Anytime you play in the SEC with three freshmen up front, it's a little nervewracking. All of them are eager to get better. |
He made a nice play on it, he had to go to his left quite a bit. |
I told our coaching staff when we came into this season, I told every fan that asked me, I said I don't know where we're gonna be Game 1. But we're gonna be better Game 2, and we're gonna be better Game 3. And that's what I get paid to do. |
I was pleased with the intensity, |
I'm a rough and tough guy, but I cried. That's what I did. |
It's something those guys are going to have to do. Because of our lack of depth, we do a lot of individual work on coming out of a left-hand stance, coming out of a right-hand stance. They're going to have to continue to work on the things they've got to do to keep the best five guys on the football field. |
They did a very good job rising to the occasion and met some challenges set forth. Anytime you rush for 338 yards, you're doing something right. |
They do a lot of stand-up, walking around, try to confuse you early, |
We knew they were going to throw a lot of different looks at us. We had to take on that challenge. We can't allow people to play us standing up on defense and not be able to run the ball effectively. |
We're not where we need to be, but we took some steps. We did not play up to my expectations early. We came in at halftime, settled the guys down. For the most part, they overcame their first-game jitters, their anxiety. They came out and played fast and took strides in the second half. |