Skip Holtz: It was a total team win
Skip Holtz and South Florida picked up a 24-21 overtime win at Louisville. Holtz described the performance as a “total team win.”
“Wow. Great win for the program. Great win for the program. We talked to our players all week the score the last three years which was 104 to 39 or something like that. I keep hearing South Florida has never won at Louisville. A lot of challenges we put on this team.”
“We had a little bit of plane problems last night. Got in the hotel about 10:30 pm last night. You almost felt like we went from Thurdsay to they were putting the ball on the tee.”
“Our guys handled the adjustment a lot of credit. At the end of the day, I think this came down to a total team win.”
“Statistically, this game wasn’t pretty. Third-down, we weren’t very good. We kept having to punt the game….we didn’t punt it as well as we wanted. We didn’t execute as an offense as well as we wanted. We let them run the ball too much where Powell goes 31 carries for 150 yards. You can look at all those things as negatives, but they believed, competed, encouraged each other….It was a GREAT team win.”
South Florida is now 6-3 on the season.
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Down 35-0 at halftime, Steve Fairchild tweets
Trailing BYU 35-0 at halftime, Colorado State head coach @CoachFairchild tweeted, "As bad a half as we've ever had. Going to try like hell to play better for these seniors."
At least he gets to coach the second half in snow flurries.
You can follow all of the head coaches in the FootballScoop Twitter Center.
Mack Brown to consider changes after the season
Mack Brown, on several occasions this fall, has been publicly critical of the job his coaching staff has done this season. In 2009, the Longhorns played for a national championship. This season, Texas is 4-5 with home games remaining against Oklahoma State, FAU, and Texas A&M.
The Longhorns rank 118th in turnover margin and 118th in kick-off return average. Red zone offense has been brutal, according to Brown.
Asked about the overall performance of his coaching staff, Brown stated, "I think it's an ‘F.' We just haven't been as productive as we should have with these players. That doesn't sound good. It's not pretty. But it's factual."
Brown reiterated that he will make decisions about potential coaching staff changes after the season. He explained, “During the season, you're tired. This season I've been mad about half of it. So when you're tired and you're mad, I've been told you never make decisions.”
"What you do is research information and take some time after the season to look at it and see exactly where things are. I do it every year, good and bad. Then you try to make the decision that's best."
Kick-off against Oklahoma State is set for 8:00 pm EST.
Interesting Friday comments from the "High Flames Commander" and Dan Mullen
Some interesting quotes from Tommy Tuberville from the Tim Brando's Friday Football Festival: “You can control any game you play when you play great defense. But it’s hard to predict what’s going happen when you don’t. When we don’t play good on offense, it’s going to be a disaster. We just can’t slow anybody down.”
“(Against Missouri) Our offense, maybe for the first time in 10 or 12 years here at Texas Tech, our offense ran for 200 yards, so our defense was able rest.”
(on Taylor Potts) “Heck, he’s thrown for 3,000 yards. I didn’t throw for 3,000 yards in 5 years at Auburn.”
“You have to have speed rushers in the Big 12. Not necessarily in the SEC because you have to stop the run, but in the Big 12, everyone throws it, so you better be able to rush the passer.”
"Before I go, I want you to know that Ron Franklin has re-nicknamed me the “High Flames Commander,” I kinda like what you gave me (back in the day)...the Mississippi Riverboat Gambler.”
Dan Mullen responds to Tim Brando’s notion that he and Mike Gundy are the coaches of the year in college football: “There’s still a lot of football to be played. I’ve been pretty smart the last 6 games, but you can become pretty dumb in a hurry when you play Alabama. We’ll see.”
“We’ve been able to play team football all year, too. We’ve played to the strengths of our team. Our offensive line, they’ve done a great job of carrying us. And we have 2 senior kickers, a senior kicker and senior punter. All year, I’ve seen our team complement each other. When we need a big play on special teams, we’ve gotten a big play on special teams. We’re not going to be able to be one dimensional down the stretch. We’re going to have to make plays running the football and throwing the football.”
Better be able to run it in the red zone
We took a look at some red zone offense numbers. Here's some of the interesting stats that we found:
4 teams are scoring touchdowns less than 40% of the time in the red zone: Boston College, Rutgers, San Jose State, and Colorado State.
