Head Coach Tommy Tuberville Press Conference Transcript

October 5, 1998

Opening Remarks:

To summarize last week's game, I thought we made some improvements, especially on offense. We played a little bit better on the offensive line. This week our offensive player of the week was Todd Wade. He played awfully well and was very consistent. He has become more of a consistent blocker on the run, plus his pass protection. Our offensive line was a big key for us being able to move the ball.

Romaro Miller made some excellent plays. He's becoming a better and better quarterback. He's learning to stay in the pocket, and it showed on a couple of passes, especially the touchdown pass to Grant Heard. A couple of weeks ago he probably wouldn't have done that, staying in the pocket with the pressure from the outside, but he's getting better.

I think we're getting a lot more healthy. Rufus French played about 85 or 90 percent, but he should be 100 percent this week.

It was just big plays that finally showed up for us on offense. We had some third down plays that were big. We had some execution on first down on six and seven yard runs that we didn't have in the past.

One concern we had was that three times in the ballgame we had gained nine yards on the run on first down and ended up not making the first down after only lacking a yard with two downs to go. That's something we'll work on this week.

Defensively, we didn't play very well the first half. I think that had a lot to do with preparation. We weren't prepared for the four wide receiver set. We looked more at what they had done the previous two games. They came out and changed and went to their wide receivers in the short passing game.

We played probably a little too much zone in the first half and didn't make enough adjustments, but I'll give it to our defensive coaches. At halftime, we didn't make the right adjustments. We didn't completely stop them, but they did a good job of executing their offense.

On defense, our player of the week was Michael Boone. On special teams, there's still a concern. Our field goal kicker was inconsistent and didn't do a very good job. Don Juneau will continue to be our field goal kicker this week. We're going to stay with him. We feel like he can get the job done. We just have to wait and see how he does in practice this week. He's still not 100 percent with his leg.

Tony Cannion was our special teams player of the week. He did a good job on all coverage teams and returns. He continues to keep the special teams intact. He's one of our few seniors on the team, and he continues to get better.

With only a handful of seniors and being 4-1 at this time, I think that we're farther ahead of what we thought we would be, just looking at the schedule.

I'm very proud of the way the team has played effort-wise. We've won some games in the fourth quarter. We're growing up. We're getting better. We're not the best team in the country right now or in this conference, but at least we still have a chance to stay in the race on the Western side. We still lack a couple of wins to be bowl-eligible, so we have a lot of things in front of us. The number one thing we want to do is continue to get better.

Hopefully we will stay healthy enough. We have Derrick Burgess back. We have Morris Scott back. Shawn Johnson is becoming more of a factor on defense. On offense, Mitch Baker is getting better as a replacement of Terrence Metcalf. We're just looking forward to getting stronger with this game and make it to next week's open date, which is much needed.

Q: How about your last few games with Alabama?

A: We don't talk much about what has happened in the past with any team. This team is a different team, and Alabama is a lot different. They have really changed their philosophy on offense. They have gone to a more wide-open attack. It's not the same type of offense we faced last year with the two-back running game and play-action. They have really opened it up and changed philosophies a great deal.

Defensively, they are still running the ball very well and making things happen. They've got good defensive players with a lot of speed, and they've really improved since the first game. We don't talk a lot about traditions with what has happened with this team in the past. It really doesn't make any difference. You've got to go out and play for four quarters and do the best you can do, and hopefully you can get the job done.

Q: How about Anthony Magee?

A: Anthony Magee is about 90 percent. He got a deep thigh bruise and really couldn't push off of it during the game, so Syniker Taylor was able to come in and do well. He made some key mistakes in coverage and really hurt us three times, but that's going to happen with a true freshman. He didn't get as much of a break as he would have liked during the game; he's not used to playing that much. Syniker Taylor is getting better and better, and Anthony Magee will play.

Q: And how is Adam Bettis?

A: Adam Bettis probably will not practice tomorrow. He's got a deep heel bruise that affected him last week during the game. He played, wasn't 100 percent, but should be better this week.

Q: What is the status of Ross Barkley?

A: Ross Barkley will be back. He will do our kickoffs this week if he can kick. We're still not pleased with what happened last week with our kickoffs, but Ross Barkley has got the ability. He's just got to get healthy.

Q: How far along do you think you are after the game Saturday?

