WISCONSIN FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 10, 2022

Paul Chryst

Postgame Press Conference

Wisconsin - 14, Washington - 17

PAUL CHRYST: Certainly, you know, you give credit to Washington State. You know, they beat us today and, you know, just certainly -- you know, we didn't -- you got to play the game. And the objective is to score one or more points. And we didn't do that.

And we didn't score enough to give ourselves a real good chance. And I think that, you know, if you look at it and there's -- you know, a game like this, everyone's got to -- everyone owns it. You know, starting with myself and each and every person in that locker room.

And there can be -- you know, an early season game like this, it can be an opportunity, right, to reinforce and to drive and whatever that may be. Because, you know, we did some things today that make it hard to win.

And, you know, I think we had -- I think we were in double digits in penalties. You know, certainly had a couple turnovers.

You know, and I think, you know, I'm kicking myself for going for it on fourth and three. You know, we got a third and one and we get stopped right there. And, you know, I'd like to have that one back. Kind of set them up with a shorter field.

And I think you can just look at the -- you know, not often you see in a game, you know, two turnovers that are then turned back over.

You know, and they were opportunistic and I think they ended up scoring off of theirs. And we ended up getting one and we ended up turning the ball over.

And, again, I think that a lot of guys put -- you know, I'm not questioning effort and I'm not questioning anything. You know, I felt like guys were playing hard, but we -- you got to make it to where you're playing the opponent and not doing some things to hurt yourself. So, obviously, we've got to be better. And it can be better.

Q. Generally, in a tight game, you've punted and said, My defense is going to pin those guys down there. Why the change? Why the decision to go for it today? What did you feel?

PAUL CHRYST: Yeah, I mean, you know, again, I do have confidence in our defense. You know, and I thought that, you know, you're in a position where if you feel good, too, and you want -- offensively, you know, you just got to deliver. And I know a lot of it is result driven, right?

You go and -- but, you know, I think that was the thought. I still do feel confident with our defense, certainly. And you want to put it on the offense. You know, this is -- you got to go do something, too.

Q. Over the last few years the defense has been so good. When something bad happens, a turnover, or whatever it ends up being, being able to get the quick stop after, what do you think were some of the things today that they just weren't able to convert some of those chances into stops?

PAUL CHRYST: Yeah, I mean, we had one early right in the end. I think it was their first drive. And, you know, they came up and it was a big play. And I thought there was moments in the game where I thought each side fed off each other well.

You know, certainly the end of the first half. You know, I feel like each one was setting the other side up. And that's how you want to play the game.

And then, you know, I think you go and you take a look at the way the first -- the second half starts and, you know, give up a big return.

And then, you know, I thought our defense did go up there. You know, and they got a field goal attempt and it was a short, short field.

And then, you know, offensively we come out and, you know, we get the 15-yard penalty. And, you know, it was just -- didn't help ourselves.

And so, I think that certainly, you know, we have made some plays and yet, you know, you can look at it and it's still -- you're -- you got to score points to win. You know, and we gave up 14 -- or 17. I mean, we got to -- we score 14 and we got to be better.

Q. Coach, Vito missed a couple field goals. I guess I just wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, if you saw anything. What went wrong on those kicks? Do you have any idea?

PAUL CHRYST: Yeah, I don't. You know, certainly those -- games like this, those are all big, right? And I don't know what happened on the second one. Because that didn't have a chance. You know, the first one, certainly didn't push the side. So I don't know specifically on that one.

You know, he's been good in practice and, you know, what we've had. But certainly would like to be better. We need to be. That can be the difference.

Q. I guess sometimes in practice you can see if your offensive line is not doing things cleanly. You know, they had a bunch of penalties today. I think four of them involving guys. Do you see that in practice or is this today just a case of guys making plays against you? I saw they had a grab, reach, things like that.

PAUL CHRYST: Probably a little bit of both, right? And you're going and you can certainly say what you want. But game day you're going to have a lot -- the speed, right? The speed of it is different.

But, you know, I thought we had one unnecessary or on the edge. And, you know, we get called for a holding. And you've got -- you've accomplished what you need to to get the play going.

So I think there's a sense to how you play and you got the -- we had a hands to the face. Another big one. You know, we jump offsides. We got another -- I'm anxious to see those plays.

