Charles Huff Weekly Press Conference – The Jax State Game

HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Southern Miss head football coach Charles Huff addressed the media on Tuesday, Sept. 23, ahead of the Golden Eagles' week five matchup against Jax State.

Southern Miss (2-2) finishes non-conference play against the Gamecocks (2-2) in a home game at Carlisle-Faulkner Field at M.M. Roberts Stadium. Jason Baker (Play-by-Play) and Austin Davis (Analyst) will be on the ESPN+ call beginning at 6 p.m., while the Southern Miss Sports Network's pregame show begins at 4:30 p.m. with the Voice of the Golden Eagles, John Cox, and analyst Lee Roberts on the call.

Here is what Huff said to the media:

Opening Statement…
"New week, definitely a great opportunity for us to go out and respond from last week's game. I want to first start off, I mentioned this yesterday, but our profession, our world, lost a great man earlier this week, Shawn Clark. Shawn Clark was a good friend of mine. He was good to me when I was in West Virginia. He was from West Virginia. We battled each other even before we got into the conference. Really was a good mentor of mine at the conference and the lay of the land always had a smile on his face. His wife, his kids, our condolences go out to him, his family, the App State, former players and their family, current family there now, the Central Florida family and players. It's a tragic situation, and we send our prayers from our university and our community and our family. He was a good one. He was a good one. So, he's going to be missed, and hopefully we can remember the good times and the big old smile he used to have on his face all the time. So, it was a great opportunity for us to go out to respond this week. I feel good about our players' response. Probably we had the best Monday practice we've ever had. That's a start, right? You got to string it together, and you had to carry it to the arena. But they definitely have the right mentality. Our players responded the right way, and our coaches responded the right way. No one was satisfied or happy with the result, but it was a great learning lesson. Obviously, a tremendous challenge coming up this week with Jacksonville State coming in, the defending Conference USA champions. I believe, obviously they have a championship DNA in their locker room and in their team. I have a lot of respect for their coaching staff, a lot of guys on that staff, I have a lot long relationship with the head coach, Charles Kelly and I worked together, won the national championship together at the University of Alabama. Brian Williams, the defensive coordinator, and I have known each other for a while. Really good, innovative mind in the on the defensive side of the ball. Clint Trickett, phenomenal, innovative offensive mind sees the game from a quarterback perspective. He and I worked together at another place, did a phenomenal job there for us. Then his dad, Rick Trickett, arguably the best O-line coach in my lifetime, for sure. He's been doing it at a high level for a long time. You could tell his players play, the edge, the fundamentals, all those things he does a really good job. Has done it for a really long time. And then the rest of the coaching staff, obviously, all of them phenomenal coaches, have done it for a long time. You can tell they've come in and really hit the ground running with that program. You can see their fingerprints all over it. Offensively, Coach Trickett has done a really good job with the quarterback, arguably one of the best running backs in the country. I haven't seen them all, but definitely the ones we've seen. He will be a big challenge for us. The way Coach Trickett packages plays and runs and schemes together makes it difficult to kind of just hone in on him, because of the quarterback's mobility. Coach Williams, on the defensive side, they do a lot, which makes it very difficult to kind of anticipate, hey, in this look or this formation, you're going to get x, y and z. So, the players got to be able to execute on the run. We got to do a great job in practice this week and give them multiple looks, so it's going to be a challenge. You know, obviously defensively, they got a huge defensive line, two guys on the edge do a really good job getting after the quarterback and playing in the run game. I think their linebackers play extremely hard, and then they're secondary, with all the mechanics that they have on the back end, are always in really good position. So, we got some work cut out for us. It starts with a good Monday. We got to have a good Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, carried into the arena."

