Happy Thursday, everyone. The injury report was published ahead of South Carolina, and looks like this:
Yhonzae Pierre, LB — Out
Kendrick Law, WR — Questionable
Kobe Prentice, WR — Questionable
Not sure what happened with Pierre, but he posted a picture of himself in a hospital room yesterday calling it a “minor setback.”
Saturday will mark Mike Shula’s return to The Capstone.
Through USC’s media relations staff, Shula declined an interview request ahead of Saturday’s game. Speaking Wednesday on an SEC teleconference, Gamecock head coach Shane Beamer praised Shula’s contributions to his staff.
“Low ego, humble, hardworking,” Beamer said. “Everyone in the building thinks the world of him. He’s been awesome. Has helped us so much on and off the field.”
Shula largely works with the South Carolina quarterbacks. He’s most familiar with that position, having played it himself at Alabama, starting from 1984-1986.
Mike’s QB is concerning for Maurice Linguist, and he should be after what the last mobile QB did to the defense.
I think anytime you see a dynamic quarterback who can run and throw, it’s always on our minds because you have the play and then the extended play, which dual-threat quarterbacks can create,” Linguist said. “Plays that extend the 2.5 seconds of a normal play and the 2.5-3 seconds of the extended play. How we handle the contain of the dropback situations of the quarterback, then if and when he does get out, how we’re handling the disciple coverage on the backend. Plastering or man if we’re in zone, getting our eyes in the right place and making sure they don’t create explosives off extended plays.”
Vanderbilt and the elimination of NLI were the hot topics on “Hey, Coach!”
You know, a lot of times, the information comes out and then our compliance office comes in and meets with us. It doesn’t effect anything, literally, today or tomorrow,” DeBoer said on the “Hey Coach” show Wednesday. “But I think a lot of it will still be still as we’ve done in the past. There will be other ways to bind prospects who sign with Alabama and vice versa. So I don’t see it being something, at least with the tweaks they are going to make — there’s an SEC agreement, there’s other things that we have that guys can sign that will be binding.”
“Well, besides the execution? That’s what it always comes down to, right? Is execution,” he said. “That goes not just on the players, but it’s everyone. All the execution.
“I felt like we had a good plan. We had a plan within the plan when they attack you a different way when — that’s the case, offense, defense. You have Plan A. You have the tweaks, which would be Plan B. To me, that’s all part of the game plan. Something you might have called more or less than what you originally thought going in.
“I thought our staff did a nice job. There’s always things you look back on, like, oh, we could have done this a little bit more earlier. And the other thing is, I think you also got to make sure you don’t just overreact. Sometimes you need to see that look again against the defensive call or the offensive call that we’re running, and the guys get another rep at it. Because it is something new or different that we hadn’t seen on film. Or different guys working together.
“There’s a reason, a lot of times, for execution not being at the level. But that’s full ownership on all of us. When I say that, it’s not about the players. It’s about all of us, including myself.”
The P4P deals will be the binding force going forward, not the NLI. They need to come with negotiable buyouts just like coaching contracts. As far as DeBoer’s comments on execution, this aligns with what I’ve said about coaching for some time. Coaching happens 12 months a year, and determines whether the players can do the job you want them to do on Saturdays. Regardless of the film breakdowns you may have seen criticizing scheme, the fact is that on many of those third down conversions, a tackle or play on the ball was there to be made and wasn’t. In many cases it appeared to be a matter of giving up leverage or taking poor angles.
As Kalen said, that doesn’t mean that the players aren’t good enough or just decided that winning wasn’t worth the effort. It means they have work to do with their coaches to get better in those areas. Whether the coaches are able to get through to them will tell us plenty about this staff.
Last, Coach Kap was asked about the critical sack/fumble.
“The play before, we had a good pocket, a good catch, and we were getting ready to go (up) tempo,” Kapilovic said Wednesday. “One of their kids came by and kind of gave an elbow to our quarterback, so one of our O-linemen runs over there, then another runs over there, and we’re trying to go tempo. So then we’re trying to get lined up to go fast, and (Pritchett) takes a bad set and gets beat.”
It was the Commodores’ biggest defensive play of the game, as it recaptured momentum as the Crimson Tide lost a chance to take its first lead. Vanderbilt drove for a what proved to be the game-winning touchdown off the turnover, to open a 40-28 lead.
“We’ve got to understand the situation,” Kapilovic added. “Yes we want to protect our quarterback. He’s a big boy. Nothing crazy happened. Let’s get lined up and play the next play.”
So we were too engaged in extracurricular nonsense to make the next play. Sounds like another coaching point that is being delivered. Hopefully it is received.
That’s about it for now. Have a great day.
Roll Tide.
