Ed Orgeron Weekly Press Conference

Opening Comments

We look forward to getting our team back today. We are going to watch the Arkansas film. Obviously we did not play very well. We are going to look at what we need to fix. We are going to correct it, go out onto the field and correct some plays and move on to Auburn. We are very excited to go down to Auburn to play a very strong football team.  We had a great battle against them last year, and we are going to be excited to get back to playing some good football.  

Q:  Are you preparing for two quarterbacks?

A:  We are going to have to have a plan for them because each is different. There is no doubt that the plans are a little bit different, more quarterback runs and stuff, so we will prepare for that.

Q:  Have you made any decision on your quarterback?

A:  Obviously we are not happy with the turnovers, and we looked at why the turnovers happened and we think they are correctable. Seth Adams is going to continue to be our starting quarterback but, there is going to be less room for error.  If he shows that he cannot do it, we will put Brent Schaeffer in there.

Q:  What were the correctable mistakes at quarterback?

A:  Just technical stuff, like forcing the ball where he did not need it. The defenders were in good position, and he should not have thrown the ball. A couple times the receiver should have broke out or in and did not. So it was just a combination of everything; combination of him and timing or that we had poor protection most of the game.

Q:  How does BenJarvus Green-Ellis remain steady?

A:  I think it is his personality. He is very mature. He is very goal orientated. He is focused. He is a team guy. He is a leader. He is not very vocal leader but he leads by example, and I think that is one of his strengths, that he can stay steady.

Q:  Is Michael Herrick in the mix at quarterback?

A:  Michael is always in the mix, but right now we think that Brent is our second team quarterback.

Q:  Do you feel you’re running out of time this season?

A:  We cannot let that happen. We are excited about going to play Auburn, regardless of record. We want to play well, and we want to go down there and beat Auburn. We will look at everything after the season, but right now we take it one week at a time, one game at a time, have a lot of good football left.  We have Auburn, Northwestern State, LSU and Mississippi State. Those are some big games for us, and we are going to take them one at a time. My focus, my goal is to get our team to play better this week. 

Q:  What is the status of Jamarca Sanford?

A:  I think he may play this week. I think he may practice a little bit today, so we will see how he is doing. 

Q:  Do you think Tony Fein has turned the corner?

A:  It looks like he has. He had a real strong performance. He was in the right place.  I know that John Thompson worked a lot with Tony. Tony has been spending extra time in learning our defense, learning his keys, and he really showed a lot of promise in the game against Arkansas. It reminded us of what we saw on film when we recruited him. We are looking forward to him having a bigger roll. We will see this week who will start. He is going to have to perform well this week, but we are really excited with the way he played.

Q:  Talk about the linebackers in general.

A:  They are getting better. They are in the right spots. They are missing fewer tackles. We still have a ways to go. They missed some tackles against Arkansas and still missed some fits, but they are 10 times better than they were at the beginning of the season.

Q:  Did Chris Strong play tackle?

A:  Yes, and he played well. We think that may be a long term move for Chris, and we gave him the chance to play linebacker. The topic came up before to move him down the defensive line, but we did not have the second team middle linebacker and we could not do it. He wanted to play middle linebacker, but his weight is such that he looks like a defensive lineman. He looked very good last week in practice at defensive line. We hope to play him more at defensive lineman. He seems like he is happy at defensive lineman, and we can use some help there.

Q:  Is Strong’s weight where you want it to be for the line?

A:  Ironically, he played defensive lineman and lost four pounds. Right now he is about 270. He is quick he is strong and right now he is backing up Peria Jerry. His knees are starting to hurt him a little bit, and we are going to play Chris in there.

Q:  Do you have more confidence in Schaeffer than the end of last year?

A:  I think he is improving on a daily basis. He has done for the most part the things that we have asked him to do. He has come out to practice, and really he has been positive most of the time. He is in a tough situation. It’s your senior year, you are a second team quarterback, but he really has not complained. He has been to work. He is going to school, so yes I have more confidence in him today than I had

Q:  How did the change at punter work out?

A:  Average. We still did not get the job done like we wanted to. We have Bryan Powers. He came in as three-step punter and the adjustment to being a two-step punter is taking a little longer than we thought. We do not want our guy to go in there and take three steps and have his punts get blocked. He has a very strong leg. We think that he will be in the position in the spring to be able to push for the starting position.

Q:  What are your impressions of Auburn?

