COURTNEY MESSINGHAM, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On the last time he coached a true freshman starting quarterback...
"That's a good question. I don't know that I have. Back in early 2000's when I was head coach at Upper Iowa, we had a guy that played as a true freshman a bunch, but we only started him one game. Hard to say quarterback wise that a true freshman has been in the fire this much."
On how Will Howard is being brought along...
"Well, the biggest thing is that even if he hasn't had the physical reps, we've made sure that he's taken every rep mentally. What would I do? What would my thought process be? Every time Nick (Ast) or Jaren (Lewis) has taken a rep, we make sure Will is taking that rep mentally so he can process how he would handle the situation."
On getting the receivers more involved…
"We need to try to get the ball spread around more. If we can have seven, eight, nine guys get touches from the receiver standpoint, I think it makes everybody more engaged. I think it keeps them knowing that they don't know when their call is coming or when their opportunity is coming. Two weeks ago, we didn't get a bunch of reps in general. I don't know how many completions we had. It couldn't have been more than about 10. We have to do a better job of staying on the field, sustaining drives, taking what they give us but also spreading the ball around. We can't become where there's only two dudes that people need to worry about."
On getting Cooper Beebe back on the offensive line...
"I think it's a huge deal as much as anything from a mindset. Even though Cooper is young, Cooper is physical. He wants to be a guy where, as the game wears on, he's starting to really get after people. The other thing I think it does is allows us to have a little more flexibility in moving people around and guys not having to get out there and play 60 snaps. Guys are able to play 40 snaps and let the o-line ebb and flow a little bit as the game goes on instead of having only five or six guys get snaps."
On which young players stood out during the bye week...
"I don't know if any one particular guy did, but there were probably five true freshmen that I feel really grew, and a big part of that was the true live reps. I also felt like going against our own defense makes us a lot better. Our front four is very good, and not just the starters. Guys we don't get to play against each week because they're scouts, they make us better. Our o-line showed improvement. I felt like some of the younger skill guys showed improvement. Keyon Mozee got better because of getting more reps. Now we have to take some of those young guys to the field and see what they can do on game day."
On Malik Knowles...
"Unfortunately for Malik, he's yet to have five, six or seven weeks in a row where he's truly healthy. I'm talking going back to last season and now going into this year. Didn't have spring ball. Didn't have the summer conditioning. Put him in a situation where I don't know that's really been able to go out and grind for six, seven, eight weeks in a row while getting better at his craft. We have to do a good job of making sure that, not only Malik, but if it's Phillip Brooks or Malik or Chabastin (Taylor), all those guys need touches so they can keep getting better. The getting better part is just the mindset that all this work we put in each day is going to pay off, and I'm going to have an opportunity to make the plays in front of me."
On defenses planning against Deuce Vaughn...
"To this point, maybe not as much as you'd think. Some of that is because we see things out of Deuce and Briley (Moore) where you say that guy has made some impact plays. I think as an entire offense, we have enough skill guys out there that they haven't been able to say these two guys we need to shut down."
On maximizing the running back group...
"I think we're getting closer, and the reason I say it that way is I really feel like Harry Trotter brings something to the table. (Keyon) Mozee, even though he's a young guy, brings something to the table. Everyone knows who Deuce (Vaughn) is, obviously, but then when you throw in Tyler Burns, how do I get a good mesh going where each guy has an opportunity to show what they can do to bring their talents to the table? We have to get where we stay on the field more. We have to do a better job of converting third downs so they have more first- and second-down opportunities. That will give more guys an opportunity to play. That's all of us making a play when it's third down so that we can get more opportunities."
On building the confidence of quarterback Jaren Lewis...
"When he comes into that huddle, he still has that confidence. I think the things he's probably done much more this year is that he's thrown the football extremely well. Not that he didn't throw it well before, but it's noticeable where you say, 'Wow, that really came out of his hand, was accurate and hit the receiver in stride.' He's a guy that's had a bunch of reps the past few weeks going against our better players as well as going with the younger guys. He's still not very old, but he's really shown that, give him the ball and let him make plays. You have to have confidence, but to get that confidence, he has to keep making those plays."
On the strengths of running back Keyon Mozee...
"I think he can run between the tackles. I think right now the opportunities he's had most are his ability to stretch the field. I don't know what his 100-meter time was, but his opportunity to get on track last year and see what he could do, you didn't get to see that. He can really stretch the field, and he catches the ball really well. Our ability to put him in the backfield and still possibly hand it to him, but then let him come out of the backfield and use his raw speed to stretch the field has helped us."
