Let him open it up and then we’ll go to some questions. All right. Really hard-fought game. Um, a lot of uh a lot of credit to Ohio State. They uh they played a really disciplined game.
You know, that zero turnovers, only two penalties. Um, they took advantage of their opportunities when they got them. So, so credit to them. you know, as far as we go, um, as we, as we said coming into this game, you know, this game would serve as a really good measuring stick of where we were at, where we needed to improve, and the things that we were good at, you know, and I thought defensively we played a very good football game. It’s unfortunate the first drive they first touchdown drive they have, we have two significant penalties, you know, we have the face mask penalty and then we have the DPI.
The face mask penalty, I believe, was on third down. Uh, and that leads to the touchdown. And then, you know, we were we were offensively early on. I thought our plan was pretty good, you know, and we were playing physical football. Uh quite frankly, we just didn’t quite have rhythm in the passing game yet, but we had a couple opportunities there to move it and that didn’t happen.
We finally kind of woke up and started moving the ball and um you know uh we don’t score from the from the one yard line.
Um we have another opportunity with a fourth and three I believe from the eight that we don’t score on and then inevitably they hit uh you know they hit the long pass which you know we had really minimized the explosive plays and u they they hit the long pass. Uh but the one thing I was proud of coming out of this was our fight our ability to go down and score I think with 328 to go to get a stop on defense to get the ball back uh with an opportunity to go to go tie the game and we had a couple chances and we just didn’t quite make the plays we wanted to make.
So, um, you know, this is this is the first game of a season of a long season, and, uh, I I sat at SEC media days and said, I think the days of a national champion being undefeated are, uh, are are over. Um, especially when you play in games like this and you play in the conference we play in.
So, um, we’ve got an opportunity here over the next month to to really clean some things up and to get ourselves in in a great frame of mind to get ready for SEC play. Um, I thought for the most part we handled this environment really well. Uh, for a first game with a lot of new faces. Um, I was proud of some guys who was their first time in real action.
Uh, doing some good things for us.
Uh, but we’ll get better. We’ve got a good football team. That’s a good football team. He played today. We’ll get better.
Uh, and we’ll be okay. Hey guys, raise your hand. I’ll go to you. Start up in the middle. Danny, Steve, what is your message to the guys about the untimely penalties and what do you like about how you all play on defense?
Yeah, I mean, you know, again, I I can’t I didn’t see the play where we got the face mask on. Very rarely do you see face mask on a defensive player rushing the passer. So, I I have to look at that. Um, you know, I I think we had six penalties for 50 yards. They had two for 15.
Um, you know, the the the turnover margin, you know, continues to hold true and when it relates to winning and losing football games, it was one to nothing.
Um and and they they took the one turnover we had and they turned it into points. So that that was a seven-point swing right there. Um you know, the untimely penalties sometimes are unfortunate and I’m sure there’s some calls that they were saying should have been calls on us and some other ones that just like I’m probably going to turn in plays too that I think might have been penalties that didn’t get called.
So that’s part of football.
I thought our guys played hard on defense. Um you know, again, they were trying to control the game with on the ground. We were kind of trying to do the same thing. I think both sides were trying to, you know, be physical and keep the ball up inside and for the most part I thought we played really good. I thought, you know, Jack Bowmeister was a was a tremendous weapon for us today of pinning him deep and something to look forward to down the road of the style of play that we can play with.
Um, so I was proud of the effort defensively. U thought we held Jeremiah in check as best we could who’s a fantastic player. Um, but we got to score more points, you know, at the end of the day.
If we we can hold a team like that to 14, we got to find a way to score 15. On your right, Dennis.
Coach, what was your it seemed like Arch settled in as the game? Yeah. What was your basic assessment of him and what do you think will be his biggest takeaway or two from this? Yeah, I I think you you said you hit the nail on the head. I do think he’s finally he settled into playing, you know.
Um, you know, I think part of it sometimes when he gets, you know, hit a couple times, it helps him. You know, he’s one of those kind of guys, you know, and so I think we learned a little bit that way of maybe, you know, incorporating a little more of his run stuff earlier in the game where we waited a little bit into the second half.
