Alabama / Arkansas postgame interviews with Mike Shula, Antwan Odom, Freddie Roach, Shaud Williams, Wesley Britt, Brodie Croyle

These comments came following the Arkansas game as Coach Shula answered questions from the press pool ...

Coach Mike Shula – What a game of highs and lows, a game of emotions, a game of brilliance at times for us, and ultimately a game where we lost our poise in the end. We couldn't quite come up with a play when we needed it against a team that kept their poise and stuck with it. It's tough. It's difficult for me right now, but if it didn't mean that much it wouldn't be. We dug ourselves a little bit of a hole, but we're going to dig out of it and we’re going to do it together. I feel strongly about our players. We’re going to look closely at what we’re doing and who we’re doing it with. All those things. Cover every detail that we can. We going to find a way to dig ourselves out of this and get back on the winning track.

Press Pool – Mike, what are your thoughts on the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty there in overtime? Do you think it was a good call within the spirit of the rule?

Well, I didn’t see it. We were down there getting the offense ready. I don’t know exactly what was being done so I can’t comment on that. We were trying to get the offense on the field.

What happened on that interception with Brodie (in overtime)? Was it a wrong read or a wrong route?

It was just a poorly executed play. That’s uncharacteristic, but it’s something we have to learn from.

Yeah, he’s beat up. He’s beat up, but he wanted to go. We made sure with the doctors that everything was OK, relatively speaking. Then he came out and threw two touchdowns in the third quarter.

You had a few costly penalties. Do you have an accountability policy in place to deal with that? How will you deal with that?

(chuckles) There’s no set accountability policy as far as this or that. Are we going to get on guys for making dumb penalties? Yeah, that’s our job. We’re going to look at whether we need to play other guys because of that. We’re going to dissect each one just like we do when we make corrections. Sometimes, they (penalties) are made out of emotion and trying to do the right thing. If they’re made out of stupidity, then we have to look at that obviously. That’s what my job is for the rest of this football team. But we can’t have them. It gets back to keeping our poise, and for whatever reason, we didn’t at times today. At times, we did. We came back after it looked bad early. It didn’t look good at all. We couldn’t move the ball and then all of a sudden we answered. Then we answered again. Spencer Pennington ... what a great job he did right before the half with not much time … and not much practice time either. He got us back to 10-10. Then we had the three touchdowns in the third quarter and were feeling pretty good. But you have to play the whole game.

Did the defense wear down there toward the end as a result of their physical running game?

Maybe a little bit. They were on the field 51 minutes. It’s tough. We have to do a better job offensively. We had a few too many three and outs, even after we had the touchdowns. You can't do that. You have to sustain drives. But they’re (Arkansas) good on offense. They’ve got a great back and a quarterback who can move around. They’ve got a huge offensive line. We fought ‘em. We fought ‘em. A couple of those drives were hurt by penalties. That’s my job as head coach to get that corrected. From there, it goes to the assistant coaches and then the players.

Well, we were substituting the guys and we’ve had some guys beat up here and there. Ahmad wasn’t 100 percent, so we played some other guys who were.

When you were up 31-10 at the half and were running the ball pretty good, did you feel safe? How did you feel at that time?

Would we want to take time off the clock there … well, yeah. But we didn’t want to just sit there and run the ball because they were putting everyone up tight to the line of scrimmage. We threw the one pass and didn’t complete that one. It was just a possession pass. We got into some second and third and longs in some situations and just couldn’t execute. We’ve got to do a better job in the passing game. We protected better this week. We didn’t do a good enough job throwing and catching though.

What was your reaction on the Bostick field goal? Did he say anything to you about what happened?

No, I didn’t talk to him. I just looked at the crowd and could see how they reacted. I knew it wasn’t good from what I saw.

Will it be tougher this week in practice to get the guys to bounce back compared to bouncing back after the loss to Northern Illinois?

It’s tough after a loss like this. Everything is left out on the field. The guys are just spent right now. They’re tired. But that hasn’t been the problem. And those are some of the positives you can take from this game. Guys are laying it on the line, trying to do the right thing, but just coming up a little short with the execution. Whether it’s penalties or what have you. But we’ll just keep going and keep moving forward.

On that poor exchange between Shaud and Brodie … what happened with that? That turnover seemed to be what put Arkansas over the top.

Well, we had those two turnovers … the fumble and then the miscue in overtime … and it set up touchdowns. We’ll have to look at it and I hate to just point at those two plays because there are a ton of plays to correct. But the two turnovers led to points. We had some penalties too that hurt us defensively, where it shortened their field for them and gave them first downs, when instead they could have been in long yardage situations.

Are you really surprised at how things have gone the last two weeks considering how you started out the season?

Surprised? I’m not sure. As many games as I’ve coached in, it’s hard to get surprised. Disappointed yes, discouraged no. It’s going to be tough to get through this week, but what’s the alternative? From my short time being here, I know they are going to respond to whatever we ask them to do. They’ve done that from day one. I’ve learned a lot about them in a short period of time. I expect for them to respond with a lot of positive energy and follow our lead. The seniors have to help as much as they can because they are looked up to. And then we have to have some other guys step up and play a little bit better. Those are things that … when I say I’m not discouraged, that’s why.

How do you get this team motivated? What do they have on the line? These other teams come in here with national rankings and are motivated by that. How do you get this team up?

For motivation? … not to feel like we feel right now. That’s one reason. The feeling that you have when you do win football games is another. When you compete, you’re out to be the best regardless of other circumstances, and to win football games. That’s what drives them and that’s what motivates them. They want to prove to people that “Hey, we’re Alabama and we’re going to be a good football team”. It’s going to be tough to do that. We stubbed our toe and dug a little bit of a hole that last couple of weeks, but the players are resilient. They have been since I’ve been here and I would expect nothing less than that.

Click on the name for parts of their post-game interviews ..
Coach Mike Shula (Alabama Crimson Tide Head Coach)

Anthony Madison (#9 Jr. RCB, 5-9 180 lbs. Thomasville, AL - Thomasville High)

Brodie Croyle (#12 So. QB, 6-3 200 lbs. Rainbow City, AL - Westbrook Christian High)

Postgame Analysis from Jim Dunaway - NBC 13 Birmingham, host of Mike Shula Show

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