Sept. 6, 2010
Video: Norman and Stacy interviews
Opening statement on LSU:
“It’s an SEC game and we’re excited about them coming to town. They were ranked 16th going into this game and they beat North Carolina who was ranked 18th. They played a ranked opponent right off the bat. They played very well at times. Defensively, they’re awfully fast, big like any normal SEC team. Compared to Northwestern, they’re probably bigger and faster, but Northwestern was very good there as well. They’ve got several good players that stand out on tape.”
Don’t hold me to names, but a few numbers that have really stood out are No. 7 [Patrick Peterson, Jr., CB], No. 92 [Drake Nevis, Sr., DT], No. 11 [Kelvin Sheppard, Sr., ILB]. [Sheppard] is a linebacker and he plays everywhere. I don’t know if he is the Mike [linebacker] but he can play every position. We had some trouble with (Nevis) last year down at LSU. We played very well, made some mistakes but he was a thorn in our side. He’s back and looks even better. [Peterson] is a corner that could probably play for most NFL clubs right now … they would probably like to have him. And then they have John Chavis [Defensive Coordinator] who has always done a great job, just like he did at Tennessee. He’s got those guys breathing fire and blowing smoke it looks like to me, so they are pretty darn strong. That’s LSU in a nutshell defensively. Offensively, quarterback [Jordan Jefferson, Jr.], who runs well and has a strong arm. He was the MVP of their bowl game so obviously he’s a concern. They also have No. 10 [Russell] Shepard. He’s the one who looks like he catches lightning bugs for practice. He’s quick as a cat and can dodge and make you miss. No. 80 [Terrence Toliver, Sr.] is a big, tall receiver that short corners are going to have a hard time with. I think he’s 6-5 and weighs a little over 200 pounds. They run the ball and the quarterback can run it. They put Shepard in the backfield and let him run it. I guess they call it the Wild Tiger. They have three offensive linemen returning, their center [P.J. Lonergan], left guard [Josh Dworaczyk] and right tackle [Alex Hurst]. They look like they are the size of a mountain of tape. I haven’t seen their stats on their size, but they run around really well. So that’s LSU in a nutshell.”
On the penalties against Northwestern:
“It’s very disappointing because we are normally the most disciplined team in the SEC when it comes to penalties, and we’ll get back to that. I can’t comment on some of them, but you can look at the tape. I would tell Jay Fullam to make those two plays exactly like he made them. We had two bonehead plays and those things happen sometimes. We try to teach them to play through the whistle, because as you know it’s different. Or maybe you don’t because you can’t hear the whistle up there. Now, the official can’t blow the whistle because of replay. The play stops and they let it go. Do you remember the one where the guy hits his knee and then we run down and hit him two or three more times? I don’t know if that’s good or bad but that’s part of it. The officiating did not cost us the ball game. We will never use that as an excuse and I’m not criticizing any officials. Those were the nicest people I had met in all my years of doing this. I’ve been doing this since 1974. They were very nice. Some of them were from up north and they had a hard time understanding me and I had a hard time understanding them, but it was a beautiful language, I can tell you that. I did not get any explanation other than it was a high hit. But I don’t know what that means. We try to teach them to tackle up high. You’re not supposed to grab at their feet.”
On the penalty on the punt:
“That wasn’t very smart on our part. It’s kind of hard to see sometimes. They had some situations very similar but it’s all right because that was our fault. One of them was a very young person who had never played in a college game so that’s to be expected. It’s hard to imagine not looking down and seeing if there is a tackle or tight end setting there but it’s first game jitters. I had them too so I understand that.”
On what went wrong on the second two-point conversion attempt:
“It’s hard to describe. We practice it and you think we could execute it. Probably if I could do anything different in that game I would have called a timeout right there. I almost did but I didn’t. I said to myself that we practiced this enough that we out to be able to do it and we had them on their heels and I didn’t want to give them a chance to regroup so we ran the play, but we didn’t do anything that we had been taught to do. There were a lot of people involved in it and of course that goes back to me. I take full responsibility. I don’t know if it was a bad snap or if the receiver was in the way and blocked his vision. Everything kind of went wrong and that’s my fault. I’ll never put it on a player, that’s my fault.”
On trying two two-point conversions:
“The second play would have worked, and we felt that we could have walked in if we had done it properly. Of course we could say the same thing on the first two-point call. We rushed it. We practiced it over and over and over, but in the anxiety of playing and getting excited, we rushed it and didn’t give ourselves a chance. Again, that’s my fault. I read somewhere that it takes 16 times to create memory so maybe we need to do it 16 times in a row. I have done that before with some individuals.”
On the crowd support:
“What I wanted to say to start this thing was thank you to our fans. It was a great crowd and we appreciate the support. I’m sorry we let them down but we are getting better everyday.”
On the team’s performance against Northwestern:
“We had 400 yards of offense and the defense played well. Only two teams last year held Northwestern to less yards, Iowa and Purdue, so I was very pleased. A lot of you talk about the 19 passing completions of 21. A lot of them were screens and we’ll let them complete those all day long. [The passing stats] didn’t say anything about the three sacks because I think that’s a passing attempt. The [stats don’t] put it that way; they put it in the run department, which I never liked as an offensive line coach at all. So you know my feelings on that. [Northwestern was] actually successful about 16 out of 24 pass attempts. The biggest disappointment was some of the third-down conversions. Otherwise, we played pretty good.
On scheming defensively against LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson:
“If you have any notes please send them to me because I don’t know what people have done. When he’s 6-5 and can just chuck it up there. We have to stop the run. They have a stable of running backs there. Hopefully they will have trouble getting the ball to them and keeping them happy. It was good to see ours get out there even if they didn’t get as many carriers as we would like on our part.”
