The No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide defeated the South Florida Bulls 42-16 in Week 2 in a game that was much closer than the final score suggests. Bulls head coach Alex Golesh met with the media after his team lost to Alabama for the second year in a row. Below is a full transcript of everything Golesh said in the loss.
Opening speech
“Obviously, I’m really disappointed with how we did there. I told the team that you play three and a half quarters, especially defensively, as best as you can. I just felt like the ground fell out from under me after the field goal we scored. I can’t tell you exactly why, I really can’t, but it’s true. It’s disappointing in every way. I just told the guys the truth. We did exactly what we needed to do defensively in the three and a half quarters. On special teams, you get three possessions back on three fumbles and come out with 16 points. So offensively, the third downs were the most important thing of the day. We were on third and fourth, fifth, sixth and more all day. I think the only third and short we had was the very last one at the end of the game. It’s tough to live like that, but we did it. We lived right on the edge. The hope was that we would get it done at the end, in the fourth quarter, and win the game. win. We did it, we couldn’t win the game. That’s where we are as a program right now. That’s our last step in our evolution, to finish the game. I’m proud of the fight in three and a half quarters. Really. I’m proud of the effort in three and a half quarters, I’m proud of the execution on defense in three and a half quarters. I’m proud of the fight on offense, execution was lacking the whole time, leading to third down and long situations. I think I would blame a lot of the lack of execution on offense, not getting the ball to the perimeter early. I thought we did that. I think it took us a while to get there. But I’m proud of the effort. It’s a good Alabama team. They have a really good quarterback. They’re fast, they’re physical. They know how to win. They know how to finish the game in the fourth quarter. They’ve been doing that for a long time. That’s not an excuse. We’ve got to learn how to do that. If we can do that, I think we have a chance to be a pretty good football team. So I’ll be asking questions.”
After the early long-range misses, did Alabama do something different to deny them shots?
“Yeah, we didn’t get the three in a row and I don’t know if they did anything differently. We didn’t really resort to it until we absolutely had to at the end where we had to go a little bit more vertical when we got into a two-minute drill with five, whatever it was, twenty on the clock. I thought we defended extremely well. I knew when we got going towards the end that it wasn’t going to hold up like you want it to. But I thought we defended well. We probably could have done that. I just felt like we got into a rhythm a little bit in the second half. I felt like, man, I don’t want to just throw where you run the ball effectively, we made some really good adjustments in the half in terms of running the football, did a couple different things to get the ball to the perimeter. It was a really close game, I didn’t feel the need to just throw it down the field by mistake.”
What did you do beforehand that caused Alabama so much trouble?
“Well, we were able to really keep the quarterback in check the whole game. I thought our front, up front, defensively a lot of the twist game stuff, a lot of the edge rushes were effective. It was about containing him and not letting him run around, and he’s so good at that. I thought we did a really good job of that for the most part. Three sacks worked relatively well on third down. Defensively we were able to keep him in check, I thought we played really hard up front. I thought TO did a great job mixing up the blitz packages and mixing up the frames. I thought it was really, really solid by design.”
What was the reason for the decision to kick a field goal instead of trying it later?
“Yeah, I thought you had to get points there on the drive and make it a one-possession game. If you don’t do that, it’s a two-possession game and I thought it was going to be tough to do that with just over five minutes left. That’s why I took the points because I thought our defense played outstanding. I would go back and still do the same thing. The defense plays outstanding, you take the points, you secure a one-possession game, you stop the defense, you basically set up a two-minute drive to win the game. You come out with no points — and we had problems inside the 10 tonight. A little bit of what we saw defensively pictured, a little bit of the lack of execution, but we had problems down there. You could see we couldn’t run the ball at all and I didn’t want to pass back tonight until we had to and so I just thought I’d take the points. Secure a one-possession game, the defense played outstanding. Like I said, I would go back and do it again.”
You scored early, but they weren’t touchdowns. I’m sure you’d love to score.
“Yes, is there a question?”
How did the offense respond to moving the ball and scoring points but not scoring a touchdown?
“Yeah, I don’t understand your question. We want to score touchdowns in the red zone. If you score field goals, you end up with six points instead of 14. Yes, that’s a terrible feeling, and that’s a good thing. The expectation is to score touchdowns.”
You said last year that there were “no moral victories.” How do you plan to make up for that in the future?
Yeah, be 100 percent honest with our guys, like we always have been. I just told them that. I literally started by saying, ‘I’m going to be honest with you guys, like I’ve been for the 21 months I’ve been the head coach here. Three and a half quarters were really good. We need to figure out what in the world happened in the last six minutes of that game, because what happened in the last six minutes of that game was really, really bad. It was crap. So, three and a half quarters, really good ball. The second half of the fourth quarter, really bad ball. It gets out of control at the end. It goes from a one-possession game to what it ended up being. It looks really, really one-sided, but it wasn’t. If you want a quote, you can have it, but there are no moral victories. I told those guys, I told our guys, we can hang with anybody in the country. I know we can. They’ve got one of the best quarterbacks in the country there. They’ve got a running back room that’s as good as anybody. Our Oline worked their ass off. This defense put the gold helmet on these guys. We can compete with anybody in the county. You can ask them what they think. I’m sure you will. I’d say we can compete with anybody in the country, the first three and a half quarters. This is real. There are no moral victories. Hopefully you understand that I’m just telling the truth, and this is the truth, and this is real. We’re 1-1, and tonight it wasn’t good enough, and we came here to win the football game.
Do you think the field goal caused the disappointment at the end of the game?
I don’t know. Do you think that happened?
It is possible.
“Sure, great. I’m telling you, being the head coach of the football team, the smartest thing to do is kick the field goal to avoid losing two possessions. It certainly felt that way, right? But I couldn’t tell you without seeing the film. I’m not an idiot, I’m just telling you that being down in the fourth quarter against one of the best teams in college football history in a one-possession game is a disappointment. Is that a disappointment? It shouldn’t be. If it is, I need to coach it differently. I need to coach the situation better. I need to prepare the team better for that situation. I obviously haven’t done that, but I’m going to do it. I’m going to get myself fixed. There’s nobody harder. So that we’re all on the same page: There’s nobody harder on our staff, our kids and me than I am, and we’re going to get it fixed, we’re going to get it fixed and we’re going to be ready to go. I promise you that, and we will work so hard that it doesn’t happen again.”
You talked about not playing the logo, but winning your battles. That’s how it went for three and a half quarters, right?
“Yes”
Did the defense finally get tired?
“It certainly felt that way. It felt like we were exhausted at the end. That’s why I said earlier that I need to figure out exactly what happened. I need to figure out if it was the way we trained, if it was the way we called it, if it was the attitude of our kids. I need to figure out what it was and I need to fix it. But I think you’re absolutely right. It certainly looked like we were exhausted there.”
Have you proven that you can play with anyone when your game is running?
“I thought we showed for three and a half quarters that we could compete with anyone. But in the end, we didn’t prove that we could compete with anyone. We couldn’t finish.”
“I’m grateful to the fans who came out tonight. I’m grateful to our fans who have been behind us all week. We can feel it, our players can feel it. We have an incredible fan base. I’m so grateful to them. Next week we’re ready to go.”
