Opening Statement
“Excited this week to get back to a normal game week and get ready for Oklahoma State who had an outstanding victory on Saturday night. We are ready to come back from that disappointing loss and disappointing performance on Thursday night. I think our guys have regrouped. We will go over the film once more as a team today. They players addressed the game on Friday during a player only meeting where they watched the tape and tried to get some things corrected. Tremendous opportunity to play a 5-3 team and Coach Gundy had those guys ready to play on Saturday night. We are going to focus on us and make sure we come out and play our best game and put out players in a position to be successful. “
On confidence of Jalan playing quarterback…
“I have all of the confidence in the world in Jalan [McClendon]. He was invited to play in the NFL Players Association All Star game just off of people watching him play in practice. He is smart, tough and competitive. His teammates respond to him and he has a big-time arm. The other night when things weren’t going well, he jumped in there and lead us to score on a seven and 10 play drive. It is just the way the life works out the is not the starter. I know that he can-do big-time things. I am also excited to see Gerry get the opportunity to play. He has waited his turn and he has developed. He is a special young man.”
On the lack of sacks, the past two games…
“It is a shame we had one early in the game, but it got called back because we were offsides. We haven’t had that problem before, but we did it a couple times on Thursday night. I really think what is comes down to is teams adjusting. We practiced all of West Virginia’s five-man protections and they ran the ball and max protected. They made it clear that they weren’t going to let us get to the quarterback. We should have been able to cover the routes since we would have more defenders not going after the QB. Teams are now seeing that max protection is keeping us off of the quarterback and Oklahoma State is nothing different. We need to start winning in the secondary.”
On the issues in the secondary…
“I think that different guys have gotten beat, but at the end of the day with eight minutes left in the second quarter it was 13-0 and we have to find a time to make a stop. The same thing happened at Duke with five minutes left in the first half. The end of the half has really hurt us. Chris Miller was out for the game, [Raleigh] Texada has stepped up and played really well for us. That was a veteran team that was embarrassed about how they played at Iowa State. We have learned from it and we have to come back and answer.”
Status of Grayland Arnold…
“Grayland is coming back from that ankle. I just don’t think he is 100% yet. I don’t think he will be available for Saturday.”
On how the redshirt rule changes for these last four games...
“I think Gavin Holmes will be available. Mark Milton is a guy who can make an impact. Some of those guys will just play and contribute on special teams. Some guys only have two games left like Byron Hanspard, Jr. We keep a spread sheet on who has played and how many games. Being at home makes it easier to manage because unlike the Big 10 we haven’t adopted a larger travel roster. Bralen Taylor might be available. A lot of guys will certainly be available.”
On looking forward to playing at home for the first time in nearly a month...
"We are very much looking forward to it. I think we haven't had a tremendous amount of success on the road. The three Big 12 teams we've gone to have been three tough places to play. I think to come back and have it be Homecoming, all the festivities around Homecoming, have it be an early game, I think those are things that our guys will be excited about, to just wake up and go play football. The schedule is what it is and the travel is what it is. The thing that I've tried to get our guys to understand is, we're sitting here at 4-4, we've played three at the time top-10 teams and we haven't been able to get a win against them. Hopefully we recognize that we're battle tested and we've played some good players. We've had some good moments and we've had some bad moments, so you build on the good moments and learn from the bad moments. We need to go out and play the way we're capable of. It won't ever be perfect, but it can certainly be competitive. We can respond to adversity better than we did on Thursday night, and it's nice to do that at home."
On OSU running back Justice Hill...
"He's a big time, big time, big time back. He's a pro-style running back. Oklahoma State is as close to an NFL, pro-style offense. They're not spread. He is a complete back. He's dynamic. He's got great vision, he's tough, he's physical, but he also can take it the distance. Their offensive line does a great job at handling movement. They have a nice scheme, but he's so versatile that they can do a couple different things with him."
On the play of Connor Galvin against WVU...
"I thought he played well. He was competitive. He attacked the defender. The moment wasn't too big for him. I thought he did a nice job protecting the quarterback's back side. He's young, he's light, he's not super, super big, but Connor Galvin was a certainly a positive. We now know that he can be the guy over there and grow into that role."
On being able to convert in the red zone...
"I think we've been able to run the football in, throw the football in, we've been able to utilize the power run game. In a year where right now, we're a little frustrated with where we are, I think third downs and red zone were things we were abysmal at last year and we have improved significantly in those two areas. We'd like to carry that over into everything. I think our guys have done a really good job at attacking in the red zone. I've been pleased with that development."
On OSU's dual-threat quarterback Taylor Cornelius...
"He's such a big, physical guy that sometimes you don't recognize how good of a runner he is. He's got a big-time arm. Anytime you have a quarterback that can run and is used in the run game, it eliminates one defender who now has to play the quarterback. It just adds a whole other level of preparation. He can definitely do it and he played really well on Saturday."
On OSU's execution on offense...
"I thought they got the run game going early. They found a couple runs that they could execute versus all the different looks. They hit some big plays, and once they got that run game going they were able to go tempo and get themselves in a rhythm. They're as creative and good an offense as there is. They made the plays on Saturday against Texas. You could tell they were fired up and excited, had a good plan, looked fresh. They were really just clicking on all cylinders."
On a timetable for Charlie Brewer's return...
"He's in concussion protocol and that's run by the doctors and trainers. Some guys it can be as short as a five or six or seven day process, some guys it's significantly longer. It's really just each person's response. First you have to wait until you have no symptoms. At the end of it, there's a cognitive functioning test. We've had players who have passed every step but didn't hit the score on the test, so they didn't play in games. Charlie can be advancing and doing great like he is, but there's still some pieces ahead that have to be signed off on. We're not going to put him out there until the doctor says he's good and he feels good. The management of that, as a coach, is you have to have Charlie get as many reps as he can to be ready, but you better also have Jalan [McClendon] ready, and you better have Gerry [Bohanon] ready."
