everyone and uh, an opportunity to see a little piece on Ryan Day this weekend and his family and I saw that his dad had taken his life at 31 years old and Ryan and his wife have worked hard for mental health and trying to help the mental health crisis across the country. And then this weekend I wanted to touch this first, we lost two students on campus. It seems to suicides. Um, so as tough as it is out there for all of our families, I've got six grandkids and four Children and um, all of us love our families. And uh, we, we had a situation with jake Lawler when we first got here where he actually came to us after we talked about it some and said, I need some help and we got him help and he's flourishing and having a great life out in, uh, out in L. A. Now. So, um, just please anybody out there that, that's struggling or if you have a friend that's struggling, get him some information, get him some help. It's such an awful loss of life and especially for young people. Um, and so hurtful to the families and the friends and it's so confusing to, to everybody that, um, I asked you to spread the word. Um, and, and it seems worse now. It's the second leading death for, for young people between 15 and 34. So it's, uh, it's out there, it's out there way too much and our sports really, really important people's lives are more important, especially young people. So let's try to help them as much as we can. Um, we'll have a wellness day at the university on Tuesday where we will not have class just to emphasize mental health and, and trying to make sure everybody takes a break and, and reaches out to friends. So hopefully you'll, as I said, you will um publicize that and reach out to people and see if we can help as much as we can, if we, we save one life, it's sure worth it without question. The game saturday was really disappointing. We, we came out of Duke thinking everything was great, headed into saturday and, and we um, we questioned whether the defense would be able to handle the success they had and it looks like we started the game well on defense with an early um, three and out getting them off the field, we can throw the ball the first quarter. Um, And for whatever reason right now, the, the teams we've had for two years didn't have great expectations, but they seem to fight adversity and overcome adversity. Uh, more than more than this team has been able to do that. Um, and and this team seems to get down and go up and down and, and doesn't play consistently well, but defensively we missed uh, 11 assignments. We missed 14 tackles. We uh, there, there's seven of 10 on third downs there, 11 or 13 and passing and they were an inconsistent passing team coming in, three touchdowns, They were able to run the ball and there were three for three in the red zone. So, um, we, we didn't sack them. We we didn't uh foresee any turnovers. Um, it's the worst defensive performance that we've had. And um, you can arguably say that the offense was the biggest reason we lost the Virginia Tech game because of sacks, tackles for loss and turnovers. You can very much say that the Georgia Tech game, the offense lost the game saturday. The offense could have won the game because we we kicked a field goal in one situation that could have been A score, we have an interception in the end zone, which is another one that could have been a where the 30 going in and we're first and goal at the five and those scores. So there's 21 points minimum that are left on the board. Um And and offensively we had entirely too many penalties, um, which is uncharacteristic as well. But we, we did a better job of keeping people from penetrating florida state who had the best defensive line we've played, we did a lot better job of protection than we've been able to do. So the offensive line other than those penalties Played their best game. Um, and and then kicking game, we, we felt like we did well, we had the one kickoff cover that they returned 41 yards. But other than that we had, we averaged 10 yards on hunt returns, which is a positive. Uh, we kicked 51 yard field goal. Our pumps were all good and our punt coverage was good. So I think the biggest thing is, is inconsistency with this team. We never know who's gonna show up and that's on me. That's on our coaches. We, we um, we went back and checked Virginia Tech. We had five penalties. Georgia state, we had three U. V. A. We had seven Georgia Tech. We had seven Duke, we had five and then we show up with 12 and some of them were frustration penalties on our defense because we weren't stopping them and, and, and guys got frustrated. Which is not not us as well. So um, the coaches and I take full responsibility for, for the inconsistency of this team. They're good young people, they're talented. We should have won more games than we have in my estimation. Um, so it's on us period and they've got to play better, but it's our job to get them to play better. There. There young people that uh, go with with our leadership and our guidance and um, you can't hide from it. It is what it is. People have asked what about goals now, you lost all your goals and where does it had uh, these seniors, the first two years didn't go to a ball game. So they've been to two bowls the last two years, Even the Orange Bowl. So they want to finish strong and go to a bowl. So they're, they're starting the season over. We had long hard meetings again yesterday and said, come on, man, what's the deal? Why are we, why are we so inconsistent with what we're doing here? It doesn't make sense. So, uh, the immediate goal is to, to start over when the rest of the games get to a bowl and and try to finish strong for these seniors because they started very poorly here. They've helped our program be on the rise and, and now we want them to finish strong. One of the problems we said is, we've got some real young ones, We've got some old ones and Lou Holtz always said the seniors want to win their bales, wants