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- Mar 7, 2012
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More excuses (scholarship reductions), more pointing to upward trajectory on the defense, more defense of his friend, and more selling the Golden Slurpers and dunces on the youth movement and improvement in year 4.
It's crazy to hear him - and people will eat this up - talk about an improved defense when they weren't very good. 4 years at Miami you better have a better defense than this.
A truly pathetic appearance.
It's crazy to hear him - and people will eat this up - talk about an improved defense when they weren't very good. 4 years at Miami you better have a better defense than this.
A truly pathetic appearance.
e Rose interview summary:
- Al Golden starts off sounding depressed. Very monotone
Rose: What you think overall of the year?
Golden: Well, I mean, c’mon, I feel like everyone else. Disappointed. We had an opportunity to win more games. No question about it. I’m disappointed with it. Obviously there’s silver linings in there. Guys improving, getting better, laying it on the line.
Rose: How do you explain last two games and the letdown after FSU? Blown out by Pitt UVA?
Golden: Hard to explain. Something obviously we’re really disappointed in. From FSU and previous 3 games, and the bye weeks included in that, we were playing and practicing at a high level. Clearly, we didn’t perform or execute at the same level the last two weeks as the previous 6. Not even gonna try to explain it. Gotta sit down with leadership, guys in different class, and fix it.
Rose: You think it’s more coaching, and not getting guys motivate? Is it scheme? Are guys checking out? What is the reason for the way it ended?
Golden: No excuse. Before you go down the list of things to blame it’s the job of the head coach to get the team to finish the year. I have to take responsibility. I have to learn from and grow from it to make sure it doesn’t happen again. If there’s a disappointing loss again like the FSU one, we have to make sure there aren’t the same results
Rose: Coach do you make staff changes this year?
Golden: It’s something I think about all the time. I’m always looking to improve the organization. I like to get back to work and get ready for the bowl game. Important to finish with a win. I evaluate everything at the conclusion of the season. A lot of areas of our team made improvements.
Rose: Coach, special teams. You’re in charge. Bad returns, bad coverage, what happened to your group?
Golden: I’m looking at every facet of it, Joe. Other day we didn’t cover the ball well on kick offs. Punt coverage was good all year. Kickoff coverage post FSU wasn’t as good. We had to change the whole alignment on kickoffs. Weren’t getting the ball in the endzone so we had to change what we were doing. Can’t get into it, but we were forced to change things, and it didn’t work. Gave Pitt a short field too often. Other aspect is we haven’t had long explosive return this year. We had multiple last year.
Rose: Lot of calls earlier today, guys fired up, one point made was certain receivers had big games, next games they disappeared. Is there a way to get more consistency from playmakers?
Golden: I mean, I think Joe, you know, from being a player we wanna be consistent there. Some games 7-8 guys touching ball that’s when we are at our best. Backs rotating in to stay fresh. But it’s a valid point. Some games we weren’t as good distributing the football. We wanna be consistent everywhere.
Rose: Halftime adjustments. Are you getting enough? Staff adjusting enough? Moving guys in the box etc?
Golden: Yeah, I think our guys do a great job. Again, as I’m checking in with both before the half you start to, when the other units going in just before half you say here’s what we gotta get done. I meet with offense/defense staff separately, then present to the team. Saturday we came out and scored, ensuing kickoff they start off in plus territory. One tiny example, but uh, we haven’t been as good in the 2nd half in the last 3 games, no question about it Joe.
Rose: Do you feels at any point guys just checked out. Ever sense that?
Golden: No I didn’t. I do think guys were, and there’s a difference between being genuinely crushed or disappointed after FSU because you gave it everything you have, maybe there was some regret, or 2nd thoughts oh man I wish I made this play, or had this one back, or I wish it didn’t get deflected. Sometimes you dwell on it. But I don’t think anyone said oh well, and checked out. When you watch the tape there’s too many guys fighting. And trying to finish. And do it the right way to suggest that
Rose: Coach reports that James Coley is going to Kentucky to join Mark Stoops any truth to this stuff?
Golden: Wow… that’s
Rose: And this is coming from reports online, you can check it out. I hope I’m not just hitting you with it now.
