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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Houston Nutt Press Conference: 09.19
9/19/2011 | Football
Sept. 19, 2011
Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt met with the media on Monday and discussed the Rebels' loss at Vanderbilt and this week's game versus Georgia.
Opening Comments:
"First of all, I hate that we have to have a press conference like this. No one hates it more than I do. Anyone who was disappointed Saturday you can multiply that times 99 for me. It all starts with me. I appreciate Pete meeting with me and my staff and what he has done in the last 24 hours. Now the bottom line is that it is up to us as players and coaches to do our job. I am excited about the way we hit the field yesterday. I am excited about our leadership with our players. We have to be better on offense. Our defense gave us chances to win. If you look at the film closely they put us in position to score. The first wheel-route call that David Lee made was a beautiful call. It was a bootleg, but Zack didn't get the ball high enough and its was intercepted. That is how our season is going. We are about an inch short or a step late. We have to get that corrected. There is a fine line between winning and losing. That is what is so disappointing. I understand what it takes. We have good, young men who are playing hard. We have to get eleven playing hard on each play, especially on offense. You have to have eleven to make one play go. One guy can make a tackle, but it takes eleven on offense. This is the most difficult conference in America. Talking about bang for your buck, I always wonder why those stats don't come out the first few years when things are rolling. It is our responsibility. I feel this awesome responsibility to win for our fans and our players. I don't want our fans to give up on this team. We have 33 players who are freshmen or red-shirt freshmen who are first time players. There are a lot of good things that are going to happen. You have to hang in there. We will get the effort and the right attitude. Saturday was not it and I fully understand that. That was a really big curve ball because we had our best week in practice. For whatever reason we did not get the job done on Saturday. It is a bad vibe right now. Talking to the seniors on Sunday showed me that there is a lot of want still there. We have to get better and it starts right now."
On the offense:
"In my mind it is about execution. There are still a few guys we are trying to get ready such as Aaron Morris. A few of the young receivers need to get more plays such as Collins Moore and Tobias Singleton. The bottom line is about execution. Everybody needs to get their blocks and do their jobs. We were only getting about seven people on each play, and we have to get eleven people doing it the right way. You can't have that, especially not in our league. Even though Vanderbilt is better than they were in the past, there is no excuse for the way we played offensively."
On false starts:
"There was hesitation at the line of scrimmage. There is no excuse for the tackles to move. We can't hold the snap count that long. That is about coaching and you can't have that."
On the seniors:
"Wayne Dorsey had his best game as an Ole Miss Rebel and it is sad because the game was so bad you don't focus on that. He played his best ball game to date. Marcus Temple and Charles Sawyer are playing really well. The bottom line is that offensively we are having problems. We have to help our defense and keep them on the sideline. I think our offense understands that. David Lee came out and took all the blame, but it is not all his fault. It is all of us, starting with me. Its about getting the job done and getting eleven people on each play doing it the right way."
On the fan base:
"I have been inside a room and I don't hear that much about what goes on on the outside. I do know that when we come to play at Vaught-Hemingway our crowd is with us. They are waiting for us to make a play and cheer. I have been really appreciative of the first two home games. I thought they were awesome. I have never seen our students any better than they are this year. They have been there and they are waiting on us to give them something to cheer about. I don't look outside the walls. I didn't even know about the ad until right now. I have blinders on and I have an awesome responsibility to get the job done."
On job security:
"This is my fourteenth year and it is hard every day. There have been 30 something coaching changes since 1998 in the SEC. When I was younger my father never made over $30,000 a year as the athletic director and a coach at the Arkansas School for the Deaf. Every single day I feel an awesome responsibility to make a difference in these players lives, win football games and help them graduate. Along with that, is that you give to the fans and the ones who bring their kids to the games. Those are the ones that I respect. I know how hard it was for my dad to take four boys to a ball game back in the 1960s. We didn't get to go to every game. The times we did were wonderful. In the 1960s, it was an entertainment weekend. When the teams lost, it was always about doing better the following week and coming back to watch them. It is a different world now and everything is scrutinized down to every play call and rumor. Fans don't go for entertainment like they used to. Some do, but it is just a different world. Football is a big business. I feel the pressure every day when I wake up. There hasn't been much sleep lately. It is all about Ole Miss football and how we can get better."
On simplifying the offense:
"I sure didn't think it was complicated at the time when I sat and listened to the plan. David Lee has a brilliant mind and has done so many great things everywhere he has been. Obviously, we can't get lined up and substitutions aren't right. Illegal procedures can't be part of our personality. We will cut back a bit to make sure we know exactly what we are doing."
On play-calling:
"I am going to leave that with David, but I am going to be more involved with everything, especially on offense. I still believe in these coaches. I know that we are better than that and that they are going to get it done."
