Weis Weekly Press Conference Transcript as Jayhawks Prep for Baylor
Kansas head football coach Charlie Weis met with the media Tuesday during his weekly press conference to discuss the Jayhawks’ upcoming game against No. 5 Baylor. The Bears enter the game as the No. 1 scoring offense in the country, as well as the top teams in terms of total yards per game, and are undefeated in Big 12 Conference play. The game will be televised on ESPNU and kicks off from Memorial Stadium at 6:02 p.m. Full video of Coach Weis’ press conference is available to Jayhawk Digital Passport subscribers by clicking here and a transcript of selected quotes is below.
Head Coach Charlie Weis
Opening Statement
“We’re on to Baylor. 6-0, 3-0 in the conference. Ranked as high as five in the Associated Press. Coach Briles is doing a heck of a job there, it helps that he has some good players. You’ve got All-American types like(Cyril) Richardson and (Lache) Seastrunk on offense, and you’ve got three of the top five tacklers in the Big 12- (Bryce) Hager, (Eddie) Lackey and (Ahmad) Dixon. A combination of good coaching and good players, they’ve got things going on. Coach Montgomery and him has been together for over 20 years, so they think very, very closely. There are two elements of their offensive coaching philosophy that really put pressure on the defenses. One is the tempo at which they play, which is a very high tempo. And the second is how they stretch you horizontally. They play truly sideline to sideline, you’ll see times when one receiver will be two yards from the sideline and the receiver on the other side will be two yards from the sideline, stretching you horizontally. Everything thinks they’re just a passing team, that’s the furthest from the truth. They’re averaging 715 yards a game, but 300 yards rushing, another 415 yards passing, over 64 points a game.
“They usually use multiple wide receivers, they either use 11 people with a tight end and three wide receivers, they use that a little over half the time, and about a third of the time they just use four wide receivers out there without a tight end. Richardson is a man; you don’t play him left guard. You can throw him and (Desmine) Hilliard together, those two guards are big, big men and they play very physically. (Stefan) Huber’s the center and (Spencer) Drango and (Kelvin) Palmer handle the tackles. The guys that stand out to you right off the bat when you’re looking at them on the offensive line are those guards. They’re generating a bunch of good quarterbacks out of Baylor, Bryce Petty is the latest. He’s been in the system a couple years, he’s 6-foot-3, 220, and he’s averaging 338 yards a game, but two things that stand out to me more than anything else about this young man, one is his touchdown to interception ratio, which is 15:1- 15 touchdowns to one interception. And the other one, he leads the country in pass efficiency. One of the reasons you’re leading the country in pass efficiency is because you’re not throwing interceptions and throwing a bunch of touchdown passes. Seastrunk is one of the best running backs in the country. He’s averaging over 125 yards a game, over 9 yards a carry and the other part of it is they’ve got two other guys, and they’re both really good backs too. So he’s not the only one carrying the torch, he’s just the lead man. Same things true with the wide receiver position, they have a bunch of guys like (Levi) Norwood who’s their punt returner, but really, you look at (Tevin) Reese, he’s as fast as they come at wide receiver, and (Antwan) Goodley., you look at those two guys, he’s one of the leading receivers in the country, in Goodley and he might not be any better than Reese who’s one of the fastest in the country. They play a bunch of guys there. They play (Jordan) Najvar at tight end, and they can utilize him more as a blocker because they have all these skilled guys who can get the ball in their hands.
“On the other side of the ball, Coach Bennett, they’re seventh in the country in scoring defense, and eleventh in total defense. They basically play even cover four, you’ve heard this shtick before, but they play at almost every down. The way they’ve choreographed this defense, they play (Beau) Blackshear and right now, (Byron) Bonds as playing the starters inside. But at the defensive end position they use (Terrance) Lloyd, (Chris) McAllister, (Shawn) Oakman and (Kelvin) Palmer, and all four of them are pass rushing dudes. And because they get up in scores a lot of the time, they just turn them free and say go get after the quarterback. They don’t have to bring a lot of pressure, they can just turn those defensive ends free and say you don’t have to worry about the running game, just get after the quarterback. And they do, they get after him. The linke backers are making a ton of tackles. I mentioned Lackey and Hager before, those are the two linebackers. Lackey plays to the boundary, Hager plays the Mike, (Sam) Holl plays the field adjuster, and last year he and Dixon switched positions. Dixon was the field adjuster and Holl was the boundary safety. Dixon’s there along with the safeties, and they got (K.J.) Morton and (Demetri) Goodson handling the corners.
