The Football Brainiacs

Mike Stoops

– Mike talked about the game plan not being good enough and the execution not being great. And while the players played hard and made a lot of play but they were caught out of position at times. He felt overall that the LBs played well instinctually but too many missed assignments from the whole defense in general.

– He specifically talked about getting out of position on the cover 2 call on third down on the first drive

– He said the players up front are going to get better. He said with the loss of Phillips “we’re taking a hit in the middle” but someone has to step up. We were out physicaled at the point of attack but the more those guys play the better they are going to get.

– Mike was asked if it’s a talent issues and he said…they have the talent and they’re going to get better.

– We came clean on a couple blitzes but their QB was able to get it out of his hand. He said the back end coverage just has to be better.

– “There are no magical calls…you’ve got to try to scheme things…we thought we had a good plan…but they made all the plays”

– Mike talked how Dom and Jordan Wade are going to learn and grow. He talked about how Jordan is going to have to learn how to handle angles and points of departure to maintain leverage.

– Mike talked about Corey being the leader and the team missing him almost more than anything. In talking about what they miss Mike said, “He’s right in the middle of everything…His experience his knowledge of helping people get lined up…that’s very instrumental in our success…his abilities to make plays was uncanny…he was seeing the game like he’s never saw it before…the game was starting to come to him very easily.”

– On leadership without Corey, Mike said Frank Shannon has to step up. But he also said that “Frank has to be more vocal and understand things and help him (Dom Alexander). Corey was helping Frank now Frank has to help (Dom)”

– On what things Mike needs to see from QRussell before he starts to getting more playing time: “I think its just consistency with any young player. They’re gonna be inconsistent. With him being here so late trying to get caught up.”

– Talked about how we’ve got to be better at the 5 techs (Chuka, Tapper, Dimon, Geneo) in order to be in better position to stop the run and help out the nose guard. He emphasized that the execution the other day was poor as a team.

– On the deep passes Mike said those things are going to happen. “We were just a step off…we’ve made all those plays up to this point”. “Those were good plays” by Texas. Basically gave Texas credit and recognized that sometimes those things are going to happen.

– In talking about Jordan Wade “He just gets better. He’s a young player…building consistency and confidence…he’s starting to grow”. The vibe was that he’s confident Wade is going to get better even if he isn’t there yet.

Tapper

– On losing Jordan Phillips for the season Tapper said “That’s going to play a big impact on us guys…because he was such a big impact…dominated the middle”. Definitely sounded like he is aware of the impact of Phillips loss.

– “We had a lot of technique busts in the Texas game…They (Texas) were more physical than us the whole game so this week we are going to work on being more physical and playing with better technique and coming out with more aggression on the ball”

– “The tempo played a little part of it…this week we’re going to prepare for that tempo” Sounds like they didn’t expect the tempo.

– “We surely found out early that we got to come out every game fighting like we did against Notre Dame.”

– “We gonna find a lot more monsters…we gotta a lot of great players here.”

– But on losing Phillips and Corey he said “That plays a great impact…both them were like field generals for the defense…they both spoke up…so now somebody else on the defense gotta step up even if that means me, Chuka, Geneo, AC, Zack, Dom…one of us gotta step up and take that roll now.”

– “Now we’ve got a super chip on our shoulder people think we’re soft and we can’t stop the run…that makes us want to growl harder…makes us want to prove the world wrong again.” Side note: I love this defenses attitude. Despite the big losses they’re still a tight group that wants to prove something. They don’t seem like a group that’s going to cower in the face of adversity and I think a lot of that comes from Coach Montgomery.

Frank Shannon

– On being the signal caller on the defense: “I feel pretty good. It aint nothing I can’t do. I just have to be able to communicate better with everyone else coming into the game.”

– Sounded like there was bad communication on the field when Texas hit them with tempo which caused some of the issues.

– Also seemed that Shannon felt the issue on the run was gap responsibility and reading their keys right more than anything else.

– “We are going to keep on practicing hard and get rid of all our flaws”

– He felt Dom did a good job for his first Texas game being a freshman.

– He said he feels comfortable making the calls without Corey because they shared the roll even when Corey was there. “We both made calls together…I just have to take up the whole roll”.

Aaron Colvin

– General impression was that they played hard but didn’t make enough plays.

– He talked about the losses on defense and how the new guys getting bigger roles came on them quick and its just going to take a little time.

More coming…