Jimbo Fisher Postgame Press Conference Transcript
COACH FISHER: Well, like I say, any win is a good win. You got a win, got a shutout. I thought the guys played hard. I thought the defense was outstanding in the game. I think we did a really good job up front controlling the line of scrimmage. And with the older guys and the young guys getting in there and played discipline, which I was very impressed with. Secondary, those young corners and DBs, and plus our older guys, I thought they played well. Kept good leverage on the football. We chased the football well. Did two things I think were outstanding in the game, which is -- keys to games is, you know, you've got two turnovers, which was very critical and you didn't give up big plays. I always say that's two very critical things in what you did. And of course, we won the early downs, which got you a better third-down percentage, because they were in third and long a lot, which guys converted, did a good job in what they did. So in those two turnovers, once they did get the fake punt, then the other drive they had going, they got down in there and then we were able to get a tip pass. I believe we got the pick. I can't remember who got that pick. Jardin Gilbert. That was good. Then we got the fumble recovery. Got that stripped out. So the guys did a good job. I thought offensively, come out too slow. I thought up front, they did some nice twists and stunts. They got us in the run game. They didn't do it, and we got settled down in the second half. Got hat to a hat and did it. But the thing we did do in the first half was created big plays. I thought Haynes [King] played a solid game, but he still had two critical mistakes in that deep ball. He has to stay at the freeze, leaving out of it. He's got to be a little more vertical with the ball. The guy is not vacating it. Got to stay more vertical with it or dump it down with the first-down call. But what I liked about that, he came right back the next drive right after that and threw a touchdown, took us down two minutes before the half, which was excellent. We scored the first drive of the second half, which was excellent. We got 14 points before they got their hands back on the ball. Was really good. Come back to second half, settled down really good, and then got hat to a hat formationally. And then got to running the football, got substantial, made some really nice throws, managed the game, did a great job. Come back, then had another first-down throw. Was throwing the ball really well. Trying to get those young receivers, I thought did a nice job and the older guys. We got a good mix. And then first down, got to let the guy clear out just a little more before he did it. Got to clean that decision up but then came back the next drive and throw a touchdown, which is very critical to me, because after you make a mistake, being able to come back with things. But we've got to eliminate the mistakes. But on the day, we hit big plays. Did a nice job with his legs. Two or three times scrambled and pulled some runs. Did a good job. Didn't get a chain going. Not his fault. What we did was get some blocking, do a little bit better up front. Second half, we got him going nice. I thought played really well in the run game and catching the ball. Thought some of the young receivers, you saw their talent and the guys being able to catch the football and what we did. We've got a long way to go. Kicking game, not as good. We have a fake punt. We're lazy with our eyes late. Kind of set there until kicks it before we bail out. Kicked the ball out of bounds, and we missed a field goal. That was 52. But for them, he hits those. But then he come back and hit a nice field goal and kicked the ball well and kicked off well. A long of young players saw the field. We've got to get a lot better, like I say, each week. We've got a great opponent coming next week in App State (Applachian State). Just go the keep developing in the things we do.
Q. How pleased were you with the production of both Chris Marshall and Evan Stewart and their chemistry with Haynes [King]?
COACH FISHER: Really good. Chris had been banged up for a little bit of camp and hadn't gotten as much time. Therefore, he played really well. Missed about three or four days and then got back and got into play and did well. I thought both those guys got critical play. I thought they caught the ball well. You can see their ability to run after the catch, their size, their ball skills, and their athleticism of what they did. You saw Yulkeith [Brown], too. Another young guy that can run and got a big play. That was a third read on the backside. Two of those touchdown throws, what I loved about them, too, those young players. And I say this not just for the quarterback but for the young players, sometimes you know you're the backside of something. Sometimes you have a tendency, which we tell them all the time, we need five full-speed routes. We got the ability to go everywhere if the quarterback reads it right And they ran full-speed routes and were rewarded with big plays, and it was really nice to see that. But I thought those guys did a nice job in the game.It's the first time they got out there to play, and they were productive.
