Our kids were excited about certainly winning the football game and finding a way down late in the game and coming back on the last drive and making a play with our backup quarterback in there, DeShone Kizer playing his first college football. It's a lot about the resolve of the group we have out there. It's just a good group of guys that continue to play. They never lay down, they never got to that point where they didn't think they could win. I'm proud of the way they kept playing. Wasn't perfect today, but regardless of that they found a way to win the football game and that at the end of the day is the most important thing.
Zaire update
He has a fractured ankle and he'll be out for the season.
How does that change your approach moving forward with Kizer?
DeShone Kizer's the starter.
How does it change the approach with having a different and younger quarterback?
Certainly he doesn't have the experience Malik has, but we can run our offense through DeShone and he has great weapons around him. We saw that tonight. He's got a running back and he's got receivers and we've just got to balance the offense and do the things he's capable of doing. Teams have to overcome injuries. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is but we'll find a way to put it together so we can win football games with DeShone Kizer as our starting quarterback.
4th and 2- you called a timeout and then a QB draw
It was actually a read pass run, so if he had zone coverage we were going to throw a little quick gain and pick up the first down. If he got man and the numbers were favorable, we wanted to pick up the first down. We just needed three. It was really just about converting in that situation. I took the timeout there and we gave him a run-pass option play. He's a big enough kid and figured if the numbers weren't great, he could get us two yards.
Did you sense anything from him?
I thought his composure was good. His pocket presence was really good. His demeanor was good. One time we had the center controlled snap and he took it over. He did some pretty good things out there and showed pretty good poise. He misfired on a couple throws but I thought all in all given the circumstances on the road, needing to come up with the big drive at the end, that's about as good as it can be for the first time out there.
Progression read to Fuller?
We had a double move out there. As you know, we ran a quick slant on third down prior to the question here. We had a third down and the corner came up and defended it quite well so we ran a double move off of that so he just waited for that and stepped up and connected with him.
Defensive struggles
We did some good things. I know Coach VanGorder's frustrated with some things that happened out there in the pass defense that we'll have to clean up but it's correctable things. We just didn't play the ball very well in the air. We made some really silly mistakes trying to play a screen on 3rd and 15. We just needed to be the deepest defenders there. Some uncharacteristic kind of mental errors. We were off the field and we get a dumb personal foul penalty that sets up a score. It's poor things that lead to giving up 416 yards in the game and the kind of situation we had today. We have to clean up a lot of stuff.
Did you think what happened to Zaire affected the defense?
I don't think so. I never thought of it in those terms. I'm working hard enough on so many other things here. We just did some poor things in pass coverage. We couldn't cover the seven route into the short fields. There were a lot of things we need to do better in pass coverage.
Prosise
I thought he did well. There was a couple things he's still feeling his way through — a couple cuts here and there. I thought he ran the ball effectively. He had 17 carries, 156 yards, so nine yards per carry. That's pretty good.
Punter changed momentum
I've kind of heaped a lot of praise on him. He's got a big leg, 56.8 yards. We've really got to work on getting that ball down inside the 20. That's the only bad thing I could say about him. He's got really good hangtime off his kickoffs. You could see that we're getting the ball inside the 25 regularly on our kickoff coverage. He's doing a nice job for us.
3rd downs
We were largely ineffective in our short-yardage run game. There are a number of reasons for it, some miscues. Some of it goes to Virginia. I thought they did a very good job of defending us on third and short, but it's unacceptable to be that ineffective on third down situations.
Neutralizing pressure from ND DL
They didn't run the ball necessarily effectively inside the tackles. They got the ball outside a couple of times through some of their shifting and trading and speed packages and they outflanked us a couple times in the third quarter. By and large we had that in check and I thought we didn't trigger the way we needed to with the safety position. Most of their stuff was misdirection, fly sweep, jet sweep series. They obviously hurt us with three plays in the first half. The reverse pass, they matched up with James Onwualu, we had a bad matchup there with our personnel on the deep throw and the seam throw. Second half I thought that we just didn't play quite as well in the first half.
Adjustments for winning drives
We threw the ball a little bit more down the field. We tried to push the ball down the field. We hit a big dig route to Corey Robinson, which got us in striking zone for a field goal. We only needed a field goal. We felt like we had the ability with three timeouts that we had a lot of calls left on our call sheet, where we could run some quick game and some short throws and we didn't necessarily have to get out of bounds. Once we hit that pass it allowed us a lot more calls on the sheet to get the ball close to field goal range. When we had the double move we hit the big throw down the sideline.
Where is Kizer with the playbook?
