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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Houston Nutt Press Conference: 10.3
10/3/2011 | Football
Oct. 3, 2011
Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt met with the media Monday and discussed the Rebels' win at Fresno State and the team heading into the open date.
Opening comments:
"It is always good to win. That is the medicine that we have needed. I think we are going to be much more physical this week. We can't give up. We have to play a lot more physical and do a better job with gaps. Offensively, I think we took a good step and we need to build off of that. We needed those points. Saturday night it felt good to score and stay on the field. When we do what we are supposed to do and execute we have a good chance to stay on the field and get the ball in the hands of playmakers. There was the one punt return on special teams, but they are doing a good job and are giving tremendous effort. We have had some guys step up. Joel Kight, Ralph Williams and Aaron Garbutt have to continue to step up. As we turn and go into the teeth of our schedule, we have to raise our level. We have to be physical and keep being competitive. We are in the toughest league, and you can see it on film."
On Randall Mackey:
"I thought Randall did an outstanding job for his first start. I thought he made some really good decisions. He sat in the pocket and was not looking to run. The times where things did collapse he ran, escaped and gave us positive yards. He made some throws out of the pocket. The best thing is how he handled everything and his communication. Those were some of the things we were concerned about but he did a really good job there. He throws a beautiful deep ball and was very accurate. He even had a couple of balls that were dropped that probably could have been caught. When you have your running backs healthy that helps too. They are a quarterback's best friend. We had a healthy Brandon Bolden, Enrique Davis and Jeff Scott. That helped."
On the freshmen:
"I am really proud of Nickolas Brassell and Donte Moncrief. They have stepped up for us. All of them have been doing well. Tobias Singleton on kickoff returns, as well as Keith Lewis and Serderius Bryant have all stepped up. Donte showed a burst on that tunnel screen. He almost got into the endzone. That was a big play for us and it changed field position. Those guys are playmakers and they are learning the speed of the game. It will be faster starting next week. We are not afraid to get them involved in the game plan. They are unselfish, like when Brandon had that RBI block and Donte turned and sealed that off going in the endzone. I thought that was great."
On Brandon Bolden:
"This is the best he has been. He has been working awfully hard. There for a while he was OK running straight ahead and covering kicks. When you are a tailback you have to start, stop and cut when you make decisions with a lot of stress on the ankle. He is not 100 percent but that is the best he has been and that really helps us. Hopefully with these two weeks he will be 100 percent by the time we play Alabama"
On the bye week:
"This week is going to give us some extra time to get people healed up and get them as healthy as possible. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we are going to get better. We are going to be more physical and go good against good. We will simulate the speed of the game. We want to get better and be tougher. I think fundamentally we can still get better and use that time to do it. We will take time with younger guys that are being redshirted and give them more time and attention. We want those days to be days where we get better, go hard-nosed, get physical and get ready to play the best team in the country. We are really going to start recruiting on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We will take full advantage on this open date and hone in on the recruiting. It should be a good week of football and recruiting."
On consistency:
"I saw it more. It still is not good enough . We still had an illegal procedure, and even though there have been three different voices at quarterback there is no excuse for that. We cannot have people in motion. We have to know who to block. There are still times where we miss and go the wrong way. We cannot have that. That is what creates stops and having to punt the ball. There is no room for error now. We are going to put a lot of emphasis this week on that and I think they will really get the message. It is about the little things, doing them right and being consistent. They need to see that you score points when you do things the right way. We are better but we are no where near where we need to be."
On Melvin Harris:
"I was really proud of Melvin. He had a really good week of practice and competed hard. He has a 6-7 height advantage. He can get a fade or a deep ball. It looked just like last year's play in the same area. That will help him confidence wise."
On the defense:
"They have gotten some critical stops and have been really good in the red zone unlike last year. I want to be more physical at the line and linebackers. I want our safeties to come up and make tackles. We need to be physical at the point of attack. Fresno is a good team and if you don't go out there with the right frame of mind you will get beat. Their running back and receiver are as fast as we will see. Carr is a good quarterback. He can escape and draw things in the dirt and make them happen. They have a good team. I was proud of our guys to go that far away and play the way they played especially the defense, who shut them down on some critical plays."
On the offensive game plan:
"We scaled back the protections. We thought we had too many protections. It isn't anything that you can do to scale back on the backs and receivers. It doesn't do any good if you can't protect; if you are confused on the front. That was the number one thing we did; we scaled down the protections. David Lee has done a good job of calling plays and mixing things up. It's so important to get rid of the ball and get it to the playmakers. We really wanted to establish our running game against Fresno State and that was good to see. It was good to get Brandon Bolden back going. It was good to see the receivers create separation and get going. We will add a few things here and there, but we don't want to bog those guys down. We want them to play fast. I thought Bradley Sowell really came back and gave that senior effort that we have been needing. I was proud of him. Alex Washington is a senior and is very knowledgeable. We need everyone to keep fighting. No one's job is secure. We still feel like we can get better. There is not time to be comforable. We want to keep improving and getting better."
On Randall Mackey's mobility"
"The biggest thing that we saw in the first few weeks was if Zack Stoudt and Barry Brunetti were totally protected we were totally fine, but we aren't to that stage. The defenses we are going to face are going to be better than what we played in the first five weeks. It takes a man who can stay in there long enough but not take a sack. He has a timer in his mind that says I have to get rid of the ball. Even if you may not see it coming from your blind side you still have to feel it. Some guys have it and some don't. We feel like Randall has that instinct of when to get rid of the ball and he is accurate. I was really proud of how he played, competed and managed the team."
On Randall Mackey's maturity:
"First of all, I want to make sure we understand he didn't do anything wrong except stay out too late. He isn't a fighter or troublemaker. He didn't throw a punch. I wish I would have rethought that a little bit better. I wish I would have had him for a half that first game, but that's behind us. He has been an awfully good person. It hurt him like it hurt all of us. He is a guy that takes things personally and is a quiet guy. He just went to work. He knew he made a mistake. He just went to work on the scout team just like last year. He was very good. I can say that about all three of our quarterbacks. I really appreciate their attitudes. You never know. We are probably going to need all of them at some point this year. Randall has handled and is scoring points. That is what we have been lacking."