A: I think we're a little bit closer than we were. We're still a long ways from being the best we can be. I told our team we're about 60-65 percent of our capabilities. We're still making mistakes. It was good last week to see that we didn't turn the ball over on offense. I think we tackled a little bit better the second half defensively than we did the first half. We still haven't put a good game together with our offense and our defense playing in sync along with our special teams. I think that's down the road. It could be this week, or it could be the week after.

We've got the ability, and we're getting the effort out of our players in practice. It's been a long six weeks, not having an open date. I think cutting back on practice last week helped our guys get their legs back a little bit. Now we've got to go out this week and execute a little bit better, and hopefully we can play a lot better than we did last week on both sides of the ball.

Q: Talk a little bit about the pros and cons of playing a freshman quarterback.

A: It's tough starting a freshman quarterback because you're really limited in what you can do. We started the year with Romaro, and he probably knew about 50 percent of our offense. Then you look at the checks he has to make during the game and the situations you put him in (short yardage and long yardage). It's really tough on a young quarterback to execute.

Of course they have a quarterback who can scramble and make big plays, and that will help him. That will enable him to get out of bad situations and make good plays. That's the look we had with Romaro at the beginning of the year. He's been good for us at times when the play hasn't been there to get us into a plus-yardage situation, and I'm sure that's what Alabama's looking for. If the play's not there, he can make something out of a bad play and turn it into a good play.

Q: Talk about the play of Eddie Strong.

A: Eddie Strong is getting better and better. He still gets confused at times with the defenses we run. We tried to not cut back on our defensive schemes. We've tried to keep running the things we've been running the past couple of years. He struggles, but the thing he does is that no matter if he does the right or wrong thing, he does it 100 percent. He's all over the field, he makes plays, he makes interceptions. He's caused fumbles. He's had sacks. He's a good blitzer. He's getting to be a better tackler. His best football is in front of him.

He's looking forward to playing at Alabama. He's got some friends on that team. Every week he surprises me in practice because of his work ethic. He never gets tired. He continues to practice hard, and because of that he's gotten better and better.

Q: Are you going to cut back on practice time this week?

A: Yes, not because we won last week, but because this is the sixth straight game we have played along with a month of practice before that. We've still been a little tired, but I thought last week we had our legs a little bit better in the fourth quarter, so we'll cut back on practice and try to get our game plan in. We're not able to work as much on technique as we would like, but we've got all of next week to go back to basics and try to iron out some things that we're not doing the way we would like.

I think the key to this game for us is just to go in with the confidence that we're 4-1. No matter who we're playing, Alabama is a good football team. They have excellent players. They have a lot of speed on their team. They have a lot of big playmakers. We're going into a hostile environment for the first time this year on the road, and it's their homecoming. It'll be an interesting situation for a young football team. We haven't been in a hostile environment, but we're going to throw our hat in the ring and see how it turns out.

Q: Do you think the short-yardage problems are execution problems?

A: I think our short-yardage problems are execution. We got beat at the line of scrimmage a couple of times last week. The week before we didn't make the proper blocks on the back side. We'll make some changes, and we do every week with our short yardage. Hopefully we're not as predictable as we looked Saturday, but there's no reason on two downs why you can't get a foot or two feet, no matter who you're playing. If you're playing the Dallas Cowboys, sooner or later somebody's going to block somebody. Short yardage is a mentality, and we tell our offensive and defensive players that when we have a goal line defense on the field it's a different mentality. We have to play for broke, take chances and try to make plays because there's no second chance.

The same thing with offense--we got the ball on the one-yard line. There's really no second chances. Most of the time I'm not going to go for a field goal on the one or two yard line. We're going to try to get six points or seven points, because if you don't it's field position. We got a safety Saturday out of a situation where we didn't get a touchdown. It's just a mentality we try to get into our players and again something else we're trying to teach a young team. Last year we were better in short yards than we are this year. Hopefully we'll continue to get better and learn from the mistakes that we made.

Q: Is Anthony Wright the best quarterback you've seen this year, and is Shaun Alexander the best running back you're seen this year?

A: Shaun Alexander played well against us last year, along with Curtis Alexander. He'll be the best running back that we've seen, and Anthony Wright was no doubt the best quarterback that we've seen. He made plays and was able to get out of situations, and that's what they're looking at this week with this young quarterback. They've decided to go with a guy who's more mobile, and I can understand that because that's what we've done in the past.

Q: Do you have to play defense differently for Andrew Zow than you would for John David Phillips?

