Mondays with Bobby, featuring Mitchell Henry

Postgame reaction from the Hilltoppers after Western Kentucky’s 52-20 loss at Tennessee on Saturday.

Bobby Petrino

“We just got beat. We dug ourselves a hole in the first half. I don’t know if I’ve ever been through the five turnovers that we had – and a couple of them for touchdowns.

“But we did battle back in the second quarter and played hard. I was encouraged in the first quarter, our defense held them to a field goal and was playing hard. We just gave them short fields.

“Then we got some momentum right before half with a nice drive for a touchdown and a blocked punt for a touchdown and then we left one out there, throwing an interception in the end zone.

“Then in the second half they just took over and beat us up. They ran the ball when they wanted to, how they wanted to and we weren’t able to get the ball in the end zone offensively.

“We got a lot of work to do, we got to learn a lot from this game and come back with a great attitude in practice this week and get ready for our conference opener.”

  Handling players after turnovers: “That’s normally what we do, is come right back out and show in ‘em we have confidence in ‘em and throw it again.

“The first one, there’s not a whole lot Brandon can do about that. It was a right read, they ball went right in (Taylor’s) hands and popped up and they did a nice job on jumping the second one.

“The ones in the end zones are the ones you have to know that when we get down in the red zone that you don’t throw interceptions – you don’t take sacks and you don’t throw interceptions and you always come away with points on the board.

“We have to work on that and learn on that. (Doughty’s) a good learner so he’ll learn a lot from this game.”

   Seen five turnovers in six plays before? “I don’t remember it. I don’t remember that many interceptions and that many turnovers back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Really dug us a hole.

“But I was encouraged by the way we drove the ball and moved it in the second quarter. I felt like we got back in the game. Went into halftime 31-17, had some momentum. They did a really nice job in their first drive coming out of halftime. We got out of position on the long pass, we should’ve had somebody right in the middle of the field and got out of position by the quarterback’s movement and he made a great throw while he was getting hit.

“They made a lot of plays and we didn’t make enough.”

Fumbles: “We gotta get the ball locked up against our body and squeeze it against the ribs. We had the ball away from our body on that hit. He hit his helmet right on the ball, but that doesn’t matter. You gotta carry it the right way and then when we get in traffic we gotta get the opposite hand over it. We’ve got some work to do on that.

“Keyshawn’s fumble, Keyshawn was supposed to take the ball and run down the sideline, he just panicked a little bit by the linebacker running through and then they dug the ball out.”

   Opening drive: “I felt good about the start, particularly when we were converting the third downs. We weren’t running the ball very well in that first drive, but we were converting the third downs and protecting the quarterback so I felt like we were there. We moved the ball off the end zone and had a chance to drive it a little bit. That’s when we hit the hands and the ball popped up in the air.

“It turned in a hurry. That’s for sure.”

    Five turnover’s in six plays: “That’s what I’ve never been through before – the five turnovers in six plays. Obviously we needed to figure something else out.

“We got pressured on the one interception and that was a protection issue. The one they jumped and took for an end zone, that was just them jumping the quarterback’s drop – and is a good play by the corner when he did that.”

    That particular interception: “Well we had a really good matchup inside with our slot receiver against their Mike linebacker. We got away with it a week ago by just throwing the outside easy route. But you have to take the matchups when you get the matchups.”

 Running back rotation: “We have to use all of them, we’re gonna need all of them. Who starts each week kind of depends on what personnel group you throw out there right away.

“But Leon (Allen) is impressive. He made some great runs, he’s very explosive, he gave us some energy and he was playing very hard. He’s been impressive both games.”

    Brandon Doughty: “What you have to do is go into the room (Sunday) with a great attitude that, ‘I’m gonna learn from this, I’m gonna grow from it.’ It’s not gonna be much fun because you gotta sit there and go through it and grind through it and see the mistakes and really work hard at learning from it.

“Then as soon we get done with the video (Sunday) we need to bury it, get a positive attitude and move forward and work at getting better each day in practice.”

    Halftime: “The deal was I trying to tell the defense that I felt like they did a good job and we need to continue to stop the run and make them throw the ball and get pressure on the quarterback – which we weren’t able to do when they did throw the ball. They did a nice job of protecting their quarterback.

“Offensively we survived turnovers and we’re only down two touchdowns. I felt like we were right in it and we had good energy. They just came out and were the stronger team in the second half.”

    UT passing game: “I kind of felt like they wanted to work on their passing game, that they came out and said that, ‘Hey, we’re gonna come out and work on our passing game and get better throwing the ball.’ And they did.”

   Postgame mood: “We’re disappointed. We’re disappointed we didn’t perform well, we didn’t perform the way we’re capable of performing. That’s hard.

“But what we really have to do is make this a learning experience and understand that it’s what ahead of us that counts.

“We’ll have good meetings (Sunday) and then come back on Tuesday and really work hard for this opener.”

Willie McNeal

Five turnovers in six plays: “I’ve seen it before, but it is what it is. Tennessee played a good defense and had good play-calling. We shot ourselves in the foot.

    Helpless feeling? “Nah, I never give up, I never felt helpless. The team, we’re very confident, we still was believing and went all the way until it was 0:0 on the clock.”

   Turnovers: “Like I said, Tennessee had a great gameplan. Great defensive calls, they had guys where they were supposed to be to make the plays. We just gotta bounce back from it.”

   Offensive mistakes: “It was basically on us. The tempo, rushing it, we just had to take a deep breath, calm down and get things rolling.”

    Halftime mood: “We had that confidence. Their defense, don’t get me wrong, their defense was good, but at the same time it was us shooting ourself in the foot. We was moving the ball when we wanted to, we just had to calm down, settle down and just make the plays.”

   Brandon Doughty: “Brandon was one of those guys that was keeping everybody up, telling everybody, ‘We alright, we alright, we’re gonna bounce back, we’re gonna bounce back. He didn’t have his head down. We make mistakes, people have bad games, it’s part of football.”

   Confidence coming in: “That’s just the team we is – we’re gonna believe. Anybody we play, we still gonna believe, it don’t matter, we still gonna believe we got a chance to win no matter how the game goes. There’s gonna be ups and downs.”

Cam Thomas

   Turnovers by the offense: “We just gotta come out and play. Every time, the change of game, the change of pace, we were ready for everything. That’s the mindset we took every time we took the field. Just had to stop ‘em.”

   Turnovers: “I seen a few of them, but I mean, it happens. We just gotta pick up where they left off and help out our offense. It’s not frustrating. It’s just the game. We are one team and that’s what we do. We help out our brothers and that’s what we did.”

   Bouncing back: “Just study our film tomorrow, work as hard as we did this week, just like any other week, just gotta keep grinding and get to the next game and win the next game.”

   Defense going back on the field after turnovers: “We were ready, we were just making the corrections in certain spots that we needed. Everybody was just ready to go back out there because we knew that the position we were in, we knew that our defense had to come back out on the field and we love the challenge. That’s how we came out, but things happen.”

  The second half: “It wasn’t a fatigue factor, they were just catching us in spots that we weren’t there. It’s just hard when we don’t communicate well and things like that. We have to do a better job of that next week.”

Filed under: Football, Talkin’ bout the Tops