Quick Hits: What's Wrong With the Offense, State of the Program + More

Opening statement

"Losing stinks. And I hate it for our staff and for our players. When you invest and things don't go the way you want them to go, it stinks. There's no other way to say it. We just didn't finish. We had opportunities to win the game."

Perception of the program being all doom and gloom

"Football problems, those are better than 99.9% of other people's problems, so I'm not going to get too hung up on them. I hate it because the investment level is high. And when things don't go the way you want them to go, it's disappointing. But you always have next."

What the issues were offensively at Iowa State

"The running back position was not the issue. We've got to get into a better rhythm. We got to play at a faster tempo. We were really, really slow on Saturday. We've got to get going faster. But we've got to be able to change the picture and make it more difficult on the defense. We didn't move, we didn't motion, and do some adjustments as much as we had in the past. We got to push the ball downfield more and we've got to do some thing off our run game."

What's wrong with JT Daniels

"As far as him being off, you have to ask him. Now, they got some pressure. But JT, he was just off. He really was. I think they got to him and they got some pressure up the middle on him. We had some drops there -- those hurt the quarterback as well. And he's got to play better. I think we can do some things, give him some easier completions. I will say this, I think the kid's going to bounce back and play well this week. I really do. Had a good mindset on Sunday. Had a good mindset this morning. I think he'll come back and he'll play really well this week."

Being a lightning rod to the fan base

"I hate losing. Like, it makes everything difficult to deal with. I hate it because the people in this building are investing a lot. I hate it because I haven't had to really experience that very often. Now, what people say doesn't necessarily affect me but the losing, like that, that's painful to go through. I think there's a lot more things out there that people have to be down about. When I come into this building, I refuse to be negative. I refuse to let anybody in here feel sorry for ourselves as coaches or as players. And the bottom line is, we're going to do everything we can to prepare and go win a game this week. That's the focus. To me, I just kind of get lost in the work. I think failure is temporary unless you accept it. I just refuse to accept it."

How his family and the team are handling the situation

"You can't block it. You just have to have real conversations. Dax is, he's sheltered from them. But my daughters have to deal with it, my wife has to deal with it. For me, and that's where it really is bothersome is when you're talking about my family or really, the families of the staff and to a certain extent too, is the players' families too. What I try to relay to my daughters and my wife, and I talked to our players about this a good bit is -- they're not attacking you personally. Even though they may @ you and it's your Twitter account and all that stuff or Instagram or whatever else they have these days, like, it's not personal. If you allow that to be personal, that's on you. Because most people, and I would say almost all people that are doing that type of activity on social media, they don't know you. They don't know me. So, it would be foolish of me to take that personal. It would be foolish of our players to take that personal. What it is is they're not pleased with the product and that's fair. It's something you got to deal with and if you're going to be in the public eye, you got to deal with the highs and you got to deal with the lows as well."

How he would explain 3-6 and where things are

"I think we're capable and we've shown we're capable of playing good football. We've lost some close games and I don't think that anybody within our program has lost vision of the fact that we can compete and beat anybody in our league. That's the positive. Have we had injuries? Yes. Are we going to keep moving some pieces around and keep trying to find some solutions for those injuries? The answer is yes. All you do is focus on the week at hand. You really got to be where your feet are and really worry about the here and now and that's what we're doing."

If there has been any thought to playing Garrett Greene more

"You have those discussions. And I think that JT [Daniels] earned the starting quarterback position and I think there's been some times where I think he's played that position as well as anyone in our league this year. That wasn't the case on Saturday. I think Garrett is getting better and probably deserves the opportunity to play a little bit more but JT is our starting quarterback and he will be on Saturday."

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