Each one of them has a list of their top-10 pass plays and run plays, and he's pretty deep into the playbook. He's really good in protections and understands the things he needs to run our offense. I think I've commented a couple times in our pressers that he can win games for us. I want to win a championship with him. We saw today he can win games for us. We need to elevate him to that next level. Now he's going to get first-team reps and that's what we'll go to work on.
Similarity between Malik's top 10 and Kizer's top 10
Malik has more that are packaged with the run game. Certainly DeShone's not the same runner that Malik is, though we're not afraid to run DeShone. He's a big, physical kid and we think he's capable. He's very elusive and hard to get down. We'll incorporate the run game with him as well.
Deflating had you lost
It's bittersweet. We're happy we won, but we lost Malik, who's a very important guy to us. I know our kids are celebrating the win and are happy but they lost a kid they feel really strongly about in the locker room. They'll bounce back from it. Kids are resilient. The coaches are probably feeling it more. I am in particular because I'm so close to him. I feel so bad for him. We'll bounce back from it. DeShone has to run our football team and we feel good about it. Again, we made a lot of mistakes today. Virginia played really well too. They played inspired football and they're a well-coached team and I thought they did some great things offensively and we were largely ineffective. We moved the football and our third down was atrocious and left a lot of opportunities to score points. Virginia should get a lot of credit for that.
Fake field goal- was that the call before the declined penalty?
We felt pretty good as long as we were in the right position. We wanted to move back a little bit. They were smart to not let us go back. We wanted to compress that edge a little more because it was close, which could've got somebody to wrap around from the other side. It was in our strike zone area where we could run it so we let the clock run down purposely.
Do you have the depth to suffer an injury like this and be successful this year?
Heck yeah. Yeah. Look — we've lost our starting running back and our starting quarterback. Those are difficult injuries. There's no question. We've got a lot of really good players around him. DeShone doesn't have to win it himself. As long as we continue to support him — we've got to play better defense and we've got to defend the pass better — but if we play better defense and support DeShone, yeah, we can be the kind of football team we hope to be.
Redfield's cast
It's very similar to Joe, so four weeks probably.
Did that affect him today?
Could've.
Culture over scheme- how does it speak to ability to step up and make plays today
It's what I love about this group. I've had 25 teams in my career over 25 years and what I love about these guys is they're going to keep playing even through making some mistakes and not playing a perfect game against a really inspired opponent today. They found a way to win. They didn't believe that they couldn't win the football game. That's a fun team to coach. We've got to coach better and play better because you can't rely on these kinds of drives at the end of the game or you're going to lose these games. It's a good group to coach. We just need to coach better and play better.
Zaire update
He has a fractured ankle and he'll be out for the season.
How does that change your approach moving forward with Kizer?
DeShone Kizer's the starter.
How does it change the approach with having a different and younger quarterback?
Certainly he doesn't have the experience Malik has, but we can run our offense through DeShone and he has great weapons around him. We saw that tonight. He's got a running back and he's got receivers and we've just got to balance the offense and do the things he's capable of doing. Teams have to overcome injuries. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is but we'll find a way to put it together so we can win football games with DeShone Kizer as our starting quarterback.
4th and 2- you called a timeout and then a QB draw
It was actually a read pass run, so if he had zone coverage we were going to throw a little quick gain and pick up the first down. If he got man and the numbers were favorable, we wanted to pick up the first down. We just needed three. It was really just about converting in that situation. I took the timeout there and we gave him a run-pass option play. He's a big enough kid and figured if the numbers weren't great, he could get us two yards.
Did you sense anything from him?
I thought his composure was good. His pocket presence was really good. His demeanor was good. One time we had the center controlled snap and he took it over. He did some pretty good things out there and showed pretty good poise. He misfired on a couple throws but I thought all in all given the circumstances on the road, needing to come up with the big drive at the end, that's about as good as it can be for the first time out there.
Progression read to Fuller?
We had a double move out there. As you know, we ran a quick slant on third down prior to the question here. We had a third down and the corner came up and defended it quite well so we ran a double move off of that so he just waited for that and stepped up and connected with him.
Defensive struggles
We did some good things. I know Coach VanGorder's frustrated with some things that happened out there in the pass defense that we'll have to clean up but it's correctable things. We just didn't play the ball very well in the air. We made some really silly mistakes trying to play a screen on 3rd and 15. We just needed to be the deepest defenders there. Some uncharacteristic kind of mental errors. We were off the field and we get a dumb personal foul penalty that sets up a score. It's poor things that lead to giving up 416 yards in the game and the kind of situation we had today. We have to clean up a lot of stuff.
Did you think what happened to Zaire affected the defense?
