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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 2, 2019

Willie Taggart

Tallahassee, Florida

WILLIE TAGGART: All right. New week. Football team is getting ready for ULM, Louisiana-Monroe coming here this week. Had a good practice yesterday, worked well, had a good film session. Seeing some good things in the ball game the other day, but also seeing some bad things. When I say bad, just being more consistent in our techniques and fundamentals and things that we can do. We can be so much better there, and we can help our players as coaches being in that position so that they can make the plays.

But I saw some good things that we can build off of, and like I said Saturday night, one game will not define this football team. We're going to work really hard to get this thing turned around, and we will.

Q. You guys talked about the D-line got that pressure you had been talking about last week. Just having gone back and looked at film, what were you able to see from your DBs? Because Brock mire was still able to complete a number of 15, 20-yard passes. So what were you able to see from your DBs, and what do you still need to see from them?
WILLIE TAGGART: I thought in that game, I thought, when we pressured them, we played really good defense, and when we sat back and we became a little passive, that's when he completed a lot of passes in the ball game. Unfortunately, a lot of them was third and long. I thought our defense did a good job on first and second down to get them in those situations, and then on third down we didn't pressure. He completed some passes in there. Again, we've got to be better fundamentally and technically in order to defend those plays.

That's coaching, and that's our guys taking coaching and applying it on the football field.

Q. Coach, keeping it on defense, you mentioned some of those third and longs, and it seemed like guys were getting pretty open on those plays. Was it a schematic thing? Were guys just breaking down? Was it communication? When you went back and looked at the film, what were you seeing on those plays?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think it was part schematic and part of it not putting enough pressure on the quarterback -- he had a lot of time. Usually when you have a lot of time, somebody's going to get open. That's what happened, we gave him too much time. When we pressured him throughout the game, he made bad throws. We allowed him too much time to scramble around and find somebody open. When he scrambled around, we should have plastered a little bit, the DBs, meaning stand with our receivers, and we lost him at times when we didn't pressure him and he had time to throw the ball.

Q. Continuing that theme, do you consider it a departure from the scheme? Do you stick to the scheme and work on technique and fundamentals, or is it kind of meeting those two in the middle somewhere?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think we've got to look at that game and look at what we did well and what we did bad, and make sure we get rid of the things we did bad if it's not going to help us, and then continue to do the things we did well. Like I said, when we put pressure on him, we hit the kid quite a bit. When we put pressure on him, he didn't complete a lot of balls.

So I think part of it is understanding, again, ourselves, us as coaches, and our players, understand what we're good at it and be good at that and do it. The things that we're not good at, don't put our guys in that position to be bad at it.

Like I said, the other day it was a good film to learn from for everybody, coaches and players, but there's some things that we've got to get rid of, but there's a lot of good things that we can continue to do, and I think if we would have in that game, it probably would have helped us.

Q. Coach, something that had a lot of people surprised, especially with the size that you have up front, was how much success they had running the football. I guess going back and looking at the tape, what did you see that were issues, and how can you fix that going forward?
WILLIE TAGGART: Alignment, and like I said earlier, fundamentals, tackling. You've got to be good at tackling, but I thought a big part was alignment. It all starts with that. We've got to do a better job as coaches to make sure our guys are lined up exactly where they're supposed to be and be fundamentally sound and doing what we have to do to get the job done.

After watching the film, a lot of it was alignment, and I guess you could say assignment, when guys aren't in the gap. If you ask the D-lineman to move and he's supposed to be in the gap, we need to make sure that he's in that gap. Or if we ask the linebacker to be in the gap, then we need to make sure he's in that gap. There was times when we weren't in the gap where we needed to be.

Q. Coach, offensive line is in a position that you normally see a lot of rotation at your games at the college level. You guys played ten offensive linemen in the game. Just what's the idea behind that, and how did you think it worked?
WILLIE TAGGART: Well, I wouldn't necessarily say there was an idea behind it. We had some guys go down. Some guys got hurt throughout the game, and when somebody gets hurt, you got to bring someone else in. That's what we did.

I think with the rotation with Dontae Lucas and Mike Arnold, that was planned. We're going to get Mike some reps in there and give Dontae a breather, which he probably needed. There was a couple times there where he made some mistakes which we knew were going to happen at some point throughout the game.

Then Brady got hurt on one play there -- I say hurt. He came back. It happened to a couple of our guys where they were hurt and came back.

