GT Football: #NIUvsGT Coach Collins Postgame Presser

apologize for uh taking a little longer than normal but uh that one hurt and uh there's a lot of guys that played really really hard in that locker room and you know hour to them to make sure i'm around them make sure how much we appreciate them love them and appreciate how hard they fought and how hard they played uh hats off to northern illinois played a really good football game and beat us also uh sad to see the kid devin lafayette get hurt so obviously thoughts and prayers are with him the story of the game and i just told the team this first half we crossed the 50 i think almost every time first quarter got to come away with points uh gotta finish and then defensively i think mike said there was four offensive series where they were able to gain a first down but three of those ended up with scores um and i thought you know the the last drive uh have to find a way to get a stop in a two-minute situation obviously a lot of you guys are out of practice throughout the spring throughout pre-season to see how much we work on situational football still have to improve in that area but appreciate how hard our kids fought how hard our kids played and got to regroup and big game next saturday [Music] hey jeff you had over 400 yards of total offense it seemed like you know every time you had the ball you you you got into their territory but you you just couldn't come up with that big play to keep the drives going yeah absolutely that's the that was the the story of the night um just got to continue to do that we had a a kick line of 35 uh in the first part of the game and uh someone said on the replay it was dead straight and took a turn at the end and then the second one brent slipped um you know we missed that one so just uh you know we you've seen the the kicking game how much has improved i thought gavin stewart did a great job kicking off for us this game and even david shanahan for the first time punting in a college football game i think he averaged 52 or 53 yards per punt in his first action and you know so the kicking game will continue to work but there are certain parts of it that were that were really good jeff i was just curious kind of i i know your mottos win you know and and you guys had a chance to win the game several times and just kind of what's the message now to the team and people watching the program from the outside because it looks bad i guess when you guys you know put so much into that and it doesn't come out the right way for you yeah and then we've got another game next week kelly right so the um where to position um how we built this program to position ourselves to win football games and we just got to continue to get better and improve there's still a lot of young players that played but proud of the way they fought and competed but can't have lapses in situational football coaches included myself included myself most of all and uh continue to go to work coach can you talk to us about the change at quarterback police sir the change jeff jeff got hurt um so just you know he'll see the he's with the doctors right now um jeff is a big time player in this program um and then uh jordan yates i thought he came in and competed really really hard and i provided a spark knows where to go with the football and we were scrambling he was fighting for every single yard and just proud of him and the way he handled that situation with jeff going down early in the second quarter and to come in and you know provide a spark for us thank you i was just curious you um i think it was in the third quarter set the field goal team out after you guys got stopped right in the in the red zone and then made the decision to call a timeout and kind of what went into that and i know you guys do charts and stuff as a chart yep and we're it was saying that we could go for it um send him in early and then i thought we had to play wired and uh i think we missed it by that much so good play good throw and we just were we're that far from having a touchdown in in camp there was a lot of talk about the you know the communication with these the secondary it seemed like on that final drive uh you know there was some some problems back there what did you see yeah so a little miscommunication um you know just got to keep our poise keep our composure in those kind of critical situations but i thought the defense played really really well other than really three drives two of the drives were against a unique package that you know we finally settled down and got it under control but it was a lot of unique motions a lot of unique shifts a lot of unique plays that hadn't really seen before but once we had time to get get to the sideline make the adjustments we had those things covered but i thought the secondary for the most part did a really nice job throughout the game and run support uh in past defense all of those things um just we have to finish the game um and i know our guys you know will come back and go to work and work to do that um jeff it's obviously one game but obviously it's gonna be one you you made a lot of uh effort to talk about you know detail and attention that sort of thing and you had the about that the illegal substitution penalty was pretty critical there was a punt fielded inside the 10 and you know the thing the management of the the last drive when jameer tried to go extend the play rather than going out of bounds we're costly i'm curious just kind of how do you feel about that and and you know how do you look at it there were two penalties for five yards i think that's pretty significant improvement right so um and then i don't think we can forget uh jamir gibbs is one of the elite players in our conference what he rushed for 100 and something yards he was the second leading receiver jamir gibbs is a big time player in this program in this league in all of college football and people seem to forget because he's such a great player and such a great kid this was still his eighth game of college football so we think the world of jameer gibbs loved him was down there you know made sure i dapped him up before i left him jp those are the last two that i see on my way out of the locker room jp had close to 100 yards physical runner tough runner um 430 yards uh just got a score of when we get those opportunities across midfield anything else for coach patrick yes i said one more you mentioned a second ago how comfortable jordan looked out there and he certainly did look comfortable did the decision when you called the timeout to switch from field goal attempt to to uh what was almost a touchdown throw did they have anything to do with their earlier struggles in the field goal game was all about that play availability really there's a lot of factors that come into every decision that we make but i've seen brent gavin stewart jude kelly made tremendous strides this entire year felt really comfortable i still feel really comfortable we had a kick line today for brent we had a kick line today for gavin obviously gavin we tried the last one 6d 61 whatever it was um i told you the other day he banged three in a row from 62-63 last week obviously it's a the trajectory is a little bit lower on those and they did a nice job getting pressure but i have all the confidence in world in those guys um externally obviously i'm sure you're going to face a lot of questions about your fitness to to lead this team to you know where you wanted to go and i'll give everything i mean what would you say and would your level of confidence to get the job done yeah 100 it's not when it's not if it's when and we just got to continue to build and continue to grow the strides that we've made you can see them the improvements on defense the improvements on office we just got to score when we cross the 50 and we can't have lapses you know in crucial times of the game but i still feel very confident in the direction of this program the guys in that locker room the coaches that are coaching these guys so it is not a matter of if it's a matter of when and we're just going to keep fighting and keep building keep working and it's going to click and it's going to take over and when it does it's going to be really good thank you thank you