A: I think you probably would. I think what we talked with our players last week going into South Carolina is that we have to be more responsible when it comes to containment--making sure you keep him in the pocket and looking for the quarterback draw a little bit more if you're a linebacker. You have to be a little more aware of when you're playing man coverage that you have to stay with your man a lot longer, because he can get out of the pocket and scramble and throw on the run. We have had a little bit of work in playing time against a scrambling quarterback.

Against a quarterback who can't run, you don't have to worry about containment. You can come under blockers and make things happen. If you force them out of the pocket, you don't have to worry about them as much. It's an extra benefit for a wide-open attack like Alabama is running now to have a quarterback that can put pressure on you as well as the wide receivers--three, four or five wide receivers they have in the game.

Q: Are you expecting a lot of offensive changes by Alabama with Zow at quarterback?

A: I'm sure they can make a few changes, but with a young quarterback you can't go in and make a lot of wholesale changes with your offense. You can put in a few more plays and different formations, but if you change your offense totally in one game, you're looking at having execution problems.

I'm sure that they're going to go in and keep it basic and try to get him more involved in running the ball with sweeps, quarterback draws, the nakeds, to try to get more yardage out of bad plays. Just looking at their offense with the speed they have, it'll probably be an extra boost to their offensive linemen because he can get outside. It'll be interesting to see how he plays and how we defense him.

Q: Talk about the progress of Joe Gunn.

A: Joe Gunn is getting better and better. He and Deuce McAllister and Tony Cannion really work well together. Tony showed last week that having legs in the fourth quarter really pays off.

Joe's becoming more of a physical runner. He does the twisting and turning, but he's always going north and south. He'll get some positive yards. He'll very seldom give you negative yards we saw last year when John sometimes would give you negative yards. He's really improved his pass catching and blocking. He's been a little bit banged up. He's been sore because he hasn't been hit like he's been hit the past few weeks. He's looking forward to the open date, but the short practices have really helped our running backs be able to get their legs back and be less sore going into the game.

Q: Is the team getting more confident as the season goes along?

A: Our team is getting more confidence. We don't talk a lot about the other team during the week or where we're playing. We talk about going out and executing and trying to be confident no matter what happens. As long as we're in range in the third and fourth quarter, we feel like we're in pretty good shape, and that if we execute we'll have a chance to win.

Just to listen to the way our players talked Saturday shows you they're confident. Romaro Miller said that it didn't make any difference whether they got the field goal or not. He felt like we could score in a minute and a half, and we possibly could have. I kind of liked the way it ended, but just the confidence is getting better and better with the whole team. We just have to pick certain parts of it up--the kicking game, coverage teams, some of our execution of defensive backs. We've just got to pick that up to be a better team.

Q: Talk about your play in the fourth quarter.

A: We've won a lot of games in the fourth quarter in the last 10 games. I think we learn a lot from it. I wish we'd win some in the first half instead of in the second half all the time, but that goes with not being able to execute for four quarters. If we'll just hang in and stay in the game and not give away the game in the first half--and the games are going to get tougher and tougher- -we'll have a chance to win quite a few games if we'll give ourselves a chance.

Q: Are you surprised to be 4-1?

A: I'm a little bit surprised the way the ballgames have gone. I thought that with the way we executed on defense Saturday we put ourselves in a hole. I didn't realize we'd come back and play well the last half of the third quarter and the fourth quarter. South Carolina's the best 1-4 team I've ever played. They have a lot of talent and a lot of speed. Then we came back from 22 points in Dallas the week before.

We've got a chance to be a good team. I knew we were going to be a pretty good team if we could make it to the second half of the season without major injuries and if we had a little confidence and kept improving. We have had some serious injuries, like to Terrence Metcalf. I think we've got some confidence, and now that we're going into the second half we have won some games. I am a little bit surprised, but I'm not surprised that we're getting better because we only have five seniors on the team, and you can only get better if you win those close games.

Q: Talk about how Alabama played Saturday.

A: Alabama played well. They took a lot of chances. They really got after the quarterback. You look back at Florida, and they struggled because their running game hasn't been there. When they lost Fred Taylor, it showed up against Tennessee and Alabama. A lot of times when you're one-dimensional, especially inside the 20, we found out a couple of years ago it gets tougher and tougher no matter what happens people can make plays against you. I think that's what's causing Florida to struggle a little bit.

Alabama played awfully hard. Their players got more confident as the game went on. They're a young team, and they started making plays on defense and felt like they could stop them every time once they held them a couple of times.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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