Mizzou Football met the media on Monday to preview Saturday’s 3 p.m. game against Southeast Missouri, which will air live on SEC Network (alternate). Head coach Gray Pinkel’s press conference is transcribed below.
Opening Statement…
“Here we go again! I feel very fortunate because in my business, it’s my 15th year here at Mizzou, every year when you start off like this: you feel fortunate and blessed that you can still be coaching football, being around kids, and helping them develop. Just a couple of notes here: we are – everyone in the SEC – is planning on honoring Mike Slive and awareness for men fighting against prostate cancer. We’re going to have emblems on the side of our helmets and just bring attention and awareness to that. Mike Slive – it was an incredible experience being around him for a few years and watching a guy like that who has done such a remarkable job. This is for a very good cause. Also this year, what we’re going to do: my visor that I wear on home games and also the BYU game, I am going to auction that off to a charity in the Columbia community – I’ll make a donation and then we’ll have an auction and take the auction combination with my donation and give that to a local charity. Go to GaryPinkel.com for more information on that.
It’s five days until kickoff. In January when our players got back here, I think it was something like 220 days until we played this football game. The reason we count is so we don’t waste a day. It’s a clock countdown – we bring it out and show it to our players and talk about it throughout the months of preparation we’ve done. We’ve been working very hard for this point and the process of doing all these things so when we get here we have a chance to start the season right and be a good football team. That’s where we are at right now. It’s five days – wake up tomorrow and it’s four. We’re excited about playing.
Cortland Browning is going to be out with a hamstring injury. Wesley Leftwich – these are two players who we thought we would have for this game – he’ll be out with a knee injury. I think we’ll be able to get these guys back pretty soon, probably in the next week or two. That’s kind of the way it’s done.
Every program in the country is looking forward to playing. They’ve been going against each other for some 20 practices, beating up on each other. Everybody wants to go play. They put so much time into this. Now we’re into the final stages, the game stages, we call it the “grind.” Our young players are learning from our older players and also from some of the things we did in meeting times and preparation in August about the grind. That’s what you do on a Sunday night, then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The grind is also going to class, hitting the study table and academically hitting your goals. At this level, that’s what you need to do to compete at a high level. That’s where we’re at now. We’re playing a good football team. I always talk about that I focus on us, we’re not going to go and focus on our opponent. We just want to be able to play our very best and that’s what we are working hard to do.
On the backup quarterback position battle and FR Drew Lock winning the job…
“I think anybody at any position – I’ve talked to you many times about our evaluation system and what we do and how we do things in terms of evaluation of every practice. I think both Marvin (Zanders) and Eddie (Printz) did really well, but at the end of the day Drew did better. He deserved that spot and he gets to work hard and I’m pretty sure he’s pretty excited about it.”
On whether or not he will play Drew Lock for a series per game…
“In my background, I’ve done that often. Many times I’ve done that. First of all, a player has to earn that. If he practices at a high level, then what you like to do is get him some playing time. That’s going to be up to him and how hard he is working. We’ve done it many ways. Sometimes a series in the first half, sometimes a series in the second half. We’ve done it with James Franlkin, Blaine Gabbert. We did it even more so with Chase [Daniel] and Brad Smith. We’ve had success doing that here. It’s ideal to do that. I did it at Washington and Toledo. At Washington I did it a lot, we had a lot of NFL quarterbacks. It’s worked out in a favorable way. One thing we’ve always done. It’s good because it allows your backup players to get to play at their position. A lot of things go into it in terms of how the game is going. Do we want to interrupt that in the second half? Those are the decisions we have to make.”
On how hard it is to make a decision regarding redshirting a player…
“Anybody who can help the team, we’re not going to put a redshirt on them. That’s pretty simple. The team is the number one priority at every position.”
