Part I of the full transcript of Steve Sarkisian's Sunday evening teleconference with reporters...
Opening statement
SS: “Just to recap last night, it was a late night I think for everybody. I had a chance to look at the film. I kind of hit all three major phases of the game with some major points here before we open up to questions.
"I thought offensively, we were good, we weren’t great. I think some of the positives that came out of that, we didn’t turn the football over, I thought our guys played fast when they had their opportunities. I thought that we created some explosive plays. Our average yards per play at 8.0, that’s a really good number for us. If we can stay anywhere close to that, that would be fantastic. And a lot of people played. We played ten offensive linemen last night. All the running backs I thought ran well. Unfortunately in the game, we just didn’t get many opportunities as we touched on. We only ran 63 plays. And so part of that falls on us. I think we can increase our tempo and get better at that, we’ll work at that. And then within that, when you miss opportunities like we missed last night, we missed some deep balls, they became glaring because we didn’t have a lot of plays. And so we’d like to increase our number of opportunities so when, if miss an opportunity we can get another two or three and hit a couple of those.
"The five sacks, you go back and really analyze them, the offensive line is going to take the brunt of it obviously anytime you hear the word sack. But really you can point to a lot of different factors. You can point to Cody on a couple of them quite honestly and he’ll be the first one to tell you. You can look at the running back on another one, you can look at a break down up front. So there’s things for us to fix which is very positive on the offensive side of the ball for us to improve. But the first thing that needs to improve is our tempo. I think we can really speed things up, get more snaps and that’ll help us down the road.
"Defensively, I thought we really aligned and assigned very well for the first game, against an offense that gave us a lot of different formations and odd ball formations. I thought our assignments were good, our alignments were good, we subbed really well, we played a lot of guys as well. We played nine defensive linemen for three spots. We played ten linebackers with plus twenty snaps each. Obviously we talked about the DBs and Chris Hawkins playing multiple positions. Iman Marshall is the guy that actually had the most reps in the secondary with over 50 there. So that was good. I would like us to be a little bit more, I don’t want to say competitive but I’d like us us to get off of blocks better and defeat our man in one on one scenarios. That’s going to be something that we’re going to focus on. I’d like to contain the quarterback better. As we touched on last night we lost containment a few times but we did create four turnovers, I think we did pressure the quarterback a lot. We held a team in Arkansas State to six points and that’s their fewest points, I think, since 2008. So that was an explosive offense that we really negated a lot of what they did. But they did run 87 plays so we got a lot of reps defensively.
"From a special teams standpoint, I thought our guys played hard. I think our kicker and punter can be better so we’ll work on them this week to improve that aspect of our game. I thought we played a lot of guys, we covered kicks, the return game, we had one big return coming before Adoree’ (Jackson) got pulled up there, it might have been a touchdown. We think that can be a real weapon for us in the future is the return game. So all and all, like I said last night, it’s a good start to the season, it’s great to be 1-0 but there is plenty of work to do. From an injury update standpoint, like I said last night, Adoree’s injury is not serious. He’ll be day to day. I think he has a really good shot of playing Saturday. Steven Mitchell, again, everything has come back negative. He’s got a pretty significant bruised hand that we’ll have to monitor. We feel good about getting Claude (Pelon) back this week, we feel good about getting Justin Davis back this week. Not quite sure about Lamar (Dawson) yet.”
What was your general feeling on all the true freshmen that made their debut and did any of them jump out at you?
SS: “I think in general, they all, if you just take the group as a whole, they went out and performed they went out and played. I thought some guys were more comfortable than others I thought some guys were a little bit more tentative than others. I thought Dominic Davis just went in there and played. He went in, he made a heck of catch on the double pass from Jalen Greene, he covered kickoffs, he caught the ball in the flat from Max Browne, made people miss, it was natural for him. I thought that Ronald Jones and ‘Ced Ware, same thing. When they got to carry the ball, they ran the football like they had been running their whole life. I thought that was very encouraging. I thought Osa Masina and Cam Smith were really good in the middle of the defense. They were playing some really significant time and had significant opportunities. I thought that was good.
"I thought the young three defensive linemen got better the more they played. I thought they really improved the more they were in there. That was encouraging. I thought Iman Marshall was really physical. He showed up, he tackled really well. He had the one blown coverage but outside of that, I thought Iman was really good. Marvell Tell, you see the talent that he is but in our system, the safety, there’s a lot on them. There’s a lot of thinking and communication that takes place. I think that kind of slowed him down a little bit so this next week we got to get him going again and get him playing as fast as he can play because he is a very talented guy. All in all, I think the young guys went out and performed and did what they’re capable of doing. We’re actually kicking around a couple other guys on the roster right now and potentially what we want to do with them and developing them. Because these guys performed so well, that jeez, maybe there are a couple other guys that can help us as well."
Is it unusual for a top-10 team to play 13 true freshmen?
SS: "I think it’s a little unusual but I think our situation is a little unusual too. When you think about, we’re finally getting up to 80 scholarships. Granted, there are some walk-ons that have been granted scholarships and whatnot. When your numbers are so low and you’re filling those numbers back up, and you want to play with depth. Our situation is a little bit unique. You just look at 22 guys making their Trojan debut for us last night, that’s a huge number in one game for guys for the first time they’ve ever taken the field in the Coliseum. So I think our situation’s unique, but it’s our situation. We embrace it, we’re going to go with it. And again, like I said, all in all, I was pleased with the effort of our entire team."
