Blue White Illustrated

D E c E M B E R 3 1 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . c O M 7 C O A C H S P E A K • E X C E R P T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ' S P O S T G A M E P R E S S E R Washington came out in the third quarter and scored right away, then you were able to come back and get the lead back up to 14. How critical was that possession right a$er they scored in the third quarter? Yeah, it was really, really important, because momentum was starting to swing there. Then the next drive we go down, had a chance to score again go up by 21. And then we had the turnover down there. But I think we moved the ball really well all night long. I actually think if we didn't turn the ball over, it could have been a very different game. But they did a great job. They ran the ball well. They got their hands up and batted some balls down in some of our RPO game. When they weren't able to get to the quarterback, they were able to get their hands up and be disruptive. I'm pretty proud. I thought we got our running game going against the defen- sive line, against a defense that was one of the better run defenses in the coun- try. We have so much respect for their two interior defensive tackles. I thought we had a really good play that took advantage of angles and leverage. And they do a really good job on the perimeter of trying to get the ball in space, out where we had a de- cent amount of grass and space to work with. But they do a great job on the perimeter. It's one of the things I mentioned dur- ing the game – we're going to study what they do defensively on the perimeter, because I think they do a re- ally good job with those two D-tackles inside making it difficult, and then how they defeat blocks and how they play perimeter runs. So there's a lot of re- spect for them. Your offensive line had some tough moments this season with consis- tency. But you finished with 545 yards of offense against a very staunch defensive line. How do you think they did, and how do you think your new offensive coordinator did? Did he pass the audition? Very good. Matt Limegrover, he's a great coach. He's an unbelievable fa- ther. He's a better person. He just kept working with those guys. The thing I love about Matt is he stays positive. There's outside noise. There are critics. And Matt just keeps loving those kids and keeps coaching them and keeps working hard with them. We're still fairly young up front, and they just got better as the season went on. That's something I take a lot of pride in as a head football coach. You look over our years – my years as a head coach – and we pretty much have been able to get better as the season goes on and kind of keep chipping away at it. And I thought Matt did a great job there. Ricky Rahne, I thought he called a re- ally good game today. I thought Josh Gattis had a big part in that as well in our passing game. We do it by commit- tee. Obviously, we had a lot of success this year on the offensive side of the ball, but there were a lot of people who had a part in that. And then bringing Tyler Bowen back home, who knows this offense and knows our culture and how we do things was great. So the next step for us is to go hire the best running backs coach in the country to come and complement the rest of the staff that we have, and I'm going to fight like hell to keep this staff together. … I'm going to fight like crazy to keep our staff together, because I think we've got a fantastic staff. We've got great players here who re- ally get what college athletics are all about: getting a great education, play- ing big-time football. I'm so proud, be- cause the people at the hotel and the people at the bowl couldn't have been more complimentary of how our guys conducted themselves all week. It's what this is all about – to prepare young men to go on and be successful in life. And you've got to win games. I get that. But as long as you keep winning games, that allows you to continue to have an impact on young people and develop them so they can go on and be great fathers and husbands and CEOs and leaders. But our staff's been great. And the reason the staff is so important is be- cause our players are more important. And I want to make sure that we keep these men that I know are going to have tremendous impact on our players. You guys were one yard away from finishing this game on offense. How much did you discuss passing, run- ning the ball on that drive? Can you let us in on what the call was on fourth-and-1 before the penalty? We were going to run the ball. We were going to run the ball in that situation. Felt like we had a really good call. They were smart. It's something that we talked about with the officials. They made a move call to stem their front, which is perfectly legal. And when you're smart, you save it for that situation – a critical third-and-1, a critical fourth-and-1, because if they feel like you're simulating the cadence, they're only going to let you get away with it once. They're well-coached. They saved it for that situation. They made a move call. They say a man flinched. I didn't see it, but they said he did. It took us out of that situation and we had to kick the field goal there. Four-minute of- fense is something that we've got to im- prove on. I thought we did a great job tonight and had a chance to finish. In that situ- ation, it's something that we've got to continue working on and continue growing at. But it sure would have been great to end it on our terms. But we have so much confidence in Brent Pry and our defensive staff and Tim Banks and Sean (Spencer) and Terry (Smith). Those guys do such a great job that I knew they were going to go on the field and get the job done, especially when our offense forced them to burn all their timeouts. So now they're in a tough spot. And our four-minute offense was able to do that. But defensive guys just played lights-out all night long.

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