On the whether all of the freshmen listed on the depth chart will not be redshirted…
“I think so. The plan is to play them. Emmanuel Hall at wide receiver, we’ve been working to get him into the gameplan. Terry Beckner has had great camp and has tremendous potential. Josh Moore is at the fifth tackle – you always need to have a fifth player ready to play. Nate Howard at defensive end – he’s doing exceptionally well. Then you have a Terez Hall and Cam Hilton. They’re playing at a very high level. A lot of things happen. You look at the depth, you look at a guy’s ability to learn, is he physically ready to play? Are they mature enough to go out there and play in front of 70,000 people on national TV? There are a lot of components that we’re looking at. All of these things were a part of it. It’s a very talented class. There are some guys who have great opportunities.”
On whether he envisioned playing so many young players on signing day…
“No. I think when Harold (Brantley) got hurt, the defensive line (needed to be evaluated). At defensive end, for example, we’ve lost a first rounder the last two years and two second-rounders, then a seventh round pick who was a first team All-American. We’ve lost some people on the defensive front where we’re as good as anybody in the nation in terms of quality of players, so we anticipate playing some young players. Fortunately, this class has good players. These are high-level guys, and there are also a bunch that are going to be redshirting. That’s all good, that’s all positive.”
On Charles Harris having pressure on him to keep the tradition of great defensive lineman at Mizzou intact…
I think coach (Craig) Kuligowski handles that well. They are who they are, they all understand that there is accountability and understand the history. They’re aware of that. Charles has tremendous work ethic. He’s assumed a lot of the leadership role. That’s his personality and he backs it up with how he lifts weights and how he goes to class. I don’t think it’s been too much [pressure]. We have multiple ways on the defensive front that we can utilize him.”
On Charles Harris’ development…
“Am I surprised that he could develop into a high level player? No. I thought he had the physical ability to do it, the size, the strength, broad shoulders when he came in. He was an okay football player. We had basketball film and we had to see more of this guy. He’d slam the ball backwards. He was not just a great basketball player, he was really athletic. Then we found out he’s a really good kid. The thing you don’t know- you evaluate and think it’s the right situation but you never know. He’s incredibly competitive and he’s incredibly physically tough. He has a burning desire to be great. He had all these intangibles, but is he great player? He has that too. You like to think that we knew that, but a lot of that stuff you don’t really know. Some guys you can pick that up but some guys you can’t. If you ever recruited Brad Smith, you’d never really see this great competitor, but when he got on the field and gained maturity. I’m really pleased with him, he’s a soldier. He’s very impressive.”
On what Drew Lock did to separate himself in the battle for the backup QB job in training camp…
“He handled himself really well. He handled pressure well. That’s the biggest thing with any young quarterback that you have to deal with, getting rid of the ball and things like that. He’s an extremely accurate thrower. I mean really accurate. He’s got a lot of poise and a lot of intangibles. He’s only been here for 20 practices, if you give him 20 more he’ll only get better.”
On whether or not putting Lock at the No. 2 spot will have an impact on starting QB Maty Mauk…
“This has nothing to do with Maty. This is all about if something happens to Maty, that’s the first thing you ask yourself: who’s the best guy for our team? That’s the reasoning behind it. We do that for every position. Ultimately what we ask ourselves is ‘who is the right person to put in there?’ If something happens to Maty, who gives us a chance to win? By the way, the other guys did a good job too. What’s important right now is what’s best for our team.”
On Corey Fatony winning the punting job…
It’s a very statistical thing. Both of them did well, but from a statistical standpoint Corey did better. He’s got a very strong leg. He’s done a lot of good things. It also comes down to how you perform in scrimmages.”
On Alec Abeln winning the starting job at left guard…
“He did well, he did really well. We thought we’d take a look at him. We had him at number two at center, but had to get him ready to play. You have to move guys around at center and guard. You have to have an answer for that. Who’s going to be your third guard? Who’s going to be your second or third center? Who’s going to be your third tackle? We do all that all of the time. There’s different things we do with different players to get them ready to play, so we got him in there to play and he did extraordinarily well. He’d been doing a little bit in camp so far, a little bit in spring. It was nice to see him get in there. The greatest thing we do here, and I think our players have respect for it, at the end of the day if you earned the job then you earned the job. It’s all based on competition, it’s not based on how much experience you have. It’s based on competing to win the job. Then of course you have to go out there.”
