Oct. 7, 2008
Opening Statement
We are looking forward to Kentucky, leaving Friday, playing Saturday. It’s a 12:30 game. I think we need to play better on offense, play better on special teams, play better everywhere. Kentucky is a very good team. Rich Brooks and his staff have really improved the quality of all the athletes up there. Ten years ago, Kentucky was considered a slow team, but now they’re like most of the SEC teams with tremendous team speed. The strongest thing about SEC teams is team speed.
We’re looking forward to the game, see if we can continue to improve as we go. We are very healthy. I think Jared Cook will be ok, Kenny McKinley is going to be ok, so we’re very healthy for this time of year.
On the performance of Chris Smelley
Well, Chris had a good game, he did not have a super game. He had some bad plays here and there, but hopefully he can correct and play better. He did make a lot of good throws here and there and our receivers caught everything. We had a lot of good fortune in that game, I don’t know if I can remember a game where we caught at least five balls with one foot in bounds on the sideline. Jason Barnes did it three times, with one foot in by inches to keep drives going. But Chris had a good game, he needs to play better though, he had some errant plays. We need to audible a little bit more. Our communication skills are not that good. It wasn’t that loud this weekend. We’re working on it, we’ve still got a ways to go.
On focusing on one quarterback
It’s helpful to have one quarterback, everyone knows who it’s going to be. But we’re going to have some plays for Stephen Garcia to go in there and do some things, we just never seemed to get to that point last week. We’re going to try to get Stephen ready to play some if the situation calls for it. Chris is our starting quarterback. We’ll see what he does, hopefully he goes the distance.
On not listening to criticism of the offense
I know it’s looked ugly. It’s looked ugly at times. I’m thankful it’s not as ugly as some of these other schools out there. There’s a lot of ugly offenses out there. Auburn and Tennessee, some of these places that are used to having very good offenses are struggling. We can be a lot better on offense, we’ll continue to work on it.
On what it takes to get an SEC caliber running game
Better blocking and better running should do it. We’ve got to use some different plays too, I think we’ve been a little stale, so hopefully we can get a little more and a little something different occasionally. We’ve been a little conventional. But for the time, I think that’s what we need to do to get a better running game.
On Jason Barnes
Jason has come around the last couple games. He’s been making a good effort, worked hard. I think he credited Moe Brown for saying “hang in there, keep working hard and your time will come,” and that’s what we always tell our guys, you have to be ready for when your opportunity comes. And he was ready. The last couple weeks he has really improved. Looks like he’s got the chance to be a big time receiver.
On the importance of turnovers
The team with the fewest turnovers, it seems like that statistic is almost the most important. It used to be that the team with the most rushing yards always wins the game, but I believe its come down to the turnovers. Look at Vanderbilt, they’re bottom of the league in rushing and passing yards, but they’re top of the league in turnover margin.
On Kentucky’s defense
They usually play man to man, though when they play us they usually like to mix it up. They played Alabama almost man to man the whole game. They’re 12th in the nation in defense.
On the players from last week’s game
Clifton is a good player. We’ve got a lot of good young players. Jordin Lindsey had a good game last week. He was one of the first guys down on the kickoff. Those are the kinds of guys I like to brag about. Justin Sorensen had a good game. He was graded the highest out of all of the offensive linemen. We watched the tape yesterday and I don’t think any of us had anything to yell about, Justin Sorensen had a great game.
SOPHOMORE DEFENSIVE END Clifton Geathers
On keeping the momentum from last week’s win at Ole Miss
We’ve got to keep it going if we want to get to the SEC Championship.
On making adjustments in the Ole Miss game
You have to adjust during the games. The things at practice are a little slower, going against the scout team (as opposed to) going against the real thing.
On getting production from the offense
It was a whole lot of fun to finally see the offense pulling through, going down the field and scoring.
On the remainder of the season
Every game we play is a must-win. We had a couple of losses before, and we don’t want to go through the same thing that happened last year.
On having a hard-hitting defense
The top hitter on our team is (Emanuel) Cook. I got hit by him, we missed a tackle last year against (Florida quarterback Tim) Tebow. I got taken off my feet, so I know how it feels to get hit. There’s got to be a competition, we compete every play and challenge each other to do better than the other person.
On Kentucky
They’re a pretty good team. We’re going to go out there and try to execute to the best of our ability. Every week, our game plan is the same. We haven’t really watched tape on them yet. It’s going to be their best effort, and it’s going to be our best effort. We both want each other.
On making big plays against Ole Miss
Those big plays, like Nathan (Pepper) picking up the ball or (Emanuel) Cook with the big hit…they changed the momentum of the game. When we went in and made the quarterback fumble, it changed the whole game around. Then E-Cook came in with a huge hit, it changed it around to where we knew we were taking it over.
