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VIZIO BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: AUBURN v FLORIDA STATEJanuary 2, 2014Rhett LashleePASADENA, CALIFORNIA Q. How did you get C.J. to buy into what his role has become? Could you describe what his role is? He seems to be a player you can do a lot of different things with? COACH LASHLEE: Yeah, all our guys have done a good job trusting the coaches and buying into what we've asked them to do. We have tried to put all the guys in position as we've learned over the season what they do well to do what they do best. C.J. is extremely versatile. He can play tight end. He can flex out play receiver, be in the back field like an H‑back. He can play inside or outside receiver. He's a really good combination. He's got size and strength to block defensive linemen, linebackers, he's got enough speed, quickness, and he has that ability to separate or great ball skills that allows him to play out on the perimeter some too. Biggest thing for him is he's been banged up at times this year. When he's full strength, he's made a lot of big catches and big moments for us. Q. Speaking of versatility on their side, Marcus joined the play at six different positions. Scouting them and trying to get a feel of what they were going to do. How important is it to identify what he is doing on a particular play? COACH LASHLEE: Oh, it's a lot. He's a dynamic play maker for him. He's a guy that reminds me of the Arenas kid that was at Alabama a couple years back. Similar scheme, similar type player, blitzing off the edge, cover anybody on the field, move him around like he said. He's a guy that we've got to know where he's at and account for him. You see some plays, some teams run the ball one way, and he's making a play 20 yards before that guy on the side of the field. He's a ball hawk, and you can tell he's got a high football IQ too. Q. How involved is Gus with the defense? COACH LASHLEE: He's the head coach. He knows what we're doing on offense. He knows what we're doing on defense and special teams. I think he does a great job of balance and being involved in all three aspects. Knowing the game plan, giving his input at the same time and letting his coaches coach and letting us be who we are. We know his personality of what he wants, what he expects. We know our players and we try to marry those two together and get the best of both worlds. Q. There have been several key moments this year putting Chris Davis back in the end zone or putting Ricardo in the slot in that formation when he lined up in the slot. What's that say about Gus? He has these inklings that seem to work out and spur of the moment things, has he always been like that? COACH LASHLEE: He's got a great feel for the game. Two people say he's only been a college head coach for two years, but he was a high school coach for 15 years. Head coach is head coach. You have an offense, defense, and special teams. You play in big key moments. It's not like he didn't know what he was doing, and he's won every time he's been a head coach. I think that's just a big part of why we're here. Q. Do you have any other moments like that as a player or coach or even a season where he's missed and made a last‑second decision to put someone in and it does work? COACH LASHLEE: I'm sure there are plenty off the top of my head, but you said the best one. Q. Can you remember when you saw Nick Marshall's tape, and if so walk us through that? COACH LASHLEE: First time ever was at Auburn when he was coming out of high school. We evaluated him and knew he was a fantastic athlete coming out of Georgia. That was the year we won it, and I was transitioning and leaving to go to Stanford. So I don't remember what all went down. I knew he was a great athlete that we knew could play at Auburn, but I'm not sure what ended up happening there, but I was aware of him. We go to Arkansas State, and we had Ryan Appling who we knew was exceptional, but he was a one‑year guy for us. We felt like we needed to address that position moving forward. So actually the spring before our first season at Arkansas State had started looking into Nick. We contacted him. Had gone down to Georgia and seen Coach Ledford, so we started developing that relationship anyways. We were aware of him. We offered him and knew we wanted him there. We just didn't think at the end of the day we'd have a real good shot at him. Q. Did you think with Nick anything was possible? COACH LASHLEE: With Nick? Q. Yes. COACH LASHLEE: He's done some things that have exceeded expectations. I'll say this, he's got a track record of making plays and being an explosive play maker. I think the best thing he's brought to the table are two things. He's been extremely coachable. He's had no ego and done everything I've asked him to do, trying to do it at the best of his ability. Lot of times you can have guys that make plays like that, it's because I don't want to call them renegades, but they kind of like to do their own thing. I understand what you're saying, coach, but I'm going to go out and do my own thing. He hadn't been that way. I think you see he's got five interceptions on the year. He's done some things that have helped him become a better overall player. I