TCU Up Next for Weis, Kansas
Kansas head coach Charlie Weis met with the media Tuesday to discuss the Jayhawks’ upcoming road contest with Big 12 foe TCU at Amon Carter Stadium Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas. Subscribers to Jayhawk Digital Passport can watch the entire press conference here, while several comments from the media session have been posted below.
Head Coach Charlie Weis
“Coach (Gary) Patterson has been there now for 15 years with a record of (118-39). Now people want to talk about his 2-3 start – the teams that he lost to are 15-1, ranked No. 10, 11 and 20 in the country. So there’s a reason for those close losses he had.
“It all starts with his defense; I think he’s been one of the best defensive coaches in addition to being a great head coach. He’s a very, very sound defensive coach, doesn’t try to trick you, gets good players, puts in a scheme. They run it over and over again, they’re very good. Well everyone wants to talk about (Devonte) Fields, his foot, what’s the status of Fields? It really doesn’t make a difference because if he’s not there, (Terrell) Lathan will play that position. And they have (Davion) Pierson on one side, and (Jon) Koontz on the other side. When they put the back-ups in up front, they’re pretty good, too. When they get to the linebackers, (Jonathan) Anderson plays into the boundary, and they try to keep (Marcus) Mallet in the box, and (Sam) Carter will be their adjuster unless they go to nickel. If they go to nickel, (Derrick) Kindred will be the adjuster and they’ll take Carter and flip him back as the boundary linebacker. They have a potential No. 1 draft pick in (Jason) Verrett. He plays their boundary corner, opposite of White who plays to the field. And (Chris) Hackett and (Elisha) Olabode handle the safeties. How they’re schemed, the way they play cover four, with the safeties forcing, those guys are very active players and run support as well.
“On offense, Jarrett Anderson has been coaching there for a while; it’s his second year as the offensive coordinator. It’s pretty obvious to me that he would like to be a balanced play caller. He wants to mix the run and the pass, he does use multiple personnel groups. One thing’s a little different this year, as I watched the tape from last year, they’re using a lot more 10 personnel, about two-thirds of the time. Ten is with four wide receivers and the back. They’re using that as a prominent personnel grouping, but they use multiple personnel listings, which causes the defensive staff to be on their toes so they don’t get mismatched. There are two things that stand out to me about their offense, which I appreciate. One is they’re physical, and two, they play really hard. And those are two things that stand out. Obviously there has been a little quarterback transformation going on with Boykin handling it, but what Boykin really brings to the table is he’s a good athlete. You’ve got to worry about every time the guy’s got the ball in his hands. The running backs, they really are co-starters in (B.J.) Catalon and (Waymon) James, who is also the kickoff-returner, the two of them. Both carry the ball for about the same amount of time for the same amount of yards, and I think that they look at them pretty equally as starters. They got a big tight end in (Stephen) Bryant, who’s 6-foot-5, 240 pounds, and although they list (Brandon) Carter and (Cam) White and (Deante’) Grey as their main wide receivers, you have to also include (Ty) Slanina and (LaDarius) Brown, because there are so many times there are four wide receivers on the field. They’re all getting into the mix.
“(Ethan) Perry is their punter and (Jaden) Oberkrom’s their kicker, and (Brandon) Carter, one of the wide receivers, he’s their punt-returner and he’s pretty dangerous, as well as those two running backs I talked about who are back there as their kick-off returners.”
On changing the offensive line…
“Well there’s two ways of looking at it, first of all, the last thing I want to do is throw coaches or players under the bus. So obviously as the head coach, what you have to do if you’re not looking for sacrificial lambs, other than yourself, what you better do is sit down and say, ‘Okay, what can we do in an attempt to make this better?’ Well there are two things you can do. One is schematically, do less things more, that’s one thing, we’ll do that. And the other thing is you can move some people around, and see if you can’t, by personnel, fix problems. We went through the whole spring with (Pat) Lewandowski at left tackle, and Aslam (Sterling) playing at right tackle, and moved Lewandowski into center and that didn’t turn out well, despite the fact that that was what our goal was. We moved Lewandowski, who we thought was our best left tackle, when we moved him from left tackle to center, we put Aslam over at left tackle because we thought he would be the best left tackle with Lewandowski playing center. Well, now that Lewandowski has been moved back to left tackle, we moved Aslam back to right tackle because that’s in our comfort zone. The guys who are actually playing halfway decent on the offensive line, have been (Mike) Smithburg and Ngalu (Fusimalohi). They’ve been the two constant people – now they’ve been far from perfect, but they’ve been the two most constant guys we have. We’ve tried Lewandowski at center, that didn’t work out, Dylan we tried at center, that didn’t work out, Smithburg we tried at center in the spring, that didn’t work out. Now Gavin (Howard) is the one guy who’s been here, who’s played center, guard and tackle and who’s got some girth to him. He’s a 300-pounder, that we thought would be the best as we maneuver these guys and move them around, that gave us the best opportunity to try to do something new. One you could do it by scheme, and the other one you do it by personnel changes – we’re trying to do both.”