Because it's not that you're going to change it. But, you know, to your point, what is -- what are -- we got to practice right. And are we doing that?

And, you know, how can you help? This has got to be one that we -- you know, that burns, stings to where it drives you to get better.

Q. Why do you think you weren't able to run the ball consistently today?

PAUL CHRYST: You know, I think that -- you know, always -- you're going to give them credit, right? I mean, they've got a piece of it.

And I think that you had moments where you got one third and short and we're -- you know, we don't get our puller around. And that's -- it's not just on the puller. It's are we getting movement at the line to allow the puller to go through?

You know, I think that -- you know, are we -- how are we on the backside? We didn't get some things started earlier. And we're getting chased down the back. We've got to be better at the point of attack. I saw that on a couple runs.

And then you got to create some rhythm. I thought a little inconsistency even on third down, when you can't start to get in flow and get going. And when you do that, you're going to start running the ball well. And I just think we were all over the place in that way.

Q. Paul, when you're facing an offense like this that's going to do spread you out and do -- force your defense to communicate so much, does make it hard to play as many young guys and new guys that you've had to, just with the injuries and your roster this year?

PAUL CHRYST: Yeah, I mean, it does -- each offense is going to test you a little bit differently. And certainly this is one of those. And the week we had to where the eye discipline and the communication was going to be important.

And, yeah, I still feel after the game, you know, that the guys had a -- they understood what they were doing. You know, I mean, they had -- they weren't put in an unfavorable position that way.

And certainly there's times, you know, when you're in space, and I think everyone in here knows that when it's -- when you face a team that spreads it out, you're going to have more single tackles.

And that's where you got to try to, you know, one, make those tackles. Two, slow down. And you guys got to react back to it.

But you do have to play with really, really good discipline until kind of the play dictates it. The ball is dictated where it's going. But I thought that -- I don't know right now that you say -- we had some -- because the young guys -- or bust because not doing what we should be doing. That didn't seem to be the case as much to me.

Q. Paul, it doesn't matter because you scored on it. But you had a delay-of-game penalty out of a time-out.

PAUL CHRYST: Yeah.

Q. What happened there?

PAUL CHRYST: I mean, we had it, we gave the play earlier. And, you know, you -- it shouldn't happen, right? I mean, it shouldn't happen.

It wasn't like, you know, we had the wrong personnel group there. I think we just got to make sure that everyone's in tune. All right, We're going.

And, yeah, I thought we had a couple like that that were just kind of down -- we were pushing the clock a little bit. But certainly coming out of a -- you know, from the sideline and there's -- everyone knew the play, everyone knew the personnel. Shouldn't happen.

Q. Paul, how would you assess Graham's play? Obviously, without the benefit of being able to watch the film. But especially on the deeper passes, it seemed like he was giving receivers changes and some good things happened from those.

PAUL CHRYST: Yeah, I thought he did. And I thought that -- a couple times, I thought he pushed it down there when I thought there was something else, maybe a little bit higher percentage.

So I am anxious to watch that and see if I was seeing that correctly. You know, and I thought there's certain times where we knew they were bringing the pressure. And I thought a couple times we handled it.

I thought line did a good job. Line, backs, and tight ends did a good job of giving him time to -- maybe it was the stretch.

We really can't lose -- this was the first one that we had -- end of the first half, you know, we had -- I think we were zero for four. And I kind of -- I see it, but you got to deliver.

But I thought there were some other throws there, too. And I thought that he was seeing things clean. I thought that that part was pretty good on his head.

Q. Paul, there was some times when the ball came out of Washington State's quarterbacks hands really quickly. There was also some other times where it looked like you did a good job in the back-end, but you didn't get a hold of in the pass rush. Is that something that you saw as well to keep that guy up a bit little more than you did today?

PAUL CHRYST: Yeah, he did. He did a nice job of kind of -- he'd step up and then he'd work back out. You can tell it's a guy that's played a lot of football. You know, and he kind of understood the situations, even -- you know, he'd get out and tried to extend it as much as he could.

And he wasn't afraid to throw it out of bounds. And I thought that -- like you said, there was times where -- kind of where it's RPO or kind of the quick screen game that they did a good job with that.

And I thought there's times where, you know, we defended it well. But he's -- I think he is a good quarterback. We thought that going in and still think that today.