JOE KLANDERMAN, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On the absence of Kansas running back Pooka Williams…
"It's interesting because it does matter, because he was such a big part of their offense. They would use him in so many different roles. They split him out at receiver and jet him into the backfield and do some things like that. Maybe there is going to be some people out there that we're not sure who they are or where they fit. I think one of the bigger issues for us is the uncertainty of what is going to happen at their quarterback position, who's going to be taking the snaps behind center. There's a lot of unknowns, which has spread us pretty thin in our preparation."
On AJ Parker's reaction when approached to switch to nickelback…
"He was very excited about it. It came about more out of necessity than anything else. There was a couple of weeks there where the cupboard was bare with what we had. We had a lot of guys cross training at a number of positions. Nickel is a very important position for us, and he was a guy that probably had the learning capacity to pick that stuff up quickly. We threw him in there in practice, and he shined and he loved it. So, we just continued to progress him in that role. We played him in that role at Oklahoma. We were not quite sure how it would manifest itself on gameday, and it was great. He's been tremendous every week. He's still pumped to be playing there. He's such a smart, cerebral kid. I think what excites him is the fact that he's still learning the position. He played corner for so many years and not very many scenarios that he hasn't seen out there. There's still some scenarios and things that he's uncovering there and unpacking at the nickel position. I think that he enjoys that."
On Kansas wide receiver Andrew Parchment…
"Yeah, just tremendous ball skills. Great length, good route runner. He's a scary guy out there. They do try to establish the run, which gives him a lot of one-on-one opportunities, and he's able to convert on a lot of those. He's as good as there is in the league."
On the defensive emphasis this week…
"Our big emphasis this week, as it is on every week, it's just on us. It's just our running to the ball. Our attention to detail. Our body position. Our finish. Those are the things that interest us more so than what opponents are doing."
On the improvement in fundamentals…
"Yeah good question. We had, last week especially, a huge young-guy emphasis. That's going to probably show a little bit. I think you might see some guys that you maybe haven't seen yet this year. A guy like Aamaris Brown comes to mind, a guy like Hunter Henry comes to mind. Some guys that just needed more snaps, and we were able to give that to them over the past couple of weeks. Hopefully they can show us what they can do on game day a little bit."
On the Kansas quarterbacks…
"Well I worry about the athleticism of (Jalon) Daniels and just the fact that he has tremendous speed. He has a hose for an arm. He's a guy that certainly has some talent but doesn't probably have the time on task as the other two do. (Miles) Kendrick is a really sharp decision maker. Obviously, he's played the most this year, and he's probably the most comfortable with what they're doing. And (Thomas) MacVittie has to fit into the equation somewhere. We didn't see a lot of him, but he's obviously the guy who started the year, so they must think highly of him. So you're right, they are all a little bit different. Our attack on all three would be a little bit different. We'll have to see how it all plays out on Saturday."
On the performance of the linebackers…
"They've been tremendous. They've been solid. Coach (Steve) Standard has done a great job with all four of them. I was just talking to someone earlier, I don't pay attention to who's in. I guess there's some positions where that matters to me when I'm calling a play. It doesn't matter to me at linebacker. I think all four of those guys have a number of snaps under their belt, and they're all rock solid. I think that there's no drop off when Deuce (Daniel) Green and Cody Fletcher are in the game as opposed to Justin Hughes and Eli Sullivan. We get to the point where we rotate those guys freely, and we get to the point where just whoever's got the hot hand is the guy that stays in the game. As far as getting better, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I think they complement each other well. We tend to roll those guys in pairs a little bit. Justin Hughes and Eli Sullivan, they're a good tandem together. Justin is a great communicator, very detailed with his alignments and fits and everything that he's doing. Eli is not a great communicator, he's a work in progress that way. I shouldn't say he's not, but he's not a loud guy. They complement each other that way. Eli runs all over the place, and you'll see him on one sideline and two seconds later you'll see him on the other sideline. Justin is a guy that prefers to stay close to the center as much as he can. So those two guys work together really well. Deuce Green and Cody Fletcher have worked together for three years now, and those guys are comfortable with each other's strengths and weaknesses. So, I think they feed off of each other in tandems really well."
On freshman safety Aamaris Brown…
"Well, he's as athletic of a guy as we have on the team. He runs, he strikes, he finishes on ball. I trust him very much so in the open field. His biggest thing was he just didn't have the depth of knowledge in our package. As we talked earlier, I think the reps helped a lot this week. Just hearing the terms, getting to chomp down on a game plan instead of the eternity of our package for two weeks helped him a lot." The Link Lonk
October 23, 2020 at 04:12AM
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