On if Sterling and Lewandowski’s changes will be seamless…
“I think for those two guys, it won’t be much of a change. Probably the biggest thing is can Gavin hold up at center? That’s the position that we’ve been kind of held hostage by. I think it’s important as the head coach that you don’t want to isolate one player in one position. ‘Let’s put all our blame and venom in that area.’ But that’s an area that we obviously have to get better, because it hasn’t been good enough.”
On what Andrew Turzilli has done to get him where he is…
“It wasn’t Saturday’s game that moved him up. See, Andrew was a little bit of a disappointment in the spring time, because athletically he is probably one of our two fastest wide receivers, with some size, with some athleticism, some power, some ball skills. He wasn’t playing very good. He didn’t play good in the spring, he didn’t play good in training camp. There’s two things you really look for when you get to that point. What happens to a guy when they move down the depth chart? They can only do one of two things now. They can either pack it in and accept the fact that they’re down there and accept that that’s where they’re going to be or they try to fight back. Out of all the players, one of the guys who stood out the most, that’s slowly taking step-by-step to work his way back into the mix. He was a front-line receiver starting out and he’s put himself back into that situation.”
On why Andrew was a disappointment in the spring…
“It’s all related to effort. To not showing up. Being there, but not being there. When you go through practice after practice and practice is over, and you never even noticed he was out there – that’s not a good thing.”
On if the running game has frustrated him…
“So far the run game in general, to me, has been a big disappointment. I don’t want to just single out the offensive line, there’s a lot of elements involved with that right there. It’s been a frustration because it should be a foundation of who we are.”
On how James Sims reacted to the new offensive line…
“The great thing about James is, he wasn’t picked as a captain just because he’s one of our best offensive players. He’s really bought into this, ‘whatever we have to do’ mentality. Like this past week when we start the game and it’s Brandon (Bourbon) and Tony (Pierson) and not him, and he knows in the pass game, Brandon and Tony are more polished than he is. We’ve only played four games, we’re 2-2 after four games. It hasn’t been a pretty 2-2, but we are 2-2 after four games with eight games to go. So I think James will have plenty of opportunity to grow along with this group and see if we can’t get this thing improved. And if we don’t, it’s not going to be pretty around here. We have to start getting some things fixed and that’s one of them.”
On if he is worried that he is changing the depth chart so often…
“The concern is if you are not willing to do that. It’s a bigger concern if you aren’t willing to do things to try to fix them. There’s only a couple mannerisms to fix them. One is scheme, and one is personnel. I think we have an obligation as coaches, especially me, to give every effort we have to explore alternatives we can to try to make things better. “
On if he has ever had to make this many personnel changes…
“Not to this extent. This is a large volume of changes but really we only have so many alternatives now. We’re kind of running out of alternatives. We’re at the point now where we’re not going to throw names in a hat and pick out five and that’s where we go. We have to start settling down into what we’re going to be. This week we’ll get one more opportunity to see where we are. We’re going against a really good defense this week, this isn’t just an average defense. This team is salty on defense, this is what they hang their hat on. We’re going to have to get better or it’s going to get worse.”
On Michael Cummings and the running game…
“We tried to get Michael more involved last week, because when the quarterback is a run threat, it forces the defense to do things differently than when the quarterback isn’t a run threat, a la Jake (Heaps). The problem with that is you also become so one-dimensional. People have six games of evidence with what we did with Michael at quarterback last year that they can grow on, if you get back in there you fall back into the same well you’re not going to complete any passes again. I think that you get into that same bind. They just load everyone up front and say, ‘They’re not going to throw it.’ That’s the bind you get in.”
On what is the hardest part of playing center…
“Without a doubt, it’s snapping the ball and having a guy hit you in the mouth as soon as you snap the ball. It’s not the identification. We have smart guys there. Pat Lewandowski is an intelligent young man, Dylan Admire is an intelligent young man, Gavin Howard is an intelligent young man. These are all 4.0 GPA type of students. So intelligence is not the issue. The issue is as soon as you snap the ball, you got a guy, 300-plus pounds on the other side of you, ready to hit you in the mouth. That’s the issue. No other position you have to do that, there’s only one: Center. Guards don’t have to do that. The ball snaps, they hit the guy across from them, their weight is down, they’re ready to go. Tackle doesn’t have to do it either. One position has to do it, that’s center.”
