STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 10, 2022

Jonathan McGill

Postgame Media Conference

USC - 41, Stanford - 28

Q. Jonathan, just want to get your thoughts on what were some adjustments you guys made defensively in the second half? Because it looked like you guys started to kind of figure things out and play better in that second half than the first. What were some adjustments you guys made?

JONATHAN McGILL: I would say some of the things we did in the second half is honestly just play things the way we're supposed to play them. We kind of had a little bit of adjustments, kind of got a chip on what they were trying to do in some of our coverages, what they were trying to attack.

So just being able to have that open dialogue with Coach Akina in the back end, being able to, hey, he's looking at this for his first look, he's looking at this for his second look. Just being able to have those tendencies and openly have an open dialogue about it. It's an opportunity to kind of game a couple things that were different than what we normally run.

But in terms of kind of just the momentum, I feel like we kind of just settled in as a defense later into the game, and it took us way too long to get to that point.

I felt like we kind of didn't do anything really different besides just execute our assignment and just do our job.

Q. You guys went against Jordan Addison. What was that matchup like, and how were you guys able to adjust to him like as the course of the game went on?

JONATHAN McGILL: We feel real confident as a secondary with Kyu and Ethan and Salim, and so all of our DBs we felt like could hold up.

So just being a middle safety, just always knowing where the quarterback wants to go, where his look is. So that's kind of the way we kind of viewed Jordan Addison, kind of just keeping an eye on him, but also having the confidence that our corners and our secondary could hold up against him.

Q. What didn't go right in the first half, and what lessons can you all take from that going forward?

JONATHAN McGILL: I would say kind of the first thing, we kind of didn't get lined up a lot. You kind of saw it, guys were running to spots, not really looking, understanding the call that we were supposed to do.

We also didn't really execute as high as we should have in the first half, you know giving up -- I want to say it was 35 points in the first half, something like that.

So obviously, we're not playing great team defense giving up 35 points, no matter the situation. Turnover, sudden change, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, the defense has the opportunity to either allow a field goal or have them attempt a field goal or get a chance to score a touchdown.

I felt like as a defense we didn't execute as well as we should have in that first half, and it took us, as I said earlier, a long time to kind of get that groove, kind of get that understanding. But too little too late at that point.

Q. What is your thoughts on the bye week, the time from a defensive standpoint? What are you mostly going to focus on during this stretch? Does this come at a good time? Do you wish it was a little later? Or is this an okay time to get a bye, do you think?

JONATHAN McGILL: Usually in the course of the schedule, bye weeks are around week 6, week 7, around that time. But I felt like as a team this is a timely bye week for us.

The biggest challenge honestly is how we're going to respond to adversity. We get a chance to really dive in and dissect this game compared to if we were to play another game. You kind of watch the film on Monday from the previous game and you move on to game plan and everything else on Tuesday.

I feel like this is a real timely bye week. USC is a great opponent. They put a lot of things on film that were challenging for us, for our coverages, and kind of gave us a way to continue to get better.

Their offense is probably one of the most complex in the conference that we're going to see, so as a back end and as a secondary and as a defense, we felt like it's going to be timely because we can really have the opportunity to evaluate.

Self-evaluation is huge, especially after a loss. So just moving forward, I feel like this is going to be a perfect bye week for us. We have guys that are kind of banged up and stuff, but give them that extra week to get their legs back under them because we've got that ten-week stretch. Just can't wait for the opportunity ahead of us.