Barry Odom met the media to look back on the week one loss and preview West Virginia. Click on the player below to listen or read the full transcription.
Opening Statement
"Obviously not the start that we were anticipating there or looking for our first game. Ultimately we didn't play well enough as a team to win the game. It's a very elementary statement, as you look and digest and go through it, I would say credit to our opponent thought that they they did play well enough as a team. And I've mentioned a number of times that our margin of error is very, very slim. But that's okay. We understand who we are and any game that if we will prepare the right way and then we will go execute, any game that we've got on our schedule will be decided on in the fourth quarter. And that's that's who we are as a as a team. There's not any time in my guess that we're going to roll out there and it's going to be over at halftime.
"So I thought that we started the game extremely well on really all three phases and then had some adversity, give up a couple big plays on defense and then turn the ball over in untimely ways. And in that adversity, we didn't overcome it until late in the fourth quarter. Looked like we regained an opportunity and focus to go try to win the game. I do look at adversity providing an opportunity for us to create our character and who we are, and how we handle this opportunity is clearly and ultimately and absolutely up to us. And nobody else. I've challenged our team and our staff and everybody in our organization. If we look at it, one game is not going to define us, but how we respond from that game will will define who we are and how this season goes.
"You look at getting out of that game and on the injury front we're in good position. Dom Gicinto didn't make the trip last week because of an injury. He's full clear, had a good practice this morning. The one injury we did get that will be out indefinitely was Aubrey Miller with a knee injury. And I don't have a time frame on his return. It'll be a while it looks like. But other than that, no updates from our injury front was last week, getting into the game.
"You look at our next opponent, West Virginia, hey've got a lot of experience and, and really all three phases, I've watched the way that they've coached on where they were last year and then also their first game this year. They play attacking football in all three phases. We will really, really need to prepare well. And then we'll need to go execute the plan that we put in place to give ourselves an opportunity. I'm impressed with the West Virginia skill. I'm impressed with their speed. And I'm impressed with their scheme. Now, I know they will be hungry to come into our place and play their best game and I'm trying to get my guys to to do everything that we need to do in order to, from the time that game was over the other night until Saturday at 11 o'clock, for us to be a much better football team. So with that opening it up for questions."
With it still being early in the year, do you look at this week's film, do you look at Troy from last year some?
"We did, you know offseason studies on them just because of the coaching change and you know the dynamics of where they were and kind of how they attacked teams when they were at Troy and see what the carryover from that is to, to what week one showed up in all three phases. There will be you know, every game, there's unknown, but this will be, I think we have an understanding of maybe core values and beliefs and what they tried to do on both sides of the ball. I also believe that they probably didn't show as much week one as what they've got the playbook. "
Coach Dooley talked about Albert and said that he was kind of impressed he was able to play as much he was after fall camp. What did you see from him?
"Yeah, I think there were times that he played really well. We need consistency out of Albert and all the all the guys at that position. But Albert hadn't practiced a lot. You know, he didn't practice all spring really and very little in fall camp. So we didn't know what we'd get out of him. And we want you to practice well today. And I think we'll get a better version (of him)."
You said last week you didn't tackle very much on camp. How do you look back at that now and are those issues in tackling easily fixable?
"Well, I think, you know, the opportunity that we had on one of the long runs, we had two guys unblocked at the point of attack. And you know, two of our best players in my estimation, and we you know, we missed the tackle. So the areas of missed tackles, I don't, I'm not raising the level of concern, I need to see a little bit more of the body of work to see where we stack up. But I feel like you've got a good pulse on your team and what the team needs to do in fall camp in that regard, at least tackling and, you know, did we tackle as well as we wanted to now? We didn't. Hopefully we see a better effort in those areas in the second game."
What do you know about West Virginia quarterback Austin Kendall and did you watch any film of him at Oklahoma?
"Yeah, he didn't play that much. You get all the information you can. And I know he throws well, extremely talented passer. They didn't run him as much week one, which he's got the ability to do in our studies. Throws a really good ball, can attack down the field. You know, it seemed to me they want to attack, you know, six to 10 times a game it looks like downfield. And so he throws a really good the ball, he is going to be a presence, seems like he's mature competitor."
