Everything Zach Arnett said about South Carolina football

Mississippi State football head coach Zach Arnett spoke with the media on Monday, prior to the Bulldogs’ matchup in Columbia with South Carolina football.

What did the first-year head coach say about Shane Beamer’s Gamecocks as well as his own team? The following is an edited transcript of his remarks.

OPENING STATEMENT LOOKING BACK AT LSU, FORWARD TO USC: Obviously, credit again to LSU players, Coach Kelly and his staff. They executed at a very high level, and they played a very good game on Saturday. Like I said after the game, we have a choice now how we want to respond, how we decide to show up and improve from this, right? You never waste a failing, OK? We’ve got to ensure that we don’t allow one loss to bleed into the next week and create a second, OK? And so that’s the challenge in front of us. We have a challenge this week going on the road for the first time this season, playing at what is known to be one of the most energetic atmospheres, particularly a night game, in all college football, OK? So hopefully our players are excited for that opportunity and that challenge, because it’s all attitude, your best friend and your worst enemy. And so we get to play in an electric environment in front of a great crowd, I think versus a football team that’s very similar to us. We get to learn something about ourselves, because (it is) our first road trip.

Coach Beamer’s done a tremendous job in his short time there. They’re physical and fast on defense, very athletic on offense. Obviously, a returning veteran quarterback who is throwing for a lot of yards right now and can make every throw on the field. I credit Coach Beamer on the job he and his staff have done there. They’ve won right from the start and so we know we’re facing a very talented football team. I think both teams are excited to get back on the field and improve and this should be a hard fought game. It’s going to be a four quarter game.

[Become a GamecockCentral member for $1]

QUESTION: Coach, you said on Saturday you weren’t sure if it was a lack of execution or if it was a you were not calling the right things to put your players in the right position. Now that you’ve watched the film, do you have a leaning on that one way or the other?

ARNETT: I think anytime you look at the course of a game, you’ve got 180 plays, right, you’re going to have plays where on each side of the ball, well, wish I had a different call on that down and distance so that we’re in man coverage.

Oh, shoot, wish I would’ve been in zone there, or vice versa. But there are certainly a number of plays where we don’t execute either. And so you don’t give the call a chance.

QUESTION: A couple of offensive defensive line questions. You mentioned wanting to have competition up front with the offensive line. Now that we’re in three weeks into the season, is there any, I guess, more of a sense of urgency to find a solidified starting five and just roll with them going forward?

ARNETT: I think some of that depends on the game too, right? I mean, if you have the ability to rotate a couple of guys, then you can keep guys fresh as well. As soon as we solidify who the definitive five are, it will be those five full time. And until we do, you’ll see guys get opportunities to show so we have competition.

[Win South Carolina-Mississippi State tickets]

QUESTION: And then with the defensive line, you’ve mentioned in camp a couple of times about potentially going with a four-man front to help with pass rushing and getting more pressure. Is that something that’s still being talked about to possibly get that group going a little bit more consistently?

ARNETT: We evaluate that every week. A lot of that determines on the health of your roster too, right? And so that’s a week-to-week determination.

QUESTION: You guys have given up explosive plays, a few in that game. Was that more of a product of just the pass rush not getting home? Or do you feel like it was some blown coverages or missed assignments?

ARNETT: No. A couple were getting beaten over the top in coverage you shouldn’t get beat in. If you’re in cover three, obviously your rule is to be deeper than the deepest. Now, if they run a go ball, it turns into one-on-one coverage that far down the field. So I think there are a couple where you could say maybe a lull in concentration, and all of a sudden it’s a 50-50 ball.

A couple of times you get beaten man coverage, that’s the risk of playing man, right? That’s the risk of playing man versus a really talented wide receiver. And so that’s the risk you take when you blitz and play man. The fourth and sixth for the touchdown, right? We hit him. We hit him, but on these inside fades, you can get the ball off early enough to beat the pressure a lot of times. And credit to them, perfectly throwing ball there in the corner of the end zone. There’s one of those, like I mentioned earlier. Hindsight, oh man, wish we would have played zone right there. Now you open yourself up to other things too.

QUESTION: On the flip side, offensively, one of the things that y’all have mentioned, Coach Barbay has mentioned, is having explosive plays on the offensive side of the ball. And right now, last in the SEC in explosive plays. What do you think has been kind of the main factor in that?

ARNETT: Well, obviously, the more plays you run, the more opportunities you have for explosive plays. So staying on the field, converting third downs and keeping drives going leads to more plays, which then leads to more opportunities for explosive plays. On both sides of the ball, that’s going to be the big message today. Challenge on both sides is getting our opponent off the field and sustaining drives and staying on the field, obviously, is going to be a big area of improvement for us.

