Opening statement
Yeah, obviously a really poor performance, really disappointing in it all the way from the 15 penalties. And a lot of them were critical penalties where we had two pass interference calls where we really panicked on conversion downs defensively, where we're in position, and we just panicked. That's got to be fixed. And then the penalties offensively were all at critical junctions. It seemed like Johnnie Daniels broke the run down inside the red zone, and we got the holding call. We had the big completion by Kadin Semonza in the second half to Bredell Richardson where we got the illegal chop block, which was a tough call. And we pop it down to the red zone, and we fumble. Just a lot of self-inflicted wounds. Now I give a lot of credit
to Duke and Coach Diaz and the way they played.
It was a sloppy football game, and they played way less sloppy than we did. So credit to them. Disappointed in how we played, disappointed in what we control, the penalties, the lack of execution offensively, the drops. I mean, we just had a lot of really good football players who have shown they can be good leading up to this, but they didn't work for themselves tonight. That's on me as the head coach. We had some drops by some good players early that would've kept chains moving. And obviously, like I said, the penalties, I thought their punter was critical in the game. All the rugby stuff he did, the ability to cross-kick it. It's really hard to field. We've worked it, but didn't do as good a job with that. I thought they flipped field position and dominated field position all night and just a really poor performance, very disappointed in it.
On the flip side is most of it can be fixed, but it's got to be fixed. It's got to be fixed. It's got to be fixed on Monday, and it's going to be fixed on Monday. Offensively, we're going to get this fixed, and it's going to get fixed quickly.
How critical was the pass interference call in the 4th quarter?
Yeah, it was huge. And one thing, we didn't tackle well defensively. We owned that. We knew that. Coming off the field after that first drive, we settled down. I thought we played our tail off. I was so pleased with our effort defensively. We stayed on the field too much. One was because of those pass interference calls where we just panicked. We were in position, but we've got to not panic right there. We've got to make a play on the ball and get off the field right there. And then another: we were on the field a lot because we didn't do anything offensively, and that's got to be fixed too.
On switching quarterbacks at halftime
I just felt like Zion's eyes were dancing. Didn't feel like on a few plays his eyes were there. I felt like we needed a spark. I thought Caden provided that. I thought Caden played really well from the jump. I thought his pocket movement was great. Thought he had a few good scrambles, though he really was on time with his throws and got us moving. We went right down the field every time he was in the game. If you take on the stuff he could control, we fumbled, and we had penalties.
On Duke converting 5-of-5 third downs on first drive
That was big because that attributed to us being on the field. And I think defensively our players would say we got a tackle better right there. That was where the opening drive, we did not tackle well. And 20's a really good football player, and I tip my hat to him, man. He has a great back. But I thought after that, I thought we tackled well. I thought we swarmed to the football. I thought we settled in defensively and I thought we kept us in the game defensively for the rest of the game, like I said, all the way right there to the very end.
On what he did during the 90-minute delay before game
We tried to handle it best we could. I thought our leadership did a good job of maintaining, being positive. I've been a part of two of these now. Neither one of them were ideal. It's very, very hard because when you're the visitor's team, you don't have all the resources you have when you're the home team, but that's no excuse, man. We control our performance. We can catch the football when it hits us in the hands. We can keep it locked to our body and not fumble. We cannot panic and get past interference calls. We cannot hold an offensive tackle. We can choose to do those things no matter what time of the day we kick off, and that's fixing to start on Monday.
On tackling getting better after Duke’s first drive
That's the reigning ACC champs with a great back. When we're ourselves, we can play really good defense. And the things that we can control and fix, I think our players, I know our players will look themselves in the mirror and fix. I think our coaches have got to look themself in the mirror and fix them. And if we don't panic right there on a few passing offense calls, we're off the field, and it would've been a phenomenal defensive football game. Offensively, we got to move the ball more to keep them off the field and to give us a spark and get points on the board.
Contact/Follow us @DukeWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Duke news, notes and opinions. Follow Brian on X: @brianjstultz
This article originally appeared on Duke Wire: Everything Tulane HC Will Hall said following Duke's 17-3 win