On what he saw on film…
“There’s the problem I have, I’m no different than the average KU football fan. I’m obviously more analytical and I know what everyone’s doing and what they’re supposed to be doing, and what my expectations are and they are supposed to be doing. So when I sat there and watched it, if we had gotten our clocks cleaned from the opening kick to the end of the game – then at least I’d have a better understanding…we just got whooped. My biggest problem – we were running the same things, it wasn’t like all of a sudden we changed what we were doing. The first quarter was not error-free. We had a couple false-starts, a couple things go wrong, but it’s 10-0 and you’re playing pretty complimentary football, on both sides of the ball with a plus-one turnover ratio. Now you end up minus-three. So you end up turning over four times, you have twelve penalties, your field position was horrendous, the defense is playing on their end of the field for the majority of the game. Matter of fact, the majority of the points started at the fifty going on in. Obviously, you have to get them to play on a longer field. That’s the first issue you have to deal with so you’re not letting your opponents start on a short field all the time.”
On if he worries about the defense…
“My biggest problem with the defense during the game was the third-down conversions. When a team’s running 100 plays, there’s definitely an element of fatigue. And part of that responsibility falls on the offense. The offense can’t hang the defense out to dry like that, that’s part of that. Some of that you can attribute to performance, but we don’t give up very many big plays in the passing game. We’ve been pretty good all year long in that element right there. When you’re out there then all of a sudden you’re out there again and again. We had three, three-and-outs in a row in the second quarter when things started to go bad. I think the defense was out there way too much. They’re just on the field way too much.”
On if the problems on Saturday were an isolated incident…
“Well if you didn’t have the first quarter you’d be concerned with that, wouldn’t you? But, the first quarter is part of that game, so there is some of that game where you sat there and said look that first quarter, you don’t get any try outs for winning that first quarter. All I am saying is that because the first quarter is on evidence, on tape, say okay here’s a top twenty team. I mean, you’re whooping them pretty good, it’s ten to nothing then, you know, all hell breaks loose. Okay, so I’ll go back to my point from before, I would be as upset as I am about how the game went, I’d be scrambling even a lot more if the fact that we didn’t have a quarter where we started off looking like a team that was going to win the game. You know, if you were getting whooped right from the start of the game, it would be even a greater concern.”
On how much feedback he gets from the captains or leadership committee…
“Before Sunday I don’t talk to anybody. Before Sunday I think my job is I really don’t say anything to anyone, I tell them after I come in and watch everyone by myself. That’s why I come in so early. I want to watch everything before anyone gets here. There’s no sign of life when I walk in here. I sit there and I take my time and I go through everything and they start trickling in and I’ve got things to talk about. The same thing with the players, you know, they aren’t in a big hurry to get here after a game like that. If the training room opens at twelve o’clock, at 11:59 be careful walking in the door because that’s pretty much the time they’re going to end up getting here. But, I think where I ask them for input is after I’m done. Not before I’m done, because I need to, look, the first thing you need to do is get the coaches out of tank, not that you guys ever think about that. But, you do. That’s part of what you do. Don’t feel sorry for yourselves, this isn’t a pity party here and don’t pity me. Here’s the situation, here’s what we got to do. There’s only one way we’re doing it, and this is the answer. It’s not like I’m taking opinions at that point. I’m giving directive at that point and I think that that’s what you’re supposed to do. After you’ve had this and everyone’s gone through and feels a little bit better that they’ve gone through it, that’s when you ask the players and the coaches for what they have to say, which I’ve done in the last 24 hours or so.”
On not having the injured Tony Pierson…
“It hurts. It hurts because Tony really has really gotten better each week and he’s actually starting to play really, really well. But, at the same time Brandon has played really good for us despite the fact that we didn’t move him to linebacker. He played really well for us and we think that he’ll have an added role now with Tony not there. More of the burden will fall on Brandon than has happened before. Fortunately, we have a player that we think it pretty good as the guy who plays behind him. He’s a different player, but we have a player who’s pretty good. Tony will be back, I don’t know when he’ll be back, but he will be back. Fortunately, the MRI came back negative. He’s got a headache and a sore neck walking around like an old man. Other than that, there’s nothing wrong with him which is a good thing.”
On how the staff prepares players against concussions…
“His concussion happened when his head didn’t even hit the ground, head didn’t even touch the ground. So, don’t think the whole helmet-to-helmet, sometimes the whole shock of playing the game. Basically, his shoulder bounced off the track, that’s basically what happened. He didn’t even get tackled, he got pushed out of bounds, he got knocked out of bounds. When he went down, he went down hard. As a matter of fact, I think he was just dead tired from having just run 200 yards. So, there was no helmet-to-helmet, there was no contact at all, he actually hit his shoulder, didn’t even hit his head. So, although you teach the proper form of tackling to try to prevent concussions, and you teach ball carriers not lead with their face when they have the ball to prevent concussions, really one of the more important things is how do you handle them once you have them. I know that our staff, our trainer, and our doctors, will definitely err on the side of caution when it comes to making sure that that player is healthy before he comes anywhere near the field.”