think the other thing is he's a winner. He was the best basketball player coming out of the state of Georgia. He could probably play anywhere in the country. He's a phenomenal athlete and phenomenal winner. I got asked the question about him and Cam in there. Bottom line, certain guys have a knack for winning and making guys around them better, he's one of those guys. Q. When you and Damian went to his house leading up to signing day in that last meeting, how worried were you about Kansas State, and what did you want to get across in that meeting? COACH LASHLEE: Going there we weren't that worried. We were in good shape, but recruiting is recruiting. People are going to say what they've got to say to try to get whatever their point is across, across. By the time we got there that evening, we thought we were there to set up. We had already set up, but to talk about the official visit. We realized some things were said not only about us, but how to get certain people into school and those things that just weren't true. Once Damian and I were able to talk with him and his mom and grandmother, they felt comfortable there is nothing Auburn can't do that Kansas State can do as far as getting Nick into school. At that point Nick wanted to come on a visit. He wanted to stay close to home and be in the SEC. I think it was good for us to be there face‑to‑face and start that relationship. Q. Going back to Gus in high school. You shared the story in February about when you threw the interception and said that he's going to kill you. He's going to kill you. Has there been a moment at all this season where he's said something like that to Nick or Jeremy? COACH LASHLEE: Oh, there have been some good moments. There have been some good moments where he's gotten on those guys and everybody. But like I said, that always goes back to he's a perfectionist. I think our guys know not only with Coach Malzahn, but with all of us, that we're going to coach them hard on the field. They know we care about them. We don't cuss them or do anything like that, but we let them know there's a high standard.  If you're not meeting that standard, I don't care if we're winning or not or you're playing well or not, we're going to hold you to that standard. And overtime players appreciate that. I think a lot of coaches may worry how they're going to respond, but they appreciate you pushing them. Q. You said Gus coaches very clean. What are some of the colorful superlatives he does use? We've heard some of them. What are your favorites? COACH LASHLEE: I've already said my favorite. That time he said he was going to kill me when I was in high school. I think he probably meant it at the moment. You know, he has a way of letting you know that you should have done better that sometimes you might want to have been cussed. But that's what makes him him. I don't have a great example other than when you're in those moments that you see it. Q. What about words like crud? COACH LASHLEE: Oh, yeah, you can make up words sometimes if you need to. Crud is definitely one of them he uses. Q. When did you get to the point, Rhett, that you felt comfortable and confident going back at him on the sideline or disagreeing with him in the heat of the game? COACH LASHLEE: Well, I never go back at him. He's the boss and the head coach. I also have that unique perspective. As a former player, it doesn't matter where you are in life, your coaches are always your coaches. I still have Chris Wood and some other guys I played for that I have a lot of respect for, to me they're always coached. No matter what I'm doing. So you always have that relationship and respect. But when I started, even sometimes when I was a GA for him, you know, he was fine with me. If I really felt strongly that we were doing something incorrect, I'd tell him just doing it the right way. More and more as you're a coordinator, you're going to dialogue. We don't have a lot of heated debates or discussions, but there are definitely times if I think I need to say something, I will and he'll do the same. I think that's what helps keep people checked and balanced. Q. C.J. said on the sidelines it's like listening to an old married couple. COACH LASHLEE: He warned me about that coming over. He said, just a head's up, I told them you're like an old married couple. So I don't know which is the husband and which is the wife. People ask all the time, how do you call plays? How are you between drives? I don't know if it goes back to when I played for him in high school, it just works. We never sat down and laid out parameters for it. It just happens. Some games are more one way or the other or this or that. But we always know going in we're on the same page of what we want to do, how we want to attack people. If we need to make adjustments, we're usually thinking the same way. That helps us kind of maybe skip a few steps in the communication process. Then what helps is once we've had our communication, he can be the head coach and I can get with our coaches and players and interpret what adjustments we need to make moving forward. Q. It seems like the same thing. (No microphone). COACH LASHLEE: I think it's great. You look at any coach who has been successful, and he's had guys that helped groom and