Lincoln Riley held his weekly Zoom media session Thursday, and here's the full transcript.
Only one penalty on defense through two games, what do you attribute that to?
Yeah, I think we’ve done a good job of, just, I think, playing smart. We’ve tried to really educate our guys on penalties, why they happen, how officials see games. We were very aggressive with the penalties, I think, throughout our practices. And, but, yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is the players have done a good job taking that to the field so far. We’ve, for the most part, we’ve held our poise, I think, pretty well. So we haven’t had a lot of unfocused penalties, and then guys have played pretty fundamentally sound. And typically, when you’re in good position and you’re where you’re supposed to be, you don’t necessarily put yourself in position to commit those penalties. And so far, two games in, that’s something that’s been a positive for us.
What does it say about Walker Lyons he’s been able to get re-integrated so quick, and what’s different about him after mission?
Yeah, first, yeah, super impressive to have a guy on a mission be away from the game that long, and then also have missed a large part of his last year with an injury in high school. So he’s been away from the game for a while, and so, yeah, to see him come back – he’s still, I mean, it’s certainly impressive what he’s doing but yet, he still is kinda getting his feet underneath him, he’s still getting in shape, he’s still, the different movements, all the things that happen, like, you can tell – he’s getting better quickly, and I think as long as he stays healthy he’s going to have an opportunity to continue to do that. So, been impressed with him. Yeah, I think, you can definitely see maturity, maybe a little bit different look in his eye, coming back from that experience. And, being able to talk with him and his family about that experience, I think that’s something that I know is a real positive. Those guys are put in some real unique situations and forced to grow, and obviously, I know it was a really positive experience for him. And we enjoyed it, we got to stay in touch with him quite a bit. We had late – or, early-morning for us, late-night for him – FaceTime calls throughout the mission to be able to stay in touch with him, which was great. But, yeah. I think he grew a lot, matured a lot, he certainly, there’s a lot about him out there that doesn’t feel like a freshman. So I do think it was a real positive experience for him.
Similarities between Sherrone Moore’s situation and yours at Oklahoma, how do you balance getting your fingerprints on a team but also upholding brand?
Yeah, some deja vu – sounds like a question I got asked, probably, a thousand times several years back. And it’s a legit question, it’s unique, there hasn’t been that many people in that type of scenario, just a few of us. And yeah, so, it’s a cool thing, right, like it’s obviously awesome to take over for a program that’s already having success and trying to maintain it or push it even further. There’s, like, I guess like any situation, there’s benefits and then there’s also challenges that come with that. And, yeah, I mean, I think it’s – you gotta take stock of the program, you gotta take stock of the areas that you think it can be better, you gotta take stock of the areas you think, it’s operating at a really, really high level. I tried to find a balance between, I didn’t want to change things just to change ‘em, just because, all right, oh, well now there’s a different head coach. I thought, that wasn’t the right path. But also, if there was something that I thought, alright, here’s an area we can be better, an adjustment that I think we should make, I didn’t want to be hesitant to do that, either. So, I just tried to always circle back to it throughout the week, deep down in my gut that this was the best thing for the program, and if it was I tried to be aggressive enough to do it but also I didn’t want to cross the line and certainly mess up something that was already operating at a pretty high level as well.
What was urgency to add a D-tackle, and what was it about Gavin that stood out?
We did, I mean, we hoped to add an interior D-lineman, but we also got very committed to – and I think, the previous year was a good reminder of that for us, to make sure that we’re bringing in the right guys from the portal, not just the right type of body types or the right experience level, or anything like that, but guys that you’re confident you can put in this locker room and they’re gonna acclimate well with the team and fit in well with the culture, and just – if you’re going to bring in a newcomer that’s about themselves or not going to fit in great with the group, that could be one of those damaging things that you could do, so. Yeah, we stayed true to that, we investigated a lot of guys, we had conversations with, we visited with a lot of different people as that process played out. Yeah, Gavin just stood out to us from the first time that we got a chance to talk to him. He did. He was just, very pro-team. Just, everything about his was like, goals that, goals that he had were all about helping the team first. All of the individual goals that he had were, like, secondary to him. And so, that was the first thing that really, we liked. We liked his football intelligence, we thought that really stood out when you’re talking about an older guy that’s not going to be with you for spring ball and not just learn it, but learn it good enough to be able to go and execute it right away. That was really important, and I thought made him stand out a little bit from maybe, some of the crop I guess as you would call it, that was out there. So, yeah, and he had experience and good tape on top of it. So, we thought he was one of the very, very few that checked all the boxes for us.
After two games, where have you seen biggest impact of allowed new tech on the field?
Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, I think the, there’s certainly I think less of a role for people in the press box now. There’s still a role, it’s just not – it’s not as, probably not quite as valuable as it was before. Just because, you can sit there and just, watch it yourself. Yeah, probably, still honestly probably a little early to say. I mean, yeah, you can look up and see what your mistake was or what they, what the opponent did on any side of the ball. And that’s that, now you still gotta be able to translate it. You gotta be careful, we’re all so used to just sitting there and just poring through film. You got to be careful about that, because the game moves fast and there’s a lot going on, and you’ve gotta try to obviously figure out, what can I take from this in this moment and then move on and try to find a positive impact in the game with it. So we’re probably all, navigating through that still right now. But it’s been, getting used to it, I mean, I still don’t – the purist in me doesn’t love it, but I mean, you’re getting used to it, and there’s certainly some advantages with it.
Did the bye week come at a good time?
The age old question, would you rather keep playing or do you need the time? I just always believe these bye weeks, they are what they are. You can sit there, and if you handle it well, you can find advantages in being able to get back adn work on yourself, get some guys healthy, to continue developing young players, and still be ready to play at a high level. We had a lot of this leading into the LSU game, obviously with it being our first game, and we handled that OK. To me, it’s all in how you handle it. If you handle it well, to me, a bye week should be an advantage no matter what. The whole rhythm thing and all that, I get it, but after a whole week, I don’t know that that’s really a factor. It’s just if you handle it well or not. And we’ve pushed our guys. We laid out everything that we felt necessary in terms of why it’s important, how we have to handle it, how we’re going to practice, how we’re going to prepare, and obviously they have to take it and run with it. But so far, we’ve had two pretty physical, spirited practices. I don’t see inklings of a group that’s not taking these week seriously.
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🤔🙃 Which other games are you interested in for this coming weekend?
