0:00 – Mental health and volleyball and Colbie Young situation
0:46 – Education of players on serious situations like Colbie Young’s
2:03 – Situation of Colbie Young on practicing and playing
2:22 – Is there a comfort level for seeing offenses like Mississippi State?
4:01 – How has Nate Frazier’s pass protection been progressing?
5:00 – Jared Wilson, Christen Miller, and Jordan Hall’s injury situation
5:47 – Thoughts on the portal window situation shortening
7:28 – Malaki Starks and Joenel Aguero playing progression this season
8:12 – Emotional side of dealing with off-the-field issues from being the head coach
10:05 – Difficulties in dealing with recruits and portal players
11:14 – Do you talk about teams from upsets like week to worry about upset this week
12:08 – Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins and coping with his injuries this season
13:07 – What has Lawson Luckie brought to this offense?
13:46 – Do you think alternate jerseys have anything to do with fan atmosphere?
14:21 – Has there been a meeting with Josh Brooks about fan atmosphere?
Opening Statement
"Two reminders first. The Mental Health Awareness Week. We'll be wearing the ribbon on the helmets. I want to remind people of that. Also, the 10K day in Stegeman. I guess that's Friday night for our volleyball team. It's really important. We try to turn out and get those numbers up there as high as we can. I know you guys want to know about Colbie (Young) and want to ask about it, but it's a pending legal matter and I don't have any answers right now and have not even had a chance to talk to him yet. So, I can't answer any questions about it right now.”
On how the program educates players on legal responsibilities…
“We educate. We bring in speakers. It's one of probably the most critical things we do. Over the history of my nine years being here, it's probably the most spoke on thing we have. We have people come over and speak from EOO (Equal Opportunity Office) on campus every year, and Darrice (Griffin) does a great job of finding the speakers. But then we bring in outside speakers. We call NFL teams, and Miss Mac (Sandra McDonald) from Atlanta does a great job. She comes over and shares with our student athletes and talks to them, and even does some role play of putting guys in situations. I'll be honest with you, in my years of coaching, it's probably been the hardest thing to deal with when you deal with players and some of the decisions. I don't mean this in Colbie's case because I don't know the details of that. I don't know everything involved in that. But it's a very sensitive matter, a tough thing to deal with. It's unfortunate.”
On Colbie Young’s availability this week…
“It's a pending legal matter. He's not with us right now. He's not with us today. I haven't had a chance to talk to him.”
On facing fast-paced offenses…
“I don't know if you can get comfortable with it. I'll be honest with you. It's hard. It's hard to simulate coming off the practice field. They do a tremendous job of going nuclear fast, like number one in the country fast, like ahead of Tennessee fast. But they don't have to. They can do that. But then if they want to try to help their defense, they can slow it down. But the unfortunate thing is once they've shown they can go at that pace, what do you have to prepare for? You have to prepare for that, and it takes a lot of the focus off of your fundamentals because you expend a lot of energy just trying to get lined up. I don't think people actually know how difficult these teams are to prepare for because it's what they do. It's not what you do. So, it's a little bit like triple option, right? The greatest equalizer is when you play a triple option team, and you can't prepare for it. Now, they're not triple option. I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's hard to prepare for because we don't see it very often. So, it's hard.”
On if the team prepares for fast-paced offenses during the bye week…
“We do. But it's getting more prevalent because he's [Mississippi State’s head coach Jeff Lebby] in our league. Lane (Kiffin) is a little bit of that. He's not quite that complete flavor. Then there's Tennessee, which we drew all three of these guys. They all come somewhat from the same coaching tree. I think Lebby was with Lane and then he has a little bit of flavor of [Josh] Heupel (Josh). So, we have to practice it every year, every offseason and it's a pain to do it.”