Q. And then also, there was a moment where it felt like Layden Robinson kept coming off the field. Was it an injury?
COACH FISHER: He had been nicked up, and we had been rotating guys at guard. We had been rotating three guards and mixing guys in, in what we were doing and keeping the depth and trying to build depth in what we're doing in different positions and where we're at.
Q. Obviously I understand you haven't seen film and everything like that, but what do you suspect was the issue getting the running game going?
COACH FISHER: Stunts up front. I mean, the twist game up front, multiple twists and stunts and looping. They do a really nice scheme. Now, I'm going to tell you, they had a really nice scheme. We knew that going in. And we were overchasing the down guy and not playing on the loop and it takes timing and got the rhythm the second half and got back into it. But it's all just -- we worked it. We've just got to be patient. It's tough. It can be a pain. We've got to do a better job, though. That's my fault. We got to prepare them better.
Q. Are you concerned with what you saw from your offensive line?
COACH FISHER: In the first half, we didn't play well at all. I though in the second half, I thought we came out and did a nice job. We established their ground game, be able to run the ball, and did a better job. We've got to get better, there's no doubt.
Q. How did y'all manage the long weather delay? What do you do as coaches, and what do you do with players?
COACH FISHER: Well, the bad part about was it was, Okay, we're ready to go. We gave them about four or five minutes to get ready to go, 20 more minutes. I just wished they would have just kept coming and coming and coming. We would make our adjustments and get ready to go back out and about four minutes before we got back out, here comes another one. And about the fourth time Mark come, I was about to fire him and send him out of the building (chuckles). I've been in one, one time where it was almost four hours. You've got to tell your guys, we kept them inside, kept them off the phones, locked in the game. We met with them. We sat and talked with them, made adjustments from the first half, made adjustments from that. And then called them after we knew it was going to be a longer one, called them back in, made them do things, and kept their mind into the game. I think that's a very critical thing. Because you can go drift off or go grab your phone or do something like that and all of sudden you forget you're in a football game. You get in that set of mind. We kept them in our meetings and kept the coaches around them and kept guys around them and constantly did it. And I was very proud. We come out really sharp on offense. After not playing as well on offense right there, we established a drive. How many plays drive was that? 12 plays and come out and executed really well, which I was very happy with and showed me some maturity about what they were trying to do.
Q. And then with Haynes [King] passing in some pretty tight windows. Do you like that aggressiveness?
COACH FISHER: I do. You have to have aggressive intelligence. You got to play aggressively, intelligent. You can sit there and say, Don't throw interceptions all day, but we also hit as many big plays as we've hit in a long time, too. There was a lot of balls down the field that were hit. There was a lot of catches down the field, these young guys. We just got to clean up. Like I said, on first and 10, when they were in a two-Tampa (phonetic) look, we got the three pull but he's high and he spun back. You've got to keep that ball really vertical. You can't pull him as much. Or just check it and say, I don't want it. And the other one, same thing. We had a corner fade. And the corner is trying to middle both and did a good job. You've got to let it clear just a little bit more, about another half second, which is tough sometimes in the pocket, but he's got to do that or dump it down and that was it. But then both drives afterwards I was happy about was the ability to not let him affect him and he come down with touchdown throws, if I'm not mistaken, right before the half and right on the other. But we still need to have those two picks. We don't need to have that. He did some nice things with his legs and played a solid football game.
Q. After his (Haynes King) second interception, it looked like you had a little conversation on the sideline.
JIMBO FISHER: Same thing right there. I was telling him that corner -- the guy was playing depth and divide trying to middle the post and play back down on the leverage. I said, You've got to let it clear just a little bit more. And if you don't like it, then you got to come all the way down to the flat route. He thought he could squeeze it and that's it. Trying to explain it. Making sure we explained that to him, what was going on. That was good.