Q: Just based from Saturday, what do you think that loss [does] to challenge your team and how do you get them to respond coming into this week?
"Preparation is something that you really don't know. It's kind of like baking a cake, right? You get a cake, and you eat, and it tastes good, but you don't know all the steps that went into making that cake taste good. And sometimes, when you talk about preparation, it's all the steps. It's not just putting a cake, you know, mixing the ingredients and throwing it in the oven. How long do you leave it in the oven? How long do you leave the ingredients in? How much sugar, how much whatever. So, I think it gave us an understanding of truly what preparation really looks like, and how you must consistently prepare the same every week. Again, I don't want to make it seem like we didn't prepare, there's just an intent and a focus that you must do it with. You know, you can just put the cake in the oven, or you can make sure that it's preheated. You can make sure that it goes in for 18 minutes. You can make sure you do all the little things. I think that is probably what we learned the most from last week. It is not just one side of the ball. It's not just players, it's everybody. I think hopefully we've learned that the way we prepare Monday to Friday is going to be exact replica of how we perform in the arena. That doesn't mean you're going to win, but it gives you a great chance to be able to perform consistently. The things we went back on and looked at were all details. Well, details are the little things. Little things are what you talk about in preparation. Everything matters. So, our leaders did a really good job. They got a stern message on Monday, so I think they heard it at least. We'll see if it works, but it was a good Monday to start with."

Q: Clint [Trickett] was with you for a while at the last place, can you speak to how he's evolved since he was your guy to going to Clay Helton and then making the move to JSU?
"I think again, the one thing that I think Coach tricky does a really good job of. He's a former quarterback, so he sees the game holistically, meaning he doesn't just see past concepts. He sees run concepts, he sees run blocking, he sees run deficiencies. He sees defensive deficiencies, he sees coverage, he sees pressure. When you see it all, it helps you be more of a global play caller than just, hey, how can I get the ball to my receivers, or how can I run the ball? I think you can see that as he's evolved, he's become even more detailed in putting the packages or formations together to hide deficiencies, attack weaknesses, you know, strength and strengths, I think you know, can obviously with, you know, Clay Helton and some of the things that they've been able to do at Georgia Southern it's helped him evolve what he already has to be better. And I think again, when you really look at how the game flows, you can tell it has a very strategic plan, personnel groupings, packages, areas of the field, down and distance. Kind of philosophy, putting the players involved, you know, you talk about, you know, players over plays, you know, I think you can see that with the way the game flows. Obviously, there's a player error, right? So, I mean, some of the things you don't call for a negative yard play or incomplete pass, but you can tell just by the flow of the game that he's got a good global grasp of what he wants to do offensively with that group."

Q: Do you see any similarities to the way he uses [Jacksonville State quarterback Gavin] Wimsatt to the way that you used [former Marshall quarterback] Cam [Fancher] at y'all's place?
"They're a little bit different. System-wise, they're similar, the system is similar, but I don't know Gavin as well as I knew Cam, so I don't know. As a coordinator, you know Clint smart, right? You do what the quarterback feels comfortable doing, even if, if you want to run triple option and the quarterback don't feel comfortable doing anything, you don't do it. So not knowing Gavin as well as I knew Cam, you can't really tell, you know, what's he comfortable with? What's he like? Also, you look at all the pieces evolve. You know? I think we're going to see things we haven't seen. You know, Coach Trickett is smart, like, He's not just going to roll out the same game plan each week. The game plan builds, you know. So, we're already three or four steps ahead on what they are going to try to do based on what they've shown, what are they going to try to do new because each week it builds, right? You don't just roll out the same game plan each week. So, I think it has a lot to do with quarterback kind of preference, you know? I think most coordinators will say, you know, we try to get a system that the quarterback is comfortable with and that can kind of direct it as it goes."