“The leading punter in the country is (Spender) Roth, he leads the country but he never punts. He has like two punts for the year, I don’t know the exact number but it’s not too many. (Aaron) Jones is their kicker, the skill guys, (Corey) Coleman and (Kyle) Fuller handle their kick returns.”
On if you can simulate Baylor’s plays on another team…
“I saw Briles in the off-season and I talked to him and I said, ‘How do you call plays that fast, really how do you snap plays that fast?’ He called it organized chaos. that was his phrase to me. I think that even though you might be able to simulate or emulate horizontal stretching of the field, you can do that. To snap the ball as quick as they do, rolling people on and off the field at the same time- when you make substitutions usually it takes a long time. Granted, the officials are supposed to, when there’s a personnel substitution, hold it until you have a chance to match, but everything happens so quickly. So it’s a combination of the spreading the width of the field and the up tempo that they play. Even if you know they’re doing it, you’re going to have a tough time unless you’re committed to doing all that full time all the time. Then you’ll have a tough time coming up with the same picture.”
On what defenses have done to make him hate them…
My first couple years at Notre Dame when I had a good bunch of wide receivers, and that lasted a while. I think that anytime they just said you’re just going to drop eight guys and you’re just going to have to have the patience to run the ball. And then you do that, but you have to be willing to do that. People can exaggerate one or the other and try to take an element away but a team like this- if you load up the box, they’ll throw it on every down, if you don’t cover the box, they’ll run it on every down. So the misnomer is all they do is they throw it up and down the field all the time, but that’s not true. Their running back might be the best player on their team. So they can do both and their not afraid to do both, and whatever you decide to do, they’ll gladly do the opposite. “
On when he watched Baylor film, did he see anything gimmicky to try to slow them down…
“The only team that’s slowed them down was Kansas State and remember they only played one game on the road. And the one game on the road was Kansas State and they were down in the fourth quarter. So it’s not quite the same on the road as it is at home. I’m hoping for a 6 o’clock, loud, boisterous crowd to make it so easy on them. And that’s what I think they got at K-State, it was a loud, boisterous crowd and Kansas State played conservative, they only blitzed a couple times the whole game, they just lined up in their defense and said we’re going to try to make you run, and make you just have to throw it and if they hadn’t given up a couple big plays in the fourth quarter, they might have beat them. “
On what a loud crowd can do…
“Well they call everything at the line of scrimmage. And everything at the line of scrimmage quickly. Now when you’re calling plays at the line of scrimmage and not caring how fast you call, you can go up and down and get it communicated. Signal outside to those guys- last week you saw (Blake) Bell just went to the line of scrimmage, and went from tackle to tackle, and told them what the play was, and backed up. Okay then signal out to the wide receivers and run the play. But when you’re trying to snap the ball as fast as they’re trying to snap it, they’re counting on verbal commands for everyone to everyone- how do the line know what the play is? They haven’t even got the play yet. They have to be given some kind of command to know what the play is. It’s a lot easier if you can yell at them than walk up and tell it to them. Because if you have to walk up and tell it to them that can slow down the tempo.”