I don't think so. I never thought of it in those terms. I'm working hard enough on so many other things here. We just did some poor things in pass coverage. We couldn't cover the seven route into the short fields. There were a lot of things we need to do better in pass coverage.
Prosise
I thought he did well. There was a couple things he's still feeling his way through — a couple cuts here and there. I thought he ran the ball effectively. He had 17 carries, 156 yards, so nine yards per carry. That's pretty good.
Punter changed momentum
I've kind of heaped a lot of praise on him. He's got a big leg, 56.8 yards. We've really got to work on getting that ball down inside the 20. That's the only bad thing I could say about him. He's got really good hangtime off his kickoffs. You could see that we're getting the ball inside the 25 regularly on our kickoff coverage. He's doing a nice job for us.
3rd downs
We were largely ineffective in our short-yardage run game. There are a number of reasons for it, some miscues. Some of it goes to Virginia. I thought they did a very good job of defending us on third and short, but it's unacceptable to be that ineffective on third down situations.
Neutralizing pressure from ND DL
They didn't run the ball necessarily effectively inside the tackles. They got the ball outside a couple of times through some of their shifting and trading and speed packages and they outflanked us a couple times in the third quarter. By and large we had that in check and I thought we didn't trigger the way we needed to with the safety position. Most of their stuff was misdirection, fly sweep, jet sweep series. They obviously hurt us with three plays in the first half. The reverse pass, they matched up with James Onwualu, we had a bad matchup there with our personnel on the deep throw and the seam throw. Second half I thought that we just didn't play quite as well in the first half.
Adjustments for winning drives
We threw the ball a little bit more down the field. We tried to push the ball down the field. We hit a big dig route to Corey Robinson, which got us in striking zone for a field goal. We only needed a field goal. We felt like we had the ability with three timeouts that we had a lot of calls left on our call sheet, where we could run some quick game and some short throws and we didn't necessarily have to get out of bounds. Once we hit that pass it allowed us a lot more calls on the sheet to get the ball close to field goal range. When we had the double move we hit the big throw down the sideline.
Where is Kizer with the playbook?
Each one of them has a list of their top-10 pass plays and run plays, and he's pretty deep into the playbook. He's really good in protections and understands the things he needs to run our offense. I think I've commented a couple times in our pressers that he can win games for us. I want to win a championship with him. We saw today he can win games for us. We need to elevate him to that next level. Now he's going to get first-team reps and that's what we'll go to work on.
Similarity between Malik's top 10 and Kizer's top 10
Malik has more that are packaged with the run game. Certainly DeShone's not the same runner that Malik is, though we're not afraid to run DeShone. He's a big, physical kid and we think he's capable. He's very elusive and hard to get down. We'll incorporate the run game with him as well.
Deflating had you lost
It's bittersweet. We're happy we won, but we lost Malik, who's a very important guy to us. I know our kids are celebrating the win and are happy but they lost a kid they feel really strongly about in the locker room. They'll bounce back from it. Kids are resilient. The coaches are probably feeling it more. I am in particular because I'm so close to him. I feel so bad for him. We'll bounce back from it. DeShone has to run our football team and we feel good about it. Again, we made a lot of mistakes today. Virginia played really well too. They played inspired football and they're a well-coached team and I thought they did some great things offensively and we were largely ineffective. We moved the football and our third down was atrocious and left a lot of opportunities to score points. Virginia should get a lot of credit for that.
Fake field goal- was that the call before the declined penalty?
We felt pretty good as long as we were in the right position. We wanted to move back a little bit. They were smart to not let us go back. We wanted to compress that edge a little more because it was close, which could've got somebody to wrap around from the other side. It was in our strike zone area where we could run it so we let the clock run down purposely.
Do you have the depth to suffer an injury like this and be successful this year?
Heck yeah. Yeah. Look — we've lost our starting running back and our starting quarterback. Those are difficult injuries. There's no question. We've got a lot of really good players around him. DeShone doesn't have to win it himself. As long as we continue to support him — we've got to play better defense and we've got to defend the pass better — but if we play better defense and support DeShone, yeah, we can be the kind of football team we hope to be.
Redfield's cast
It's very similar to Joe, so four weeks probably.
Did that affect him today?
Could've.
Culture over scheme- how does it speak to ability to step up and make plays today
It's what I love about this group. I've had 25 teams in my career over 25 years and what I love about these guys is they're going to keep playing even through making some mistakes and not playing a perfect game against a really inspired opponent today. They found a way to win. They didn't believe that they couldn't win the football game. That's a fun team to coach. We've got to coach better and play better because you can't rely on these kinds of drives at the end of the game or you're going to lose these games. It's a good group to coach. We just need to coach better and play better.
