It's a busy day for me with two stories to write for NOLA.com (hoops and football), so I will transcribe my interviews with Sumrall and Greg Gasparato later, but just wanted to pass on the news that Sam Howard is doubtful for the Temple game. It has not been determined whether Dickson Agu or Chris Rodgers would start in his place, but Tulane is deep at linebacker and likely would not miss Howard much against an opponent like Temple. It might be an opportunity for Makai Williams to get some reps at linebacker. He is talented but has not worked his way into the rotation so far in his career.
"The deal with Sam is I probably could have been a jerk and pushed the gas on him, but the reason he's doubtful probably has much to do with if you're not ready, we've got guys that can play," Sumrall said. "Don't do anything dumb. Those guys (Agu and Rodgers) make plays, man. They're pretty good."
Thursday is a walkthrough in Sumrall's system, so there is very little to report from practice. I'll be back later with the quotes from Sumrall and Gasparato on the unprecedented defensive depth and balance.
SUMRALL
On if he's ever had a team with this much defensive balance and depth:
"I haven't. We're playing a lot of guys. We're trying to be fresh. You've seen different guys step up. The pick-sixes being a different guy each time is kind of exemplary of there's a lot of guys that can make plays. It's a lot of fun. I haven't been around defenses where the number is so spread out. Usually you have a leading tackler or two in the top group in the conference and a sack guy who's usually the top guy in the conference or close. That is very unique. It's a testament to the depth our defense. It's also a testament to the number of guys that are able to play when we're rolling like this."
On using a lot of guys on defensive line and being effective:
"There's been a lot of guys. Even like Terrell Allen last week had the one that was a big play. Gerrod Henderson had his game against South Florida. They've all had moments. Fobbs-White's flashed the past few weeks. Pat (Jenkins)'s Pat. (Eric) Hicks is Hicks. Adin (Huntington)'s kind of come on the last three games, so you're seeing a lot of guys. Patrick Peterson. Who saw that coming? It's a great tip of the cap to our team because they love watching each other's success on defense. I've had a lot of fun just seeing them be fired up about another guy making a play. That's what great teams do."
On moving guys around:
"We make mistakes as coaches all the time believe it or not. So we had Adin at field end and TA at bandit. That was off of body type. You look at a guy's body and think they should fit there, but really their experience and their comfort level were better suited in the other direction so we moved TA to field (actually tackle) and Adin to bandit, and both of them are playing better. It was us being dumbass coaches for a while."
On this being ideal:
"It's great. What I'm really excited about is we knew coming into the year Pat Jenkins and Eric Hicks up front. We knew coming into the year Tyler Grubbs. We knew coming into the year Slim Despanie. It's fun watching the younger players find themselves and grow in confidence and just improve their game."
On depth maybe hurting chance for all-conference selections:
"I've never put a whole lot of stock in those lists anyway. I played in college with a guy named Dwayne Robertson, who never made all-conference but was the fourth pick in the NFL draft. Most of the time nobody knows what they're picking. It's who made the most tackles. Well that guy might suck. He just fell into a lot of tackles. I led my team in tackles. I wasn't a good player. I was average."
On his making 17 interceptions in high school:
"Yeah. I played corner and safety as a sophomore and junior. I had 10 picks as a sophomore because the corner on the other side of me was like a real player and they thought they were going to throw at this skinny white kid and I just picked a lot of passes off."
GREG GASPARATO
On if he's ever had a defense with this much balance and depth:
"If we did, I think maybe myself and the coaches maybe didn't give them a chance to have it. We've got a lot of good players. Some guys have more experience than others. A lot of the experienced players haven't played together, so there's no substitution for game reps. There's none, so we had some growing pains early in the season maybe not fitting a gap or not running with a wheel route, but you've got to learn from that and these guys have done a great job. A lot of these young guys that maybe made some mistakes early have made some huge plays for us down the stretch, and that's why you continue to do that. They've earned it. They've done it in practice. They've showed intentionality. They love football, and as the season goes we've been getting better and better, but I probably have not been running a defense where the production is spread out as much as this one is."
On giving starters a rest and not worrying:
"It's a testament to the players and it's also a testament to the coaches on the staff. They've done a really good job preparing their guys whether it's reps during practice, extra film study, whatever that means. Everybody's got something they're not good at and they need to improve on, so they try to address those issues every week and get a little bit better, and that's the goal this week, to be better than we were last week."
