How has Chance Nolan's improvement at QB helped Oregon State?
"Yeah, it's just so efficient in the passing game. You look at the numbers, explosive with the ball being directed downfield, lots of setup with the run game, but I think it's not appropriate to say it's just simply that. Efficient with some of the underneath stuff. You have to be able to defend the run as pass-first defenders on the second level of your defense. So that's a lot of conflict on seven guys on every single snap. And they do it with a number of different personnel groupings, so it's not as simple as saying it's two-back or one-back or one tight end. You've got some wildcat you've got to deal with and prepare for, even in situations it may not end up being wildcat, as you say, you've got the quarterback under center. They're good at what they do and it's a real challenge."
Was there a moment early on when you first realized that Tuli was a special talent for you?
"There was. I don't remember a specific one, but he certainly stands out. Maybe in some ways that's a negative when you just circle one guy because he's just so different than the rest. That's a challenge to the other guys, but in every way from being physical, from trying to do everything right both on and off the field, going hard. One of the things that we spent so much time on is effort's not extra. Hard work's not extra work, and he's just one of those guys who go to work every single day. Has not missed a rep, a day, and oh, by the way he's a pretty good football player. And I'm not sure which one's first. I'd like to think because he works his tail off is how he got himself here. We need more guys kind of following that lead."
How do you decide when to use Tuli inside or on the edge?
"Some of it is tied into the guys around him, how they’re playing. You want to give him the ability to affect the passer, and obviously in the run game as well. He has a unique skillset in both. He can put his hands on a guy and get some movement as a bigger body on the interior, but you don’t want to waste him on the interior because he might be our best pass rusher. What’s the answer to then? It’s kind of a percentage of the time. Run/pass situations have a hand in it. Then certainly how the other guys are playing as well.
What do you remember about facing Jonathan Smith in the Apple Cup?
"I remember not being able to stop them. That doesn’t matter to these guys. I wouldn’t put it on them, but as a competitor, you don’t forget those Saturday afternoons. He’s done it for a long time. Believes in what he does. Has a tremendous track record, and has really recruited the right guys for his system. They play fast, they play hard, they play physical. I have nothing but good things to say about him as a coach and them as a program.
They're 14 for 14 in the red zone. What's the challenge there?
"They’re a little bit of a different challenge in the red zone, and part of that is you get in that goalline area, and they're able to use multiple tight ends, possibly a Wildcat situation. What Wildcat football is is it’s 11 on 11, there’s no extras. That puts stresses on you defensively. No. 1, if you have a magic call, don’t wait until they’re in the goalline red zone area to call it. Which we don’t have one. But it’s just battling, not giving in, having the awareness about you to make them run another play, run another play. There’s no magic. You sometimes wish there was, but give our guys credit, we’ve held up in situations so far. But they’re a little different animal in the red zone this week."
Is it hard to get lessons across to defense if they haven't been punished for mistakes on the field?
"Some of it is, No. 1, we coach them so you either believe in coaching or you don't. So we gotta do a better job of coaching the guys. For some of it we talk about trust. I always use the example, just do your job and if 11 guys do their job we're going to have success. Well, if you have history in your time in college football and you did your job and it wasn't enough, it's easy for a coaching staff to come in here and say that. You go, 'Coach, well my experience is just doing my job is not enough. And then you got guys trying to play three gaps instead of just their own. Shouldn't the mistakes have already been corrected? Yes, in almost every instance. And if you don't get it corrected, a guy that's supposed to be in the A gap this week and is not in the A gap is going to get the same result that was last week. So correctable, absolutely, and certainly there's not a singular position or a singular player you can address some of those things. Unfortunately, we've kind of taken our turns across the board in terms of some of those issues. But one way you fix it is you strain but also be very cognizant of we've survived some of those. And certainly that's not the expectation, just to survive as a defense and try to limit points. We could be cleaner, we could obviously play harder. But the expectation is we're a single-gap defense. Take care of your gap."
Have you seen Solomon Byrd's ascent up the depth chart inspiring anyone else?
"Yeah, and I think part of it too, kind of speaking of it, I'd be naive to say or I'd be lying to you if I said that we all of sudden see these issues on Saturday that we don't see during the course of the week. It comes back to how you practice. You mention Solomon, he's one of these guys that performs on Tuesday, performs on Wednesday. We can correct a lot of mistakes. Nothing's perfect; perfect's not in the program, but he performs at a certain level, a certain want to. We're not doing fixes, we're enhancing some of the things he does in practice. For a lot of the guys, we gotta make sure that we're at this point, we don't look at it like it's one week or four weeks. This is nine months that we've been training these guys a certain way. And so we want to enhance, not fix. Those are the two extremes, right? Enhance what you're good at, fix things that you have issues with. If every Tuesday's just a fix session and in your meeting you fix that and Wednesday and so on and so forth, you're really not moving the needle in the appropriate way. So we gotta be a better practice unit. We believe that Saturday is an extension of the work week. When I say we, I mean the coaching staff right now so we gotta get that down to our players."
