|
Coach Johnson’s Monday Press Conference
10/25/2004
Coach Johnson’s Monday Press Conference 10-25-04
Coach Johnson addressed the media Monday to preview Vanderbilt’s matchup at LSU on Saturday, Oct. 30.
Bobby Johnson’s opening remarks for Vanderbilt-LSU game this Saturday:
“We’re very pleased to be coming off a win and have the daunting task of going down to Baton Rouge on Halloween Eve and playing the Tigers down there. We’re looking forward to that.”
On his team playing in Death Valley for the first time?
“Coach (Kenny) Carter has told us some stories. Really, the basic thing is that it’s going to be a great atmosphere and the people there care a lot about football. We’ve heard some outrageous stories. I think we’ll be safe over there on the sidelines.”
On running back Kwane Doster getting more playing time?
“I thought he had an excellent game. He did exactly what we wanted him to do. He made some things happen at the tailback position and made some good cuts. He did well in block protection, too. All those things go into it and you have to be able to do it all. He certainly did it all in this game and we’re very proud of him.”
What outrageous stories has Coach Carter told the players?
“Lots of different things, but I’m sure it’s mostly legend. I know they have great fans and they appreciate football and want their team to win. That’s really what it’s all about. It will be a fun night, especially if we go down there and play well.”
On Mississippi State beating Florida?
“You have to play every game. I don’t care who you are playing. You have to play extremely hard and play well and execute. I don’t care how good your athletes are. If you put 11 of them out there and they don’t execute, you’re going to have a hard time winning. It’s hard to win games. I can attest to that.”
On LSU’s run game…
“I don’t know if they’re having trouble or if they’re choosing not to (run the ball). Randall looked very good last week. They were making some great gains on first down throwing the football. I know there were some interceptions, but the two I saw were tipped balls. I only saw one bad throw.
“They do have some excellent running backs and they have some big, huge offensive linemen who are very physical. They can make it tough for you against the run, especially when they spread out.”
Is LSU less daunting because of its close game?
“If you look at them, they are defending national champions and they have a lot of people back. Hopefully we can go down there and make them play well. That’s what we need to do. We need to force them to play well by playing well ourselves. If we just go down there and mess around and allow them to get away with less than their best effort, it’s our fault.”
Will you use Mississippi State’s win as motivation for the players?
“We look at everything. We try to motivate them every way we can. I think the main thing we have to focus on is trying to get our confidence up. I think our guys, because of some close losses, don’t realize how good we can be. I think we’re a better team than we’ve shown during the past three weeks.”
How much of a concern was the missed extra points by Patrick Johnson?
“I hope it’s just one of those things, just one of those days. He kicked extremely well (on Sunday). I think it’s a problem he has solved. We went over that on Sunday and we usually don’t do that. We thought it was important to get back out there and line up and let him make some kicks and he did a good job.”
There are some new faces on LSU’s defensive line, but (DE) Marcus Spears is back.
“If you give somebody too much attention, somebody else is going to really wear you out. You do have to know exactly where Spears is because he is an excellent player, a fantastic player to tell you the truth. He makes a lot of plays for them, but they have others.”
On preparing for the noise at Tiger Stadium?
“We’ll stay away from making a lot of audible calls. We’ll make some signals and things like that. I don’t think we can go out and hire 90,000 extras to come out here to practice and try to duplicate that. But we’ll try to keep those things to a minimum. We’ve been to some other noisy places before, but certainly that is one of the noisiest. Florida is pretty tough, all of them are pretty tough.”
Do you think LSU has settled on Randall as the QB?
“You have to ask them. I don’t know. I think they are very similar. They are very athletic and can run the ball really well. They have some quarterback draws and route plays where the quarterback runs and they both do that very well. But Randall, I think, has been the most consistent for the past couple of games because they have used him.”
Tackling was a problem last Saturday. How do you practice tackling if you don’t do it full out in practice?
“It’s hard to do live. You have some tackling drills that you do and what you try to do is isolate the parts that you’re doing badly. Mostly for us, it’s the foot work and you teach that over and over again. You can teach tackling the safe way, but it’s never the same as it is live.
“Obviously playing people the caliber of LSU, they’re going to make you miss sometimes.”
|