Q. What did you see from James from first half to second half? Why wasn't he able to get back to what he looked like in the first half?
WILLIE TAGGART: First half, he made some good plays. Second half, I think it had to do with the entire offense, not just James. Just everybody being on the same page. In the first half, we executed a lot better. We were more on the same page. In the second half, we didn't do that.

I thought our guys pressed a little more in the second half. When things didn't go right there the first couple of series, we started to press there to try to make plays, rather than just trusting the process and doing their assignment.

So with James, I thought it was more of that. He missed some reads. He missed some adjustment that is critical to what we do offensively. He missed a couple of those, and then there were some things where I thought we could put our players in a better situation too to help ourselves.

Again, it was good to see the film, see the things that we did well and the things that we did wrong, and now we can correct those things. Like I say too, just being in this game, the first game with Coach Briles, I think there's going to be some good and some bad, and then we can learn from those things, but I think as an offense, you'll see it continue to improve and be better. As a team, I think you'll see us improve and be better throughout the entire football game.

Q. Coach, I know with the style of offense, you probably expect time of possession to be skewed to the other side a lot, but is that something you'd like to see balanced out a little bit more or something that you concern yourself with as the game's going on?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think it's easy to sit here and say with them having 40 minutes, it's because we go fast and we're off the field. It's easy to sit here and say that, but when we look at the reality of it, they were in 19 third down situations and converted 10. You've got to get off the field on third down, and that's how we get more time of possession. Also, there in the second half, we've got to convert offensively, stay out of the third and longs and convert.

I wouldn't say because of the offense. I think it's both. We've got to convert on those third downs, but defensively we've got to get off the field. We can't give up ten third downs, period.

Q. You talked a little bit about conditioning on Saturday and just how you need to know who to put out when and how to keep guys fresh. How do you guys kind of manage that moving forward, and what do you do from a conditioning standpoint?
WILLIE TAGGART: We condition almost every day, so we're going to continue to do that from that standpoint. Again, we've just got to be smart on our substitution and when and how we do those things. We put our heads together, the staff, and make sure we go out and do a good job of making sure our guys are fresh when they go out there.

Q. Willie, when you make a big change defensively and go more to a three-four and the first game when you give up what you gave up, 38 first downs and 600 yards, is it hard not to say maybe this was a mistake, let's go back to what we did last year? How do you stick with it? How do you keep yourself from maybe not panicking about it and the players from believing and not having doubts about the defense?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think you watch the film and see what you did wrong, and the film doesn't lie. So we watch the film and trust our technique and our training and what we're doing. Again, I don't think the scheme was the issue. I think it was more fundamentals and technique and the alignment.

I know you say go from a three-four, if you go back -- if you watch the film and go back, you'll see we're in a lot more even front. We weren't as much three-four, so it's not as much different than what we did last year. I think a big part of it is alignment and assignment. We've got to be gap sound, period.

When you saw those creases that they got, those big runs, it was because we weren't in our gaps, and those things we can coach and correct. Like I said, I think come next week you'll see us be much better at those things.

Q. I was going to ask about Carlos Becker. I saw him come off the edge a couple of times on blitz. I guess, how did you see him fitting in in that role? And second, he's a guy who's been injured a lot. We just haven't seen him through the years for various reasons. How has he kind of progressed and fought through those injuries?
WILLIE TAGGART: I think Carlos has just grown up, sort of like our football team. Some guys develop a little -- takes them a little longer than others. Like you said, with Carlos, he had been injured, so it was hard for him to get a lot of work and a lot of development in because he was injured.

This off-season was his first healthy off-season, and he was able to workout the entire time. He was able to go through spring ball and have the whole summer and training camp in, and he made it through injury free, and that helped him from a development standpoint big time.

I think Carlos has gained a lot of confidence in himself. Throughout training camp, what we saw on Saturday, he started to make those plays throughout training camp and started to get the confidence of his coaches and his teammates. So it was good to see him do it in the game, because he had been doing it in practice, and good to see a young man go through some things and come out and make some plays.

Q. Willie, you guys played some real young guys on defense. How did they do, Amari and Renardo Green. You had several of them.
WILLIE TAGGART: Amari did some good things. The one I was really impressed with was Renardo Green. I thought he played really well when he got in the game. He played with some attitude. He was playing physical. He was playing smart, instinctively. But, again, he was one of those freshmen over the last two weeks of training camp really came along and really stepped this game up. The last two scrimmages that we had, he had really stepped up, which made him go up on the depth chart. But I thought he played really well.