On if the run game improving came at the right time…
“That’s what we’re going to do. They know it, we know it. Last week we made a firm commitment to this is what we’re going to do, obviously still not scoring enough points; obviously we’ve been talking for the last couple weeks about the inefficiency of the passing game. We need to make a few big games in the passing game, and try to do all we can to be even better in the running game. We had a bunch of third and short that we came up short in this past game. We can’t have those against these guys if we’re going to have any chance. You can’t come up short on third and two and fourth and one. And unlike last year, now I get booed out of the stadium when I actually punt and do the reasonable thing, last year I got booed out of the stadium when I went for it on fourth and one. I’m trying to play into our teams strength right now, which is our defense, unlike the Texas Tech game where we were on the short field the whole game .I don’t want to put our defense on the short field, I want to put them on the long field as much as I possibly can.”
On if he thought last week the team had lost confidence in the running game…
“No, I think we tried doing something different that didn’t work. So we went back to what we do. I think you have to be willing to try to things to try to get more production, but at the end of the day it wasn’t just a lack of scoring points against Texas Tech, it was how we played the game. How the field position game became drastically one sided to our side of the field, I just decided before the game was even over, we can’t play like that, not at this point. There can be a time where we play like that, but this is not it.”
On if he’s seen a difference between the pass and run blocking…
“The players have confidence in the run block. A lot of it has to do with those guys that we get the ball to are pretty good. I think that that has a lot to do with it. I think that the passing game has been an across the board thing, where we haven’t been great in any element. As I said the other day, I don’t want to sit there and pick one element. Across the board we need to get better in all elements if we’re going to be more productive. I think we’ve got some things planned this week that should give us a chance. “
On Nick Sizemore…
“Nick, at the end of last year had come on pretty strong, he had to sit out the first three games this year so we didn’t have him during that time frame. So it’s another one where because he’s not a front line player, everyone forgets about that. Now, he gets back and starts working his way in, he really helped us in that last game because one thing he does is he brings a lot of physicality, unlike a lot of people he’s not looking for the ball to be in his hands. He’s a skill guy but you for him it’s when he plays a successful block. He really helped us last week.”
On what Kansas tight end Jimmy Mundine has done to be successful…
“It’s funny, I had a tight end years ago by the name of Christian Fauria, and one year I think he had 12 or 13 catches, but eight of them were for touchdowns. So, it seems like every time they make a play, the play ends up getting you points. I think there were a couple plays in that game, for example, the one ball that 42 knocks down, they blow the coverage, he’s running wide open, it’s going to be a 50 yard gain. There were a couple of balls that we could have gotten to him that would have made a difference in his production. But, the thing is, after the first couple games where he had a little case of the dropsies, he’s put that behind him. He’s gotten better, not only in the pass game, but he’s gotten better as a blocker the last month or so after he got through those first few weeks.”
On how the Kansas’ coaching changes have gone and if Weis is still calling plays…
“Did you see me with a call sheet in my hand the other day? So I’m advising, that’s what I do. My work is done all through the week. When we start on Monday through Saturday, we know how the game’s going, we know the plays are going to be. Then, it’s just okay let’s do this, let’s do that, that’s basically how it goes. I think they did a nice job, as well as the whole staff. It definitely was the most freedom as I head coach that I’ve had ever, last week. The most freedom that I’ve had to actually yell at officials and do the stuff that I really enjoy doing, which I did a few times by the way.”
On Kansas having the same starting linemen for the third straight week…
“I think it’s invaluable. There’s a couple guys that are in that mix, but I think now you’ve sold into these are the guys and these are the first backup for these guys. It helps with the chemistry. I’ve said all along, I think our story will never change, our team is going to be playing significantly better at the end of the year than it was at the beginning of the year.”
On Freshman quarterback Montell Cozart…
“I think the first thing you need to do is get him involved with the whole game plan. That include all of the passes, all of the runs, all everything. If they think that every time we put in Montell it’s just to go ahead and run the ball, it’s not going to take very long for the defensive coordinators to figure that out. He’ll know everything this week. Last week, he wasn’t quite ready for everything, but I met with him last night a little bit when I came back from my favorite radio show and I said you can’t just know these ten plays, you need to know everything. We’ll see how he handles it this week, but he’ll be involved in everything.”
