Transcript of a portion of UT offensive coordinator Mike DeBord’s conversation with the media following Tuesday’s practice:
Q: What stood out on film about what happened in the second half against OU?
A: There’s no doubt what happened, they’d given up 17 points in the first half and they’d blitzed us some, but not very much, so in the second half, it was a blitz-fest – it turned into that. They knew they had to do that, they couldn’t give up more points, so that’s what the game turned into.
Q: Does everybody share some responsibility for not beating the blitz more?
A: Well, when a team blitzes, you have to take advantage of it. We didn’t take advantage of it like we should have. We’re working real hard this week versus that, and we’re going to take advantage of that when that happens again. That’s something we’ve been practicing against, but we’ve obviously have to get better at.
Q: Was it a situation where Josh Dobbs didn’t see the blitz and needs to get rid of the ball quicker?
A: No, it’s a combination of things, but no it wasn’t Josh having to get rid of the ball quicker or anything like that. It was an execution problem and we’re going to get better at it.
Q: What do you do to get the offense out of rut?
A: Well, you know, you’re trying to adjust like we did the first game, we were trying to adjust, and making adjustments and things like that – and you’re trying to take advantage of what they’re doing. That defense (Oklahoma) was blitzing from everywhere. They blitzed the corner from the boundary, they blitzed the strong safety from the field, they blitzed the Mike and the Sam, they blitzed the Sam and the Will, I mean it was everything at us. And they kept us off-balance to their credit.
Q: On UT’s ability to get off press coverage…
A:It’s hard because [the defenders] are right in [the receivers] face. I don’t care who you are. It is hard to get off of press coverage. We are doing different formations to help that. We are going to improve on it that way.
Q: What do the Vols need to do to improve Dobbs’ completion percentage?
A: We have to stay out of third-and-longs. Those are low-percentage completion plays. If you are completing one out of seven in those situations, that is pretty good. That is one reason why his percentage was down this game. We have got to do better on first and second downs so that we’re not in a lot of 3rd-and-11 or plus. We were in too many of them. We were in seven of them.
