Dillon Doyle
(Getting off to a fast start) Coming off the loss last Thursday, when we had three days off, everyone had the chance to relax and think about all the things that we can do better. And when you’re sitting alone, you’re uncomfortable, because you’re like, ‘I’m not doing the things that I’m supposed to be doing,’ whether that’s team-wise or individually. That was definitely a motivation going into this week. I felt like we had our best week of practice and definitely excited with what we put on tape in the first half. With that being said, we didn’t feel like we had a very good third quarter. Definitely some things there that we need to look at and improve upon if we want to go where we want to go. Just knowing that, trying not to get too high off of this win, because Kansas is a good football team. They had an unbelievable start to the year and we respected them quite a bit coming in here. Just knowing that we have a lot of big games ahead of us, and the work isn’t done, obviously. We’re 4-3, I think, just got to keep moving forward and keep working.
(Jackers and robbers) I’m not sure if you guys have heard the whole story, I’m sure you have. The difference between theft and robbery is committing violence with the taken of what is someone else’s. That’s kind of what we take pride in is the violent defensive side of the ball. I think you definitely saw that with some of the crossing routes and the safeties hitting that hard. Really proud of the physicality that they played with. And also, the receivers are coming this way and they’re coming from that way, and the receivers have got to turn around, and the ball’s right here to be poked at. So, that’s obviously a big opportunity to take the ball with some violence there. I think we took advantage of that, especially at the end of the first half. Proud of that, proud of how those guys are progressing on the back end, because I see the work that they put in week to week, and just proud to see that show up on Saturdays. We feel like we have really good weeks of practice and sometimes that doesn’t show up on Saturdays. It showed up today.
(Difference in second half) I’m not sure yet. We have to look at the tape to see what we have going on. I don’t think it’s a mindset thing because we go out for the second half and everybody’s like hooting and hollering in the locker room. We talk about having a lot of energy and having real energy. Sometimes we’ve had some fake energy, and that’s just kind of like hey we have to be here. But I feel like everybody wanted to be there, especially at the start of the third quarter. Everybody wanted to be there at the start of the game and the start of the third quarter. Some things didn’t go our way. I think we had some turnovers and I think we let up some big plays, and that’s going to happen, especially when you play some playmakers like Kansas has. Really the biggest thing is just looking at technically what happened, what the guys are seeing and making sure their eyes are in the right spot and they’re taking care of their assignment.
(Complementary football in first half) Yeah, I think a really good example of that would be any time our offense turns the ball over on our own side of the field, in the first half we get a stop and we give up a field goal. Second half, we turn the ball over and they score immediately in four plays. So that’s a big part of complementary football. A big thing in football is if the offense turns the ball over, go put the fire out. The fire fighter doesn’t care where the fire is. He doesn’t care how big the fire is, he has to go save people. He has to go do his job regardless of the adversity at hand. So that’s a big defensive thing, if the offense turns the ball over, it’s not on them, it’s a team game, so go put the fire out. It’s your job to go take care of business. It doesn’t matter if they turn the ball over on the one-yard line. I think we took care of that, but we have to continue to work toward that as we work into some other games.
(Defensive message throughout the week) I mean our biggest message was just do your 1/11th. Trust the guys around you to do their job so you can do your job. I think defense is a bit of a puzzle in the sense that everybody has to change a little bit so that everybody can get their job done and the full picture can look the way we want it to look. Sometimes it’s fitting into a puzzle piece that you may not want to. When it comes to hey you may want to jump outside of a block to go try to make the big play and have your named call and have people write articles about you. But sometimes you’ve got to play inside, so the safety can come down and fly in and make the big hit. Even if it’s a gain of one or two, you did your job. The safety can trust you and you can trust the safety. That was a big thing we looked at after the West Virginia game was just doing your 1/11th because if we want to continue to grow and continue to win games we have to fill all 11 puzzle pieces.
