(How do you explain the first half?)
I was trying to think of the words on my way down here, and I don't have them. I really don't. I'm very disappointed, and I take full responsibility because that's my football team out there. You cannot perform like that, and to play like that at home infuriates everyone involved and is unacceptable.
(Was it more what they were doing offensively or your defense?)
Frankly, I thought we had a very good week of practice. You come off the Monday night football game, and the Wednesday practice was a solid practice even with the health issues that everyone's experiencing right now, though that's no excuse. I thought Thursday's practice was excellent, and Friday was a cleanup. I thought our opponent squad did a great job giving us the shifts and motions. We didn't have alignment issues. Our issues were execution. You talk about our defense - we had no pass rush. We looked like we were playing in mud. Chad Pennington was out there playing pitch and catch with the receivers. In the first half, to give up that amount of offense, you can't have it.
(Given up over 30 points three games in a row - how hard is that to overcome?)
You can't win football games like that. I have to stay in the realm of reality. There is a lot of emotion flying around right now. I'm very much in tune with that, but we need answers. We have problems that are happening over and over again, and it needs to change.
(What do you do to change it?)
You evaluate it, and you come up with answers. We have some work to do.
(Do you have any sense that anyone has quit on the season?)
I didn't see quit. I saw poor performance. I saw people in bad positions, people playing bad technique, not moving their feet, not sustaining blocks, not getting off blocks. You have two mental errors in the first damn series in pass protection - that's what I see. Their character was challenged per man at halftime. I did not see that. I'm sure that's the next question coming, but I didn't view that today.
(What can you do differently?)
I don't recall seeing us give up 340 yards in the first half. I haven't seen that. I've seen breakdowns where big plays have occurred; that's a constant problem we've had all year. It was all over the place today. We need to go back to square one and go back through it. We need to make some changes.
(What did you see at halftime?)
I just talked to them about the reality of where we were at halftime, the reality of what went on in the first half. I wasn't really interested in a lot of emotion, screaming and yelling, but addressed it point blank: what happened, how I felt about what happened, and the direction we were going to go in the second half.
(Have you considered a coaching change?)
No, I'm not considering (it). I mean changes in cleaning things up, how we approach things. We're not sending anyone off the building, no.
(Is there any chance of that happening this year?)
I'm not even going to get into that. We lost a football game today. It was awful in the first half. That's where we are.
(What about the fans that booed?)
Hell, I'd have been booing too. Shoot, they should boo us. I have no problem with that. This is a man's league, a man's business, a man's game. You can't perform like that. We deserved to get booed.
(After the two picks, did you have hope you could get back in the game?)
Yeah, I mean they had a first half that was astronomical. We had some momentum there and weren't able to take advantage of it on offense. But heck, if you get it to a two score game, it's a different ballgame in the fourth quarter.
(Is the problem on defense personnel issues, schematic issues or a combination of both?)
A combination - we've been dealing with making the changes as people get hurt, but I have no excuses. There are no excuses here. We need to do a better job of utilizing our people, get them to do it the right way, and perform at a high level.
(Was Brett off in his accuracy today?)
No, with the wind conditions in the first half, and he settled down in the second half. I have a little distorted view right now frankly, but I thought he threw the ball fine.
(What did you think of the pass protection?)
Pass protection early was not very good, but over the course of the game was spotty. We're not ready to play a game like that, where you have to throw the ball a bunch of times. I haven't seen the statistics - I'm not sure how much we threw it - but we don't want to play that way.
{sportsad300}(Did you sense anything was amiss during pregame?)
Our team is up and down. You go through pregame, and I've seen them not go through it as fast as I'd like, and then you try to get them going and they play well. I've seen them go through it flat and play well. Actually, last week's pregame was about as good as we've had all year, and we came out of the gate fast. I think that's a process of a coach in the first year with his football team. I really can't tell exactly how you're going to play in pregame. I've been told by older coaches not to get caught up in pregame. I've seen a great quarterback miss 10 throws in pregame and then come out 10-for-10. You can over-evaluate pregame. I watch it closely, watch people, mannerisms, focus. By no means did I see this coming.
(Ahman seemed to break a couple - satisfied with the way the run game got going?)
I'm very pleased with him. He's clearly part of the solution around here. That man just needs more opportunities.
(Said you weren't going to interrupt guys during a series - what are the conversations like after the series with Bob (Sanders)?)
I think what I meant by that comment was jumping in and telling a guy what to do. If you've ever been on a headset of a coaching staff, everyone does it differently. I've been places where you have five guys talking, and there is a lot of emotion in it. I don't believe that's the best way to work, so that's what I was referring to as far as me jumping in and letting the emotion of myself, how I felt about the call, but hell, I did it today a couple of times today. I don't think that's what's best because I've been on the other end of the headset where the guy comes in and says 'do this, do that', and that's probably not in the best interest of the offense or the defense at that time. That's what I was referring to. I'm on the headsets with the defense the whole time they're on the field. I just click; I have two lines. One is for offense, one is for defense. I am in communication with them.
(And you jumped in today?)
Yeah, just certain things - what you see, what you want.
(Was the team emotionally flat or do they lose confidence because they're young?)
I tell you what, I think we have a little bit of the wait-and-see when it goes flat a little bit. I think that's the product of your veterans stepping up and making plays, and you had some of that in the first half. I don't know if they're waiting for Brett to make a play, or Woodson to make a play, but we're just not in rhythm on offense. We didn't do anything in the first half. We had the two no-huddle series there to start the game. The first one we had an excellent opportunity, and the pass protection breakdowns on the two plays hurt us. The one resulted in the sack-fumble. You can't play 30 minutes, half the football game, the way we did and expect to be successful.