poor into them. The reason we've been successful is our players. That is the bottom line. That's where you are everywhere. You put a great coach with a lot of poor players or players that won't buy in and they're going to struggle. We've had guys that have bought in and trusted the coaching and played extremely well. They make the plays. It's our job to put them in position to be successful and give them those opportunities. I think our staff has done a great job too. They've bought into what we're doing, and they've done a great job of being an extension to us with their players. But obviously Coach does a good job. Q. Have you guys ever used a fullback the way you used Jay? COACH LASHLEE: We have. That's always been a pivotal part of our offense. He's not a traditional fullback, but I think Jay's the best in the country. He's going to make a lot of money at the next level in the NFL, there is no doubt. We don't necessarily use him differently. We may have used him more because he's just so good. Obviously smart, he understands what we're doing. He's got great feel for angles and he can make certain blocks that maybe other guys in the past couldn't make. So it's allowed us to expand that role more, but that's been a pretty pivotal role. At Arkansas State we had two guys that were really good. At the time that helped our offense going in the run game there. It's been a huge plus for us having Jay. If Jay wasn't out there, everybody would notice. Q. In your 20s you took a couple year break from football. What was that like? Is it kind of funny to be in front of the cameras now? COACH LASHLEE: The whole camera thing, I guess I was fortunate that Coach Malzahn was my high school coach. We were leading the country in total offense when I was in high school. We had good enough teams and broke some national records. I was fortunate to be exposed to that early on. But what happened was I was at Arkansas in 2006. We won the West. Then Coach Malzahn took a quick turn to Tulsa. I had the opportunity to go in the capacity. It was a great opportunity and a no‑brainer trying to get into this profession. I went over there one day. And something didn't fit right. I still to this day couldn't tell you. Sometimes in life you have to go with your gut. It made no sense to me, my family, my dad, who had been a former high school coach, he thought I was crazy. Everybody did. It just wasn't right. I got married two months later. It ended up looking back being the best thing. Because for a year and a half, I got to have a normal‑‑ I don't know if there is normal. But 8:00 to 6:00, and have some weekends and do that. We really got to‑‑ we were engaged the year I was the GA, so she understood it. But we got to develop our relationship as a newly married couple. Then when the opportunity did come, which I didn't know if it would happen again, to be honest with you, but it did. Coach went to Auburn, and he and Coach Chizik allowed me to come down, and she was ready to go. She knew what it was going to take and she's been fantastic ever since. It wasn't your normal, traditional path, and it didn't make a lot of sense to this day, but it ended up working out. Q. What did you learn? COACH LASHLEE: He wasn't really happy with me. I don't know if it was that or the interception in high school that made him madder. No, he thought I was crazy like everybody else, and rightfully so. That would have been in January and February. By that summer he was asking me to come work the camps at Tulsa. Like I said, we have a relationship that goes further back than that. I appreciate him for not holding that against me when he got an opportunity to come to Auburn. He still asked me to come with him. Q. What did you learn about yourself being away? COACH LASHLEE: I learned two things. I got a chance to run, albeit a small company, but you learn a lot in leadership and dealing with people and doing those things that help you. It was a lot of sales. Had to do a lot with recruiting, so that didn't hurt. It's a lot easier to want to sell a kid to come play college football in Auburn than to ask somebody to put an ad in a magazine. That job probably got easier. The other thing I've learned, Louis Campbell who is an assistant coach at Arkansas when I played and when I worked there, he told me about that time I was making that decision, because he had some young sons that are in coaching now too. He said I'm going to tell you what I told my kids. If you can do anything in this world besides coach, do it just for the lifestyle and family. Many if you can't, then coach. About six months into not coaching, I realized that's what I wanted to do. Whether I would have the opportunity to get back in at that level, maybe high school, I didn't know at that point. But at that point I was 25, and I think all I had ever known was playing or coaching. I don't know if I was burned out or what, but six months in I knew that was my calling and what I wanted to do. And fortunately I was able to get back in. Q. You said there is no way you and Gus figure out play calls. But can you walk me through the discussion and how it does get figured out? COACH LASHLEE: You know, in between a series we kind of talk, and then he goes off and I get with the coaches. He and