Coach Charles Kelly

Q: What are the areas of focus following the game at Georgia Southern? 
A: The thing, and I told the players after the game, I was very proud that they competed for 60 minutes there. We gave ourselves a chance to win, and I'm very proud with the way they competed in the game. We understand as a team that we did too many things in that game against a good football team, that you can't make those kind of mistakes and put yourself on the eight ball like that. I mean, we knew going in the challenge that it was they had already played two really good football teams. When you play football every week. It doesn't matter about records, but the fact of it is, we've got to improve in a lot of areas, and our focus is going to be on what it takes for us to get better individually, as a group, as a as a whole team. But, the one thing I told our coaches that you cannot say that our guys don't play with effort and they won't compete, but what we've got to do is make sure that we do the little things that it takes to get the results that we want to get. We had an opportunity to play a lot of young players. We played 10 true freshmen in the game Saturday night, and they had an experienced team. But the only way you learn how to play this game and you play is to play, and you learn from those experiences. I like the character of our team. I like the way they're made. We've started Sunday night we'll go back this afternoon and we'll work on those little things that we got to do to make sure that we can get the results that we want.

Q: Share some thoughts on Murray State after your initial evaluation.
A: Well, first of all, I have a lot of respect for Jody Wright and his entire staff. Jody probably took one of the toughest jobs that there it was in America. He basically had to start from the ground and build it up. The first thing I noticed when I watched them on both sides of the ball is they're a very well coached football team. And when I say that they make adjustments. They do things offensively if you give them a certain look, they know what play to go to, same thing on defense, they make the adjustments, and they play extremely hard from from what he's done from the time he got the job till now. I mean, that's a tough deal when you have basically have to replace the entire football team. So they're very well coached. They have a lot of people with ties to Jax State and ties to our community. Their quarterback, Jim Ogle is from here. He does a really good job. He executes. He understands offense, he knows what to do. He's really good player. He's got a couple of guys that are good in the perimeter and then on defense they've got a couple of DBs that are really good. They got a defensive end Kobe Roberts. He does a good job. He plays the game the way it's supposed to be played. But for us, like I said, I have a lot of respect for what they've done and what they're building, but for us, it's about what we do. In the game the other night, I give Clay (Helton) and his his team a lot of credit. They made the plays that they had to to win the game. But our players will tell you, it's never going to be about the other team. It's going to be about what we do and how we got to focus on ourselves. I think our players are excited, first of all, being able to play at home again, our fans, our students, our alumni, our faculty, all the ex players. I mean, our guys enjoyed being with those guys, so it's a great opportunity for us to come back home and play in front of our people. And I think our players are excited about that.

Q: Of the 10 true freshmen that played, who stood out to you?
A: All of them showed flashes. I think probably the two that stood out to me were Chris Johnson and Quay Hood. That was their first time playing a good bit. I think they played about 12 snaps on defense, but when they were in there, they didn't look out of place. It's tough playing inside, tackle and nose guard as a true freshman in this league. They stood out. I thought Mac Sanders did some good things at linebacker. He has flashed the whole time he's been here. He made a couple good plays in the Liberty game, but like I told the freshmen, the more you play, the better you get. It's like sometimes it's always been this way with with true freshmen, you're that close to making this play well, once they play a couple games and get that experience, now that play happens automatically. And I'm sure there's some, you know, some more guys that did some really good things, but I'm glad we were able to get those guys in there.