"Yeah, it's just so efficient in the passing game. You look at the numbers, explosive with the ball being directed downfield, lots of setup with the run game, but I think it's not appropriate to say it's just simply that. Efficient with some of the underneath stuff. You have to be able to defend the run as pass-first defenders on the second level of your defense. So that's a lot of conflict on seven guys on every single snap. And they do it with a number of different personnel groupings, so it's not as simple as saying it's two-back or one-back or one tight end. You've got some wildcat you've got to deal with and prepare for, even in situations it may not end up being wildcat, as you say, you've got the quarterback under center. They're good at what they do and it's a real challenge."
Was there a moment early on when you first realized that Tuli was a special talent for you?
"There was. I don't remember a specific one, but he certainly stands out. Maybe in some ways that's a negative when you just circle one guy because he's just so different than the rest. That's a challenge to the other guys, but in every way from being physical, from trying to do everything right both on and off the field, going hard. One of the things that we spent so much time on is effort's not extra. Hard work's not extra work, and he's just one of those guys who go to work every single day. Has not missed a rep, a day, and oh, by the way he's a pretty good football player. And I'm not sure which one's first. I'd like to think because he works his tail off is how he got himself here. We need more guys kind of following that lead."
How do you decide when to use Tuli inside or on the edge?
"Some of it is tied into the guys around him, how they’re playing. You want to give him the ability to affect the passer, and obviously in the run game as well. He has a unique skillset in both. He can put his hands on a guy and get some movement as a bigger body on the interior, but you don’t want to waste him on the interior because he might be our best pass rusher. What’s the answer to then? It’s kind of a percentage of the time. Run/pass situations have a hand in it. Then certainly how the other guys are playing as well.
What do you remember about facing Jonathan Smith in the Apple Cup?
"I remember not being able to stop them. That doesn’t matter to these guys. I wouldn’t put it on them, but as a competitor, you don’t forget those Saturday afternoons. He’s done it for a long time. Believes in what he does. Has a tremendous track record, and has really recruited the right guys for his system. They play fast, they play hard, they play physical. I have nothing but good things to say about him as a coach and them as a program.
They're 14 for 14 in the red zone. What's the challenge there?
"They’re a little bit of a different challenge in the red zone, and part of that is you get in that goalline area, and they're able to use multiple tight ends, possibly a Wildcat situation. What Wildcat football is is it’s 11 on 11, there’s no extras. That puts stresses on you defensively. No. 1, if you have a magic call, don’t wait until they’re in the goalline red zone area to call it. Which we don’t have one. But it’s just battling, not giving in, having the awareness about you to make them run another play, run another play. There’s no magic. You sometimes wish there was, but give our guys credit, we’ve held up in situations so far. But they’re a little different animal in the red zone this week."
Is it hard to get lessons across to defense if they haven't been punished for mistakes on the field?
"Some of it is, No. 1, we coach them so you either believe in coaching or you don't. So we gotta do a better job of coaching the guys. For some of it we talk about trust. I always use the example, just do your job and if 11 guys do their job we're going to have success. Well, if you have history in your time in college football and you did your job and it wasn't enough, it's easy for a coaching staff to come in here and say that. You go, 'Coach, well my experience is just doing my job is not enough. And then you got guys trying to play three gaps instead of just their own. Shouldn't the mistakes have already been corrected? Yes, in almost every instance. And if you don't get it corrected, a guy that's supposed to be in the A gap this week and is not in the A gap is going to get the same result that was last week. So correctable, absolutely, and certainly there's not a singular position or a singular player you can address some of those things. Unfortunately, we've kind of taken our turns across the board in terms of some of those issues. But one way you fix it is you strain but also be very cognizant of we've survived some of those. And certainly that's not the expectation, just to survive as a defense and try to limit points. We could be cleaner, we could obviously play harder. But the expectation is we're a single-gap defense. Take care of your gap."
Have you seen Solomon Byrd's ascent up the depth chart inspiring anyone else?
"Yeah, and I think part of it too, kind of speaking of it, I'd be naive to say or I'd be lying to you if I said that we all of sudden see these issues on Saturday that we don't see during the course of the week. It comes back to how you practice. You mention Solomon, he's one of these guys that performs on Tuesday, performs on Wednesday. We can correct a lot of mistakes. Nothing's perfect; perfect's not in the program, but he performs at a certain level, a certain want to. We're not doing fixes, we're enhancing some of the things he does in practice. For a lot of the guys, we gotta make sure that we're at this point, we don't look at it like it's one week or four weeks. This is nine months that we've been training these guys a certain way. And so we want to enhance, not fix. Those are the two extremes, right? Enhance what you're good at, fix things that you have issues with. If every Tuesday's just a fix session and in your meeting you fix that and Wednesday and so on and so forth, you're really not moving the needle in the appropriate way. So we gotta be a better practice unit. We believe that Saturday is an extension of the work week. When I say we, I mean the coaching staff right now so we gotta get that down to our players."