On Jack Tchienchou and Kevin Adams' development:
"That's a very cerebral position. There's a lot of checks and adjustments based on the calls. Some are easier than others, but they've got to know what's going to happen before it happens. If this motion happens, we're going to this. They've got to process that before the ball's ever snapped. Again, when the bullets are live, it becomes a little bit difficult, but they've got so many accumulated reps throughout the season both in practice and in games, and we're running a lot of the same stuff week to week, so it's been just the cumulative effect of getting reps, seeing it, making a mistake, learning from it, getting better and they've done that."
On Dickson Agu and Chris Rodgers:
"I can't say enough how proud I am of them. Their ceilings are unbelievably high. I still don't know if they know how good they can be, but they are continuing to get better every week, they are making plays when they're asked to. We can move guys around. They can play multiple positions, so they'e learned this defense really well. They know the ins and outs. They know where the stress points are. They know how they've got react to certain things, and that's what this game is. It's a formation adjustment game and everybody's got a job to do. Those guys have continued to get better and they've got elite athleticism and length. They just do so many things really well. I"m excited to see them as the season goes and as the future goes."
Of if Agu or Rodgers will start if Sam Howard cannot play against Temple:
"Don't know yet. We'll see as we get closer to the game and we'll make that decision probably tomorrow."
On depth on defensive line:
"Again, that's a testament to the players and a testament to coach (Landius) Wilkerson getting them ready with. no drop-off. I tell everybody all the time I don't want to be hamstrung from call standpoint because there's a player on the field that can't execute. They've done a really good job. Now I'm going to be smart and understand who I do have on the field and use them to their strengths, but I can't protect everybody, so they've done a good job of taking ownership and doing their job--pass rush, run fits, stunts, whatever that is and when you do your job and are in position to make plays, that's when plays happen. When you're in the gap and the ball carrier runs into it, that's when you make your play. When you get a 1-on-1 pass rush, you've got to go win. If we call a stunt and you run it correctly, you're going to win. It's just the cumulative effect of these guys getting reps together and playing. They've all gotten better."
On good numbers across the board defensively:
"We're getting there. It's never as good as you think and never as bad as you think on tape, and that's what I've seen. Statistically it was good last week and score-wise it was good last week, but there was very poor tackling. There were very poor run fits at times. A couple of times coverage was not as clean as it needed to be, and that's what football is. If it would have mattered in a loss, it better matter in a win. You can't be oh, well, they didn't hit it. You better learn from them because everybody is watching that same play and is going to take advantage of it. Defense is about elite execution all the time. You don't get plays off. You can play 67 out of 70 plays perfect and three bad ones, and you just lost the game 21-20. We've got a lot of little things we can continue to get better at."
"
"The deal with Sam is I probably could have been a jerk and pushed the gas on him, but the reason he's doubtful probably has much to do with if you're not ready, we've got guys that can play," Sumrall said. "Don't do anything dumb. Those guys (Agu and Rodgers) make plays, man. They're pretty good."
Thursday is a walkthrough in Sumrall's system, so there is very little to report from practice. I'll be back later with the quotes from Sumrall and Gasparato on the unprecedented defensive depth and balance.
SUMRALL
On if he's ever had a team with this much defensive balance and depth:
"I haven't. We're playing a lot of guys. We're trying to be fresh. You've seen different guys step up. The pick-sixes being a different guy each time is kind of exemplary of there's a lot of guys that can make plays. It's a lot of fun. I haven't been around defenses where the number is so spread out. Usually you have a leading tackler or two in the top group in the conference and a sack guy who's usually the top guy in the conference or close. That is very unique. It's a testament to the depth our defense. It's also a testament to the number of guys that are able to play when we're rolling like this."
On using a lot of guys on defensive line and being effective:
"There's been a lot of guys. Even like Terrell Allen last week had the one that was a big play. Gerrod Henderson had his game against South Florida. They've all had moments. Fobbs-White's flashed the past few weeks. Pat (Jenkins)'s Pat. (Eric) Hicks is Hicks. Adin (Huntington)'s kind of come on the last three games, so you're seeing a lot of guys. Patrick Peterson. Who saw that coming? It's a great tip of the cap to our team because they love watching each other's success on defense. I've had a lot of fun just seeing them be fired up about another guy making a play. That's what great teams do."
On moving guys around:
"We make mistakes as coaches all the time believe it or not. So we had Adin at field end and TA at bandit. That was off of body type. You look at a guy's body and think they should fit there, but really their experience and their comfort level were better suited in the other direction so we moved TA to field (actually tackle) and Adin to bandit, and both of them are playing better. It was us being dumbass coaches for a while."
