Q&A with Coach Lane Kiffin

Coach Kiffin: A disappointing loss, [I said it] right after the game and it still is. To come in and watch film on all the sides of the ball, there were just so many chances to win the game and so many 'one play here' or 'one play there,' of being so close. Our guys are having a hard time dealing with it today because they know it's a game we should have won, it was right there for us. There were so many opportunities to make there, so many different plays we could talk about being close and 'if this' and 'if that' but we lost and now its five of six games where we have been in front in the fourth quarter and as a team we obviously haven't mastered how to be a great team and finish and finish teams off when we have them there. Q: Is there anything to it that a team must learn how to win? Something maybe you have heard from other coaches, or you believe is part of the process, learning to win? Coach Kiffin: Sure, you learn how to win but it's a matter of how fast and how long it takes you to learn that. I totally believe that. Great teams that win for an extended amount of time know how to win because they know how to finish and deal with circumstances that come up, they know how to handle third down situations in loud environments, they know how to handle pressure situations, they go back to their fundamentals regardless whether it's the second quarter or it's the last play of the game. Sure, you learn that just like anything. Q: Do you look as this as six games into your career and it's good you are in close games and just need to get over that hump or is that not good enough? Coach Kiffin: To me it's not good enough, to be 2-4 is not acceptable. You're 2-4, so yeah, it's better than some things and it's better than losing games the way we did the week before. That's not what it's about, it's about winning. We need to do that and we need to learn how to finish these games. Obviously, we'd like to start better than we have been and not put ourselves in these holes where we have to play so well in the second half to get back and get ahead. We would like them all to be like Miami but that doesn't always happen. We have to continue to improve and we saw some improvements in the last game. We saw our defense improve, we saw our defense play the best game we have played so far this year, and we saw our special teams get better on coverage units and being around the ball. I was extremely excited about the energy that our special teams and our defense showed and if we play that way, we'll be in these games and we will win a lot of games if we play that way on defense. Q: Did you think you cleared the hurdle of learning how to win when you beat Cleveland and Miami? Coach Kiffin: No, I didn't think we turned that corner. Miami wasn't really a learn how to finish game because we were up so much in the game, it wasn't finish a crunch game where things are really tight in the end. Cleveland we blocked a kick, we had a chance to finish the game on offense, but we gave it back to them and they went all the way down the field and we blocked a kick. By no means did I think we had it mastered after those two games. Q: How do you keep players from getting that 'here we go again' feeling? Coach Kiffin: The first thing is pointing out what's happening and figure out why we are losing. What's happening in the games we are losing? So we go over that, today's Monday so we tell it how it is, bad or good, on all sides of the ball and with players specifically, that's what we just got done doing in our meetings. Another thing is, that it's not 'here we go again', you know. You're ahead in the 4th quarter in five of six games, that's not something where it's just, 'oh we have so many things we have to fix' or 'here we go again,' I don't believe that's it. As poor as the offense was yesterday, to be 15 yards from a game winning field goal at the end shows that if you play good defense and you don't turn the ball over - until that last play - the offense hadn't turned the ball over and hadn't got the quarterback beat up by taking a bunch of sacks and losing field position. It shows you that if you play that way, you can still be in games. Obviously we don't want to play that way; we want our offense to be a lot better. The players see it; I don't feel that attitude at all. I feel like the players are watching it and looking at themselves and saying 'we need to make this play here' or 'we need to make this play there'. Q: What did you see from the running game and how much of it is just them stacking up the line? Coach Kiffin: Well, they are up there but it's not about them, it's really about us. Our players saw it, there are a lot of runs where its one person missing an assignment and there are some runs in there where they are about to break and they just didn't yesterday. We are just going to have get better at it. Q: If you have more success in the passing game will that open things up? Coach Kiffin: Yeah, you would like to think that that would help. Like anything, it softens them up a little bit. You saw some play-actions get open because the way they were playing the run game. We have to play more consistent for a longer period of time. Q: There were times it seemed QB Daunte Culpepper was back there with lots of time but couldn't find an open receiver. Is that attributed to receivers not running their routes well enough or Daunte not making quick decisions? Coach Kiffin: It's everything together, it's not one thing specifically. We just need to play better as an offense and since you're talking about the passing game, we need to play better in the passing game. It's not the quarterback, or the running back or the receivers, left tackle or right tackle, it's everyone together. That's the theme of the day, as you went through the film, so many 'what ifs?' If we just made that one block or caught that ball right here, it's a completely different game. That's a game that we should have won and we were in a position to win it a number of times and we didn't. Q: If you go through a season and the same things keep happening, do you remain patient and stick with the program or what do you change at some point? Coach Kiffin: No, you are always changing and you're always learning more about our team, our players, how we play together, which players play best in what situations and that comes from the longer time you are with people. The longer you are with a team, the more you learn about them and that's why generally teams improve in their first year but also continue to improve in their second year. Just like the longer you are with a quarterback, the long the quarterback is with the receivers. That's why people practice and get better. That's why they have training camp, they practice for so long together. I think Daunte is going to continue to improve and I think Daunte improved from last week. That's what happens with it, another week of practice and playing together with guys and working with them during the week of practice and staying out afterwards. What excited me about Daunte's play was that he improved on issues from last week's game mainly protecting the ball ? throwing the picks and the fumbles, six sacks. Then you go to this weekend and there wasn't much success running the ball but I do believe it helped him have success in throwing the ball because he stood back there for a while, because we were trying to run the ball and he made better decisions. He threw the ball away a couple times and until the last play of the game he played it turnover free. Q: Are you opposed to bringing QB JaMarcus Russell. in at some point? Coach Kiffin: No, if I feel that JaMarcus can help us win, we will start him or we will play him. Whenever that situation comes, whenever he is ready to help us win, we will put him in. Q: DT Warren Sapp. has produced some if his best pressure over the past two games, is that a direct correlation of having DE Derrick Burgess. back? Coach Kiffin: Those two guys play really well together. Like we talked about earlier, when you play together you learn more about your players, your team and they learn about each other. That's why, sometimes it takes a bit of time when you add a quarterback in the middle of training camp, that's why rookies take time to gel together. Back to your question, do they help each other? Sure they do. Think how many times they have run drills together as opposed to Gerard Warren? So, those two guys feed off each other, they bring a high level of energy to the game and the defense feeds off them as well. Q: What challenges does Titans quarterback Vince Young present? Coach Kiffin: A lot. I remember him very clearly scoring 41 points and 500 yards of offense in the Rose Bowl. He's not very easy to tackle. He presents a lot of challenges because you can have everybody covered up and a good pass rush and it only takes on seam for him to go. He's not going to slide after six yards, he is going to make someone miss and run for 30 yards. He's a big challenge and we are going to have to prepare for them both. I don't know which of the quarterbacks is playing, obviously, but they are completely different quarterbacks.