Q. After such a long layoff with his (Haynes King) injury, how do you think overall he adjusted to game speed again?
COACH FISHER: Game speed, I thought he did a real nice job of and hit some big plays. It's a solid performance. He can play better than that. He can play better than that. But I thought he threw the ball accurately downfield, those two things there. But the plays he had downfield, hit guys in stride, made plays, and looking downfield, which I was happy about. Then sometimes we'll check it down a little more and do those situations. But that's part of growth. I thought Max [Johnson] came in and did a nice job. Went 3 for 4.
Q. A lot has been said about this freshmen class, but what do you like about getting the mix of those guys in on both sides of the ball?
COACH FISHER: Well, you didn't realize there were freshmen out there. The guys played well. They caught the ball, they covered, they rushed, they blocked. They did the things that, you know, weren't jumping out at you that, Hey, he's a young guy and he's going to have a lot of mistakes. There was a lot of production and a lot of nerves early. You can see the look in their eye. But once they got to playing, man, they were naturally doing things. And so it was very productive. I don't know how many of them played, but it was quite a few of them, I know that. Probably as many as I've ever played, I would say. I would have to look that up. That would be a good one.
Q. Going back to that 12-play drive to start the second half, you-all ran quite a bit of the I formation. Is that something we're going to see more of this season?
COACH FISHER: Yeah, because of the twists and stunts at times -- I'll tell you, one of the things that settles down in what they do, when they rub your guys off -- just like you rub receivers off when you run routes, when you run them twists inside and you're in open formations, you can create a lot of depth. What you do with that I, that solids them up and then the fullback can clean things up off the twist and pick up the extra looper. We knew we could do it in the first, but we said we'll wait to the second half and did it. We were able to clean some things up schematically and be able to put that hat on because of how they twisted and stunted. And allows you some variance on how you can do it. And we were able to get hat to a hat and then we were able to run the football.
Q. So with the defense, were you satisfied with their performance today? And what kind of things do you want to see from them moving forward?
COACH FISHER: The same thing. Keep control of the line of scrimmage and win first down. It helps your second and third down. I thought they did an outstanding job. They created two turnovers in critical situations. Didn't give up big plays. Rallied to the ball, played the ball well. Kept leverage on the football. The reasons they had success were for the right reasons. Sometimes you have success because the other team makes a mistake or does it wrong. I thought for the most part -- now, I have got to look at the film again. But for the most part, the leverages and things they kept on the ball was really good. The young guys -- saw young guys and older guys making plays on the football. We tackled well. We swarmed well in what we did. And hopefully, we can build on that. I'm sure there will be some mistakes in there, but there's a lot of good, it looked like. I have to wait until I see the film, which is true. But it goes from there.
Q. We saw a lot out of the freshmen today. Do you plan on rotating them back in throughout the season? Or were you more so just trying to see what they did today?
COACH FISHER: They've got to play. They're freshmen now. The depth it takes to play in this league and building these guys and get them out there playing, hopefully they'll keep playing each and every week.
Q. How beneficial is it to see them in true game action as opposed to practice or scrimmage?
COACH FISHER: Well, you can simulate game all you want. Like I say, till the lights on the scoreboard matter, that's when you can see what guys do. Some guys, it may bother them and other guy, it enhances. You know what I mean? But the thing is, they've got to repeat it. That's the big thing. When young players have success in their first game or they thought they played well, don't get caught that it's automatically going to happen. Remember why it happened, how you prepared that week, what you did, how much film you watched, how much time you put in. And if you had failure, it's not the end of the world. Hey, that's part of growing. Just look at it, make the corrections, and go. That's why I say we're a 12-game season. We've got to get better each and every game in what we do and grow and get these guys growing and get them playing with the older guys. And hopefully we can develop into a good football team.
quotes courtesy Caption Pros