On scripting plays…
“You always script so many plays, in my career I’ve always scripted somewhere from 15 and 21. And usually you come pretty close to running it down early, but there’s been games in the past where I’ve gone three and out, three and out, three and out, and didn’t call a play on that sheet the whole rest of the game. I just said, well that’s obviously not working. I don’t wait until halftime to decide something is not working.”
On if the previous good starts were from scripted plays…
“Here’s basically our deficiency, it’s very clear. We can game plan all we want, but when we play our parts, and we still are inefficient in the passing game, then you can say to hell with the passing game. How about we just play our defense, we bring everybody up, you’re going to try to run with it, but you’re going to have to play your guys versus my guys. Now all of the sudden, those runs that looked pretty good early aren’t so hot anymore. The other day you’re going to have to be able to pass that ball. I made it be a part of the choreographing of the passing game, and along with the staff, along with the quarterbacks, along with everybody else, we’ll have to do a better job if we’re going to win. We’re going to have to do a better job throwing the ball because I think that if we through the ball at all our running game will always be good. Okay, and that’s if we throw the ball at all. But, right now, what did we throw for? 18 yards? 16 yards? You get my point, if that’s the way it’s going to be, Oklahoma blitzed and stunted more than they have all year against us. Why? Because they were scrambling, they were fighting on the sideline. Their defensive coaches were getting after each other. They were trying to figure out what to do. Well, they just said we’re going to bring everybody up and we’re going to make them throw the ball. What would you do? I would do the exact same thing that they did.”
On Kansas linebacker Courtney Arnick…
“In this conference, he’s the type of linebacker that almost everyone’s going to. 190, 200 pounds, he might go to 210 and can run all day. He can run. He’s not the only one who can run. I’ll give you an example, that 31 guy that we have, he can run. He’s not just like one of these little guys that everyone says, well, he’s just a local guy, a Kansas guy. He can run sideline to sideline. So I think that in this conference especially, now you need them everywhere, but when you have guys that can run sideline to sideline that helps you and Courtney definitely fits that build.”
On Kansas linebacker Jake Love…
“He had a heck of a game. The only thing I made fun of him a little bit was I said, you went from will to mike and you had a terrible week of practice, why’d you play so good? He really did have a heck of a game. He made a bunch of plays. It was probably that Oklahoma thing. That probably had something to do with it.”
On if he can take anything away from how Baylor turned their program around…
“First of all, they are about three games over .500 since he’s been there. So it wasn’t all rosy like we’re 6-0. It wasn’t like you walk in and wave a magic wand and all your problems are solved. But, what ends up happening is every once in a while you hit it big. There’s a guy of the name of RG3 who went in there and nobody knew him. He was a relatively obscure player a few years ago. He steps up and has the career that he did, it makes recruiting that much easier. Everyone wants to be the next RG3 at their respective positions. He brought them a lot of credibility.”
On if Baylor is getting enough respect…
“I don’t think there’s anyone questioning. They’re averaging 64 points a game, they’re seventh in the country on defense. If they’re not getting respect, then some people are stupid.”
On if coaching freedom is hard to adjust to…
“I think it allows you, to be honest with you, I haven’t had that. I was able to do things during that game that normally I wouldn’t be able to do. The things you don’t see that you got to see. There’s comments you got to make that normally you don’t get to do. There’s a lot of things, I kind of like it to tell you the truth. The biggest problem you have, let’s just use me as an example, is you’ve been calling plays for so long, sort of by yourself for a lot of the times, even though you’ve got a good valuable input by a lot of assistants. But, because you’re a little bit of an intimidating type of person sometimes, you don’t get as many of open flow and exchange of ideas. By pulling back away, first of all, you get a lot more good ideas than you ever would. Number two, just as long as you swallow your ego and don’t try to but in all the time, it actually runs pretty smooth. The biggest person you’ve got to control is yourself. To make sure you don’t say you’re going to do it one way and then do it someway else, that’s when the problems occur. Actually, I didn’t like the outcome of the game, but I kind of enjoyed it to tell you the truth.”
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