On emotion from the team:
"I think there is a lack of confidence. When you don't have confidence it is easy to fold. You have to have fight and we have always been known for that. You have to play with passion, energy and enthusiasm. From the first game on we had attitude and passion, especially on defense. On offense we haven't gotten that one big chunk of yardage on first down that gives you that confidence. It starts with the running game. It doesn't help when you lose players such as Enrique Davis and Brandon Bolden and you have to throw in a different set of running backs. Everyone has to step up and pull their weight."
On quarterbacks:
"Its about getting simple. It is going to be about throwing to a certain option as far as receiver selection goes. We need to take care of the ball. A lot of those interceptions weren't his [Zack Stoudt's] fault. It goes back to eleven players doing things the right way. He is going off of his read and suddenly gets hit in the back. It is hard to credit Zack with that interception because he didn't have time to follow through and get the ball down the field for a completion. It is hard to credit Zack with an interception when a ball gets tipped out of a receiver's hands. The receiver has to catch it. Those things add up and lead to a lack of confidence. We have to get confident and execute."
On Brady Hoke facing his previous team this coming weekend:
"It will be his most difficult week because of the ties and being in the living rooms of those players. You try to play it off during the week, but really when you kick off , look across the sideline and know the numbers and faces, it is more than that. It is a little deeper than you think. About that Sunday night and Monday you start watching film and start seeing young men who you have relationships with. You realize it is going to be a different week. It felt good to win the first two years, but after the game what was emotional was the players that you recruited speaking to you. With all the former players we recruited it was a different ball game."
On motivation:
"It is a fine line, but there is a little bit of being both encouraging and tough. They know we are going to be demanding. The tempo and attitude have been set. We worked hard all summer and had a really good preseason camp. The difference is that if we would have won our first game we wouldn't be in here like this. Winning builds confidence and that is why you want to win that first one so badly. Now it is about relationships and calling on players as Ole Miss Rebels to give me everything they have. You have to hit the right button to get that out of them."
On complacency in the locker room:
"I don't see that. We go by work ethic, attitude and how they carry themselves. I did not see complacency. The thing that was most disappointing was that on Saturday when something went badly they weren't able to overcome it. They need to have the attitude that they can overcome things, especially when they are going right. That's what is frustrating."
On Nickolas Brassell:
"He defended a lot of passes and he just needs to keep learning. He is a natural at cornerback and he will still help us on offense. He will help us a bit at spot play. He is a natural defender. He will get more practice time there and more in the game."
On Georgia:
"They are a good football team that is very athletic. They have a good quarterback in Aaron Murray and a good running game. They have good receivers. Their defense has been flying around. They could easily be 3-0 if you look at their film from playing Boise State and South Carolina. They were right there. They are a lot like us because they didn't make plays when they could have. They lost two games that were very close. They are athletic and Jarvis Jones is a very good defensive end. They can move him around and he is very good. Brandon Boykin their cornerback is fast and you have to watch him on special teams. They are a typical Georgia team."
On correcting the offense:
"We will shorten things down and not have as many play choices. We have to know exactly who we are stepping to or blocking. We can't have missed assignments and turn people loose. Those are loss-yardage plays. It is too hard to fight back from second-12 or third-13. That is the game that we can't get into."
On Randall Mackey:
"He will be available to play Saturday. It is a thigh bruise injury."
On the confidence of Georgia:
"They didn't get any this past Saturday. There are things there you see from the end of their games against Boise State and South Carolina that are similar between us and them."
On coaching fourteen seasons in the SEC:
"The thing about it is that winning is the cure-all. It is the anecdote we all need. There is nothing better than seeing a player excited in the locker room after a win. There is nothing better than the adrenaline running onto the field at Vaught-Hemingway when the atmosphere is electric. It is unbelievable. Coaching is difficult and it has gotten harder the last six years. Every year is a little bit harder. You have to love it and be totally committed. You have to love what you do every single day. You have to be wrapped up in making a difference in a young man's life. If you're in it for anything else, you won't make it."
On maintaining a family atmosphere year to year:
"When I first got here I thought there were great athletes, but they did not know how to win. They were individuals. Anytime something went wrong they would blame someone else. That was the pattern. What was so beautiful [about 2008] was that we grew together. Players don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. The players thrived off of that. That is the reason Michael Oher came back for his senior year because he wanted to win and go to a bowl game so badly. The family thing is harder to put together now because you are all not under one roof. The players live everywhere. I'll never forget that year because of the journey of togetherness. There was one heartbeat and everybody believed in one another. There was some good talent, but they just didn't know how to win. There wasn't a time we didn't step on the field without passion. We couldn't have gone to The Swamp and beaten Florida without that passion. We couldn't have beaten LSU the way we did without that. We had that. Right now, we have a lot of young guys who are bright eyed and looking around. They are going to be great, but they have to speed it up. That is where we need our seniors to say 'follow me' and show them the way."
On Mark Richt:
"If you look at his record and how well he has done, there should never be a question [about job security]. However, that is not the world in which we live. There are going to be questions. The bottom line is always 'Did you win the last game?' We didn't, so the water that we are in is going to be hot and we have to deal with it. It does surprise me. Not much, but a little bit."
