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Coach Johnson Holds Weekly Press Conference 11/3/2003
Coach Johnson Holds Weekly Press Conference Coach Johnson will address the local Nashville media every Monday of game week. Click below for the press conference transcript and game notes for the upcoming game.
Opening statement…
“We had a typical week off. We practiced Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and gave them Friday and Saturday off. We still had some good practices last week and then came back and had another good one yesterday. Our guys were able to get rested up a bit. It didn’t help the injury situation that much, maybe some with bumps and bruises, but (offensive tackle) Kenan Arkan still will not play this coming weekend, and that is probably the main one we were hoping to get back. We will start working in earnest on the Gators Tuesday and practice Wednesday and Thursday, also.” On Florida’s recent play… “They are playing pretty well, obviously. They played a very good game against Georgia. They did what they had to do to win and that is the sign of a good team. They battled extremely hard against a team that was phyiscal. Georgia makes it hard to sustain anything offensively, but [the Gators] did a good job when they had to. It was a great drive at the end of the game to win. When you can execute that way under pressure, it certainly says something about your offense, and your quarterback, especially. As a freshman, [Chris Leak] was very impressive in that drive and did a great job for them.” On Florida’s improvement since a 3-3 start… “They’re more successful at all the little things that help you win — they’re not turning it over a bunch, their quarterback is a lot more efficient, they’re playing very good defense. Look at the roster — they have some impressive people. It’s like that old show I used to watch, “The Land of the Giants,” is in re-runs. I saw it on the tape. They’re huge, and they’re fast and they’re very skilled. And that is what they’re doing. They’re utilizing all that skill and speed and size. When you have those kinds of weapons, you can play well.” On UF freshman quarterback Chris Leak’s improvement over the year… “I think experience is the key for him. To see all the things that people do in this league defensively, and to see how to react. He does a very good job of not getting overly excited. When he gets rushed or has to scramble, he just doesn’t go haywire and start slinging it all over the place. He did a great job the other day of hitting some people after he had scrambled. And I think he’s coached very well. They do a good job of putting him in situations where he can be successful and he doesn’t have to do everything on his own. He’s got some good people to go to. The receivers are good; the offensive line is good. He doesn’t have to get out there and make play after play after play to win the game. They hung in there against Georgia and a lot of people made plays in that last drive. He has a good cast around him to help him out.” On ‘having fun’ as the underdog against Florida… “Fun would be to play as well as we could possibly play and just see what happens. When we do that, I think we can play with a lot of teams in this league. The second half against South Carolina was very good for us offensively. The first half against Georgia was very good for us defensively. If we can put a complete game together it would be really nice to see what we could do in a hostile environment against a good team. We are looking forward to going down there and having some fun, playing hard. That doesn’t mean we’re going to go down there and just try trick plays and throw the ball all over the place, we’re going to try to run our offense and our defense and continue to get better as a team. That’s the only way we know how to coach. We’re not throwing caution to the wind or just going willy-nilly, we’re going to go down there and try to execute our game plans.” On playing in “The Swamp”… “I think it’s a great environment. We went to South Carolina and they had a bunch of people hollering and screaming. The noise may be a factor, and you have to deal with that, but we’re not going to have a lot of checks that we’ll have to communicate to a lot of people out there on the field. Those people in the stands, they don’t make tackles and they don’t catch balls. You just have to tune those people out. We want to use that, and get our guys excited about having 90,000 people in the stands. That is one of the things we are recruiting people to Vanderbilt to do — to play in some of the best arenas in the country and have 90,000 people interested in what you’re doing.” On last year’s Vanderbilt-Florida game, a 21-17 UF win… “We threw an interception on our first series, and they got the ball on the one-foot line and scored a touchdown. If we do things like that, we’re not going to have a chance to be successful. The thing that was frustrating was that we had the ball about four times in the fourth quarter with the chance to go ahead, but we could not sustain a drive. You have to give them credit. They had a good defense last year and we were having trouble making explosive plays against them. We had a chance to win in the fourth quarter and couldn’t get it done on offense. That was frustrating.” On quarterback Jay Cutler… “Jay has gotten better this year and has done some very fine things. We do want him to be able to run the football and throw the football — create total offense, not just be one-dimensional. It helps the rest of our team when that happens. We are very pleased with what he is doing. Jay gets better every week on his read, and he gets better at not throwing into crowds — the freshman mistakes he made last year. Last year he may have had a problem of throwing off his back foot or throwing too late over the middle, but it was probably because he was staying in the pocket too long. I would like to see Jay exit the pocket sometimes and pull it down and run. That puts a lot of pressure on the other team’s defense and helps your offense get plays sometimes when you didn’t have anything. When you have a good quarterback, he can make some of those kinds of plays just by being athletic. And Jay certainly is athletic.” On the VU wide receivers… “When Dan Stricker graduated, somebody was going to have to step up and be that guy. Brandon (Smith) certainly has upheld his end of it. We are blessed with more quality depth at wide receiver. We don’t have to have only one guy, like Dan, that we want to go to all the time. Erik Davis has had a very good year. I think Marlon White is going to be a very good football player. We feel good about the wideouts right now, we just have to continue to do things better without the ball. We have to block better. We have to make sure everything is exactly right because our offense needs execution to be successful.” On VU’s play calling… “I don’t think trick plays are the way to go. We’ll throw the ball — we threw it 37 times against South Carolina. And it was called for. That’s what was working and that’s what they were giving us. But when you go away from what you do best I think you’re making a big mistake. I don’t see why people would think that you would all of a sudden be very good at something else at the end of the season when you haven’t beaten anybody with what you do best. That makes sense to me.” On VU’s placekicking against USC… “Tolga (Ertugral) made one kick, and he missed one badly. I just wanted to give Patrick (Johnson) a chance to get in there and see what he could do. It’s a close battle and both of them need to improve. I’m interested to see how both of them react this week — I think it will be positive. They both work extremely hard in practice. I think, more than anything else, it has to do with a lack of confidence.” On his input toward an SEC-East championship tie-breaker vote… “I think I’d have to look at who played well against us, and we haven’t played two of the teams yet. It’s hard for me to say how one team would compare to another if we haven’t played against them. On film you can look at it, but until you get out there and match up you can’t really compare.” On the bye week… “It certainly helped. The guys had some time off. They were in a better mood yesterday in practice, without the burden of a loss with them. I think it will help them, help their attitude. And we had three very good days of preparation for Florida last week, and that showed up yesterday. We picked up things very well and we’re pretty far along in our game plan. It can only help.” |
