Tuesday is coordinator day at UK football practice, meaning defensive coordinator Rick Minter held his weekly meeting with the media. He talked about trouble stopping the run, what Mississippi State does well, another position shift for one senior and more. You can see a full transcript of his comments below:
What problems does Mississippi State present?
About 185 yards worth of running, about 215 yards-per-game passing. They're 4-0. They're a good football team. They're well-coached. They pride themselves on the physical toughness of the play because of the style of play that they run, kind of a gap-blocking, zone-blocking team. Big guys up front, good solid passing game, so we've got our hands full. We're looking forward to the challenge on Saturday -- at noon finally.
Other than the Auburn game, how much can you glean from their previous opponents?
These other guys got at them pretty darn good. South Alabama even in this last ball game for a good while hung with them, disrupted them and did the things that you like. Troy is always a challenge to anybody in the SEC for a good while on their game film. The other one was what, Jacksonville State? They all played them pretty good, but they're a good football team. They're a complete team. I know on our side, we're trying to attack. They've got a veteran quarterback who is perhaps throwing the ball better than he did this time a year ago. Mix that with a good solid, tough-nosed approach of the coach and the way they like to play, they'll bring it.
What did South Alabama do to disrupt them?
Their guys just came off the ball and disrupted their basic runs. Played similar fronts. They're a four-down team. Got after their front offensive five a little bit, caused them some concern for awhile until they figured it out, kind of got in a groove and put them away pretty good in the second half. For a good while they hung in there well.
You said Saturday South Carolina decided at the half to run it at your defense. How much were you hurt by Mister Cobble not playing?
You know what? If we had to say who probably played the best of all of our d-linemen the other night, it was probably Tristain Johnson. The guy played like a champion. He really wasn't the issues.
I think we're young at linebacker. It's always somebody on almost every play that's a little bit different. It's not just one guy, not just one area in this run-game business that we're into right now. If I'm them, that's what I would have said -- 26 yards rushing at the half, what's wrong with that picture? They kind of abandoned what they had worked on for weeks and kind of just got back into old-fashioned, Steve Spurrier rock-em, sock-em (football). It worked.
Tristian Johnson said this week he became more serious about his job and work ethic. Have you seen that?
You'd have to take his word for what he says. I'm not at liberty to tell you what I think.
So he's still a joker?
Nah, he's doing a good job. He's kind of the jester. He's the court jester. He brings a sense of urgency, really a sense of energy, passion to play, runs around. He's kind of our Luke McDermott guy. It's kind of the same role, but yet he's been thrust into a starting role and he's really embraced that pretty darn good. He's really filled in quite well.
Did Mister Cobble practice today?
Yes. He participated. He's still a little bit day-to-day, but we'll be looking forward to getting his big tail back in there.
On Saturday you talked about problems on third down, but how much of that goes back to big gains on first down?
I'd tell you what: we had six first downs that we did not stop them in that we're all under third-down-and-one-or-two. You're not going to win many of those. We did happen to stop them a time or two in that, but you're not going to win many third-and-ones, third-and-twos. I don't care who you are. What we can't allow people to do is make the convertible third downs. Third-and-six, we should have been off the field around the 40-yard line. We had a busted coverage, let a guy run for 20 yards. That put them down on the goal line. We ended up stopping them on the goal line, but third-and-14-15, down at Florida. If we just win the ones that we're in the driver seat of, we'll work backward and try to get better on first and second down to not bring up all third and ones. When you're playing a running team that's pretty good at running the ball, you're going to come up with some short yardage. For them to come up with six plays, all third-and-two or less -- in fact five of them were one and one was two -- I don't think we stopped them but maybe one of those. We got to get better, but it's hard to get better at that far. The thing to get better at is -- like you say -- one first and second down we're averaging five yards a run.
With Dakotah Tyler out, is Martavius Neloms going to play more safety than cornerback now?
I would say right now that Neloms is headed toward staying at safety for a good while, if not maybe all the time. What's allowed us to do that -- we were going to do this anyway, put him back where he really is a veteran -- because the evolution of the corner play. Cartier Rice is back and healthy, and we've got the other three kids coming, so that's allowed us then the flexibility. Now it's out of necessity that we almost have to do it. (Ashely) Lowery's injury, he's kind of day-to-day. You hope to have him back. Te' is really comfortable at safety. He's now helped himself in all kinds of ways here and down the road just to become more versatile.