I usually get together for the next series like here's what we need to do to attack this series. Whether it's what we've been getting or expect or et cetera. But we usually collaborate on the first play or two to get us going. Once you get going, if you have the tempo going, a lot of it is feel. We've got a good feel. When he's rolling, he's rolling. When he gets stuck I chime in and it goes back and forth. Q. He said you were an old married couple. COACH LASHLEE: Yeah, he warned me about that. I said I didn't know who was the husband and who was the wife and all that, but I don't know. Q. On another subject, the SEC streak of titles, has it occurred to you that Alabama fans are rooting for you? COACH LASHLEE: I don't know if they are or not. I'm sure some are. I know it's five straight years a team from Alabama has been playing for the National Championship, which is pretty impressive, and eight for our league. I think it's grueling brutally every week. Doesn't matter who you're playing in our league, you have to be ready to play. Probably our toughest game every year was Mississippi State, our first one. We had to go 88 yards in two minutes to win that game. I just think it's a fantastic league. I think it helps prepare us for these moments. At the same time, we know we're playing a team that's dominated people. Q. Do you ever get the feeling that anyone who doesn't really care about the two teams is against you because they're sick of the SEC? COACH LASHLEE: All SEC fans are very pro SEC. Outside of that I'm sure there are some people who are ready to see someone else win one. We're kind of in our own bubble enough from fans that I don't get that vibe. But I think there are plenty of people that would like to see someone else win. Q. There is so much offense in college football today. What do you attribute that to and how much is tempo involved in that? COACH LASHLEE: I think tempo is a big part of it. But it's like everything else, it's cyclical. Defenses are adjusting to better schemes than they did three and four years ago. I just think overall maybe in the past even in the SEC all your best athletes and players run on defense. A lot of other leagues earlier started putting their better players on offense and getting them the football. At the end of the day, it's all about the players and putting them in position to be successful. I think specifically this year you saw a run of great quarterbacks. It doesn't matter how good you are on defense or how good you are on offense, you're going to go as your quarterbacks go. You see all the guys we've had in this league at quarterback, there are some good ones. I think that's probably why the numbers are up a little bit. I think we had a lot of great defensive talent in our league. Other than you've had teams like LSU still had a defense that lost a lot to the NFL and so on and so forth. Q. You talked about the relationship between you and Gus as kind of feel. Nick and Tre have that relationship. Talk about that relationship on and off? COACH LASHLEE: It's like everything, time for players and specifically practice and reps are going to help your relationship be better. They have a great feel for the read zone and the plays we run. Obviously a lot of it is not coaching. It's just them playing. Nick makes a ton of decisions on every play for us, and people like to say this and that about the passing game. But he's done what we've asked him to do. He's very capable. In a lot of our games it's been what's working. That's what we've gone with. He makes a lot of decisions on every play even if we're not throwing the football. And him and Tre and those guys have done a really good job of making things right. Q. What is their relationship off the field as well? COACH LASHLEE: It's good. Coach early on did a lot of things team building, whether it's taking them bowling, having them do things together more so than they used to. Getting them all living in one spot again, things like that to make our guys be around each other. They've got to like each other. Hey, you spend as much time as we do and they do together, you better like each other. Obviously, winning helps. It's easier when you're winning and fortunately we were winning early so that gave them confidence. But those guys are tight on and off the field. Q. Their entire front four are five‑star recruits. I don't think there is any team in the country that can say that this year. Have you ever prepared for a team with that much talent in one position group? COACH LASHLEE: I don't know. Obviously Jernigan gets all the attention and rightfully so, but all those guys are very, very active. They're strong, they're big they can move. They've got seniors that aren't starting that came out as five stars, so that should tell you about the guys they're playing. Like I said, we got to do what got us here. We're going to have wrinkles like they are. But at the end of the day it's going to come down to who can execute and win the one on one battles. Q. (No microphone)? COACH LASHLEE: I do. We do our best to keep our guys in shape. You go 30 days without playing, there is in shape and in playing shape, and we try to do as many things as we can as we're farther out from the game to get our guys in game‑day