Q: Can you talk about Walker O'Steen and what he's done to impress you?
A: Well, the first thing is Walker, I think, is one of the first ones I met when I took the job. The first thing I noticed about him was how he covered kickoff. I'm like, to me that tells you about a guy, and I remember watching him, I'm like, Who is this guy? And of course, he's played safety before, and he can really run. He's really instinctive. And then I know in the past, coaching big safeties like that, that you can they have a tendency to be really instinctive. So we worked him at linebacker, and, I mean, it was just he was natural. I mean, he just instinctively, because he can go sideline to sideline. And honestly, probably one of the biggest surprises when I got here, and I hate he had the the injury during during camp, but he's bouncing back from that, and I think he's got a really bright future here,

Q: Did you learn anything about your team when they rallied back on Saturday, or was that not shocking?
A: No, that wasn't shocking. Our team will fight; they'll fight you. We just we've got to execute better. It's about discipline. Execution. I do think our team is disciplined. Okay, we just gotta execute. I mean, we've had, I think in two games, we've had three penalties for 15 yards, or maybe four penalties. I mean, that tells you a lot about our guys are trying to do the right thing. We did not tackle very well in this game. It was obvious, but the missed tackles, like, for example, the issues that we had on kickoff coverage. The first thing that goes to my mind is, this has got to be an effort deal. Well, when you when you turn the film on, by the time the guy caught the ball, we had five guys inside the 30 yard line. It wasn't a lack of effort, it was just the execution. When we got there, a lot of the missed tackles that we had, we had six, seven guys going to the ball almost over running, you know, because of their effort. But we gotta, we gotta do a better job of leveraging the ball, but their character and their resilience and how they play. Now, I'll take them anywhere 

Q: It seems like Gavin Wimsatt is getting better each game at quarterback. Could you talk about his progress?
A: I'm going to say Gavin's very coachable; all of our quarterbacks, I said this the first week, every quarterback that we've carried on a trip, I'm comfortable with these guys. I give Clint Trickett a ton of credit for this. Clint has done a really good job of coaching him, and he is receptive to the coaching. It's not like he's a guy that is coming here so well, I know it all. I got it all, some of the things that we've taught him, it's his first exposure to and he's developing confidence not only on what he can do, but he's developing confidence with people that he's throwing the ball to, and even in the run game and things like that, he's making good decisions and he understands. I've said this before, the number one characteristic of a good quarterback is decision making, and I think Clint has done a good job of teaching him how to make the right decision. Now, there's things we got to clean up. There's things we he's got to get better at, and you can't ever look back and say because once you think you've arrived all right, that's when you're going to get bit so he's just got to keep working that.


Q: Share a thought on Pearson Baldwin, what he's meant to your team as a leader and also the offense.
A: Pearson is very similar to Walker. He's one of the first guys that I remember just he's not the biggest, he's very athletic. He's very instinctive to play the position he does. Sometimes he gives up a little bit in size, but I can tell you what, nobody plays any harder and understands what we're trying to do. And you know, most people that had the injury that he had last week couldn't have played in the game. He could play, and he played really well. We say we want to be fast, we want to be physical, we want to be tough, we want to be disciplined and we want to compete. I mean, he basically describes everything that that we want to be. So I tell our coaches that if that's what kind of team we want, that's the kind of guys we got to look for. 


Pearson Baldwin
Q: Talk about grinding through last week's game
A: I would say just dealing with that injury. Just fight through wanting to be there for my teammates, and then also just when my number's called, just answering and wanting to help out my team.

Q: How hard is it to play and ignore the scoreboard?
A: I would say Coach Kelly preaches to us all the time, just not looking at the scoreboard, no matter if you're up or down, just playing the next play and just going out there and do your job, just no matter what the score is.


Walker O'Steen
Q: Do you feel more comfortable at linebacker after a couple games?
A: I would say it probably would make me a little more confident just getting those reps and getting back into it.

Q: Could you talk about what brought you here to Jacksonville State, and the success you've had here was, 
A: I mean, I really just came here for school to start. I thought about walking on and that's what I did. And I just, I mean, I always thought I would be able to be able to play. It's kind of just how it worked out.

Q: Can you just talk about how you guys never quit on Saturday.
A: it's pretty much like Coach Kelly was saying, just not really looking at a scoreboard, and just keep playing hard and try to just do your job. And that's really what it comes down to.