I posted the main news from Clay Helton's weekly Sunday conference call with reporters -- the situation at safety and the update on JT Daniels. But here were the entirety of his comments for those interested:
Opening statements:
"Obviously a tough loss for our football team. Like I said last night, I thought our players competed extremely hard in the game. That was evident on the tape that we watched today. We said going into the game that we had to play great team football, and defensively I don't know that I could ask for anything more. Holding a very good Stanford offense with a lot of weapons to 17 points, I thought was huge in the game. They did a terrific job of consistently getting off the field on third down, 4 of 13 in the game, and that really kept us in the game all night.
"I thought special teams wise, our coverage teams did a terrific job of providing a long field for Stanford to have to go. I really wanted and knew going into that game we had to play a really clean game penalty-wise, and to show up with only four penalties in the game kept us in it also.
"Offensively, when you play Stanford you know you're going to have limited opportunities as far as the number of possessions, and you hope you can get some favorable starting positions. That was not the case in that game. Our average starting point was the 22-yard line and had a long way to go. You know, credit Stanford for not turning the ball over and really not giving us a pitch to hit in the return game.
"The first half, you look up and we had four opportunities and we had drives of 7, 13, 10 and 7 (plays). Moving the ball, 5 of 9 on third downs in that first half and three of the four drives end up in the plus territory. And we didn't execute well enough to put the ball in the end zone. The start of the second half was the same. A nine-play drive and an eight-play drive that finished on the plus-17 and plus-38 and only came away with three points. That's the difference in the game when you look at it. Six opportunities on the plus side of the field and only coming away with three points.
"What I can tell you is I believe this team can be an exceptional football team. It'll grow and get better with every game. I can tell you I believe we're very talented at quarterback and have a quarterback that is learning lessons with each game rep he gets. And we're learning (about) him as a staff, where his strengths are and where the areas of growth are. I can tell you, this is not the end of the world, the sky is not falling. It's one game early in the season against a top-10 team. All our goals are still attainable. We'll do what we've done in the past, stay consistent, stay stable, continuing to get better as a team each and every week. We'll add them all up at the end of the season and see where we are, and hopefully that's back in Santa Clara on Nov. 30 playing against Stanford again."
Injuries ...
"We have Isaiah Pola-Mao out with a shoulder. We're going to let that thing rest for a couple weeks and then reevaluate to see what's the best course of action for Isaiah. He will be out for this game.
"JT Daniels, after we x-rayed yesterday as well as did a preventative MRI today, he has a hand contusion and we'll reevaluate on Tuesday."
On concerns about the safety depth ...
"Right now we've got a constant player, a staple, a rock back there in Marvell Tell, and then got two good young players that played yesterday and showed up and made plays -- that was C.J. Pollard and Talanoa Hufanga. We'll also look at moving Chase Williams over -- a 190-plus-pound body, very smart, instinctive young man that when we signed [we] thought could play corner, nickel or safety. And we will look at him this week also."
On what he saw on tape from JT and how much he thought the hand injury affected him the rest of the game ...
"Anytime that you take a hand contusion, obviously it hurts. I thought he was spinning the ball well. We hit some throws, we just came short up on some throws. It's one of those things that he's such a competitor and went out there and gave it his absolute best shot. There's no question in my mind that he was trying to do everything possible to help us win a football game, and I can give credit to him. The kid went out there and competed his butt off and fought till the very end."
On issues with receivers getting separation ...
"We actually did get some separation. I thought Tyler (Vaughns) really came back and had a very strong game in this game. The ball didn't always find him, but when you go back and watch the tape you're going to see times that he did get past people -- and a number of times. And I thought Mike really came back also, Pittman. He created a great explosion play for us and did a nice job. We tried to find Amon-Ra (St. Brown) a couple times and just had the overthrow in the end zone that's about an inch from being a touchdown and then we had an underthrow on the corner toward the end of the game and then had an overthrow on the last play for the interception. I thought the kids did a good job of finding ways to get open. Sometimes coverage dictates you getting by then. Sometimes when you're getting cover-3 and corners are bailing deep and making you go the long way, you have to be able to take the hitches and the nine-yard stop routes. And a lot of times the coverage dictated getting by people. But when you go back and watch the tape there were times that those kids did win and won numerous times."
On whether the issue was that there wasn't enough time to see the guys get open ...
"I think it was a little bit of both. Sometimes JT looked the other direction, working the other side and just some misfortune there. And obviously we did have some sacks in the game where he had to pull the ball down and start to move. So a little bit of both."