type situations, especially conditioning. We've tried to keep them sharp in that regard. We've tried to keep them sharp with the execution as best we can. The closer you get to the game, you want them to be fresh for the game. That's always a concern. But both sides, offense and defense have the same amount of time. So that doesn't help one person more than the other. Q. You've rushed for more yards on average than any school. What's that mean? COACH LASHLEE: I think most of our games this year we've challenged our guys to be the more physical team, to play Auburn football. I feel like up front on the offensive line our guys have done that. Furthermore our guys on the perimeter have done that. Our backs have run extremely hard. Tre's made some hard yards. Cameron Artis‑Payne rushed for over 600 yards. Nick makes a lot of things go. I think anytime you have read elements into it, that helps. Even if they've got an extra guy down it changes things. I don't know. We haven't thrown it as much the second half of the season as we did the first. But never was there an instance where I thought it was because we couldn't or didn't want to. It was because you're going to go with what's working. So we know going into this game like Alabama and Missouri and Georgia, we're prepared to make plays in the passing game to win the game. Q. You're probably not old enough, but do you remember some of those wishbone teams that would put up similar numbers? COACH LASHLEE: Yeah, back in my younger days? I remember growing up, from Arkansas, Quinn Grovey and Barry Foster and those guys, Tim Horton our running backs coach who was a receiver on those teams, they were running the wishbones. Yeah, I remember it. Tommy Frazier at Nebraska. Q. Talent‑wise, how would you compare their defensive element? COACH LASHLEE: Very comparable. Honestly, you look at the features, Alabama may have a little bit bigger guys up front, but not much. But these guys are extremely quick and accurate. C.J. Mosley is as good a linebacker as there is in the country. But you put the Smith boys there, and they can run side‑to‑side. They can make a really good play not really good, real quick by recovering. I think they're really good in the secondary. Alabama was younger in the secondary. Their corners are really good players, and obviously, Joyner is a difference maker. There are a lot of similarities as far as the talent. Who knows maybe we'll find out they may be better. Q. (No microphone)? COACH LASHLEE: You know, I don't know. Obviously, we're doing a little different style of those things. But the way he's been able to operate in some games, you could probably say there are some similarities to him doing it out of the shotgun. I like to think that the exciting thing about Nick is we're going to get another year with him. I hope that he can really take his game to the next level which can be exciting for us. He's done a really good job since the Ole Miss game. Since he got comfortable with everything and we got comfortable knowing what he was great at, I think he's gotten better just about every week. Q. How do you think you grew the most since you got from Arkansas State to here and on a bigger stage and more time with Gus? COACH LASHLEE: I think just more and more paying attention to all the details. Things move fast. You don't have‑‑ it seems like a lot of time, but from a coaching standpoint each week to week, you get up on Sunday morning and you're preparing for someone else. You have a lot of things you have to make sure you're preparing your guys for. I think from the preparation side, probably, not only making sure Nick is prepared, but the offense as a whole, myself. I think understanding that the appreciation for that is great in our league. Q. It seemed like earlier in the year you were trying to figure out who was going to be the featured back. When did Tre establish himself as that guy? COACH LASHLEE: Probably around the Texas A&M game. Until that game we had really split them. Tre was a little more of the featured guy. But Cam has on over 600 yards, Corey has over 650, and Nick's rushed for over a thousand in the second half of the season. But Tre really came on in that game and was a work horse for us. So we kind of rode him more in that game, though Cam scored, but we rode him more because he was a hot hand. From that point forward, we have full confidence in him going in. But Tre's been the hot hand. In a lot of cases haven't wanted to take him out. Q. I saw end zone shots from behind the defense when they scored the first touchdown against Alabama. C.J. Mosley leaned to the fake as a keeper for him. If you just get a defender leaning like that in this position, how does that work? COACH LASHLEE: It's big. Angles and details and leverage are all very important. Obviously, defense is focused on that, but we do too. That's what we try to focus on. Especially when you have this much time. It's all the details that a lot of times you can overlook. That guy being one yard too wide may be the difference in the play working or not. Q. You've seen that a bunch of times. COACH LASHLEE: Yeah, those little things in plays are huge. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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