A:  I think they are very tough. I thought they really took it to LSU. I thought they went into Tiger Stadium, which we all know is a very tough place to play, and went down there and drove them right at the beginning of the game. I thought they played very well.  Their running backs run very hard, and their defense is very tough.  I just saw a little bit of the end of the game, but I thought they went in there and played an excellent game. Obviously we saw what they did against Arkansas. I think that Trey Blackmon coming back helps them. He is a very good player. They play a solid defense. Quentin Groves, we all know about him. You have to know where he is at all times. Ben Tate is a big running back, and Brad Lester really runs the ball hard. The quarterback has been playing better, not turning the ball over.

Q: What made you decide on Adams as the starter?

A:  We looked at our game film and talked to Dan (Werner) and the offensive coaches. If it was all just Seth being in the tank, we would have played Brent, but we think it was just a combination of things and we think that he can get it fixed.

Q:  Describe Greg Hardy.

A:  He has his own characteristics, but basically he is a great young man. He has high motor. He is high strung. Against Arkansas, they had two tight ends, which was difficult for him. We looped him outside a couple times, and I think on the first third down we rushed them and they ran a power his way. We blitzed everybody and that was a changing point in the game. We just could not cut him loose as much as we wanted to in the run game, although he made plays. I think Greg is an outstanding young man, and I think that he is going to be an outstanding football player for us. He probably has a shot at being one of the best defensive linemen in the country.

Q:  Has the turnovers of late affected Adams?

A:  He is a very confident young man. I think he is very steady, very mature. I think that obviously he is thinking about it, and we will see this week but I expect him to bounce back. I have a lot of confidence in Seth. He knows who he is and how to compete.

Q:  Who do you expect to start on the offensive line?

A:  We do not know yet. I think Thomas Eckers is a little bit banged up right now. John Jerry’s strength is his pulling. We ran the power a bunch of time and that is one of his fortes. He is fun to watch. He is very athletic, so we are pleased to have him back. He is also very vocal, and we just like him back with us.

Q:  What did Fein do well on Saturday?

A:  He was in the right spot right spot and made the right reads. Tony is a big, strong, physical linebacker, and when he hits you he knocks you back. He is a good tackler, and he can make some plays on the perimeter. Our mike linebacker has to be seen in the middle, and we expect him to play sideline to sideline. If you make the wrong read, you miss the pitch, and the ball is going north and south on you. He did that a lot better this week than he has been, and that was why he wasn’t playing as much.

Q: What progress are you seeing in the team?

A: I saw a lot of progress against Florida, and I saw a lot of progress against Alabama. It’s kind of like one game, one week at a time. These questions were not asked to me last week. It just seemed we had a bad game. We didn’t play well. We have played well against some pretty good football teams. I expect us to play well throughout the end of the season. The stats are something you look at the end of the year. They are not something you worry about right now. We have the leading sacker in the SEC, but that doesn’t mean much today. What we need to deal with right now is getting better, and playing a great game at Auburn and winning a game on the road. That is what we are focused on.

Q: How would Sanford’s return affect the secondary?

A: We aren’t able to say that right now as whom it is going to affect, but it would give us a great tackler back there. It gives us some confidence. We know that he is going to be at the right place. He is kind of like the quarterback back there. I think he makes the other players around him better.

Q: Is the inconsistency frustrating you?

A: I don’t know any team in America that is going to be sky high every game, because I haven’t been on one yet. I think what you saw Saturday is we really weren’t sky high like we were against Alabama. We need to get that way. We need to work to get that way in every SEC game to play our best football. It wasn’t that we weren’t ready. We just weren’t sky high on Saturday, and you can see the tempo in the game especially in the first quarter. Arkansas’ speed took us and we battled back, but then turnovers hurt us. We need to learn as a team that we need to give it our best effort.

Q: Talk about your time in Miami with Tommy Tuberville.

A: We learned a lot of football together, and he is a very good coach. He actually helped me get down to Miami, and we are really good friends. We didn’t have any money. All we basically did was coach football and work our way up. We were like sponges down there. We listened to everything Jimmy Johnson said. We listened to everything Dave Wannstedt said. The thing I appreciated most about being down in Miami is that Coach Johnson didn’t treat us like graduate assistants. We were full-time coaches, and he expected us to be full-time coaches. We won a lot of games together. I think we really got close when there was a change. Coach Johnson left for the Cowboys, and Tommy and I stayed. Coach Erickson came in, and we had the opportunity to teach those guys the 4-3 defense. I think that’s where we blossomed. We had some good teams and some good players.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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