Coach Hugh Freeze sat down with the media during Kentucky week. These are the things he said.
Opening remarks…
“Really good team meeting this morning. A lot better than, obviously, the last four, when you get to celebrate the fact that your team found a way to win a game on the road in this conference, which is never easy. Loved the resolve, the resiliency they showed in doing so. There were a lot of great positives to share with them. I think, first, the game plan was to try to keep our defense off the field as much as possible against an offense that was averaging 37 points per game. We accomplished that, won the time of possession. Our defense only played 43 snaps, which is unheard of. So our offense really dominated the time of possession, which was really good. Rushed for over 200 yards. Had seven explosive runs. So really a lot of positives to look at on that side of the ball. Did have one turnover, obviously. We improved on penalties on the road, which was very nice. I think we only had three penalties.
“Lot of positives special teams-wise. A lot of big plays. I’ll start with Alex (McPherson), who got (SEC) Player of the Week, which is very deserving. For him to bounce back from his disappointment in the Missouri game and make 6-of-6 field goals, I was just so proud of him. We blocked a punt, Justin Jones. We had zero penalties on special teams, which was nice. Rayshawn Pleasant had an explosive kickoff return that set us up in great field position. Had a tackle inside the 20 by Jahquez (Robinson). So a lot of good things on special teams, played really, really solid. Only punted once, could have been a little better punt, but not terrible.
“Defensively, our goal was to, as always, stop the run. Against a team that was averaging a lot, I think 218 on the ground, we held them to 63 yards and their tailback to 41. And their quarterback, who was averaging a lot of yards per carry, we held him to 14 total yards. And then, obviously, the takeaways were huge for them to get those. Truthfully, the first half we didn’t play very well defensively compared to what our standard is. It was really just bad eyes, which they do a lot of things that can make you do that. Give a credit to the staff, to our kids, for making the adjustments at halftime and coming out and really dominating the second half. Really proud of our team, and again, the resiliency they showed.
“Now we have to turn our attention to a very dangerous Kentucky team. I have great respect for (Mark) Stoops. Defensively, I think they are really, really talented. It’s been a weird season for them, too, to have a real chance to upset Texas, they had the goal-line stop there. The Tennessee game got away from them, with just some bombs over their heads. You look at the Georgia and Ole Miss games, two top-10 teams, they’re right there in them. So I know we’ve got another tough challenge ahead of us Saturday night. Their freshman quarterback is playing at a high level, has an incredible arm. Those two receivers, (Kendrick Law) and (Hardley Gilmore IV) are dynamic. Their tight ends are good, too. Their defensive front seven is pretty dang special.”
On who will be the starting quarterback against Kentucky…
“I don’t think there’s any greater motivator than competition. That’s what it is. It’s an open competition to see who prepares and plays the best. They both will split reps, and then we’ll make a decision. There’s a lot of good things that both did. I thought Ashton (Daniels) showed an incredible amount of poise. I really only graded him on two minuses, but I thought he showed great poise and leadership at a difficult time to come in the game when the momentum had totally shifted the other way, and I thought he gave us a spark. Up until Jackson (Arnold’s) interception, I thought he played really, really well to that point. It’ll be exciting to see how they both respond and compete this week as we head into this game.”
On Deuce Knight…
“I think I’ve said this publicly. I mean it, I think Deuce (Knight) is the future of this program. I don’t know that it’s fair to throw him in that right now. He probably would handle it great. I’m certainly not saying we won’t. He’ll get a few reps, too. It’s really hard, really hard to try to do that with three guys right now. I do firmly believe there’s not many arms like Deuce Knight, and he’s got an elite one. Obviously, there’s a lot of other things that go into playing the position of quarterback and he’s quickly becoming better at understanding all of those. I can’t wait to see when he does get his opportunity.”
On struggles to score touchdowns in the red zone…
“Well, there were two (possessions) that truthfully we were being really conservative because field goals really put us in a good position. The last thing you want to do is risk it, so I kind of take those two out because we really didn’t attempt anything other than to milk the clock and get points. Then there are definitely others where we had our opportunities. One of the minuses on Ashton (Daniels), he will be the first to tell you, is that he’s got a guy wide open for a touchdown, Malcolm (Simmons), and just didn’t hang in the pocket and make the throw. He just has to put it on him and he steps in the end zone. You have to look at the calls first to see if we, as coaches, put them in a position to be successful when we get down there. Then we have to look at, ‘Are we coaching the execution of it well enough or not?’ Those are things we have to continue to certainly work on.”