On this being ideal:
"It's great. What I'm really excited about is we knew coming into the year Pat Jenkins and Eric Hicks up front. We knew coming into the year Tyler Grubbs. We knew coming into the year Slim Despanie. It's fun watching the younger players find themselves and grow in confidence and just improve their game."
On depth maybe hurting chance for all-conference selections:
"I've never put a whole lot of stock in those lists anyway. I played in college with a guy named Dwayne Robertson, who never made all-conference but was the fourth pick in the NFL draft. Most of the time nobody knows what they're picking. It's who made the most tackles. Well that guy might suck. He just fell into a lot of tackles. I led my team in tackles. I wasn't a good player. I was average."
On his making 17 interceptions in high school:
"Yeah. I played corner and safety as a sophomore and junior. I had 10 picks as a sophomore because the corner on the other side of me was like a real player and they thought they were going to throw at this skinny white kid and I just picked a lot of passes off."
GREG GASPARATO
On if he's ever had a defense with this much balance and depth:
"If we did, I think maybe myself and the coaches maybe didn't give them a chance to have it. We've got a lot of good players. Some guys have more experience than others. A lot of the experienced players haven't played together, so there's no substitution for game reps. There's none, so we had some growing pains early in the season maybe not fitting a gap or not running with a wheel route, but you've got to learn from that and these guys have done a great job. A lot of these young guys that maybe made some mistakes early have made some huge plays for us down the stretch, and that's why you continue to do that. They've earned it. They've done it in practice. They've showed intentionality. They love football, and as the season goes we've been getting better and better, but I probably have not been running a defense where the production is spread out as much as this one is."
On giving starters a rest and not worrying:
"It's a testament to the players and it's also a testament to the coaches on the staff. They've done a really good job preparing their guys whether it's reps during practice, extra film study, whatever that means. Everybody's got something they're not good at and they need to improve on, so they try to address those issues every week and get a little bit better, and that's the goal this week, to be better than we were last week."
On Jack Tchienchou and Kevin Adams' development:
"That's a very cerebral position. There's a lot of checks and adjustments based on the calls. Some are easier than others, but they've got to know what's going to happen before it happens. If this motion happens, we're going to this. They've got to process that before the ball's ever snapped. Again, when the bullets are live, it becomes a little bit difficult, but they've got so many accumulated reps throughout the season both in practice and in games, and we're running a lot of the same stuff week to week, so it's been just the cumulative effect of getting reps, seeing it, making a mistake, learning from it, getting better and they've done that."
On Dickson Agu and Chris Rodgers:
"I can't say enough how proud I am of them. Their ceilings are unbelievably high. I still don't know if they know how good they can be, but they are continuing to get better every week, they are making plays when they're asked to. We can move guys around. They can play multiple positions, so they'e learned this defense really well. They know the ins and outs. They know where the stress points are. They know how they've got react to certain things, and that's what this game is. It's a formation adjustment game and everybody's got a job to do. Those guys have continued to get better and they've got elite athleticism and length. They just do so many things really well. I"m excited to see them as the season goes and as the future goes."
Of if Agu or Rodgers will start if Sam Howard cannot play against Temple:
"Don't know yet. We'll see as we get closer to the game and we'll make that decision probably tomorrow."
On depth on defensive line:
"Again, that's a testament to the players and a testament to coach (Landius) Wilkerson getting them ready with. no drop-off. I tell everybody all the time I don't want to be hamstrung from call standpoint because there's a player on the field that can't execute. They've done a really good job. Now I'm going to be smart and understand who I do have on the field and use them to their strengths, but I can't protect everybody, so they've done a good job of taking ownership and doing their job--pass rush, run fits, stunts, whatever that is and when you do your job and are in position to make plays, that's when plays happen. When you're in the gap and the ball carrier runs into it, that's when you make your play. When you get a 1-on-1 pass rush, you've got to go win. If we call a stunt and you run it correctly, you're going to win. It's just the cumulative effect of these guys getting reps together and playing. They've all gotten better."
On good numbers across the board defensively:
"We're getting there. It's never as good as you think and never as bad as you think on tape, and that's what I've seen. Statistically it was good last week and score-wise it was good last week, but there was very poor tackling. There were very poor run fits at times. A couple of times coverage was not as clean as it needed to be, and that's what football is. If it would have mattered in a loss, it better matter in a win. You can't be oh, well, they didn't hit it. You better learn from them because everybody is watching that same play and is going to take advantage of it. Defense is about elite execution all the time. You don't get plays off. You can play 67 out of 70 plays perfect and three bad ones, and you just lost the game 21-20. We've got a lot of little things we can continue to get better at."
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