Head Coach Ed Orgeron's Weekly Press Conference

OPENING COMMENTS

I will be anxious to put the Wake Forest game behind us obviously and get ready for a very good Georgia Bulldog football team. After watching the film, nothing has changed from my opinion after the game. They were able to gain 240 yards rushing. We were only able to gain 26. I think there was a difference in the game. At times in the second half, the offense tried to throw the ball a little too much because we were behind. That's kind of the defenses fault. We've got to keep the game a little closer so that we can run our offense. I think they get in predicaments to where they can rush the quarterback, we gave up five sacks and we're not very good at protecting our quarterback right now. We've got some things that we've got to get better at on our football team totally, and we're going to start this week getting ready for Georgia.

Looking at Georgia, they're very talented. They had a close game and found a way to win against Colorado. They're 4-0, 1-0 in the SEC . I think they're very talented at tailback. They have three guys that can run the ball. They're a basic football team, I-back football team, play-action, run the ball right at you, pick up your blitzes, very good on offensive line. They have a very good tight end, Martrez Milner. I think he's one of the better tight ends we're going to see this year. He can catch the ball and stretch the field vertically. They have some tall wide receivers that can beat you one-on-one. They throw the deep ball, so they're a very explosive offense. We know that the coach said Joe Cox or Matthew Stafford may start on Saturday, so we're going to prepare for both those guys. On defense they're very tough. They've given up six points a game, 6.2 yards a game. They're very similar to our scheme on defense, they just have great athletes that will play hard. We have our work cut out for us, but we're positive with our team today and we'll get after it.

Q: Does it matter which quarterback you see? Do you think that Cox has more confidence than Stafford?

A: Not so much. In that last drive that won the game, they threw three screens and went down the field and then hit the tight end vertical, so it wasn't much of a difference in the quarterback in my opinion. The team looked like they were fired up, so they may have been following one quarterback better than the other so we didn't see that much of a difference.

Q: Do you have any goals for getting some of your walking wounded back this week?

A: No. Chris Bowers is going to practice, but other than that I don't think we have any changes.

Q: Are there any plans to change practice this week?

A: No, we're going to continue with our plan. Nothing is going to change in that manner.

Q: After Saturday night, what are your thoughts about the quarterback?

A: We're going to stick with Brent (Schaeffer). We talked about it, we're going to stick with Brent. We think it's a combination of route running, protection, poor decisions of the quarterback so we're just going to continue on with Brent. Hopefully we can get better at all three things.

Q: What are some of the reasons you took Brent out ?

A: A combination of everything. Route running, decision making, a lot of pressure, inability to run the football, us getting behind, us giving up too many points on defense.

Q: You talked about fire and emotion, and they looked like they were lacking that a little bit. How do you address that to carry it over into the game?

A: I've been addressing it, so it's nothing new. I just think we need to find a way to get our guys fired up and take it one week at a time. I think that we'll be fired up to play against Georgia. They should be.

Q: When you mention "find a way", is that referring to defensively making improvements?

A: Definitely we need to make improvements on our tackling. We have to make improvement on how we fit the run. The only thing we don't have is a lot of choices on personnel. We barely have a second-team line, which is not an excuse that's just the way we are. We have to play with the guys that we have and hopefully make them better.

Q: When people criticize you and the players, how do you go about handling that or do you just totally block it out completely?

A: I block it out. We have a plan here. We know what we're trying to do. We know how hard we're working. Those are the things we try and strive for internally, and the rest of the stuff doesn't really matter.

Q: You talked about being disappointed with the team's competitive nature against Wake Forest. How do you change that?

A: At practice. Identify some things in practice. We're going to get after it a little more this week at practice. We're going to try to create some drills that bring out the competitive nature in our players and see how they handle it. We have to be really careful in doing that and not lose a player in practice. So it's a fine line in how hard you can go at it in practice in that we're very thin on our offensive line, so we don't want to lose another lineman.

Q: With the success that Wake Forest had running the football and Georgia's depth at running back, do you expect to see them really try and run the football?

A: Probably. I think teams that see how thin we are on defensive line and how we are not playing the run are probably going to come after us on the run.

Q: What did Colorado do against Georgia?

A: They played base defense. They played really well. A lot of plays that we play. They didn't blitz a lot. They didn't give up the big plays. They played really good defense.

Q: What has Michael Hicks done the last couple of weeks?

A: He's caught the ball well. We threw a lot of passes to him, and he caught them. I think that basically we're going to fit him in more to our plans. We have to on offense, find the guys that can make plays and use them.

Q: After four games now, what's the impact of all the changes regarding the play clock?

A: A little bit in between series that you have to hurry up. You have to hurry up with your call. There were a couple of times that we didn't get lined up right, because they were at the line of scrimmage. And especially when people put in their substitutions late, it's hard to get the call in. So I think you have to limit your calls on first downs sometimes and that's about it.

Q: Does it impact offense rather than defense or kind of both of them equally?

A: It's impacting us a lot on defense because we call according to personnel groupings, so it's hurt us a little bit. It hasn't impacted our offense at all.

Q: You mentioned that some of your guys may be having a little trouble catching the ball and Georgia has gone through that. Having been around some guys at USC who had some success with that, what is the difference between the guys that consistently hang on to the ball when it's thrown to them and those that don't?

A: I think first of all you have guys that have the confidence that can catch the football and those that don't. We had problems at USC with Mike Williams his freshman year. He couldn't catch the ball very well. He had a lot of dropped balls against Kansas State. We did a lot of drills with him at practice: jugs, machine. Coach (Pete) Carroll worked with him a lot with some catching drills and improvement on it, eye-hand coordination in the weight room. So there's a lot of things you can do.

Q: Does it mainly boil down to confidence though?

A: I think sometimes it does. Some guys get nervous out there, I guess. Sometimes it boils down to confidence, and sometimes it boils down to technique.

Q: There was difficulty with the running game. What accounted for that?

A: We ran the ball I believe 16 or 17 times and we averaged four yards a carry. We had 26 yards rushing, counting all the sacks, and we just went over it. In our power game, we're running the ball pretty well. I think we aborted it a little early, and we got behind. Those are some of the things.

Q: You talked a little bit about the impact of Brent Schaeffer and BenJarvus Green-Ellis on the offense. Can you assess their play especially with regard to this past weekend?

A: A little disappointing . We're not getting what we got out of BenJarvus and Brent the first game. I thought they were a lot more consistent the first game. We opened holes better, and we ran the ball harder in the first game. It seemed like guys are keying in on BenJarvus a little bit and overloading the front. We're not taking advantage of it, we're not running the ball as hard, and we're not blocking as well.

Q: With regard of having a new coordinator this year on offense, are you a whole lot different in what you're trying to do offensively?

A: Yes, we're completely different. Dan is running his offense, and I stay out of it. We're more of a two-back offense. We're not as much of a zone offense. The plays are completely different, and the call is different.

Q: Talk about what you see in Daverin Geralds at practice. Do you see him playing a lot more?

A: I don't think he's ready to play. He's a big, strong, great young man. I think eventually he's going to be an offensive lineman. He's what we have right now, and I'm glad to have him. I don't think he's ready to play consistently. I don't think he can do all the things that we want a defensive lineman to do in the SEC right now.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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