On what Tony Pierson’s precautionary path back to the field looks like…
“Well, beside cognitive tests, he probably would have already passed a cognitive test. You have to really look, see visually, usually the biggest thing or hurdle for people to clear, there’s a cognitive test that they have to take and you’d be surprised how many of them fail it multiple times before they can be cleared and ready to go. But, even if he were to pass the cognitive test, looking at him right now, it would be some time before we put him back out there. Better be safe than sorry.”
On Brandon Bourbon compared to Tony Pierson…
“The role would be pretty similar. Even though they are not the same type of player, you know Brandon, he’s not a 4.3 guy, but he’s a 4.5 guy. People don’t realize, he’s one of the faster guys we have, especially for his size. He has good ball skills, and we can play him in the backfield, play him out of the backfield. I wouldn’t call him a pleasant surprise, we’re just really pleased at his development.”
On if playing TCU last year will help out Kansas out this year…
“Well, one thing with this scheme that they have is they play the safety so close to the line of scrimmage that you do have opportunities to go over the top. Everyone tries to go over the top, everyone tries. You go back to our game last year, you’re going to see five or six times where you’ve got guys running wide open. But, it still comes down to execution. When it calls for those home runs, go ahead and hit them. We had one in the game the other day, you had a guy pretty well open down the field. Another time we had him open we couldn’t get it to him. I think that they give you some opportunities, but you have to be patient. You have to make sure that you don’t sit there and go bombs away against this team or you’ll be in for a long night.”
On if TCU’s lack of trickiness on defense will help Kansas’ offensive line…
“Do you want the good new or the bad news? The good news is that mental errors should be hardly any and we had a bunch in this past game. That’s the good news. The bad news is they’re good. We’ll know what to do against them, now it’s a question of how well we do it against them. That’s the good news and the bad news.”
On if TCU’s physicality will be a good match up for Kansas…
“It’s interesting because what they’ve tried to do in the past, now they’re trying to play offense like that too. They’re trying to play into that whole thing. Very seldom do I sit that and talk about an offense. The two things I said is that they play physical, and they play hard. They’re trying to be balanced, play physical and play hard, who does that sound like? Who do you know that kind of believes in that? I kind of think along with them. I think our defense has been playing pretty physical. Do I think they got exposed for some big ones in this game? Yes. Do I think they got beat in the passing game the week before? Yes. But, the bottom line is I think they’ve been playing pretty physical and pretty high level. I think that obviously in this game right here if you’re not physical, both sides of the ball, you’re going to have a tough time.”
On Samson Faifili’s availability…
“He looks like he is a ways from playing. Every time we get going he re-aggravates himself. He is really not much different than Taylor (Cox) to be perfectly honest with you, and might not be treated any different than Taylor. In other words he is another guy who is a potential medical redshirt if things keep going the way they are going.”
On Justin McCay’s progress…
“You know Bob (Davis) and I do this radio show and one of the guys asked that last night. You know he (Justin McCay) played 30 snaps in the game. Some people act like he didn’t play very much, but it is just that he didn’t have action going his way in the game. When we go into game plan you don’t take everyone and figure out how am I going to get the ball to this person and this person and this person. In our case we always start with what are we going to do with James (Sims) and what are we going to do with Tony (Pierson). That is where we start. You really can’t figure out what am I going to do about Justin McCay? How am I going to get him the ball? What am I going to do about Jimmay (Mundine)? You can’t do it with everyone. You have to figure out who you are and everyone kind of plays off of that. Then when a quarterback is throwing a ball there are only two ways a quarterback determines who he throws the ball to. Well three ways, one to be funny so I will do that one last. One is by progression. You go through a progression; A, B, C, D, E. That is one way. Another one is by coverage. They do this, you do that. They do that, you do this. And then the last one, the funny one which is more sarcasm than anything, you throw it to the guy who gets open. Believe it or not some quarterbacks who I have worked with in the past, they move number three to number one even though it’s supposed to be number three. Because they have guys they can count on that are going to get open so they are just looking for them all of the time. That is why you have certain quarterbacks that develop a certain relationship with a receiver. They just look for them all of the time. I don’t think we have that person here at this point.”
KUAthletics.com: The official online source for Kansas Athletics, Williams Education Fund contributions, tickets, merchandise, multimedia, photos and much, much more.