On Cam Coleman and Durell Robinson’s status…
“Medical staff feel like (Robinson) is back this week. Durell is ready to go, which will obviously give us more depth there. Cam was not so good yesterday, today much better. We’re hopeful, but obviously don’t know just yet. Great thing is it’s not a high ankle sprain, it’s down in the lower part. Those tend to heal quicker, so we’re hopeful, but again don’t really know at this point.”
On Xavier Atkins…
“I can’t remember which game it was earlier, where we had a similar plan for a quarterback, and I think it just speaks again to the job that our staff is doing with these young kids over there, and to the young kids, their development. But we had a similar game – just can’t believe I can’t remember who it was – but where, when do we have certain things on, he is the spy. And in an earlier game, he got a little nosy with other things instead of just do your job on this play. And, man, in this game he did it beautifully. He closed on that quarterback when he broke the pocket at least three times that I thought were really, really impressive plays, not to mention the other normal plays that he’s making within the defense. I think he also got an award this week, and it’s very deserving. He’s definitely getting better. Eye discipline is so huge on defense that you just don’t get caught up in all the things that offenses try to show or do, and you do your assignment, and I think he’s maturing and getting better each week.”
On how the offense changes with Ashton Daniels at QB…
“Zero. I think he and Jackson are very, very similar. Anything that we would do with one, I would feel comfortable doing the same with the other. They both have the ability to run. D ifferent running styles, albeit. But still, they have the ability to, and the passing game doesn’t change at all.”
On Jackson Arnold’s success early in games…
“That’s what has made it so difficult. You see Ashton (Daniels) and Deuce (Knight), both of whom you know are really talented players, but you go watch the last three opening scripts, and it’s hard not to look at that and say, ‘Gosh, he’s (Jackson) played at an extremely high level.’ Against Missouri, it wasn’t just the first one; I thought he played really well the entire half. Unfortunately, he had some drops, which there’s nothing he can do about. There’s no arguing that there seems to be something we seem to lose, like a spark, or we lose some execution. Obviously, quarterbacks and head coaches get the primary blame, and rightfully so in some cases, but it’s not always the quarterback. There are other things that take place that are out of his control sometimes, but the bottom line is that we get judged on winning football games, and we had a stretch where we had a chance to beat some really good teams and we did not get that done. We’re just searching if there is a spark out there, whether it be Deuce or Ashton. I think Jackson is very mature. We had a great conversation. He came to work today, ready to roll. I gave him the example of whatever happens, come Saturday, you have to be ready. Whether you roll out there on the first possession or third possession or after half, or whatever that ends up being, you owe yourself and to this team to be ready, and he’s a mature kid and obviously is going to compete like heck this week to prove that he should lead us on that first drive again. I think he’ll handle it well, whatever the circumstances come.”
On Ashton Daniels potentially redshirting…
“I’m thinking about beating Kentucky. The only reason that came up was that he was so late getting here. You already had Deuce and Jackson getting all the reps, and so it wasn’t until about game three or four when we were struggling a little to finish games and get over the hump, that you start thinking about, ‘Can he give us a spark?’ Because he has experience playing in some pretty big games. I mean, you go put on the film with him against Clemson or Notre Dame. There are some things he did that were really good, and he continued to show poise and development in practice. That’s when you start thinking about the four-game deal, but you’re at a point now where, what do we have, four games left in the regular season? You’re thinking about this week, which is against Kentucky, and we’ll take next week as it comes. That’s all we can think about is going 1-0 this week. … Let’s win, and we’ll go to next week and see.”
On Jeremiah Cobb’s career game at Arkansas…
“If you really look, we’ve run the ball well per average against most all the teams. We didn’t run it near enough against Texas A&M since we were behind the chains the whole night. If you look at the average per attempt, it’s been pretty good. Jeremiah’s a huge reason for that along with the offensive line. We’re wearing him out right now with 28 carries; that’s a lot in today’s time. His body is not quite built like Jarquez (Hunter’s). We’ve got some difficult games coming, but he’s handled it well to this point. We’ve modified our practice with him; he’s not getting as many reps as he used to in practice. We’ll get Durell (Robinson) quite a few this week along with Omar (Mabson II) and Jeremiah his share, but there’s no question he’s got to get his touches.”