On Nate Frazier’s development in pass protection…
“It's getting better. The first thing I found with freshmen is do they have the courage? Okay, he has the courage. Some of them don't have the courage. Does he have the strength? He's got the strength. He can lift the weights, and you've got a 225-pound linebacker. You've got to be physical. The guy's coming full speed at you, and you're standing still. He checks that box, and then is he smart enough? Can he pick it up and know mentally what to get with the pace of it? He gets a lot of looks from us, and, he's not been perfect at that, he's had some issues with that, and we've got a quarterback that we feel like is really important to protect. Nate takes a lot of pride in his performance and he wants to do it right. So, we give him a lot of opportunities to get better at that in practice and he's taken a lot of ownership in that.”
On Jared Wilson, Jordan Hall and Christen Miller’s progress…
“Yeah, does that thing [SEC availability report] come out tonight? Tomorrow? I couldn't remember what day it was. It comes out Wednesday. I was going to say it'll be out here shortly. But Christen has been able to practice. Jared is still – Jared's better than he was, but not taking full-load reps. He's taking some reps, but not – he's taking more than he was last week, but not full-load. And Christen is taking reps. Jordan is trying to get out there and go. Man, he's pushing so hard. I hate it for that kid because he's had two rods – I mean, a rod put in both legs. And he's out there frustrated. He's doing more than he did last week, but I don't know that I can say he's ready to play this week.”
On adjustments to the transfer window…
“Yeah, I'd heard that was a possibility. What was it before? 30 days maybe? They shrunk the December window, right? And it starts after our signing date, which was the purpose of moving signing date up. They wanted us to be able to sign your class. And they wanted to shrink the window there some. I think it's going to be really weird because you've got this playoff thing going on. So, there's some people that feel like in the midst of a playoff, you're going to have guys that are maybe frustrated or unhappy on a team that's on a playoff run, and they're going to be checking out. But that has nothing to do with them shortening it because that was going to happen inevitably anyway. So, my thoughts on it is whatever the fair amount of time is for a kid to go look around and see what he wants to do, then I'm comfortable with that. I don't know what that right amount is because we don't have a – we're not a huge portal team, so we don't use that a lot. Usually, the teams that are doing it are the teams that aren't playing. And the teams that are playing, they've really got a hard time trying to shop in the portal and prepare for things. But times, they are changing. I can promise you that. There's a lot of unknown for us moving in the future with the NCAA stuff coming down the pipe and even the portal stuff. We don't know what the future holds.”
On what he has seen from Malaki Starks this year…
“Yeah, I don't know that in the past he could do it, like, as comfortably as he's doing it now. He's now rotating at star, playing snaps at star, getting practice reps at star. And Joenel [Aguero], I think, is doing a great job. But you've got to have two STARs to play in every game. And we feel like he gives us the best chance to pop in there and play star. He's such a good man-to-man cover guy. And he's good to play safety, but he's good to move in at star because he gives us a different matchup guy. So, he's handled it mentally very easily, and it's given us a little more flexibility there.”
On how he has dealt with off-field incidents as head coach…
“It's not envious, but I think I spoke two years ago about the cost of leadership. I read that each day I come into work, and it's right behind my desk, and I never forget what somebody sent me. And it just hits me on days like that. I mean, I didn't find out on this one until I got up in the morning. So, it was one of those 7 a.m. deals. But I've had the ones that hit in the middle of the night. And, you know, when you have 130 17- to 23-year-olds, you're going to have issues. It's not going to be perfect. And I certainly recognize we've got to do a better job, but it's hard. It's hard on our staff because we've got really good kids. We've got really good people, man. And our kids go out there in the day, and they have one of the best practices we've had all year on a Tuesday. And they're out there competing, working. You just want them to make better decisions as men off the field. And, you know, I take a lot of responsibility in that. It's tough, but that's the cost of leadership. Like, you're going to be judged by the people you lead. And you've got to stand up and face it and do right by the kids and keep trying to find a better way. I mean, we're constantly trying to find a better way to make a difference. And that's in everything we do in our organization. That's an evaluation of the kids. That's in the football side of it, the becoming a man, the graduation. It's all wrapped into one. And we've got to keep working on that.”
