throw it. There were other times when we were trying to throw the ball deep, and they were really soft. That one we you know Nyck did a great job, and LaNorris made a great throw and and we were able to get behind the defense, but we were fortunate on that play.”

On what do he think the freshman receivers learned being in a college game…

“I can only imagine I try to put myself in their shoes, you know, last year at this time what they were doing, and even you know, at the end of last year, compared to what they just went through and the experience that they had. First time against a really good football team in that atmosphere. in that stadium. I mean, that was really cool. I thought for the most part they did a good job. Probably about what we expected. We all want to be more productive as receivers and freshmen, as coordinators and all that, but it's just good to kind of get going now and get those guys in and playing. So each week, as we all know, with whatever we're doing, we should be better at what we're doing through experience. I think that was probably the best thing about that. So on to week two for those guys.”

On what he needs to see from TE Michael Smith to get more reps…

“Yeah, it's a competitive room. It really is. He's getting better each and every day, but there's other guys that are competing. We talk to all of our guys about it, and Shane (Beamer) talks depth chart-wise, but we just ask all our guys to just be ready when your number is called, and you never know whether or not you're going to get 30 plays or 15 plays or whatever. He's like a lot of guys, you know, he's still a young guy. He's still a young guy, and he's been battling injuries in the past, and he's coming back into it. He's just continuing to work on getting into that groove that we want all our players to get into. In the meantime, we've got some guys that have had a lot of reps with Brady and Jordan. Kind of keep working that mix.”

On the balance and making sure enough hands touch the ball…

“In an ideal world, they all get several touches and there's only one football. That's a tough thing if you're playing a position that you know you might not get as many touches. The only guys that are going to touch every play are the center and the quarterback. Kind of the same question for the running back, so you want to get them all in the mix as fast as you can, but you also don't want to predetermine that and force the issue. In the meantime, you're kind of giving up things, you're not exactly in the best play. So, we kind of want to let it unfold. As you watch tape, you think there are certain ways you can attack a defense, and try to put guys in that position of what they do best. We're asking our guys, hey, continue to get better at everything in your own games. Then that way you're not going to just do this, or do that. It just happens each and every week. There's no predetermining. You don't want to do that. That's the thing I've learned over the years. But for us, more so than anything, kind of like I said earlier, just, you know, let's make first downs. Stay out of negative plays, make first downs, and stay on the field.”

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