(56 yards rushing for KU) We had played a lot of four-down really throughout the year up until now, and I’m not sure Kansas was expecting the three-down looks that we gave them. So that was a big advantage to us. That was kind of a curveball that we threw them. That was because they had so much QB run game. We didn’t expect Jalon Daniels to play, and we knew Bean was more of a runner, and so we got into some three-down stuff that makes it a little bit better on the backers to fit, and we can bring a safety down, and allow the pieces to fit a little easier when they start crossing the tight ends and they start running power read and triple option and all those things. Option football is really hard to play defensively from a standpoint of everybody has to do their job because they have so many options obviously, hence the name. Sometimes if even all the jobs don’t get done, the defense takes care of it through speed and aggression, like solve all your problems with aggression, and we kind of did that some of that a little bit today. Part of that is mindset, part of it was scheme and I’m obviously really glad we had that scheme in place. I think coach Ron Roberts did a great job of getting us ready for that, and we watched clip after clip of split zone and bluff and tackle art and power read. I mean it’s play after play of tough fits. If Kansas continues to do that offensively, I think they’re going to be really successful in this conference. A lot of what we see is run zone game, and that’s traditionally easy to fit as backers because you just play the gap in front of you, play the open gap. When those gaps start moving and guys start moving, it makes it quite a bit more difficult, especially if you play three-down or four-down as we like to do as a multiple defense. We were really focused on doing our jobs, and I think we were really happy with the result.
(Getting extra yards at fullback) We don’t do a ton of tackling in practice, which is kind of like hey stay low, which I think I can do a better job of. The biggest thing when I go on offense is to make sure I capitalize on the opportunity for the guys around me. I went in on the goal line today and we had just been on an 80-yard drive or something like that, and the offensive line is panting and sweating and they’re like get us out of here basically. We’ve got to finish, we’ve got to finish. So basically just doing my job for their sake because if I do my job pretty well, then hopefully we can be off the field soon.
Ben Sims
(Richard Reese) Honestly, I just think he did his own Richard Reese things. Since he started playing against Albany, we knew he was special. He shows it in practice every week. What he did today wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him.
(Reese last TD exhale moment) A little bit. So going into that last drive, Coach Grimes is like this is going to end two ways. Either the game is going to end and we have the ball or we’re going to go celebrate in the end zone after we score a touchdown. So I told he manifested the entire drive. It was a relief and gave our defense a chance to go out and stop them.
(Bad third quarter) I think for starters, we started off with really good complementary football. Our defense made two really good stops on their first two drives and we were able to capitalize on both of those. In the second half, a couple of different things may have happened. Offensively, we weren’t doing the things we should have. We got stopped on fourth-and-one. It comes back to complementary football. The defense does something well and then the offense does something back. Then you just have really good football being played.
(Who stepped up in huddle in second half) I believe myself, Blake, Coach Grimes, Coach Mateos, all the coaches, Coach Aranda is petty vocal. It’s cool. But we’ve got to be who we are, capitalizing, playing in front of the sticks. Not making any foolish mistakes or penalties, just playing as a good offense. That good energy we had in the first half we kind of lost in the third quarter. We were able to catch some of that in the fourth. At the same time, we need to have that energy the entire time.
(Having Blake back) It's great. He's our quarterback, right? So having him there, having him being vocal, being confident, doing Blake things, it was good.
(Kicking yourself over the drop) It was a drop. ... Good question. For me, that was a really hard moment, because in my mind I don't drop balls like that. I don't let myself get in situations like that. So it was frustrating. Coach Grimes always says whenever you make a mistake, we're going to come back to you. For him to tell me that, it means a lot.
(On the closing drive) It felt good. We really didn't have a choice. When you're looking at it everything looks like a choice at the time, but that was not a choice. We had to do that. But as far as your question, it feels good. And with an offensive line and a couple of tight ends and a strong back all working as one, there's no other feeling like it.