On Horatio Fields’ status…
“I did not get an update today on him, so I would totally be speaking out of ignorance, but I don’t think he’s close. I’m always aware of the injured that are out there working and running, and he’s not to that point yet, so I don’t have an accurate update on that. We do feel like we can get him a redshirt, which would be huge for us next year to have him back; he’s an incredible leader and incredible young man, heck of a player. We can’t file that until after the season, but I think it’s a pretty good case that he would get his (redshirt).”
On Kail Ellis…
“Plays incredibly hard. Snaps were pretty good. That was a big nose (guard), 380 (pounds) or so. His fight is there. He’s got to understand when you’re on your own, where the ball may hit against this look, maybe use a little different technique. There were a couple of those, but I think we had a few more explosive (plays), or more yards, in a run when he was singled up some, but he held his own for sure. Pass (protection) did well. I think he got maybe two pressures, but I’m proud of him and we need him to get better again this week. Another difficult … those two inside guys are pretty dang good.”
On rallying from double-digits to win Saturday’s game…
“I don’t know that I could really express in words how rewarding, fulfilling, good to see it was, because in a lot of people’s cases it would have been easy to say, ‘Here we go again.’ I actually asked our staff in the staff meeting who had that feeling on the pick-six of ‘here we go again.’ Everybody was honest, I think, but at halftime I thought the staff was remarkable. I thought Keldric Faulk and Champ (Anthony) and Jeremiah (Wright) and Jeremiah Cobb and all those guys were. They were saying, ‘They haven’t stopped us yet. We’re going to find a way to win this football game.’ Defensively, the plays we gave up – the explosive plays – were just us with bad eyes, and let’s get it fixed and go find a way to win the game. It was incredibly rewarding to see them fighting back to do that. (Winning) on the road in this league is never easy, and that (Arkansas) offense put up a lot of numbers on some really good teams recently. I’m really proud of our defensive adjustments and offense controlling the time on possession where they didn’t have to defend for 60, 70 plays.”
On the rotation at cornerback…
“The only thing I’ve said in defensive staff meetings when I go in on Sundays is, ‘I think you ought to find a way to get your best coverage guys on the field in critical moments.’ There were times all three were on the field. The only negative is, we honestly have been rotating a ton of people, and when you play 43 snaps, that’s probably the only negative is some of them are disappointed they didn’t get their normal 12-15 snaps. It was just a weird kind of game. Forty-three plays, it’s hard to rotate a bunch of guys. Keldric (Faulk) isn’t really tired. That was probably the only thing. Everybody was excited but like, ‘Man, I wanted to play more.’ I get it, but it’s pretty good when you don’t have to play but a few snaps more than 40. Yeah, I think you have to rotate those three guys. Rayshawn (Pleasant) is getting better and better, and so is (Donovan) Starr and so is (Blake) Woodby. All of those guys are, Newboy (AnQuon Fegans) and (Eric) Winters, too. You just didn’t get to see as much of them because of the number of snaps we played, but Rayshawn had a heck of a game, for sure.”
On any discussions with John Cohen about the direction of the program…
“No, I haven’t. He was obviously excited for our win, and we celebrated together for a moment on the field. I don’t get into those conversations because how does that help with our focus on what it should be on, and that’s on these kids and getting ready to win another football game? That’s what we’re hired to do. I think all of us that sign up for this know that you’re fighting for your life from day one that you get into it. I love Billy Napier and have great respect for Coach (Brian) Kelly. I didn’t know him as well. You hate to see that. You really hate to see it for the building. You get it. Every school has to make those decisions, but I think that’s probably the hardest thing for this position is just the weight that you carry for all of these young families and people. I just don’t focus at all on that. I trust in our administration, President (Chris) Roberts, John Cohen and those guys. I’ve been here just short of three years, and is the program better than when I got here on the roster? Yes. Are we close? Yes. I’ve won everywhere I’ve been, and I believe with all of my heart that we’re going to win big here. My focus needs to be not on anything other than, ‘How do I help these young men grow this week as players and as young men, and how do I help our staff become e