Q: Going back to the preparation, Chris Jones said after the game that you had told them earlier in the week that you didn't think their preparation was good enough for that game. What are the things you look for, the little things, that you saw last week that you thought in your head weren't good enough and then you said that yesterday's practice was probably the best, so what's the difference?
"Yeah, you can tell. I mean, I've been blessed to do these 22 years. You can go, I can go stand in the middle of field practice and feel the energy, you know, and it doesn't. It's not like, if you come to practice, you would say, oh, they had good practice. They called every ball. They all seem to be going the right way. You know, the practice was organized. But I am standing there, I can tell when the pads clack, when the pads don't clack. I can tell by the level of communication, you know, we're saying down right, down right, down right, down right, instead of DOWN RIGHT. There's a difference. So, you know, I could tell by the level, by the intensity, you know, I mean, you could tell as the practice goes on, what is the flow and feel of how guys are moving, and it wasn't bad. Again, it's difficult to kind of see with a naked eye. You got to kind of know your team, and you got to kind of get a feel. Yesterday there was, like it was almost a game yesterday, the communication, the volume, the physicality, you know, the finish, you can just feel the difference. As the week went on, I just felt increasingly we were just practicing. Not bad, but we were just practicing. We're doing what we were coached to do, and just kind of practice. And I could just feel like, okay, guys, this is different than last week. And I tried to do a really good job of explaining to them. Sometimes it's hard to do. They're 18-to-22-year-olds, right? They think like, we think, right? Well, we called every ball. We really didn't make any mistakes; we didn't go the wrong way. But after the game, you can really kind of see, because that's how we play. If you've watched us long enough, we came out with a lot more intensity two weeks ago than we did Saturday. Saturday, we were just kind of there, you know. I mean, I'm not saying we played, you know, uninspired, but we were just kind of there. I thought as the game went on, we kind of picked up our intensity, and it kind of got going. But you can't start slow in college football and think that you're going to be able to get it going, and that's kind of how the week was. The week was kind of like, we went out and everybody's checking the box, everybody's doing good, but there wasn't a lot of intent, there wasn't a lot of energy, there wasn't a lot of emphasis on things, and they knew it. They could see the difference. After you explain it to them, they could see the difference. The issue is, by the time you get to Wednesday, you can't go back to Monday and start over. So now you're trying to figure out, okay, how do we get prepared enough with what we must try to play well enough to win, and I didn't think we were able to do that. What you saw was we have a good team, because in the second half we looked totally different. But now every catch, every point, every drive has to end in the score, and that's tough, and that's what we weren't able to do the second half, and we were in a better position. We were still moving the ball on offense. We were still stopping them on defense. Every shot at the end zone mattered, every possession mattered."

Q: Off of that, y'all ate the turf in between the 10s down in the low redzone, the ability to get that hard yard, can you kind speak to that and looking a little bit off balance at times?
"There's a couple of things, I mean, a lot of it has to do with defensive structure. I mean, you can pick any play on Madden, but you can't do that in real life. You know, defensive structure areas you're trying to attack, some of it's got to do with the flow of the game, you know. I mean, sometimes you want to get bigger or heavier personnel, sometimes you want to stay lighter. When we looked at the actual one that actually got inside the five, we're too tight with our alignment. One of our linemen is in a two-point stance. You'll never be in a two-point stance if you're trying to go six yards. Our quarterback takes bad footwork. Our running back takes bad footwork. When I say bad, meaning rush trying to, you know, get it in. So, you look at it as a coach and say, obviously, we haven't emphasized the details on this enough. Now, if you really think about that's the first time we've shown that package. That's the first time we've been inside the five. The closest we got was Mississippi State, and we scored from the five or four. So we go back as a coach and say, okay, well, we are investing time in practice, but are we investing enough time? There's a lot of other areas where we were actually better. I thought we were better on third down. You know, we did some things on third down that we hadn't been able to do. Well, we had a lot of third downs. So just looking at, you know, from a coaching standpoint, one, are we emphasizing inside the 5,4,3,2, 1 enough, and then two, are we carrying enough variables? Because if we do get down there and we do have a problem, obviously not scoring is not an option, so making sure we're carrying enough to make sure we have some different answers when we get down there, and then ultimately making sure we're coaching well enough to make sure that the details matter. They really matter when you're talking six inches. So from a global standpoint, everyone had a little bit to do with it. Everyone kind of went back and said, Okay, where can I, you know, from a head coaching position, do we need to put more time into the practice schedule, into that area. Do we need to carry more play options into that area? Players wise, are we playing the right guys in that area? Because that matters too, and then are we emphasizing the details enough to get what we want to execute?"

