Opening comments:
“To get an important Pac-12 road victory now puts us in position to control our own destiny in the Pac-12 South. Going into the game we believed the team that won the rushing attack would win the game, and winning the rushing attack -- 253 yards to 98 — I thought was critical. Anytime you go on the road, you talk about four things and we talked about packing four things. The first one, playing great defense, and I was very proud of our defense going up against a team that had been putting up 500 yards a game, to hold them to 330 in the game, and a rushing attack that was producing about 250 yards a game, to hold them to 98 … To be able to hold that unit in check for the majority of the game, I thought, was very, very good by our defense.
“The second thing we wanted to pack was our running game. I was proud of our runners. I thought Ced Ware for the third straight year in a row vs. Arizona had a big game. He combined for 173 yards. Stephen Carr comes on with 80 yards and Vae [Malepeai] adds another red zone touchdown.
“The other thing that we talked about was packing great special teams. Proud of Michael Brown and the job that he is doing. For the second week in a row, he makes a critical field goal in a close game — a 42-yarder that helped get us in front early. And then for the second week in a row, I thought a great design by Coach Baxter and extremely well executed by our field goal block team with Marvell [Tell] coming off the edge. I thought the coverage units did a tremendous job, and I thought Reid Budrovich continued to improve at the punting spot.
“The last thing that we talked about packing was limiting mistakes, to play clean play, limit the turnovers and limit penalties. This is not what got done. We had the opportunity to separate ourselves and basically end the game, but penalties and turnovers allowed Arizona to stay in the game. It’s something that we must concentrate on immediately. That’s my job, and thank goodness for a bye week to have the opportunity to address it whether it's technique, fundamentals or whether it’s decision making — that’s my job. And I look forward to this bye week, and it’s something that we have to fix and have to fix immediately going into Colorado, who’s a very, very good football team. We’re very fortunate that it did not cost us last night.”
On injuries ...
"Injury-wise, we’ll be looking at John Houston with a neck injury. I’ll be able to give you more of an update on Tuesday on that. Malik Dorton got an ankle injury in the game, Raymond Scott fractured a finger. I’ll be able to give you more information on that come Tuesday, and then Porter Gustin was pulled due to an ankle injury. I’ll be able to give you more information on that on Tuesday.
“Bye week is coming up. It gives us a great opportunity to correct these mistakes, get healthy and prepare the Colorado Buffaloes.”
On how exactly he plans to go about addressing the penalties in practice ...
“You be brutally honest. You show it to them on tape. There’s three forms of penalties in my mind. One is decision-making penalties, one is fundamental and technique penalties and the last one is administrative and we had all three. Decision-making penalties is when you have a decision to make, whether you hit a man late out of bounds or create a personal foul. That’s a decision-making penalty. The second one’s a fundamental technique, whether it’s hands outside on the shoulder pads rather than being inside on the chest plate. Those are things that are correctable through drill work and through individuals. And then the third one are administrative, staying onsides. Obviously when you get in a loud, hostile atmosphere, sometimes it does get you, but it’s something you can practice over and over again. I plan on addressing it with the team tomorrow in our team meeting, showing all three of those and showing how critical — that game could have been separated but wasn’t because of the mistakes we made. And that’s on me. That’s my job to correct those things, and I look forward to doing it tomorrow.”
On how the routine is different for the bye week ...
“One, it gives us the opportunity, we’re getting ready to play two back-to-back games against Colorado and Utah that are critical games for us and we have the availability of game-planning Colorado, getting a little bit ahead there. We also have some guys that have some nicks and dings. So I look at it three-fold — one, correct mistakes on the Arizona game, two, go ahead and get ahead with some game-planning for Colorado, three, help the development of our young people. This is a great opportunity for them this week to be able to catch up and get them even more involved where they can help us through the second half of this season, including some guys that have not played in games yet. And then finally, just to get some bodies healthy. I mentioned some names — John Houston, Malik Dorton, Raymond Scott, Porter Gustin, you’ve got Amon-Ra St. Brown with a shoulder — you have some guys that need to get healthy, and this is that opportunity to hopefully get us back healthy and fresh.”
On whether the personal foul penalties were over-aggressive ...
“There’s always decision-making penalties and I thought our kids played with great passion. We came in there to win a road game, and we knew how important this win was for us, for our season — especially Pac-12 South wins on the road. I thought their preparation all week was phenomenal. I thought the emotion that they played with in the game and the passion that they played with in the game was great. They did the things as far as defensive play, running the ball and playing great special teams that we wanted. And finally, there was some decisions that were made in that game — just Talanoa [Hufanga] getting a late hit just out of bounds, going full speed and making that. We get a tremendous job blocking by Olaijah Griffin on the punt return, but engages a player — the players goes out of bounds and once he goes out of bounds you cannot continue to block him. Sometimes you have to let him loose and come back on. That’s something a young player will learn. A John Houston has a facemark penalty in the two-minute drill that he’s coming in to make a tackle and reaches and gets the facemark. Those are things that happen. You try to teach, you try to educate and show how important those decision-making are. Now the pushing and shoving, those are the ones that really get your blood pressure up. Those are the ones that I’m going to address as a team and get it corrected immediately because I don’t want it to cost us a game.”
(Part 1/2)