In his weekly meeting with the media, UK defensive coordinator Rick Minter touched on a number of topics Tuesday, including how his defensive line performed without Mister Cobble against Florida, his freshmen cornerbacks, South Carolina's offense and more. You can read all his comments in the transcript below:
When you went back and looked at the film how did the guys that filled in for Mister Cobble do?
Oh, they held their own. They’re not 315 or 320. That’s part of the issue playing in the SEC. They got knocked down a little bit. They battled hard and they played hard – that was (Tristian) Johnson and (Christian) Coleman kind of filling in. If we had them filling in together, they might be about as big as (Cobble).
We’re not going to invent any new bodies and we can’t put any weight on these guys in three days, so it’s the same guys. They’ll get better. They’ll play with more confidence. One guy’s adversity is another guy’s opportunity. So hopefully Tristian Johnson and Coleman will play better, more confident, more relaxed, that sort of thing.
What did you see from freshman cornerback Cody Quinn, and given how well he played why didn't we see him sooner?
I don’t know. I guess he just started playing good. They’re all three good young freshmen. They’re all three good takes. Fred (Tiller) and J.D. (Harmon) and Cody (Quinn) are all good takes. We got Cody in that previous ball game, and we saw what he could do. We practiced him all week with Cartier’s (Rice) situation, and we felt like of all the kids he’s really going to have the most grace under fire. He’s got calm, cool confidence. He’s out of Ohio. They play great football in Ohio. He played for a good friend of mine. So he’s in there -- not necessarily to stay --but he’s in there to play as we’re going to play all three of those freshmen in there at corner. So he makes us better because he gives Martavius (Neloms) and Cartier a blow. They’re highly involved on special teams, so it gives us an opportunity to play those guys.”
How did your squad improve to make the stops against Florida, especially the back-to-back three-and-outs to start the game?
You know, we kind of got better but we didn’t. Until the end result changes, until we get better on third down, 12 out of 17, until we get better at stopping the run, 200 yards, the result’s not going to change. It comes in spurts. If you get off to a good start, it gives your team a chance. We held them. That 94-3 stat I read that over like the last five years. We helped that a bit because we held them to three. We’re a young team and we’re trying to build on something. So we did build on those three-and-outs early, but once again, our worst drive of the game was the one answering the second half.
That’s two weeks in a row where the worst drive of our game was the second half. So we’ve got to address all the little things, whether it be adjustments, whether it be demeanor, whether it be recovery, whether it be they’re in there chilling now, drinking Gatorade and all that stuff. Do we not answer the bell? You know, we’ve been a slow starting team -- whether it be on offense, defensively or special teams – in a lot of areas timing wise. And we’ve been slow out of the gate in the second half. We’ve got to get that corrected.
How much does does last year's South Carolina game where they were still throwing the ball late in a blowout with backups in stick with you?
They haven’t changed. They’ve done that the first four games. I expect that to be the norm if they have that opportunity. (Steve) Spurrier’s not changing. That’s who he is: a quarterback at heart who loves to throw the ball. They’ve got a great offense, they really do, and they’ve been playing well as a team. It’s put them in position. Even the last play of the game, they don’t take knees. They just keep getting reps to the next unit. That’s kind of their attitude about it: keep firing away, keep doing their offense. It’s our job to stop them, not their job to take the air out of the ball. It’s going to be our job to make sure they can’t do that.
How tough is it to defense Connor Shaw with his running ability as well as passing ability?
You saw what we did last year. Last year, remember, the star was born on our day. A lot of new things that hit our fan last year at this time because of the uncertainty. They’d benched Garcia, and they transitioned. You’ve really got to give Spurrier credit for that last year. They really transitioned their entire offense coming into our ball game in terms of what they really like to do, who they found out they could do it with and that was Shaw and he’s pretty much been on point since and he had a great day on Saturday. He’s been banged up, in and out of games starting with the first one, but we expect a full-speed Connor Shaw and unfortunately (Marcus) Lattimore and all the other cast of characters.
They’re big up front; they’re not real complicated. They run a lot of solid plays, where you know, they try to get a hat on a hat and let Lattimore go. Then they Connor Shaw pull the ball every now and then, and if you don’t cover him, he can beat you much like the kid from Florida could. It’s a good offensive ball club. It’s kind of a 12th-man syndrome when you can have a running quarterback like that, you’ve got to defend the extra, added advantage for them. But we’ve got to find a way.