Opening statement
SS: “Just to recap last night, it was a late night I think for everybody. I had a chance to look at the film. I kind of hit all three major phases of the game with some major points here before we open up to questions.
"I thought offensively, we were good, we weren’t great. I think some of the positives that came out of that, we didn’t turn the football over, I thought our guys played fast when they had their opportunities. I thought that we created some explosive plays. Our average yards per play at 8.0, that’s a really good number for us. If we can stay anywhere close to that, that would be fantastic. And a lot of people played. We played ten offensive linemen last night. All the running backs I thought ran well. Unfortunately in the game, we just didn’t get many opportunities as we touched on. We only ran 63 plays. And so part of that falls on us. I think we can increase our tempo and get better at that, we’ll work at that. And then within that, when you miss opportunities like we missed last night, we missed some deep balls, they became glaring because we didn’t have a lot of plays. And so we’d like to increase our number of opportunities so when, if miss an opportunity we can get another two or three and hit a couple of those.
"The five sacks, you go back and really analyze them, the offensive line is going to take the brunt of it obviously anytime you hear the word sack. But really you can point to a lot of different factors. You can point to Cody on a couple of them quite honestly and he’ll be the first one to tell you. You can look at the running back on another one, you can look at a break down up front. So there’s things for us to fix which is very positive on the offensive side of the ball for us to improve. But the first thing that needs to improve is our tempo. I think we can really speed things up, get more snaps and that’ll help us down the road.
"Defensively, I thought we really aligned and assigned very well for the first game, against an offense that gave us a lot of different formations and odd ball formations. I thought our assignments were good, our alignments were good, we subbed really well, we played a lot of guys as well. We played nine defensive linemen for three spots. We played ten linebackers with plus twenty snaps each. Obviously we talked about the DBs and Chris Hawkins playing multiple positions. Iman Marshall is the guy that actually had the most reps in the secondary with over 50 there. So that was good. I would like us to be a little bit more, I don’t want to say competitive but I’d like us us to get off of blocks better and defeat our man in one on one scenarios. That’s going to be something that we’re going to focus on. I’d like to contain the quarterback better. As we touched on last night we lost containment a few times but we did create four turnovers, I think we did pressure the quarterback a lot. We held a team in Arkansas State to six points and that’s their fewest points, I think, since 2008. So that was an explosive offense that we really negated a lot of what they did. But they did run 87 plays so we got a lot of reps defensively.
"From a special teams standpoint, I thought our guys played hard. I think our kicker and punter can be better so we’ll work on them this week to improve that aspect of our game. I thought we played a lot of guys, we covered kicks, the return game, we had one big return coming before Adoree’ (Jackson) got pulled up there, it might have been a touchdown. We think that can be a real weapon for us in the future is the return game. So all and all, like I said last night, it’s a good start to the season, it’s great to be 1-0 but there is plenty of work to do. From an injury update standpoint, like I said last night, Adoree’s injury is not serious. He’ll be day to day. I think he has a really good shot of playing Saturday. Steven Mitchell, again, everything has come back negative. He’s got a pretty significant bruised hand that we’ll have to monitor. We feel good about getting Claude (Pelon) back this week, we feel good about getting Justin Davis back this week. Not quite sure about Lamar (Dawson) yet.”
What was your general feeling on all the true freshmen that made their debut and did any of them jump out at you?
SS: “I think in general, they all, if you just take the group as a whole, they went out and performed they went out and played. I thought some guys were more comfortable than others I thought some guys were a little bit more tentative than others. I thought Dominic Davis just went in there and played. He went in, he made a heck of catch on the double pass from Jalen Greene, he covered kickoffs, he caught the ball in the flat from Max Browne, made people miss, it was natural for him. I thought that Ronald Jones and ‘Ced Ware, same thing. When they got to carry the ball, they ran the football like they had been running their whole life. I thought that was very encouraging. I thought Osa Masina and Cam Smith were really good in the middle of the defense. They were playing some really significant time and had significant opportunities. I thought that was good.
"I thought the young three defensive linemen got better the more they played. I thought they really improved the more they were in there. That was encouraging. I thought Iman Marshall was really physical. He showed up, he tackled really well. He had the one blown coverage but outside of that, I thought Iman was really good. Marvell Tell, you see the talent that he is but in our system, the safety, there’s a lot on them. There’s a lot of thinking and communication that takes place. I think that kind of slowed him down a little bit so this next week we got to get him going again and get him playing as fast as he can play because he is a very talented guy. All in all, I think the young guys went out and performed and did what they’re capable of doing. We’re actually kicking around a couple other guys on the roster right now and potentially what we want to do with them and developing them. Because these guys performed so well, that jeez, maybe there are a couple other guys that can help us as well."
Is it unusual for a top-10 team to play 13 true freshmen?
SS: "I think it’s a little unusual but I think our situation is a little unusual too. When you think about, we’re finally getting up to 80 scholarships. Granted, there are some walk-ons that have been granted scholarships and whatnot. When your numbers are so low and you’re filling those numbers back up, and you want to play with depth. Our situation is a little bit unique. You just look at 22 guys making their Trojan debut for us last night, that’s a huge number in one game for guys for the first time they’ve ever taken the field in the Coliseum. So I think our situation’s unique, but it’s our situation. We embrace it, we’re going to go with it. And again, like I said, all in all, I was pleased with the effort of our entire team."
