Another Tuesday, another round of Dooleyisms. Not as exciting as last week, but still pretty quotable.
On Alabama and Trent Richardson specifically
Alabama, I guess this is Nick’s (Saban) fifth year. It’s his best team, probably as physically a dominating defense as I’ve seen in the modern era of football and I know that is strong statement. But I believe it. You catch yourself watching them, not studying them. They’ve given up seven points a game, 38 yards rushing a game, 184 total yards a game. And in this era, doing something like that – it’s a combination of everything. Incredible talent at every position, great coaching and just a relentless, physical dominating style of play. Heisman Trophy runner. Look at him and he’s physically imposing. He is thick, you look at his legs and he has been gifted physically. He has an ability to play low to high, so he is always playing with power. And he is always square to the goal line even though he is moving right to left. He is really good. He is a good football player
Man, I am pumped for Saturday. I know he doesn’t want any billboard material, but how, this is border line Lou Holtz. (Although,Dooleymay be right)
I hope Tennessee doesnt see too much of this on Saturday
On UT’s chances on Saturday:
I told the team you only get 12 days to compete, 13 if go to a bowl game. We have to relish the opportunity to play against this type of football team. It should appeal to our competitive spirit and we need to focus on, No. 1, eliminating the penalties and mistakes that have nothing to do with the opponent. And No. 2, building on some of the positive things we saw in the LSU game and trying to improve on some of things we didn’t do so well. That is where we are.
Unfortunately that’s where Tennessee is. Hoping to play better. It’s ok, but no ok at the same time.
On Matt Simms
Matt helps you in the run game. It’s one of his strengths by trying to get you in good looks. He gives you a better schematic advantage. He has an ability to recognize fronts and know what to run and where to run it. When you are a good running team, that is what you have to do. You can’t just call a play and hope it works. You have to be able to count it, so he helps us in that. It doesn’t mean you are going to get yards, but it gives us an advantage. There are some times you call a play and you have no chance if you don’t have a quarterback who can get you out of it. On Simms reading defenses better than Bray: I think that is fair to say. Matt has the capability of doing it and we try and shape our plan around our players. Sometimes that slows Tyler down and then it starts affecting him throwing the ball when he is sitting there using all of his energy trying to figure out what to do with the run. And Tyler knows that . I think it is experience. Some guys see things more naturally than others and Tyler when he drops back in the pocket, he naturally sees things that a lot of quarterbacks don’t. Conversely, Matt sees things in the run game that Tyler doesn’t
All things being equal though, it’s pretty obvious Dooley and the entire Big Orange Nation (Myself included) would rather have Bray under center than Simms.
On the Big Orange Caravan and Rivalries
All these games are big games to me. I love going around the Big Orange Caravan, OK? They say, `Coach, we only care if you beat one team: Alabama.’ OK, then I go to the next guy and he says, `Coach, I only care if you beat one team: Georgia.’ Then you go to the next guy, “I only care, you can lose them all, just beat Florida.’ All right, and when you add it all up it’s all 12 to make everybody happy.
This a good point, nobody gives a crap about beating Kentucky and Vandy, until you don’t.
I'll try to be perfect, if you try to be rational
On Thumbs
What they are doing is putting a plate in today, which was not unexpected. It doesn’t really delay anything but they have to let the swelling go down. The plate is in only so the bone doesn’t heal crooked, if that makes sense. They’re doing that right now; they should be done with it When asked if Bray was having the same surgery as Dontavis Sapp. I don’t know; I have no idea. I wasn’t worried about Sapp. He’s a linebacker; he doesn’t need his thumb the way – so I didn’t really grind on the details. It’s true.
This is why I love Dooley. I can’t see Fulmer admitting that he doesn’t care about Sapp’s thumb. And I am not sure if Kiffin knew Sapp had a thumb.
On Devrin Young:
Her'e hoping we have a 4 year answer returning kicks
He’s giving us a spark. Three games, now, we’ve hit a return. I kept telling you guys all last year the key is getting a good returner. I hope we can keep it going. He’s got a lot of confidence. He got hit harder than he’s ever gotten hit last week and he acknowledged it.
“It’s so typical, and I’ll tell the story. The first play of the drive, we’re going to have him in at tailback. And it’s the head coach’s curse because the minute you think something negative, it happens. So I told Jim (Chaney), `Get another play ready, just in case.’ So he runs and gets killed on the kickoff. And I’m going, `Is he OK, is he OK?’ He hops up, he looks a little woozy but we go ahead and call the play. You don’t have a lot of time. (Tauren) Poole comes running off and then we break the huddle and I say, `Is he OK?’ And he goes, `Coach, he’s not OK.’ He says, `He looked at me and said, `I ain’t ever been hit that hard before.’ So we lost eight yards on the next play.
“Those are those things where we should have gotten him out of the game but it’s way over there and you’ve got to change the play. But he’s doing well. He’s a confident guy, he’s fearless and that’s what a returner does. His best decisions are when he’s caught the ball and is running. That’s when he makes good decisions. All that in-between part, we’ve still got a little growing to do. There were a couple of times (on punt returns) playing the 10 and the ball bounces just a couple of feet from him. If it hit him, it would have been a disaster. There are just a lot of little technical things he can improve on that’s going to come in time
Young is gonna be a special player in Knoxville, I am sure. He might even be our Brandon James
On how hard it is to work for Nick Saban:
Darwinism. He makes it very demanding and the strong survive, and the strong learn from it. I survived. But he’s good because what he does is he demands perfection in everything you do every day. If you’re not, he doesn’t say that’s OK; he points it out. So a lot of people struggle in that kind of work environment because you’ve got to have a lot of confidence to get criticized. But if you do, you can really grow and develop. I appreciate what he did for me, I do. I never probably would have grown at the pace I grew professionally without that kind of environment. It’s human nature. You don’t naturally push yourself to grow without pressure, so he creates that kind of work environment
On the Secondary:
We need to play better at the corner position. We need to play better. We’re going to keep moving it around. We put Prentiss out there in the game and he does some things a lot better, and then there’s other things. He’s getting a lot of snaps. Brian’s got to handle the load at safety.
Let’s all hope Brian Randolph figures out what to do as the free safety. because we need Waggner at the corner.
On Recruiting:
Get a lot of guys. Eighty-five’s a lot. You can’t miss on guys. You have standards, is what you do. You have minimum standards that you don’t want to compromise and you take some guys – if they are a little speed deficient, you take the size; if they are size deficient, they better be able to run.
“It’s minimizing risk, that’s how. How many red flags do they have as a player? And then you got to be careful about, OK, look at our linebacking group. If you got three who are all big guys or three who are all little guys, you go, `Uh-oh.’ Every time you get a commitment, you’re constantly trying to put together a class that has balance and has minimal risk and different risks. There’s no real black-and-white answer for that. It’s trying to just shape together a little bit of everything.
We need a lot more guys. Alabama has 85 guys who are big and fast. We have a lot of guys who are one or the other.
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