Q: What do you think about Carl Chester emerging the in that receiver room? Some positives from that game and can you spotlight the offense a little bit?
"Yeah, I think, you know, and I love Carl. I think he's a byproduct of the system right now, and it's really good. And that's not a knock on Carl, actually, in the meeting on Friday, it's been two games since he's caught a ball. You know, he had a big game against Mississippi State caught some balls, at Jackson State he may have caught one, maybe none. App State didn't really catch any and then he comes back and has a big day. And I told him, not to kind of pick on him, I told him, as a receiver, when the ball comes to you, you've got to make it count. You know, Doc [Tychaun Chapman], a week ago or two weeks ago had a huge day. Well, gets injured in the other game, you know, he's out, so he didn't get the opportunity. So the byproduct of the system is what we have right now. And I think Carl does a good job of maximizing his opportunities. Smooth [Elijah Metcalf] has done a good job of maximizing his opportunity. Bralon Brown has maximized his, and when you have that kind of variance, I think it helps the quarterback a little bit, because you're not just looking for one guy. It helps the system, because you trust that all of your guys can win, or all your guys can be successful, if you just get through the coverage or the progression the right way. So, Carl showed up in a big way. It happened, you know, it happened to be him who had today. It could be somebody else, totally different, on Saturday. And I think, again, the beauty of it is everybody's got to be ready. And I tell them, man, like, if I'm playing receiver in this offense, if I catch a ball, man, I'm doing a cartwheel, back flip. I'm doing something because I don't know if I'm ever get another ball again. And that's not a knock. It's just I don't know if the ball ever come to me again, so I'm going to try to make the most out of every opportunity. I'm not just going to catch it and fall down. I'm going to catch it and try to jump over six people and do a back flip, because it may be three games, Carl Chester, it may be three games for that ball comes back to me again. So, I want to make the most out of every, and all opportunities."

Q: Saw a little more of Robert Briggs, Jr., as well, what do you take from what he did Saturday?
"Yeah, I think he's doing a really good job. You know, we kind of challenged the running backs after the first couple of weeks to run a little bit harder. I thought the first couple of weeks, they were looking to hit the home runs, instead of just, you know, putting their foot in the ground and going being physical. Briggs probably started doing that the most, and started to break some tackles, and started to get some YAC yards, and then the rest of the room kind of followed, you know, at the beginning of the season, I thought we were trying to just hit the home run, right? I'm just, I'm waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and I get tackled. Or, instead of just putting my foot in the ground and trusting that I'm going to get positive yards, they started doing that. And I think Briggs has done a really good job for his size, of playing bigger than you know, his actual size may be, if that makes sense."

Q: Coach, during the game, watching Braylon [Braxton] obviously one of his greatest assets is his size, his physicality, his legs; were there times when you thought maybe let's cut the risk down and just tuck it, it's there for you?
"Yeah, there were a couple. I mean, I don't have a joystick on the sideline. I know you guys think I do. I would love to love to just be able to go there, triangle jump with circle, spin. But again, I there's a little bit of instinct to that too. And I don't ever want to affect the player's instinct. He came to the sideline a couple times, and we talked Sunday after the game, and he was like, I probably could have just scored on the one I threw the Matt [Jones]. I probably could have ran right in, probably could have gotten a first down on a couple of other ones. You know, again, I think it's a combination. When we don't do a good job as coaches of putting our guys in position to play, then the players feel like they have to press a little bit. Then every play gets magnified. If we're up 30 to 10, you guys are laughing about the goal line situation, but it's like you guys are getting fixed. Well, when you lose by 10, that's huge. When you lose by 10, the field goal that you miss in the first quarter or first half is huge. So I do think, because of the way the game went, Braylon [Braxton] probably, again, you're the quarterback you probably felt like, I got to press a little bit. I have to make this throw. And I think, you know, again, you're right when you're close, like, if it had been 30 to nothing, there's no pressure, it's over. But when you're close, right, it's 10. If I just throw a touchdown pass, here, we're back. You know what I mean, so a little bit of that same confidence and that same bravado that makes quarterbacks great, you also got to be able to tame that a little bit and say, hey, I just got to do my job. Here's an opportunity where I can check it down. Here's an opportunity where I can just run for the first down. I think that's a learning experience for him, but he did, there were a couple he was like, Man, I should have just, but again, I don't think you can be a good quarterback if you were put in a situation where a coach is telling you, run more, throw more. You got to kind of look at the situation. Obviously, we can call running plays if we wanted to run more you know, quarterback runs. But in those situations, because, again. We would all be totally different. If he throws that ball to Matt [Jones] and it's a touchdown. I was like, man, that's a great throw. Man, that Braylon Braxton is good man. We'd be like, yeah, I would probably still be like, well, he could have ran it, you know. So I think a little bit instinct, but I think he is definitely learning, you know, he came to sideline and said, I probably could have ran there. So he acknowledged it. But I think that's part of the learning curve, not necessarily when to run, when not to run, but understanding the flow of the game. I can't press, you know, I still got to make my plays, still make my good decisions, let the game happen, not try to make it happen, if that makes sense."

