Coach Cutcliffe Comments On Rebel Football

Oct. 21, 1999

"The open date is coming at a good time for us. We need some time to heal ourselves physically, and I think we need some time to get some things corrected and get better as well. We have a big challenge in front of us - four big conference games - and each one is going to be a challenge. So we have to get our people as healthy as we can and as ready as we can. We played a very physical game Saturday, and a lot of people are bumped, bruised and beat up. We do need this week. We played an Alabama team that is playing awfully well. We created ourselves a hole that we couldn't dig out of, but I was glad that we did fight back in the second half and at least give ourselves an opportunity to compete for the win.

Q: How much can you build on with the comeback?

A: "I think it's important that it happened in that particular game, therefore we don't come out of the game feeling shocked by Alabama. I think it's a real positive from that standpoint. The most important thing we'll see is that if we play well early, then we won't have to make that kind of surge at other times. I felt like we were capable of playing that way the whole game. We've got to play better than we played and with more of a sense of urgency early.

Q: What can you improve on?

A: "We let Alabama set the tempo. We've got to start faster. We can throw it, catch it and run it better on offense, and we can tackle better. There is no magic formula. We just have to perform at our level from start to finish better.

Q: How do you approach the SEC West now?

A: "We don't have control of our own destiny. The only thing we can control is the next game we play. We know traditionally that the Western Division is tough. Anything can happen. We have the opportunity to go out and compete and win the next game, and that's all we need to focus on. We don't need to worry about anything beyond that. We just have to let the chips fall where they may. To have any opportunity, we have to take care of our business. We're really going to zero in and focus on one game to play as well as we can play. We're going to focus on that game and Ole Miss, and that's all we can do.

Q: Talk about the mental wear from seven straight games.

A: "I think there is some wear. We approached that as a staff last week during the preparation. In my judgement, I thought we were a little mentally tired early in the week. And we backed off a little bit in practice, which I thought helped. I thought we knew what to do in the game. Really on both sides of the ball, we were where we needed to be. We just didn't make the plays. You've got to give Alabama some credit. They came in here and played an awfully good game. They didn't give us any help. They didn't turn the ball over. They played like a top 10 team should play. We still had a chance to make the plays that we didn't make. I do think we were ready to play. I don't think we were tight. I just think we didn't make the plays when we needed to make them early.

Q: Is this going to be a normal week of practice?

A: "It won't be normal because obviously it's an open date. We'll focus on the fundamentals during the open week. We'll certainly rest some people, as we're trying to get some people healed. We've got some people being evaluated now that got banged up in the game or have continued to be hurt. At that same time, we need to concentrate on Ole Miss. We will also be working on some things that we feel like we need to do for LSU to get a jumpstart there.

Q: Are there any consistent characteristics to the slow start?

A: "No, not really. We've taken the ball down the field and scored and had tremendous, long drives early. I don't think it's been a characteristic from game to game at all. I thought we got off to a pretty good start in the league. It's just been different from week to week. This particular game, it was a big game against an outstanding opponent. You don't want to spot them and put yourself in a 10-nothing hole to start with and then put yourself in a 27-7 hole in the second half. Basically, that's what we did.

Q: How does the off-week help Kendrick Clancy and Charles Stackhouse?

A: "There's no question its going to help Kendrick Clancy a great deal. I was surprised we got as much out of him in the game as we did. He's going to need some time off. With Charles, we'll just have to see. He's still questionable for the next game. We're really going to address it this week with him and see if we can get his strength level going like we want. Then from there, who knows. It will depend on how fast he can respond. We are now to a point where we can be a little more aggressive with his therapy. We'll just have to evaluate how he responds to that.

Q: Is it harder to recover from a loss like that?

A: "I don't think it's harder. They are going to hear it from me. They are going to see it from our staff. I think the thing it does is it makes you more determined than ever to truly disregard score - mean that, believe that and focus on Ole Miss first and foremost. We are going to get on that practice field and we're going to get better. We've got a great opportunity and a great challenge ahead of us. To be as prepared as we can be for that challenge, we're going to have to go right back to work. We're going to have to learn from this. I think we can. There's a lot from looking at his game on tape that we should learn from, and I expect us to do that. I expect to see that on the practice field immediately. I'm anxious to get these corrections out of the way and move forward.

Q: How is Keydrick Vincent?

A: "He did well but he got banged around some. Not having practiced anymore than he has, I just think it took a toll on him from a conditioning standpoint. I'm anxious to get him some conditioning work and get his legs back under him. But he played pretty well.

Q: Give us a midseason report.

A: "I think we've overcome a lot of things as a team. Starting back in camp, I never expected to have as many people miss practice time as we did. We're not very deep and we knew that going in. We've had to have a lot of people step up. I think it hindered us early as a team that we didn't get the continuity in practice. We never had our starting backfield out there together. It was just different things in the secondary and in the offense. Then we had different combinations of receivers every week. All of those things affected this team early and it's consistency. This team has fought like I thought it would. I've said it's been a good-attitude team starting back last spring. I still stand behind that. This team is a tough, physical football team. We will be in every game we play because of that. The thing we've got to do to get over the hump to win each and every game we play is we've got to execute at a level that is higher than what we are doing. We can't have a breakdown. It's not been one area, person or thing. I'm not calling us erratic. I don't think you can call a 5-2 team erratic. I just think from a coach's standpoint, I would like to see us more consistent than we have been. Although I'm awful proud of our team and staff and what we've gotten done. I do go back and pinpoint in August and early September a lot of missed practice time that affected us some. I'm anxious to get some people healthy and get the same feeling of a grove going here at the end. We've got two more games and then an open date, so we should hopefully have that opportunity if we get some good luck. I think a lot of teams have played well against us - taking care of the ball or whatever the situation may be. We have put ourselves in a position to have a real good year. We just have to try and finish it."

10/21/1999 | Football