Um, I think when that happened, I felt like he started really playing and we saw we saw some some real flashes and glimpses of the type of player that he’s going to become here. Um, you know, he’s gonna sure he’s going to watch the tape and say, “Man, I wish this, I wish that.” That’s that’s that’s the life of a competitor.
Uh but I think there’s there’s a lot to uh hold on to of of what the future is going to look like for Arch Manning here.
So we’re excited about that. Far left, Eric. Steve just curious obviously you don’t have right now. What are one or two things not just for?
Yeah, I just think that you know rhythm in the passing game was one of them today and they’ve got an excellent secondary. you know, if there’s a strength on their team, you know, granted the receivers are really good, but they they’ve got an excellent secondary and they’ve got a good scheme and they’ve got a very smart secondary. And so, they they made Arch work. I thought at halftime, Arch having a chance to really sit and look at the tape and understand some of the coverages they were playing, I think that helped him into the second half and play. And so, there’s, you know, we definitely can lean into that.
Um, and then ultimately, you know, we had opportunities to score points and and we didn’t. And so, um, we got to keep digging into our ability to score when we have our opportunities to do so. Um, and we got to make a couple throws.
We got to make a couple catches. We got to make a couple better calls.
Um, but that’s like I said, you know, those are things that are fixable for us and and I feel I feel confident in that. On the right, Jeff, you said you learned about players and position groups today. What did you learn about your receivers after this? Well, I thought Parker Livingstone um you know was was uh was what I was expecting. You know, I I he’s had he’s had a great spring, a great camp, showed up today.
Um so that was that was really encouraging. I thought we just had a couple missed opportunities with Ryan, but Ryan’s going to be a great player for us and we just couldn’t get DeAndre into the flow of things. U but I think Jack Andre is another really good player for us, you know, um made a couple couple nice plays and was physical in the run game. Uh, so from a receiver standpoint, I think we’re going to be good. Um, like I said, that that cohesiveness with Arch and those guys, I think is only going to get better as as we keep moving forward.
In the back middle, Kirk Parker, was that the first option that you wanted to do on the touchdown? Yes. No, that you know, that was um we had kind of a a man zone play on. Um, we saw the pressure look, the man look. We changed the protection and and got it blocked up.
Um, ideally the read really is Ryan and then Parker. Um, and I thought Dre did a good job.
Was a little bit of a rub out. Um, and but but it happened a little late and so Arch got off of it and I thought he made a beautiful pass to Parker. You know, some might argue that he got held on it.
I don’t know. I couldn’t I couldn’t quite see it. Our guys up top thought thought he did, but that was a good throw.
Was bang bang play, you know, and so you get an isolation one-on-one um with a rub route when you see man coverage that that’s about as good as we can get right there. Yeah, I just didn’t want to give them that field position.
It was a one possession game. Um we were playing really good defense. I didn’t want to give him three points. I didn’t want to give him three points right there. I felt like if we could get in the locker room and regroup uh offensively, we’d play a better second half and I thought we did.
Stay in the middle. Hey coach on the go line. Yeah. Um, you know, on the goal line situation, I I felt like it was kind of an odd where the ball finished kind of almost inside the one yard line. And it was like, okay, um, we’ve been really working hard on our sneak stuff and we had ran one earlier obviously in the game and I felt like, hey, we don’t give them a chance to sub to real big people.
Um, we went with a sneak. I think they got under us pretty good and kind of took Arch’s legs out from him. Um, you know, hindsight’s 2020. If I could do it all over again, we probably sub and they put their big guys and we put our big guys in and see if we can get in the end zone. Uh the the one of the the most most encouraging things from today was our ability to run the football and um I I thought I thought Trey and and and uh Cedric both had really good games.
I think they both averaged, you know, just about, you know, four, five, six yards a carry, whatever it was. Uh I thought our our offensive line who had so many question marks coming in, their ability to move people at the line of scrimmage. Um but, you know, the reality of it was we were we were playing with a long field kind of a lot of the game. we never could create a turnover or get the ball where you you had some advantageous field position. So, we had to drive, you know, there was drives that had to happen and then we didn’t finish those drives and we had chances, too.