7 teams are scoring touchdowns over 75% of the time in the red zone: East Carolina, Oregon State, TCU, Ohio, Kansas State, Michigan, and Wisconsin
Wisconsin leads the nation by scoring touchdowns 81% of the time in the red zone.
You better be able to run it. 12 teams have over 20 rushing touchdowns inside the red zone: Auburn (21), Boise State, Stanford, Navy, Air Force, Michigan, Oregon, Army, UCF, Wisconsin, Nevada, TCU (31).
25 teams have fewer than 5 passing touchdowns in the red zone: FAU has just 1 passing touchdown in the red zone. LSU has only 2.
Texas Tech and East Carolina lead the nation with 19 passing touchdowns in the red zone.
USC has 16 passing touchdowns in the red zone. Stanford has 15.
13 teams score (TD or FG) less than 75% of the time in red zone: Wazzu, Buffalo, Wyoming, UAB, Clemson, Arizona State, ULM, Western Michigan, Florida, LA Tech, Tennessee, Eastern Michigan.
11 teams score (TD or FG) over 90% of the time in the red zone: Wisconsin, Arkansas, Cal, Washington, Stanford, Oklahoma State, East Carolina, Utah State, Illinois, Duke, Memphis
Memphis (1-8) is the only team to score (TD or FG) every time in the red zone. The Tigers are 13 of 13, but only 8 touchdowns.
Whittingham says Utes out to prove something at Notre Dame
Utah will actually play in front of a national audience this week at Notre Dame (NBC) instead of a regional audience as it did against TCU.
The Utes are out to redeem themselves. Head coach Kyle Whittingham says, “Our defense is good. We will come out and show everybody how we really play."
"We’re still leading the conference in sacks and our pass efficiency is still good. We can always do better, but for the most part, with the exception of a few big plays, we are doing well.”
Defensive coordinator Kalani Sitaki took the blame for last week’s poor defensive performance.
Sitake said, “We are fine, we just had a bad game, and that is my fault. I have to get the guys ready to play every week and make sure we don’t pat ourselves on our back for wins or dwell on the losses. We have to keep moving forward and there is more urgency to do a better job this week and show what kind of team we can be.”
Kick-off is set for 2:40 EST from South Bend.
Here's what Turner Gill preached to his team before and during Colorado game
Last week, Turner Gill started the week by telling his team, “The word of the week is ‘relentless.’ That’s what we gotta have. This is the mentality we have to have. Relentless…all the time.”
Gill and the Jayhawks found themselves down 35-10 at halftime to Colorado.
Let’s give Gill credit. As you can watch in the video, Gill didn’t panic at halftime. He continued to echo his “be relentless” theme in the locker room. Gill then told his team, “Let’s make this the greatest comeback, ever.”
After trailing 45-17 at the end of the third quarter, Kansas continue to be relentless and rallied to win 52-45.
The post-game locker room started…”WHOSE HOUSE? OUR HOUSE. WHOSE HOUSE. OUR HOUSE.”
Gill then addressed his team and kept it short…”I’m proud of you being relentless.”
Here’s the behind-the-scenes. It’s pretty good stuff.
The Gridiron - Week 9 from Kansas Jayhawks on Vimeo.
Dos Equis to sign Les Miles to lucrative deal?
Les Miles had a funny and great conversion with ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt this afternoon on the SVP Show.
Van Pelt wondered if Miles or the man in the Dos Equis commercials is really “the most interesting man in the world.”
Asked about eating grass, as Les did during the Alabama game, Les said, “I’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember. It’s the strangest thing people would make in national news.”
Miles added, “Do you think I ingested it? I tasted the grass. This was not lunch. When you have a little dry mouth, you like to cut that with a taste.”
So what about that unique clap and smile after big plays, in which Miles' hands pound together.
Miles said, “It’s one of those things that I don’t necessarily find it very entertaining. I like to feel my hands when they pound. It’s just something that comes from me.”
Asked who is more interesting, he or the Dos Equis’ guy, Les said, “I have no idea. It seems to me the view what’s on the perimeter, kinda rises with the stock market. It’s more entertaining when you win. I’ve been the same guy. I’m the same coach.”
Miles concluded, “These things that I do are not for everybody and I don’t recommend you try it.”
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