Golden: Well, ya you kind of are. That’s absolutely not true at all. No, you’re hitting me with it, no question about it. I think James is doing a really good job, and as I said to you before, to go into our schedule this year with a rookie QB, a true freshman QB, it took an enormous effort on the part of James. We asked brad to do a lot. Whatever the defense had we were getting. They saw a freshman QB over there and wanted him off his spot. Came after him. James did a really good job with Brad and gave an enormous effort to get him to the level to play
Rose: Coach, mark D’Onofrio, your relationship with him, you’ve been together forever, hard to evaluate a guy you’re close to?
Golden: (agitated) Look, someone’s got an agenda, so someone wants to talk about the relationship. I’ve known Mark for a really long time. There’s a relationship there and a trust in terms of the business side. If you look at the defense this year I feel like we’ve stabilized. I feel like we’ve had a lot of guys improve. Our total defense went from 90 to 15. We played a lot of young guys behind Denzel. We have young guys I’m excited about. We’ve made progress. I think we went up in number of categories. I’m excited about Darrion Owens, Chad Thomas, Anthony Moten, and the fact that we lost 3 starters and a coach right before the year started, and still had good results. We were able to redshirt a bunch of defensive guys, first time we got to redshirt kids like that. They’ll be ready to go. No I’m excited about my defense
Rose: What position do you need to upgrade in recruiting?
Golden: Offensive line. We had one transfer last January, then we had an inordinate amount of injuries.
Linder, Gadbois, etc. go down. So, there’s no question the depth there hurt us. We just didn’t have the number of bodies that we needed to. That’s a function of just having cuts. Scholarship cuts. When you’re low and you get injured it’s hard. In terms of taking scholarships that’s one of the places it hurt us at. We gotta forfeit that. I like Trevor, Danny, Nick, K.C., all coming back in Spring. Will make us better. We need a lot of depth there moving forward. We’re gonna sign a full class. Should indicate where we are numbers stand point. We gotta get back to even by 2016. We’ll still be short overall but we’ll feel better about our depth
Rose: Coach for me, Stacy Coley, after that first year I thought my God he’s gonna be special. Did something personal happen in his life? Why the drop off
Golden: Yeah well again its always difficult to talk about individual kids that are maybe not having the success they’ve had, for Stacy I’m glad he made some plays Saturday he needed that. I still believe in Stacy still think he’ll be a good football player. Part of it is that Phillip separated himself from the group. Clearly our most productive of the group, Stacy was the more explosive guy the year before. Maybe it’s a function of how we evolved offensively this year, but Stacy has a great attitude and is a great kid. Gotta work with him and improve his touches. Nothing but positive and great things to say about his direction in the future.
Rose: What’s the biggest evaluation. You’re responsible for 6-6 what’s the biggest thing to evaluate
Golden: I look at everything Joe. I look at personnel. Schemes. Everything that we do. In terms of, uh here’s another thing, I’m answering your question without thinking, ok if you’re not playing well on the road, what do we need to change? That’s a quality control thing. Maybe look at what other programs are doing in those areas. Or kickoff returns look at what other teams are doing there. Tweak some things. Some times its just little things to trigger it, not anything huge. Clearly, in terms of depth of the team, we have a lot of guys that have played and grown up during the season and 4th quarter there, that were young but nobody anticipated that going into the season, but that’s the way it shook out, but we gotta move forward with our young kids. Herndon, Kaaya, Brady, Grace, Brady, Thomas, Owens, we gotta keep getting em better and practice with a purpose
Rose: Coach anything left for duke to do after 3 years
Golden: Yeah I think my job in this deal is to support duke and anyone else that’s draft eligible. My job is to support them unconditionally. Not tell them what to do. Get em the answers and get em out of the way. I think that’s a very personal question. Its not for me to answer. Its between him and his mom. We wanna support him and be there for hi. He knows wed love him back but that’s not the issue. What does he want to do, what does he want to accomplish. I don’t want to get into personal – hes gotta list pros and cons. If he feels something tugging at his heart to come back, we support hat. If some facts or issues support him going the other way, we support that. I will support the underclassmen unconditionally
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