But, I was definitely encouraged with the offensive line and and Trey and then obviously Cedric, you know, first game back off of an entire year off and and the way that he played today was was definitely encouraging. Middle Thomas, uh, sir, you know, when you have a young quarterback, an arch is a young quarterback in an environment like this, how does that influence you as a play call, especially early in the game? Well, you know, it wasn’t just him being young, you know, it was it was young on the offensive line with some new faces.
It was a, you know, new receiver, new tight end, some people playing in this environment. um you try to do the things that you think they do well, you know, especially with a new defensive coordinator, which we didn’t have a bunch of information on of what they were going to do from what his past and what they had done from Ohio State.
Uh and I thought we we did that, you know, we were I thought maybe a little anxious early in the ball game.
Um but but to their credit, I thought we settled down, you know, and uh you know, I know I think Brandon Baker might have had a couple false starts for guy making his first career start for significant playing time in this environment. A little understandable. Um, but at the end of the day, I think we learned a lot about ourselves that we can handle this environment. You know, in some of the most critical moments, I thought we we were playing football there all the way into the fourth quarter up until the end.
And there’s a ball here, a ball there that might change the the total outcome of this game. So, um, there’s positives to that, too, that I felt like we grew in the environment. I don’t feel like we were overwhelmed by the environment.
Stay in the middle. Hi, George from Sports.
Like, you said you had a pretty young today and we don’t really have too much senior leaders or do you have any leaders in mind that you think can help this team kind of go forward and step up whenever especially in this crazy environment? Yeah, I I felt like the demeanor of the offense was good. You know, I thought Arch’s uh poise and composure was was really good in this game.
I didn’t feel like he got rattled. Um like I said, I think I learned about him a little bit playing that I’ve got to I’ve got to let him go play.
Um and so that that’ll help us. But he’s going to be a really good leader. You know, I I I feel like Cedric and Trey are both really good leaders. They played a lot of football for us up front. Jack will evolve into that.
This was his first game with us, but he’s he’s a veteran player and DeAndre and Ryan, too. So, we got plenty of guys and and I thought Trevor Guzby was really good today from a leadership standpoint. You know, he and Cole Hudson and and and DJ. So, we got plenty of people there. That’s that’s the least of my worries is from a that we don’t have the leadership.
We definitely have that. Um but we’ve got some other things we’ve got to improve upon. And then I’m so sorry. I know you said you practiced with the game noise.
Do you think you uh prepared your boys for the game noise of today’s game?
Yeah, I think so. Um I I like I said, I thought we did well. Yeah, we had a really odd I think Wingo had a false start which is really our receivers are watching the ball. I think he was kind of excited about the play call that we had up. Um and then we had two by by a you know basically a first year starter right tackle in at in a couple different situations.
And so again, that that’s that that concern of the environment, I’m actually really pleased with because I know some of the other environments that we’re going to go to this fall that are going to be just like this or worse.
Uh and so the way that we did this the first time, first game, you know, new center, new quarterback, all the things that we had, uh that was actually a little bit encouraging. Let’s keep it to one question, please. on the right. Chip.
Um Steve, uh how would you assess the O line play, especially andto? Yeah, you know, from from a distance, you know, watching it live from the field level, it felt pretty good. You know, I felt like Arch had good time in the pocket to throw it. I felt like we were moving the line of scrimmage. We were running the ball.
You know, we just didn’t create explosive plays early in the game like we did in in the second half of the game.
But I thought from an offensive line perspective, we did a nice job. Um, probably the worst communication we had was on the that fourth down at the very end, you know, when we we should have slid all the way to that to that free rusher and we just had a lapse that didn’t get all the way down the line to uh to Brandon Baker. But all in all, I like I was I was pleased with those guys, you know. Um, you know, we we ran the football.
I think we could have thrown it better than we did, but we didn’t throw it we didn’t throw it the way we wanted to because of the O line.
I thought the O line gave us ample protection and opportunities to throw the ball down the field. Brandon, yeah, I was just wondering from a press box view, it just seemed like both defensive lines might be among the best in the sport, but what did you see on the field that really I guess probably frustrated both quarterbacks to where you kind of just like one or two play? Yeah, you know, again, I think that they they have a very good secondary. And I thought their ability to to disguise coverages in the first half uh was at a elite level.