Now, when you look at the tape, Woody (Marks) breaks the long run there right before the end of the first half, goes for 50 something. That’s clearly an explosive run. Well, we have that play on the second play of the game. Exact same look, but we mess up and we have an assignment error in our blocking. And we have double pullers. And so instead of being an ideal look to hopefully generate an explosive early on, which we have on film that, hey, when we executed it properly and created an explosive play, we missed an opportunity there right from the jump.

But simply put, if we can get our opponent off the field quicker and get the ball back to our offense, that gives them more drives and more opportunities for plays. And then if we can convert third downs and keep drives going, that leads to more plays. The more plays you get, the more explosive plays you’re going to get, like just on the flip side. You create more three and outs, you limit your opponent’s plays, I guarantee it will lead to less explosive plays.

[Get breaking news from GamecockCentral]

QUESTION: I was curious where in the process things are with (safety) Shawn Preston’s appeal and then we saw (running back) Simeon (Price) had a boot on Saturday. Is that a long term thing or a short term thing going forward?

ARNETT: Simeon, no, it’s a short term thing. So he’ll be fine. I imagine he’ll be back full go today. And then Shawn, I believe we got the email earlier this morning that the appeal was denied, so he’ll have to sit out the first half.

QUESTION: We saw (quarterback) Mike Wright have a couple of nice plays there in that last scoring drive y’all had. What did you think of the way he performed and the snaps that he got? And would you like to see some more playing time for him moving forward?

ARNETT: Yeah, Mike did a nice job on that last touchdown. He called an RPO. They overloaded pressure, and he was able to pull it, get around the edge pressure, and then dump it off to Harmon for a walk-in touchdown. I’m sure there’s some miss execution on their end, too. They’re saying the same thing. But when he got his opportunities, he was good. That’s the kind of guy Mike is, and obviously we’re going to do whatever it takes to win. And so we’re always going to have a package for Mike, yeah.

QUESTION: With that suspension for Shawn Preston in the first half, it’s going to open up the door for some of the younger guys in the secondary, particularly Isaac Smith. What do you make of the way he’s played so far, and then some of the younger guys back there in the depth in that position group?

ARNETT: Yeah, well, Isaac obviously got in there and got some good live experience versus one of the most talented teams in the country, which is great for his development. Obviously, he will see increased playing time in the first half this week. Also opens up opportunities for other guys in that safety room. I expect to see Jordan Morant competing with Isaac for the starting job there this week. We rolled kind of three guys in the other, between Corey Ellington, Marcus Banks, and Chris Keys, kind of handled the other safety positions.

And so it’s a next man up mentality. Whether it’s an injury, whether it’s a targeting penalty, the mindset has to be the same no matter what. It’s next man up mentality. You got to go in and get the job done. And so we have some true freshmen getting exposed to the high level of football that is played in this league very early as true freshmen, maybe even earlier than you would ideally like. The situation was we got Malik Ellis playing on offense, again, Isaac showing up in there. And so a lot of times, sometimes you learn things the hard way. But they’re going to be better players for it in the long run by all means, having played as true freshmen and getting exposed to this early in their career.

QUESTION: Coach, I noticed (wide receiver) Jaden Walley, he started two weeks ago against Arizona, but got very little targets, if any, that I could see against LSU. Was he a little banged up, or was that just a rotational thing?

ARNETT: No, he was a little banged up. And obviously, we were back to full strength. Zavion (Thomas) was out week one, and then was kind of in a limited snap role week two. He was finally, probably his first game, full back to strength, feeling really good, which is a little bit of a win for him. Which was good, because Walley was a little bit banged up, and now we should be no issues in the receiver room from an injury standpoint.

QUESTION: What are your impressions of Spencer Rattler, quarterback, and just how tough is he to prepare against? Because when he’s at his best, he’s been among some of the great quarterbacks.

ARNETT: Oh, yeah. So I was coaching in San Diego when he was coming out of Pinnacle High School there in Phoenix. And we had two weekends of big passing tournaments every year, and you almost got all the big teams from Arizona every year for those, because it got them out of the heat, got to take their high school team to the beach.

So I probably saw him three years in a row as a high school quarterback in passing tournaments, and his team was in the championship game every year. And obviously, he’s top quarterback recruit in the country, goes to Oklahoma. Now he’s found a home in South Carolina. He can make every throw on the field. He can pull it down and run and escape pressure. And I would say he got two or three, maybe even a fourth first down on scramble plays last week against Georgia, where they kind of got pressure. He was able to find the scramble lane and get out and run for a first down.

And so he’s a very talented quarterback. He can make every throw on the field. He can throw the wide field out, wide field go ball, which you don’t see a whole lot in college football. And so he’s throwing for 367 yards a game, 357.3 yards per game. That’s pretty impressive. And so the offense goes through him. And so our number one job this week is to affect the quarterback.

Discuss South Carolina football on The Insiders Forum!