Q. He's a physical guy, isn't he?
WILLIE TAGGART: Yeah, he loves contact. He's not afraid of contact. We saw him there on one of those plays, he came up and made a tackle, but that's Renardo. I think he's going to be a really good player for us.

Q. Willie, you were able to get a bunch of young guys in on defense. It seemed like there was a ton of substituting within drive to drive. Is that something, when you talk about conditioning or substitutions, that you guys may look at altering a little bit?
WILLIE TAGGART: Again, we're going to be better when it comes to substitution and making sure that we're good with it, but same thing there. We have some guys that went out in that game, so we had to -- some of them had to play. We're pretty young back there, so a lot of young guys had to play. Just making sure that we're keeping them fresh as well.

I think overall we stayed healthy, we probably wouldn't have seen as much substitution as we did.

Q. And one young guy we didn't see dressed out was Travis Jay. Was that injury or something else? What's his status moving forward?
WILLIE TAGGART: It wasn't injury. It was something else. He's working, going through some things. Hopefully, we'll get Travis back out there asap.

Q. You had, I think, six sacks from five different players for pass rush. Is that kind of what you had in mind? Preseason, you said -- or Coach Barnett was saying you like that you don't know where the pressure is coming from. Is that the type of success something that group can build on, do you think?
WILLIE TAGGART: I do. Again, like I mentioned earlier, when we did those things, we had success on defense. There was plenty of time where we had them in third and long, it was because of the success that we had on first and second down, and a lot of that was the success we were doing. Where we've got to be better is third down. Again, if it works, keep doing it until they stop it. I think, when we stop pressuring, that's when they got some plays.

But, yes, that's something we can build off of, something that's going to help our guys defensively.

Q. Coach, there were some guys like Dennis Briggs that flashed from time to time, and he was fairly impressive. Is there any plan to get him and Marvin on the field at the same time after what you've seen on film?
WILLIE TAGGART: I wouldn't necessarily say there was a plan to get them both on the field at the same time. There could be times where they're out there at the same time, but our plan is just to continue to develop Dennis and for him to continue to get better. We all thought, as a staff, he was going to be one of the players this year that was going to really help his football team. He had some good plays as a freshman last year. We expect a lot out of Dennis this year, and I can see him, again, as a guy that, as the season goes on, we're going to continue to see him get better.

Q. You mentioned learning how to win. These players need to learn how to win. So many of them came from successful high school programs. They won state championships. It's obviously a different level. Is there something they need to relearn or something you guys can key on to help them learn how to win again?
WILLIE TAGGART: It's all of them. They came from a successful high school, and they were around a lot of people that won, and now you just look at our football team over the last two years, or you just look at our juniors, those guys that's juniors now, they hadn't won a lot and hadn't won like they expected to win when they decided to come here and what we expect Florida State to be.

Getting our guys back in that mindset and the little things that it takes to win, yeah, we got to be taught how to do that again. I will say our guys, we're better as a football team and getting to that point. You know, just things we've got to continue to learn, for instance. When you've got a team, when you're up on a team, you've got to put your foot on their throat, and you've got to finish the ball game, and our guys have got to understand that. That's another part of the process that we're doing and building our program back.

Our guys are getting better at it. Again, I think that's something we'll learn from, and I think, if we're in that situation again, I think our guys will come through and make it happen.

Q. Coach, looking ahead to Louisiana-Monroe, I know a lot of people are kind of assuming that you guys are going to win that game. It's something that we saw similar last year heading into the game against Sanford, and we ended up seeing some of the issues from week one carry over into week two. How do you avoid that hangover week to week and maybe overlooking an opponent?
WILLIE TAGGART: One thing we're not going to do is focus on what happened last year. Again, we're going to correct the things we did wrong last week and go out and be better, us as coaches and players. We're going to know our assignments, and we're going to make sure we put our players in the best position to go out and execute those assignments. We're going to try to go out and play our best ball game as a football team. We have to, and find a way to win this ball game and play a clean ball game, and I think our guys will.

Q. Coach, you had a lot of success running the football in the first half, and then it kind of stalled out in the second. After watching the film, what did you think you guys did well in the first half, and what went wrong in the second?
WILLIE TAGGART: We gave the ball to Cam in the first half. Second half, we didn't give it to him. So give the ball to Cam, give the ball to Khalan, we've got some really good running backs. Give them the ball. They can run the ball. They're pretty good.