After the game you talked a little bit about why Tyler instead of Larry in the second half. After a couple days, what was the reasoning?
"He was playing better then. You know, I think there's a number of ways to look at that and opportunities we were trying to get a couple mismatches with Badie, he's got a different skill set than Larry does. And some of the things in the past game, we're looking at that. And also, Larry had the early turnover. And then there were some things in block protection that Tyler was playing better then."
Do you have any concerns about how Rountree will respond?
"Zero. I've got a lot of concerns. That's not one of them right now. So I know what we got with Rountree. He's going to be hungry to get back out there."
What do you want to do this week in practice in terms of tackling?
"A lot of just wrapping up in the various live periods today, defensively anyway, which I think will help us. And normally on a Tuesday, practice, we're in a thud situation, you know, get in position with correct leverage angles and proper technique and those things. But today, we did live tackling through most of the practice for our starting defense and our second string guys. And hopefully that carries over."
When you have the kind of a rush defense performance like you had against Wyoming do you empower guys, like Coach Walters or coach Haley, or how do you diagnose and go forward on that?
"We got a lot of trust in those guys. And you know, they're really, really good coaches. And, you know, the thing they don't need right now is me to step in and think I've got all the answers because I know they're pretty good. Also we got to go execute on just like the one long run. I mentioned we had two players unblocked at the point of attack. We didn't get them ready to go play their best. And they don't they don't need me stepping in and saying that. I think they're invested. They know they're really, really good coaches. And they're going to get it figured out."
On the depth chart Cameron Wilkins is there now behind Nick Bolton.
"Cam will get in there, Jamal Brooks, Devin Nicholson will get some reps. He's prepared really well since he's been here. And you know, we'll rotate some guys down and kind of get the right fit for for who's in there with Cale and Nick and you'll get the next best but you know, injuries happens. Nobody, nobody cares. You're not feeling sorry for Missouri. Get your guys on our roster, get them coached up, let's get ready to play."
Any update on Trajan Jeffcoat?
"We'll get another scan on his shoulder, Wednesday or Thursday, this week, and an outside chance that we might be able to see him this week. He's running and you know, doing a lot of things, it's not contact right now, we'll have sort of a better feel as the week goes on."
You said earlier that, you know took till maybe the fourth quarter to overcome some of the initial adversity from the two long runs. What are just the challenges of overcoming, you know, a team kind of getting momentum.
"When you look at you know, 17 to 23 year old guys that you think you've got some things figured out with the pulse on how they're going to react, I mentioned last week, you know, the unknowns on game one, I thought I had pretty good feel on kind of how we would respond to some of those situations and I was wrong, we didn't respond very well. But it's an opportunity for us to teach from it. I hate that we lost the game I hate it more than anybody. It's awful. But you always are in a position to use those experiences and moving forward on how you're going to respond again. And you know, so there's been some you know, open dialogue, conversation about what we need to do and how we're going to do it and the level of grit and toughness it takes to go get it done. We'll be in that situation again. Probably this week."
Home opener and five straight home games I know you don't make the schedule but have you seen that before five straight home games and what does what does that do for you and your team?
"I mean I've never had it in my experience in coaching so you know I'm really focused on let's get after this Saturday and if we do that then we'll worry about the next one. But our guys will embrace the opportunity to play at home and we're excited about that and we look forward to a great crowd and playing our best."
You mentioned last week Anthony Watkins could be a difference maker in a number of roles. Do you think we will start to see that this week?
"We will need to see a little more out of him practice wise from a consistency standpoint to be able to help us right now. I don't think that, you know, I'm not shutting the door on him. I think he's got some skills that can help us, but not just yet."
You only played three true freshmen and didn't get a lot of backups in. Was that just because of how the game unfolded?
"Yeah we had planned, you know we go through on Thursday kind of the rotation of what we want to hit, and then the game unfolds as it does so some of those situations, if we had been in a place that we could get some more guys in we would have but we never never could get there Saturday."
Since the middle of last season Barrett Banister has become a reliable guy now for both quarterbacks. What is it about him that allowed that to happen?