I wouldn’t say a good level, an elite level.
And I think that starts with, you know, they got Caleb Downs. He’s very savvy. He’s very smart. um they’re able to hold coverages and whether it was a two deep shell, you know, rolling to one high, one high, playing two deep, the the variations of cover two, they played against us, they minimized the explosive plays, they stayed on top and really that’s what we did.
You know, we have a Michael Taff, Galani McDonald, those guys are savvy players and we were able to do kind of both things there. I thought Manny Mohamd had a very good game for us. Um, it’s unfortunate, you know, the the one kind of shot they took on us, you know, they made the Carnell Tape makes a heck of a catch for a touchdown, but thought both secondaries are good, both fronts are good.
These are two good teams, you know, um, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him again, you know, December, January down the road. The back left Cedric thought he was really good.
you know, he and I sat together um and we went through some things. We kind of shifted his focus on how to recognize the coverages um because I felt like we had some tells a different way where he was struggling to kind of see some things early. Uh and I thought he took that information and applied it in the second half. And uh that’s encouraging that he was able to adjust at halftime uh to do those things. And so uh all in all, like the growth throughout the game for Arch was was really encouraging for me.
We’re we’re we’re going to be fine. Um like I said, we got work to do uh as a team and as an offense. Um but ultimately, like I’m I’m getting on the plane knowing we’re going to be a good football team and and so hey, we didn’t win tonight. That’s the life of a competitor. Uh we went for it in in a tough place against a good team.
Um but we’ll get we’ll get back on the horse and and we’ll play good football this season.
Back left, CJ. Heather’s hiding behind this pillar. You can’t see her back there. Yeah.
Sneaky as far as the outside I mean unprecedented expectations for him. I mean, sure. I I always want him to play better. That that’s a that’s a job of a coach, right? And our job is to try to find ways for all of our guys to play better.
And so for Arch, the expectations were were were were out of control on the outside. But I I’d say let’s finish the book before we before we judge it. Right. This is this is one chapter and we got a long season to go play. Got two last ones on the left.
CJ coach mentioned all your class. Um kind of hard to tell. I thought Dalon Dalen showed up had to make a tough catch there. uh and then when the one drive thought Grayson makes a heck of a play on third down, a tackle I think on their sidelines. Um you know, I know there was a few of those guys on special teams as well.
So, we’ll we’ll look at the tape. But I just think it’s important we’re going to be in these environments this season. Those guys are going to continue to develop and a lot of these guys that didn’t play today are going to be playing for us a month, two months, three months from now.
And so, I needed to expose them to this. I need them to expose them to uh the level of intensity in games like this.
Um now hopefully we can get some opportunities to get them on the field here over the next few weeks. Um but I needed them to see and feel what this was like. I needed them to see and feel how the veterans on the team prepared and their mentality going into a game like this because um it’s a long season and it’s going to be a physical grind in the SEC. And so just because a guy might not be a one or a two on the depth chart today doesn’t mean he won’t be one in a month, two, three months down the road.
Yeah.
Uh Steve, you said you learned some things about Arch that you may plan differently in the future as far as seeing him get hit. Was there was a reason why you approached it with the plan that you did today going into this? I just felt like, hey, I was going to try to do some things that I felt like he was really comfortable with in practice. Um, with the unknowing of how they were going to play us, you know, and and what they were going to do. And so, I don’t I don’t feel bad necessarily about the plan.
Um, like I said, I think I probably would have incorporated him running the ball more earlier in the game and maybe that would have settled him down more, but I think the things we had up we felt good about. Um, I think there’s probably some throws in the first half if he could have back.
All right, you if if we call those same things in the second half, you know, he probably makes a couple of those throws and and that may change some things there, too. But that was that was expectable, you know. But like I said, you know, you you go in, you try to put your players in position to have some success.
Um, we didn’t have as much as we would have liked, especially in the first half. Um, but but I think we’ve we’re learning a little better formula for him. Um, which in turn is better for our offense and ultimately better for the team. Thanks, coach.
Appreciate it.
All right. Thank you. Safe travels. We’ll bring some players in a minute here..
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