Lovie Smith Press Conference Quotes
October 15, 2018 | Football
Opening statement
First off, you're excited that you have more games to play. We're at the halfway point of our season, and just looking at that game, there are very few things that we liked about what we did. But the score… you kind of saw how it played out. For that to happen, I thought we had a good week of practice, and we didn't. The results kind of say that a little bit. I thought we had a better game plan than we had, and thought we would play better. It was a collapse. You look at the big picture, I thought we were in a different position than we ended up being in that game. Had a few injuries, hopefully get a couple of guys back, and I know we'll play a lot better than we did this past week with the upcoming game against Wisconsin.
On moving on from loss
When you don't have a lot of answers for what happened, you go back to work which we'll do. We started that process of course this morning watching the video. For our football team, whether you win or lose, you have to move on. You can't let a bad game beat you the next week, and that's what were not going to do. Wisconsin gets your attention. We're not the only team that's disappointed in our play on a certain weekend. I'm sure they're disappointed with how they played also. We have our hands full with Wisconsin, all three phases.
On Sydney Brown
Sydney, it's kind of obvious, I think he's a pretty good football player. He's still of course in a new position, so there's a learning curve that you still go through. But he did get his first pick. I think we're going to see that from him, he's going to get better each week.
On linebacker play up to this point
We have a 3-3 record, and when you play the way we have defensively, you can't really talk about a lot of the positive things. I'm really excited about seeing what we can do the second half of the season. Jake Hansen started off strong, Del'Shawn Phillips has done some good things, especially intercepting the ball. Dele Harding, based on offenses running more three-receiver sets, hasn't played as much. This week he'll get a chance to play a lot more. Linebacker play needs to improve like all positions.
On preparing for Wisconsin and RB Jonathan Taylor
He's definitely a scholarship player. Excellent speed, runs low to the ground, good runner inside, but of course with the speed can break them on the outside. With an offensive line as big, as physical, as athletic as Wisconsin has, that's a tough duty with that commitment to the run. He's one of the top running backs in the country. When you think of Wisconsin linemen, I think they kind of fit the mold from what you expect from them. Big guys that can play. They're big, physical, and athletic guys as well. It'll be a big challenge for our defensive line.
On expectations from AJ Bush Jr. this week
More production. Make good decisions… lead us. Of course when you have a game the way we did (and the week before), the first guy I'm going to talk to is AJ about the positive things we did. And AJ understands when we have a tough game, the first questions are going to come from the head football coach. What we'd like for AJ to do, just like everyone else… have to go back to work. We get a great opportunity this week.