(Getting off to a fast start) Coming off the loss last Thursday, when we had three days off, everyone had the chance to relax and think about all the things that we can do better. And when you’re sitting alone, you’re uncomfortable, because you’re like, ‘I’m not doing the things that I’m supposed to be doing,’ whether that’s team-wise or individually. That was definitely a motivation going into this week. I felt like we had our best week of practice and definitely excited with what we put on tape in the first half. With that being said, we didn’t feel like we had a very good third quarter. Definitely some things there that we need to look at and improve upon if we want to go where we want to go. Just knowing that, trying not to get too high off of this win, because Kansas is a good football team. They had an unbelievable start to the year and we respected them quite a bit coming in here. Just knowing that we have a lot of big games ahead of us, and the work isn’t done, obviously. We’re 4-3, I think, just got to keep moving forward and keep working.
(Jackers and robbers) I’m not sure if you guys have heard the whole story, I’m sure you have. The difference between theft and robbery is committing violence with the taken of what is someone else’s. That’s kind of what we take pride in is the violent defensive side of the ball. I think you definitely saw that with some of the crossing routes and the safeties hitting that hard. Really proud of the physicality that they played with. And also, the receivers are coming this way and they’re coming from that way, and the receivers have got to turn around, and the ball’s right here to be poked at. So, that’s obviously a big opportunity to take the ball with some violence there. I think we took advantage of that, especially at the end of the first half. Proud of that, proud of how those guys are progressing on the back end, because I see the work that they put in week to week, and just proud to see that show up on Saturdays. We feel like we have really good weeks of practice and sometimes that doesn’t show up on Saturdays. It showed up today.
(Difference in second half) I’m not sure yet. We have to look at the tape to see what we have going on. I don’t think it’s a mindset thing because we go out for the second half and everybody’s like hooting and hollering in the locker room. We talk about having a lot of energy and having real energy. Sometimes we’ve had some fake energy, and that’s just kind of like hey we have to be here. But I feel like everybody wanted to be there, especially at the start of the third quarter. Everybody wanted to be there at the start of the game and the start of the third quarter. Some things didn’t go our way. I think we had some turnovers and I think we let up some big plays, and that’s going to happen, especially when you play some playmakers like Kansas has. Really the biggest thing is just looking at technically what happened, what the guys are seeing and making sure their eyes are in the right spot and they’re taking care of their assignment.
(Complementary football in first half) Yeah, I think a really good example of that would be any time our offense turns the ball over on our own side of the field, in the first half we get a stop and we give up a field goal. Second half, we turn the ball over and they score immediately in four plays. So that’s a big part of complementary football. A big thing in football is if the offense turns the ball over, go put the fire out. The fire fighter doesn’t care where the fire is. He doesn’t care how big the fire is, he has to go save people. He has to go do his job regardless of the adversity at hand. So that’s a big defensive thing, if the offense turns the ball over, it’s not on them, it’s a team game, so go put the fire out. It’s your job to go take care of business. It doesn’t matter if they turn the ball over on the one-yard line. I think we took care of that, but we have to continue to work toward that as we work into some other games.
(Defensive message throughout the week) I mean our biggest message was just do your 1/11th. Trust the guys around you to do their job so you can do your job. I think defense is a bit of a puzzle in the sense that everybody has to change a little bit so that everybody can get their job done and the full picture can look the way we want it to look. Sometimes it’s fitting into a puzzle piece that you may not want to. When it comes to hey you may want to jump outside of a block to go try to make the big play and have your named call and have people write articles about you. But sometimes you’ve got to play inside, so the safety can come down and fly in and make the big hit. Even if it’s a gain of one or two, you did your job. The safety can trust you and you can trust the safety. That was a big thing we looked at after the West Virginia game was just doing your 1/11th because if we want to continue to grow and continue to win games we have to fill all 11 puzzle pieces.