(PART 1)
Opening statements:
"Obviously a tough loss for our football team. Like I said last night, I thought our players competed extremely hard in the game. That was evident on the tape that we watched today. We said going into the game that we had to play great team football, and defensively I don't know that I could ask for anything more. Holding a very good Stanford offense with a lot of weapons to 17 points, I thought was huge in the game. They did a terrific job of consistently getting off the field on third down, 4 of 13 in the game, and that really kept us in the game all night.
"I thought special teams wise, our coverage teams did a terrific job of providing a long field for Stanford to have to go. I really wanted and knew going into that game we had to play a really clean game penalty-wise, and to show up with only four penalties in the game kept us in it also.
"Offensively, when you play Stanford you know you're going to have limited opportunities as far as the number of possessions, and you hope you can get some favorable starting positions. That was not the case in that game. Our average starting point was the 22-yard line and had a long way to go. You know, credit Stanford for not turning the ball over and really not giving us a pitch to hit in the return game.
"The first half, you look up and we had four opportunities and we had drives of 7, 13, 10 and 7 (plays). Moving the ball, 5 of 9 on third downs in that first half and three of the four drives end up in the plus territory. And we didn't execute well enough to put the ball in the end zone. The start of the second half was the same. A nine-play drive and an eight-play drive that finished on the plus-17 and plus-38 and only came away with three points. That's the difference in the game when you look at it. Six opportunities on the plus side of the field and only coming away with three points.
"What I can tell you is I believe this team can be an exceptional football team. It'll grow and get better with every game. I can tell you I believe we're very talented at quarterback and have a quarterback that is learning lessons with each game rep he gets. And we're learning (about) him as a staff, where his strengths are and where the areas of growth are. I can tell you, this is not the end of the world, the sky is not falling. It's one game early in the season against a top-10 team. All our goals are still attainable. We'll do what we've done in the past, stay consistent, stay stable, continuing to get better as a team each and every week. We'll add them all up at the end of the season and see where we are, and hopefully that's back in Santa Clara on Nov. 30 playing against Stanford again."
Injuries ...
"We have Isaiah Pola-Mao out with a shoulder. We're going to let that thing rest for a couple weeks and then reevaluate to see what's the best course of action for Isaiah. He will be out for this game.
"JT Daniels, after we x-rayed yesterday as well as did a preventative MRI today, he has a hand contusion and we'll reevaluate on Tuesday."
On concerns about the safety depth ...
"Right now we've got a constant player, a staple, a rock back there in Marvell Tell, and then got two good young players that played yesterday and showed up and made plays -- that was C.J. Pollard and Talanoa Hufanga. We'll also look at moving Chase Williams over -- a 190-plus-pound body, very smart, instinctive young man that when we signed [we] thought could play corner, nickel or safety. And we will look at him this week also."
On what he saw on tape from JT and how much he thought the hand injury affected him the rest of the game ...
"Anytime that you take a hand contusion, obviously it hurts. I thought he was spinning the ball well. We hit some throws, we just came short up on some throws. It's one of those things that he's such a competitor and went out there and gave it his absolute best shot. There's no question in my mind that he was trying to do everything possible to help us win a football game, and I can give credit to him. The kid went out there and competed his butt off and fought till the very end."
On issues with receivers getting separation ...
"We actually did get some separation. I thought Tyler (Vaughns) really came back and had a very strong game in this game. The ball didn't always find him, but when you go back and watch the tape you're going to see times that he did get past people -- and a number of times. And I thought Mike really came back also, Pittman. He created a great explosion play for us and did a nice job. We tried to find Amon-Ra (St. Brown) a couple times and just had the overthrow in the end zone that's about an inch from being a touchdown and then we had an underthrow on the corner toward the end of the game and then had an overthrow on the last play for the interception. I thought the kids did a good job of finding ways to get open. Sometimes coverage dictates you getting by then. Sometimes when you're getting cover-3 and corners are bailing deep and making you go the long way, you have to be able to take the hitches and the nine-yard stop routes. And a lot of times the coverage dictated getting by people. But when you go back and watch the tape there were times that those kids did win and won numerous times."
On whether the issue was that there wasn't enough time to see the guys get open ...
"I think it was a little bit of both. Sometimes JT looked the other direction, working the other side and just some misfortune there. And obviously we did have some sacks in the game where he had to pull the ball down and start to move. So a little bit of both."
(PART 1)
