Auburn coordinator quotes

Auburn Offensive Coordinator Scot Loeffler

Thoughts on the game:

“We started out extremely poor. It’s a combination of a lot of things. We had to maintain drives early in the game and we didn’t. We brought Jonathan in later in the game which gave us a spark which was encouraging. I’m proud of how he played and performed and happy with his development.”

On Jonathan Wallace:

It was very good for him. Any time that you can get a player in there and get him multiple reps I think that’s very encouraging and very positive for his development. He’s been a guy that’s been developing over the last few months and he’ll continue.

Starting Wallace next week?

I don’t know that. Talk to you on Sunday about that.

Wallace impressive?

It was a different part of the game in terms of Mark (Snyder) started out the game pressuring and then obviously when the game was out of reach, he changed his philosophy. It was good to see Jonathan make some plays whenever he was in there but it was a different game. It was a totally different game; I’m not taking anything away from Jonathan Wallace whatsoever. I’m proud of his mentality and you would have never known that we were down the way we were with his mentality so I don’t want to downplay that whatsoever but it was a different time and different part of the game.

Is playing three QBs tough on players?

Did it once. Had that happen to me one time. That’s just where we’re at right now. We’re trying to find the guy that can get in there and finish the job and get the job done and it’s just where we’re at.

How does it feel to have worst offense in the country statistically?

It’s not fun I can tell you that. But it is what it is. It’s a tough situation for everyone involved in this program and you can either do one of two things: you can run and hide or keep fighting your tail off ot find a way to improve and we need to improve immensely.

Are you worried about your job?

I could care less about that and never have. I’ve never worried about whenever we’re on the top winning, never worried about the next job and no I could care less about that. I care about making sure that we make these players better and that is the least thing on my mind. Absolute least.

Auburn Defensive Coordinator Brian VanGorder

Thoughts on the game:

It was a bad performance, obviously. It was just bad defense.

On Johnny Manziel:

He’s pretty good. We didn’t tackle well. We didn’t run him well. So he was a superior player on the field.

On facing Georgia and Alabama:

Those offenses are different than this offense. Nonetheless, we’ve got work to do. We have to keep evaluating personnel and keep it competitive and look for changes and we have to do a better job coaching, too.

Was Texas A&M tempo what you expected?

We practiced faster. We didn’t do well. We didn’t communicate well early in the game. We had a couple major execution flaws. We didn’t do what we needed to do with them.

Have you ever had a defense perform like tonight?

I can’t ever remember being a part of something like that tonight.

How did it make you feel?

It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing for me, it’s embarrassing for Gene, it’s embarrassing for the Auburn people. That’s what it IS. (voice raised) That’s how I feel.

You have had success elsewhere, why is it not translating here?

We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to coach better, too. Players have to play better and the coaches have to coach better. The process of college is recruiting now. We have to continue to get better and improve.

Chizik said it was the front 11?

They ran the ball, threw the ball anyway they wanted to do. That’s a fair evaluation. They did whatever they wanted to out there. We couldn’t stop the run. When we played coverage, we couldn’t stop the pass. That’s the way it was.

Are you seeing progress?

There has been progress. Tonight was a major step back. You have to give Texas A&M credit. They were just a lot better than us.