"His practice habits, the way he prepares. And then the consistency. He does it every single day and he makes the tough catch, he's right where he needs to be on the route. And they understand. Man, I wish we could have that fade outside, I wish we could have held on to the ball, that was a big play. But you know, he is a reliable guy that gives his all to every situation that he's called on whether it's running a route or blocking, and we know what we're going to get out of him."
What did you think of the offensive line? Trystan Castillo said he got outplayed.
"I agree we got outplayed. It's frustrating, but that's you know what, we've earned that right now until we go through it different, that's who we are."
What did you see from your safeties?
"Not consistent enough. I felt like we were hesitating on our assignments. You have to be able to do it in a moment's time when you've got to react to do that. There's a number of reasons I think that go into that talking with Coach Walters. But hopefully we'll get that fixed."
How do you balance Kelly knowing when to get out of the pocket? He threw for 420 yards, but there were some times, especially on that last drive, that it looked like he had some room to run.
"We gotta trust him on you know, with the time in the game, how many timeouts, we had one timeout and I was trying to keep that timeout in the back pocket because you know wanted it down the stretch there. And you know there's a feel for can you get enough yardage to stop the clock you know, knowing the situation is there room to get out of bounds? So more than anything it's feel, I guess, but you know there's there's time that if nothing is there at that point throw it in the dirt, let's go with the second and ten. And so Kelly hadn't played in a year basically, but I thought out of the gate he played pretty well. We always would like to have a couple back, we're going to get those couple you know learn from those and move on, but he's going to be able to make some plays in that world by sometimes scrambling to get some yardage with his feet and get out of bounds. But he threw the ball excellent."
What did you think of the play he made to make the tackle after the fumble?
"It was awesome. Tremendous team play and you know, instead of tying the game, right, instead of tying the game going at half, you know, getting yourself, getting your thoughts 0-0, going out, he fumbled. What a great individual effort to get the guy down. And you know, the field goal, you go in instead of tied it's down by 10. But I'd much rather be down by 10 than 14. So he did a heck of a job. And you never can relax. That's a true testament of a guy that's continuing to find a way to to make a play."
You talked about Albert's involvement the previous week. Did you have any insight as to how he's going to get more involved this coming week?
"Well if I gave you those plans coach Brown with West Virginia would have them. So we want to utilize his skill set and find the best way we can find to give us an advantage."
Were the turnovers just first-game jitters or something more fundamental?
"You look at the way Kelly turned it over, he's in the air and ball came away from the five pressure points, came loose. You look at the way that Larry fumbled the ball, he took a hand off like never seen him take one before, there was no contact made, you know, we missed a block at the line of scrimmage which affected the penetration of the play and the way he took the handoff and it was a bust from the start. And Kelly on the interception, don't try to go across the body and and so all teaching moments. You know the offense, their goal was to turn it over zero times. And that's really hard to do. So defensively and special teams. When we turn it over as an offense we got to find a way to get it back defensively or special teams and we got to get it back to zero. We didn't get any on defense we had opportunities, you know, had a hand on it, to not come away with it. So it's all team football everybody's got a job to do."
We talked so much about special teams last year. What did you think of them on Saturday?
"The punt return gave us a big, you know, we needed that at that time that was huge. The roughing or the running into the kicker, you know kind of pushed our own guy into the guy a little bit. That could have been a crucial mistake, luckily it was running into not roughing. One of the false starts on punt was was on the coaching staff you know we tried to change it on a look that they gave us and got us out of sync. And so we had 15 yards of penalties there which we need zero. I thought Tucker kicked off extremely well, thought he did place the ball where we wanted to. Punt team wise we got to work on our releases on the punt team a little bit more. We were held up. Kickoff return they were all you know touchback situation so you know overall, did we win the kicking game? You know maybe, the punt return might go in that category but you know we didn't go and dominate so we need, you know, the ways that we can win games are going to need to be in our favor. I thought we did some good things. I think we can be better."
Are the turnovers something you can use as a teaching moment to help out mentally?
"Hopefully we're not to the point that we're we're mentally challenged on the turnover game yet. That's one game in and it's minus three that's obviously not where we want to be, so we emphasize it, keep talking about it. Takeaways equal victory and everybody's carrying on. You know, so there's a number of things we're trying to get down to emphasize it. Then you gotta go execute it. And when you get the opportunity to go take advantage of it, your guys are ready."
