Quick Hits: Changing Things Up, Timeout Usage, Play-Calling Balance, + More

RE: Lack of energy in 1st half vs Texas Tech

"I'm still, I'm so pissed at how we played at the beginning of the game. In other sports, I kind of understand. You've got all these games in other sports. Football, you get 12 [games]. Like, how the hell do you not get ready to play one game a week? I don't get it. It hadn't been an issue. We started fast every game but this one offensively. Defensively, not as fast. Did a good job early against Virginia Tech but other than that, we've struggled on the first drive. You've got to acknowledge the issue then go and fix it. We're being creative and changing things up in how we're going to practice today and tomorrow."

RE: Timeout usage

"There were two instances where we had to use offensive timeouts on Saturday which should never occur. If you go back and look at the history, seven years of doing this, we traditionally never use our timeouts on offense. We had to use two the other day. The one was a total MA [missed assignment] on the one where we came out of our little sugar huddle. That was a MA where we had a guy that just forgot what to do. There's no excuse on that. The first one was totally my fault. The way we're doing this is I've got a script for Garrett and I've got a play bank for Jarret and I had the wrong one. I put Garrett in and it's totally my fault. I called a Doege play for Garrett which that's on me."

RE: Play-calling balance

"We're almost 55/45, 60/40 pass to run right now. When you run the football, there's less bad things that can happen. But when you throw the football, you're going to get more yards per attempt and our yards per attempt was good the other day. We're not necessarily looking for balance. For us, we've got to do a better job of manipulating the extra hitters and using some run-action pass stuff. At the same time, when we talk about distribution, we've got to get our wideouts better distributed. We've got to get more of our wideouts involved."

RE: Struggles in the running game

"I think we've got to be better detail-oriented. At times, we've done what we needed to do from a run game footwork standpoint. We've had success but we haven't been consistent enough with our footwork. Our run reads have not been as good as they need to be. I think early in the year not having Mike [O'Laughlin] did hurt us. Since he's been back, he's blocked the edge much better. And then when Garrett [Greene] is in the game, he's got to read it. He missed several of those in the drive he had in the first half. Really, it's a combination of everybody. Can we run the football better than we have? Yes. I'm not destined that we can't do it."

RE: Changing things up

"I think everything you do is based on what your offensive line and quarterbacks are capable of doing. You've got to put them in really good positions. I think schematically everything we are doing is sound. I feel confident really in all three phases that we're not asking our players to go out and execute something they can't do. Are we built right now to go outscore everybody in our league? We're not. Would we like to be more explosive? Absolutely. Do we have some limitations that we've got to overcome? Yeah, but I think a lot of teams do. I wouldn't say we're content with what we're doing. Hell, we ain't winning. But if you go back and look at it like, we get guys open, we got guys in the run game, we get one on one with safeties. I think what we're doing from a schematic standpoint, what we're doing is sound. Can we always do better? Yeah. We've got to do a better job of not getting in 2nd and longs down in the red zone."

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