What Petrino said about Arkansas-Alabama Game

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Arkansas v. Alabama Stats Offense v. Defense

This is as much of the transcript as would fit here. If you can't bring yourself to read more that 2-3 sentences, turn back now!

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This is a transcript of Coach Petrino’s comments and answers to questions at his Monday, September 19, 2011, press conference regarding Arkansas’ game with Alabama this Saturday.

Coach Petrino’s Opening Comments:

We’re 3 & 0. That’s where we wanted to be going into the Alabama game. When you watch the video from the game the other night, it was kind of two different games for us, particularly on offense where you get the ball, you’re going at a real fast pace, we’re moving it, scoring touchdowns, everybody’s making plays. Even coming out of half-time, I thought we did a nice job on the first drive, and then we just stuttered. We had some mistakes happen and didn’t move the ball like we want to, and we’re fortunate that Joe Adams made a tremendous play there in the fourth quarter, and we ended up getting a good win. It was a good win for us. It was much better competition, much harder fought which will help us here in the long run, and something that we needed to go through. We needed to go through when things aren’t going good all the time, how you react to it, and how you get better from it. We’ll be excited for our preparation for the Alabama game. They look good on video. They are a very good defensive football team, basically the same guys we played against last year, and offensively [sic] we know we have got to stop their power run game and their ability to throw the ball deep.

Question: What did you have to say to Tyler the other night after he missed the throw on the third down? When you have a “teaching moment” like that, do you consider a player’s toughness, his mentality when you address him?

Coach Petrino: Well, I’m not exactly sure what one you are talking about. He just really blew his technique. He brought his back foot around, didn’t do what he normally does throwing the ball. He was way off balance. I was just trying to make sure that he understood that you need to set, carry the ball high, and throw the ball like you’re supposed to.

Question: Do some players react to that better than some other players do?

Coach Petrino: You always consider how you coach different guys and sometimes you coach them hard for a reason, and it helps them later on in the season.

Question: (inaudible) getting hit the last couple of games.

Coach Petrino: They are always concerning. When your quarterback’s getting hit there is always a concern with it. We have to do a better job of protecting at times. We have to get rid of the ball quicker at times. I always talk about eleven guys pass protection. It takes all eleven of us, the timing of the receivers, the timing of the quarterback, the protection. So it’s everybody’s responsibility to make sure we keep the quarterback clean.

Question: Could you assess Tyler’s play through these first three starts, and how ready is he to start a real game of this magnitude?

Coach Petrino: I think he’s ready. He’s ready. I think when you look at his first three games, he came out and executed well. With the exception of really parts of the second half of the game the other night. When you look at his stats and his percentage of completions, his ways of throwing the ball, taking care of it, the yards he’s producing. The one thing we understand here is that our standards are very high. Our expectations are very high. We expect to go score every time we get the ball. I think overall he’s done a nice job.

Question: Do you expect to have those three guys back this week and were there any new injuries?

Coach Petrino: I think we came out alright from the game. Definitely Greg Childs will be back. Jarius Wright got some work in the other night, and Jake Bequette has made tremendous improvement. I’m not sure what his availability is for practice tomorrow yet.

Question: You talked about the line a little bit. After three games where do you think they are as a unit in meshing together and getting on the same page.

Coach Petrino: We’re getting closer. We’re getting closer to where we need to be. We’re not there yet. Our run blocking was much better the other night. We’re working together. We had a better understanding of our technique throughout the play, how to work your fundamentals throughout the play, so certainly there was improvement there. Pass protection wise our assignments are getting better. We still got to continue to improve on our technique and fundamentals and our finish. I think the number on thing that we’ve got to do better on the offensive line, run and pass is finish the play.

Question: This is your fourth trip through the SEC. Traditionally when you’re preparing for an Alabama, Nick Saban-coached defense, is that kind of as challenging as it gets in this game?

Coach Petrino: That, it’s challenging. They are very good at what they do. First and foremost they are very well-coached technically. They don’t make a lot of mistakes. They know what they are doing in their press coverage, in their off coverage and their linebackers understand where they are supposed to be. You have to go earn everything. You have to go execute, block them, throw the ball, catch it and take care of yourself, execute yourself because they’re not going to give you any cheap ones.

Question: Coach, after you guys played Alabama two years ago you said that your team didn’t believe that your team believe they could win. Two years later, what makes you think it will be any different this time?

Coach Petrino: Well, I really felt like we learned a lot from that game. Even though we were hyped up, emotionally ready and excited about the opportunity, I think deep down we didn’t believe that we would win the game. What happens then is… you see a lot of people do the same thing against Alabama. You don’t execute and do the same things you normally do. You drop passes. You overthrow a guy wide open. You trip on a line. You’re out of your comfort zone and you don’t play football the way you can. I think last year’s game has to help us some in our confidence and certainly the way we came out in that game, but this is a new team. We’ve got to go show and prove it to each other that we believe that we can win the game.

Continued at... Bobby Petrino's Preview of the Arkansas-Alabama Game