Coach Charles Kelly

Q: Walk us through that last drive in Houston.
A: First of all, I got to thank you all for being in here. You all love ball. We always talk about loving ball. I mean, now let's just be honest. We all grew up in the South. Alabama and Missouri is playing an SEC game right now. They've been 30 minutes in the game, and y'all are here covering the Gamecocks, and we appreciate that. I know our players appreciate that. 
The last drive. I mean, our players will tell you, first of all, what we talk about all the time. Our coaches do a good job. We talked this week. We had to have disciplined execution. And that last drive was an example of disciplined execution. We didn't have a penalty on the drive. All the plays weren't perfect. There was a lot of strategy that that went in, but that wasn't the first time we've done that. We do a two-minute drill, and we don't do it against the scout team. Every Thursday, we go ones versus ones, twos versus twos, almost the exact same situation. And sometimes the offense has won, sometimes the defense has won. But we do that. Even in our Friday walk through, we walk through the same play that we ran with five seconds left. This is never about me or not again, about one player. It is a team deal. We called time out. We made the play down the field. We felt like we could hit the field goal from where we're at. But I had to give Clint Trickett and the offensive coaches, they were like, Hey, Coach, you know, we can get this ball five more yards. And I'm like, All right, we got five seconds to do this. And Caden said, we got it, Coach, we got it. And, you know, you got to have confidence in your coaches and confidence in the players. And I think we learned a little bit from that play too, that will carry on. I won't go into that, but we talked about it last night, there's some other things, but we knew what we had to do. We got it five more yards. And I think Maxwell Thurmond did a good job. He made an adjustment on the field goal protection from earlier in the game, and that adjustment actually gave us a chance to make the kick and then Rippa executed. So it was all the players that executed on that drive. It's a team effort, and I think we learned a lot about ourselves as a team by that situation. You don't want it to come down to that, but you know, when you play in conference games, whether you watch the NFL, whether you watch Conference USA, whether you're coaching in the SEC, when you're in conference play, it is going to be competitive, and most of your games come down to how you play on third down, how you play in the red area, and how you play in two minute situations. In the NFL, that's what they start off with in training camp. A lot of teams start off with practicing in the red zone in two minute because that so many games come down to that. I'm just proud of our players for executing it.

Q: Share some thoughts on Delaware.
A:  We're playing a team that has great tradition in college football. One of the first teams that I went and visited with as a coach at a clinic, was at the University of Delaware, and the tradition that they've had over the years, they play very good football. They're very sound in what they do. I did not know Ryan Carty until this past spring, I met him at the conference coaches meetings, and he was about as impressive as anybody I've ever met. First of all, he's a good guy, but you could tell he's a very good coach. He knows what he wants to do, and his team plays like that. They've been very good on both sides of the ball. Offensively, they give you a lot of different formations. Make you adjust to a lot of things. They execute very well. The quarterback plays very well. He's very efficient. They have a good run game. They're very good on the offensive line. They probably have the best tight ends that we've seen this year. They can do a lot with those guys too. Defensively, they're a 3-3-5, defense. They make you execute. You have to execute, and you have to be sound in what you do. But again, we have a lot of respect for them, their program, their coaches. I think Conference USA hit a home run when they got Delaware to be in this conference. I mean, it's just amazing what this conference and the administration and our Commissioner does on those things being able to get teams like this coming in the conference, I think that's a home run for us. And you know, we're excited. I'm excited for our players. I'm excited for our staff to be able to play the game.

Q: Garrison Rippa seems to really thrive just in the moment. And also, could you talk about the composure that Caden Creel showed?
A: Well, I think I said one thing to Caden during the game, and it wasn't after the fumble, I didn't immediately go up to him, it was later on in the game, and I said, Just be you, take care of the football. And he was trying to make a play, which I want him to do that. I want all of our quarterbacks to do that. I think they will tell you as many times as you get put in those situations, you go back to your training. When pressure hits, you go back to how you train. And  I think he did a good job of that, and I asked him before the game, just trust your coaching. Trust your coaching, trust what you see. Use your eyes, let your eyes tell your body what to do.  This is a reaction game, I think the quarterback gets all the more credit, all right, when things go good and they get more blame when things go bad, it's never as good as it seems. It's never as bad as it seems. I'm sure there are a lot of corrections in the game. He said, Well, I wish I'd have done different lot of things. He said, I'll do this even better next time. And same thing defensively, for our players, Rippa, I've said this before, because you and I have talked about it. In fact, you PG'd it. I didn't say butt I get on his rear end. But Rippa, the players, they know the specialists get coached just like everybody else on the team. And I think, you're right. He likes that pressure, but we try to put the pressure on. And we did that this week. Y'all can tell me what was it? It was 55 on Thursday. So we put it 55 yards. It was two minute situation. We put it 55 yards, and he kicks it and comes up a little bit short. Team's like, ah, move it up. And I said, move it back. We moved it back to 56 he nailed it. I mean, every one of them went crazy. So that's why I said everybody on the sideline had confidence in him, but now he ain't no different than the quarterback or the linebacker. If he doesn't execute the way he's supposed to and go through the proper steps, he gonna get the results that he wants. So we try to coach from a process do what you got to do to get the results. 
 

Malcolm Jones, SAF
Q: Give us an idea on the confidence and the improvements that you've made in your game during your time here.
A: I would say my confidence more so balls off preparation from Coach Williams. I think each week he set out a great game plan. I feel like I just trying to figure out what's my job in that game plan and to execute around that pretty much Caden, in

Q: Talk about getting the first sack.
A: Yeah, like I said, beginning preparation. You know, Coach Williams believed in me, and you know, he called that play, so just one number call, just be ready. And I just think at that moment I was ready,
 

Caden Creel, QB
Q: You get to lead a game winning drive with 50 seconds left in your first start. How neat was that?
A: Oh, it was pretty cool. I wish that it didn't have to come down to that, but I think if we execute a little bit better, it shouldn't have come down to that. But it was pretty cool to get that win in that moment. 

Q: Take us through that drive and some of the moments,
A: Well, it started before we went out there. I kind of huddled everybody up and told them, you know, there should be no team in the country that's more confident than us in this situation. We practice it every week and, just go out there and do it, just play all out, do whatever you got to do. And then I think instilling that confidence in the guys kind of helped us be able to perform. Obviously, it didn't really go as planned. There were a couple of things that happened that were pretty abnormal, like throwing the ball, deflecting and catching it, just wasting a lot of time and stuff like that. Lot of things I can learn from but I'm just glad that we were able to win and get it done and still be able to learn and, just be better.