On the challenges of analyzing a recruit out of the transfer portal…
"When we go to take somebody out of the transfer portal, I can't say I've known them as long as I've known a recruit, right? I've recruited the kid since his junior or senior year. But then all of a sudden in recruiting we will take a kid the last month that we think is a good player and we do a background check, check on him and everything. The portal most of the time, for us, you're relying on better information because you're calling the school he was at. All of us know somebody right? So, we call somebody at school ‘X.’ Most of the time they give you the forthright truth - he didn't go to class or he was this or he was that. Or he's a great kid, he just didn't fit here. People call us about our guys, and I am very honest about that. I actually feel more comfortable over a portal kid because I'm getting real-time information. He's lived outside of his home and been on his own for maybe a year, maybe two years, maybe three years, maybe four years. But I feel like you get better information on those guys than you do sometimes on a high school kid."
On if he has addressed the team about Vanderbilt and Arkansas’ recent wins…
"No, we don't rely on the motivation of others. I don't know. I just don't think that's a great way to go about things. We're really focusing on pride in performance this week. And I got a great analogy, somebody sent me and said 'If they're doing a Netflix documentary on you this week, who would you want to watch it? And would they approve? Would you send it to your parents, would you send it to an NFL team if they did a Netflix documentary your performance, your pride, and how you practiced this week?' I was shocked. They must've all thought the Netflix documentary was on them today because they practiced as good as they have ever done. Just give them a little attention and they eat it up."
On what has been the biggest difference for Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins this season…
"Besides health, his work ethic. He's always been a pretty good football player. He's a great kid. He's been in the dumps because of his foot. And so, you'd see him every day, and he had no smile on his face. He's got a beautiful, great mom. And she's been in great communication with us. He had considered the portal at one time, and he talked about his frustrations, but it was really more out of injury than it was anything else. And I remind him every day that he's out there working because sometimes he needs a little motivation to work. And he's like, you could be over there riding that bike. You could be over there lifting and not practicing. And he gets a little more juice and practices a little harder. And he is sometimes woe is me, but he's a great kid. And I enjoy coaching him. And he's played really good football this year because he had a great camp. And he had really good camp practices, and it's helped him to play better."
On what Lawson Luckie has brought to the offense this year…
“He has a little nastiness to him. He's a little bit of one of those guys that, you know, he doesn't have the anxiety maybe of others. His uncle's played here. He grew up playing football his whole life. He doesn't get all pouty if a coach gets on him. He's not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. He's a little bit of an alpha. He's not afraid to compete and do things. I still think he can improve on a lot of things, especially in-line blocking and some stuff. But he's a competitor, man, and you throw the ball near him, he's going to try to go get it. So, I have a lot of respect for his toughness.”
On if wearing alternate jerseys helps revitalize the stadium’s atmosphere…
"I don't think that has one thing to do with the fan base. I just think that's hokey pokey. I mean, it's great for recruiting. We may do it sometime. I'm not anti-doing it. But that shouldn't do anything for your atmosphere. Some of the best places I've played in great atmosphere, they never change their uniforms. They're traditionalists. And if it takes changing the uniform to get people fired up, then I'm at the wrong place."
On if he has met with Josh Brooks about stadium atmosphere…
"I talked to him about it, and I voiced my concerns to him as much as I did to anybody. But that's his job. I mean, he's in charge of all those people and those optics, and that's part of the comment I said earlier last time about, you know, we had coaches play here last year that said it was the greatest atmosphere they had ever been in. And so for somebody to say that from the outside, it's not like it's all wrong. It's really relative to what time the game is and who the game is, but we can't afford to do that. You know what I mean? Like, we can't do that. So, I don't have an expectation that nobody else should either. We should all be held to the standard of playing excellent, playing hard. It doesn't matter who your opponent is. It's a nameless and faceless deal. We don't look at the scoreboard. But I haven't had a meeting with Josh [Brooks] or talked to Josh about it other than after the game Saturday."