Q. Willie, kind of following off of Wayne's question, after the game, you talked about trying to get the offense back into rhythm in the second half when things did stall. In hindsight, what are a few things you'd like to see more of to get that rhythm back in the future if something like that happens?
WILLIE TAGGART: Find different ways to run the ball. So we can -- I can't give you all our secrets, but we've got to be able to run the football, period. Whether it's first half, second half, we've got to be able to run the football. We've got guys that can run the football. Again, we've got to make sure we're putting our guys in position to be able to do those things to have some success.

You saw in the first half we were running the ball well. We were moving the ball. So I think it all starts with that, and we've got to continue to find different ways to run the ball.

Q. There was a lot of deep passes and fairly consecutive drives too. Is that something that James has the freedom to do, or is that something that was dialed up, I guess?
WILLIE TAGGART: That was part of the RPO thing that we're doing. Again, we've got to make sure that we -- in certain situations, we put him in position to where he has some options and not be locked into one guy. I think that happened a couple times there where it was third and long, where he had some run-pass options and they made us throw the ball and recovered.

Like I said, that's an area of somewhere we can be better at, and we looked at as a staff. Again, I think you'll see that part improve for us this week as well.

Q. Willie, two-part question. Did the offensive line play well enough for you guys to do what you wanted to do on offense? And also, how did Brady come out after the game physically?
WILLIE TAGGART: We played well enough. Did we play like we want to? No, but, again, I see that group continuing to get better as the year goes on. I think you'll see that group. I do think we're better than what we were, and you'll continue to see them get better as we keep going on, seeing as they get to play with each other. I think you're going to constantly see that improve.

Brady, he's back. He practiced yesterday. He tweaked his knee in the game, but he practiced yesterday. So he's back.

As a group, I thought we were better. We can be better than what we showed on Saturday, and I do think for Coach Clements, he got a chance to see his guys in action and get a chance to see again what we're good at and what we're not good at and can make some changes -- not necessarily changes, but some adjustments to help us.

Q. Willie, when you mentioned the alignment issues you had on defense, was that stuff that was happening in practice too, or was that more just a surprise during the game?
WILLIE TAGGART: It was more during the game. I don't think it was something in practice. We wouldn't have did it in the game if it was in practice. I just think it was one of those first games, and, again, guys got a lot of -- juiced up and, again, lose focus, just lack of focus from -- just lack of focus. Again, it was -- I think guys were just juiced up too much in that game. I don't know if juiced up is the right word for it or not, but we lost a lot of focus, just from, again, like an alignment standpoint.

If you're not lined up right, you're going to find yourself in trouble. I don't care how talented you are. So when I say lined up, sometimes we're too deep, and safeties need to be a little tighter at times or linebackers need to be over or safety needs to be in a certain gap. That's what I mean by alignment and things.

But like I say, all those things we did wrong, they're correctible. Those are things we can correct ASAP. They're not things that take time to correct. Those things, they got corrected yesterday, and, again, I think you'll see a difference come this week.

Q. Coach, the game notes listed said there were no coaches -- no defensive coaches in the box. How was the communication between the defensive coaches during the game about what was going on and what they were seeing? Is there any thoughts to getting one of those coaches up in the box?
WILLIE TAGGART: Actually, you must have got a little -- you got a good source, or you got something in my office. Actually, we were talking about that as a defensive staff, again, just ways where we can be better throughout the game. I don't think it was a lack of communication. I thought communication was distributed throughout the coaches, seeing them on the sidelines and drawing up the plays and things for our guys. That was being done the right way.

Again, when you go through a game like that, you want to evaluate everything and make sure we put people in the right place to be able to get the job done.

Q. With Keyshawn calling the fair catches on kickoffs, is that up to him? Do you tell him beforehand? Does he judge the flight of the ball and then decide? Because he did run one of them out, but he fair caught eight other ones?
WILLIE TAGGART: We told him when we wanted him to and when we didn't want him to. It's part of our strategy thing.

Q. When you talk about guys maybe not being lined up correctly, is there any way -- is there like a quarterback on the defense? Is that even possible? Somebody that should be looking out for other guys? Does there need to be more communication, or do guys just have to get it right individually?
WILLIE TAGGART: You got to do your job. You just got to do your job. The communication is going to come with the checks and things you made, but lining up, that's your job. You've got to do that. Like I say, I think it was more one of those first game things. I think it would be a problem if we see that again, and I don't think you'll see that again. I think you're going to see guys in the right position, the right place, and making the plays that need to be made.

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