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the second half, what your defense was able to do and what do you think they can build on that?
"I think we went back. It might have been like, 20 yards we gave up in the second half. And if I explained our defense to you right now in 30 seconds, you'd be like, oh, that's easy. And literally, it was, we're playing man coverage on the first play of the game. There's one player that has a tight end in man, and he's looking in the backfield. Tight End runs by. So we say, okay, let's put another guy on the tight end to make it a little bit easier. Another player has that tight end in man, and he's looking in the backfield, he runs by. After that, everybody started doing their jobs. But on defense, you can play 80 plays, phenomenal, and two plays be the difference. And just as simple as eye violations, and that's not a point at the players. We got to do a better job of coaching, you know, put them in, maybe moving them over to their work a little bit, maybe moving them closer to their work a little bit, maybe taking some of the variables out of what they're, you know, their process, or standard operating procedure, where my eyes go. We looked at all that. You know, coaching wise, are we coaching man covers the right way? Are we giving our guys the best chance? But after those two plays, everybody really calmed down and started doing their job. But what you've done in those two plays is you've lit a fire on the other team, momentum-wise, I mean. So now, yeah, they are playing with a lot more energy. They're playing with a lot more confidence. So, it puts us in a little bit of a bind. But I thought defensively, we went in at halftime, there was no quit. There was no like, you know, everybody's upset with everybody. It was, hey, we got another half. Let's go out honestly, when I left the locker room, I felt like we were going to win the game. I felt like we were going to battle back defensively. We had settled down and made some adjustment coaching wise, made some adjustments personnel wise, offensively, we felt like we had a good plan moving the ball. I felt like it was going to be one of those games that you barely win, and then you got to come back and convince the players that, hey, we shouldn't have been that close type of deal, but that didn't happen. We can still learn from it, but I think our defense has shown that when everybody settles down and everybody does their job, we can be pretty good. If you watch our whole season, it's been first two or three drives of every game have been a little bit looser than the rest of the game. Obviously, coaching wise, we've got to try to help put our players in better position in those first two or three series. Players wise, we have to settle a little bit. You know, part of the defensive mentality is to go hit. You got to settle a little bit. Coaching wise, we got to settle our guys a little bit. But if we can continue to respond the way we've been responding, I think we're going to like the result."

Q: Coach you had a few key pieces out this week, how'd you come out that game health-wise and how do you feel about that and getting a few guys back this week?
"Yeah, man. I mean, knock on wood, man, we've been blessed. BA [Ben Ashford] and his staff have done a phenomenal job this offseason. Obviously, it's week four, week five. I mean, so there's guys walking around with ice bags on their shoulders and knees, but nobody that's out out, nobody that's not available. Obviously, we go through practice this week and see who plays. There's obviously guys who can play more or less or whatever, but we're in a really good spot. It's one of the beautiful things about a good nutrition plan, a good rehab plan, a good strength and conditioning plan, you've got a chance to keep guys healthy. Now, I mean, obviously there's injuries that happen in football. You break your arm. I don't know if that has to do with how much milk you drink or drank, or just, you know, the luck of the draw, but we've been blessed. So right now, we're in a good spot. Obviously, we'll monitor throughout the week, but we're in a good spot."

Charles Huff Weekly Press Conference – The Jax State Game

Players Mentioned

Braylon Braxton

Robert Briggs

Bralon Brown

Tychaun Chapman

Carl Chester

Chris Jones

Elijah Metcalf

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