(56 yards rushing for KU) We had played a lot of four-down really throughout the year up until now, and I’m not sure Kansas was expecting the three-down looks that we gave them. So that was a big advantage to us. That was kind of a curveball that we threw them. That was because they had so much QB run game. We didn’t expect Jalon Daniels to play, and we knew Bean was more of a runner, and so we got into some three-down stuff that makes it a little bit better on the backers to fit, and we can bring a safety down, and allow the pieces to fit a little easier when they start crossing the tight ends and they start running power read and triple option and all those things. Option football is really hard to play defensively from a standpoint of everybody has to do their job because they have so many options obviously, hence the name. Sometimes if even all the jobs don’t get done, the defense takes care of it through speed and aggression, like solve all your problems with aggression, and we kind of did that some of that a little bit today. Part of that is mindset, part of it was scheme and I’m obviously really glad we had that scheme in place. I think coach Ron Roberts did a great job of getting us ready for that, and we watched clip after clip of split zone and bluff and tackle art and power read. I mean it’s play after play of tough fits. If Kansas continues to do that offensively, I think they’re going to be really successful in this conference. A lot of what we see is run zone game, and that’s traditionally easy to fit as backers because you just play the gap in front of you, play the open gap. When those gaps start moving and guys start moving, it makes it quite a bit more difficult, especially if you play three-down or four-down as we like to do as a multiple defense. We were really focused on doing our jobs, and I think we were really happy with the result.
(Getting extra yards at fullback) We don’t do a ton of tackling in practice, which is kind of like hey stay low, which I think I can do a better job of. The biggest thing when I go on offense is to make sure I capitalize on the opportunity for the guys around me. I went in on the goal line today and we had just been on an 80-yard drive or something like that, and the offensive line is panting and sweating and they’re like get us out of here basically. We’ve got to finish, we’ve got to finish. So basically just doing my job for their sake because if I do my job pretty well, then hopefully we can be off the field soon.
Ben Sims
(Richard Reese) Honestly, I just think he did his own Richard Reese things. Since he started playing against Albany, we knew he was special. He shows it in practice every week. What he did today wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him.
(Reese last TD exhale moment) A little bit. So going into that last drive, Coach Grimes is like this is going to end two ways. Either the game is going to end and we have the ball or we’re going to go celebrate in the end zone after we score a touchdown. So I told he manifested the entire drive. It was a relief and gave our defense a chance to go out and stop them.
(Bad third quarter) I think for starters, we started off with really good complementary football. Our defense made two really good stops on their first two drives and we were able to capitalize on both of those. In the second half, a couple of different things may have happened. Offensively, we weren’t doing the things we should have. We got stopped on fourth-and-one. It comes back to complementary football. The defense does something well and then the offense does something back. Then you just have really good football being played.
(Who stepped up in huddle in second half) I believe myself, Blake, Coach Grimes, Coach Mateos, all the coaches, Coach Aranda is petty vocal. It’s cool. But we’ve got to be who we are, capitalizing, playing in front of the sticks. Not making any foolish mistakes or penalties, just playing as a good offense. That good energy we had in the first half we kind of lost in the third quarter. We were able to catch some of that in the fourth. At the same time, we need to have that energy the entire time.
(Having Blake back) It's great. He's our quarterback, right? So having him there, having him being vocal, being confident, doing Blake things, it was good.
(Kicking yourself over the drop) It was a drop. ... Good question. For me, that was a really hard moment, because in my mind I don't drop balls like that. I don't let myself get in situations like that. So it was frustrating. Coach Grimes always says whenever you make a mistake, we're going to come back to you. For him to tell me that, it means a lot.
(On the closing drive) It felt good. We really didn't have a choice. When you're looking at it everything looks like a choice at the time, but that was not a choice. We had to do that. But as far as your question, it feels good. And with an offensive line and a couple of tight ends and a strong back all working as one, there's no other feeling like it.
