October 05, 1999
On the Tech Game:
"Statistically, if you look at the numbers, I think we are ahead of where we were last year at this time. The last two weeks, we've played teams that have had good personnel and good schemes to slow down our running game. My biggest disappointment is inside the twenty. We didn't run the ball effectively inside the twenty. You're always looking to put your finger on a reason, and there's usually not just one reason. We've had some assignment errors, and we just haven't functioned well as a unit. It's been too inconsistent. We had third and goal the other night on the seven (yard line), and we had a good play called, and we had some good blocking on the play, but we had one error where we turned a guy loose, and he hit the back in the backfield. We had second and one the other night and we don't make the first down which is unthinkable to not be able to make a yard in two tries."
On the Emphasis on Passing Taking Away from Running:
"I don't think that is the case. Tiki has been hurt and a lot of other little things have happened. I don't think it is necessarily the passing game. Our commitment to running has not changed any. We haven't changed how we're working on the run. We're not doing different things in terms of how we're thinking about the run, we're just not getting it done to the extent that we would like to. We have not run the ball well, but I don't question our scheme. One thing that happened in the game Saturday night is that we got behind, and we probably threw the ball more than we would have in a normal game. I thought our best chance to get back in the game was to throw the football."
On the Inefficiency in the Red Zone:
"Against Southern Miss, we had some plays where we made positive yardage, but then we'd get a penalty. Saturday night, we had first and goal at about the seven and we don't block the linebacker, and we get tackled in the backfield for about a two yard loss. We ran an option play later on in the game when we were down there and we end up losing yards on it. The series after that, they had a blitz and we just didn't pick it up, and Dante [Hall] got dropped in the backfield. We have not executed our offense well enough to get the job done. We either haven't blocked well enough or haven't run well enough to get the job done. The problem in the red zone is our inability to run the football right now. If we were running the ball real well, we would have scored a lot more points than we've scored. The problem is actually magnified when you get in the red zone."
On Sammy Morris:
" I thought in the second quarter in particular, we had some breakdowns in alignments and assignments, but I thought he ran hard and did a great job. If you go through and take the yardage they made and take the second quarter out, then it would have been a pretty good defensive game for us. We hadn't played anybody that lines up and runs the ball at you with a good back. Their offensive style keeps you off-balance a little bit where you just can't line up and defend the run. You still have to defend the pass, and Peters had a good night. He made some key throws that bailed them out of some situations. I thought he played very well."
On the Emotion of the Game:
"You could see going in there that Tech was going to be highly motivated, so that didn't surprise me at all. I'm still not sure that everybody connected knew what we were getting in to. If you want to talk about being ready to play, we took the ball and went right down the field. We had a ten point lead, so it's not like we came out flat and not ready to play."
On Offensive Personnel Changes:
"I'm not ruling out personnel changes at this time, but I don't have any in mind right now. I think when things don't go well, you have to back up and say let's get things going in the right direction because it's not any one guy. If there was one guy that was causing this, we would be trying to find someone to put in his place, but it is not just one guy."
On Matt Bumgardner:
"When he's healthy, he is a pretty productive guy. He is a sure-handed receiver, he's tough, and he likes to play the game. He doesn't play all the time, but when he is called upon, he usually responds pretty well. He has been hurt off and on all the whole time he's been here. There is no telling how good he could have been if he'd been out there the whole time."
On Randy McCown's Performance:
"I thought Randy's overall performance was good. I told him that the nature of that position is tough. When things don't go well, the quarterback draws a lot of attention. Randy's fumble when he scrambled was a bad play, and the interception was a bad decision. I think though that Randy's biggest fault is that he takes on too big of a burden and tries to do too much. He has a competitive spirit and tries too hard sometimes instead of making the plays that he can make and doing what it takes to go on to the next play when he can't make a play."