to play and that's kind of what you get, they want to win. But they're playing in their performance is more important in some cases, because they don't feel the urgency of being through. Um, the future of the program is bright. Um, we've got to get these young quarterbacks ready to play next year if Sam decides to leave and I think he will. Um, but everybody else is growing and getting better and um, we can see it there. It's just a frustrating time and what we've got to do is is learn from from where we are because the publicity was a heather program and probably going to the Orange Bowl was ahead of the program after those five guys that we lost last year that are all playing in the NFL. Um, and, and we haven't been able to replace them as quickly and easily as we wanted to. I don't understand why we have 10 starters back on defense and we're still not playing as well as we should. And at times why why did we play as good of defense against Duke as we've played all year and then come back saturday and play as poorly as we've played all year. Just uh, makes no sense and it's really frustrating for for all of us. Uh, but like I said, it's my job to get it fixed. Um, questions. Thank you coach. We've got a couple lined up already. So we'll begin with our chance. Key. Yeah, you're on mute art. All right, joe mute. Alright, okay. There you go. Trying to uh let me jump back to something that you started with. I wonder if you cut that clip of South Smalls family watching him kick that winning field goal on saturday night and with all the craziness that's going on in sports, good and bad. Uh, I thought that was a pretty amazing video to see what other people besides the players were going through uh, for their sake. Uh Any comments on that? Yeah, I think it was interesting at uh, one Rose bowl. Um, Sally was in the press box with Phil Mickelson and she was really, really nervous. I think it was the michigan game and we kicked us field goal with three seconds left to win the game. And she's praying and she's on her knees and she's biting her fingernails and Phil said I never thought about my wife Amy and how she must feel when I'm playing because we get so consumed with ourselves that we never think about other people. But we've got to think about these players families, we've got to think about their friends. I mean this this is big stuff and it impacts a whole lot of people, not just those families, not did happen to see the family of the kicker to for A and M to beat Alabama and the picture would have been just as bad or worse if you missed it. I mean that's the thing, these are these these are their Children And then we talk about Children, there may be 1920 years old, but they're still young people and and some people's parents. So um that's what I've always said most of the time, we we don't treat uh coaches as people, we treat them as things when they lose and the same thing with players and and all are human beings and I'll hurt. I've been around long enough. I don't worry about what people say about me because I've heard it all, I've heard the good and it didn't feel make me feel any better than I've heard the awful that didn't make me feel any worse. So how many point now I just want to win and I won't make sure that these kids are healthy mentally and I want to make sure that their their lives are better because we're mentoring them. And I've grown up to a point now that uh I am trying to learn from lawsuits, figure out what we're doing wrong because we're recruiting, we're killing it and we're going to be really, really good. But it's my job to get us back on track here. Um, to do that and, and aren't a lot of that's dealing with parents. I've I've always said to the 120 players on a team in 11 play at a time we have more morale issues in college football and we have more depression in college football than any other sport because there's a lot more people sitting and watching on the bench and there are playing and and if you're not playing, especially if you're winning and not playing, Everybody understands that they're they're good and if you're winning by a bunch, everybody gets to play, morale is good. If you're struggling and you're not playing then you won't transfer and everybody's mad. So those are other things you deal with it at this time as well. And because of that next week we will sit down with every player again and we will talk to everyone, I'm about you're gonna transfer at the end of the year. If things don't change, are you going to graduate and leave or you're gonna graduate and stay or you're gonna go to the NFL or you gonna opt out if we have a bowl game, we're trying to have direct conversations with every player just to know exactly where things are moving forward with them with their lives. They want to get in the portal. We're gonna try to help them. Um, because if they're not playing then we don't think they're, they're ready to play yet. And and if they think they are, then we'll help them go somewhere else. It's just just the way we are trying to be very transparent. Thank you Mac, thank you Art JB Ricks go ahead. Good morning coach, appreciate you taking out the time. Uh, thank you. Uh, you answered my first question regards to how do you guys reset your goals at this point of the season? Um, you talked about that in your intro, but I did want to ask you on top of that when it comes to your kids demeanor and and just, you know, their enthusiasm that maybe they had in the beginning of the season compared to right now. Um, how does your voice changed? How do you adjust with that? Because I know you've had past experiences like this, dealing with adversity in the season? How does your voice change with your, with your kids at this point? What you do JB no different than all of us with families. You have to figure out how to handle it if your son or your daughter is down and they messed something up. Do you get on them? Do you pick them up when everybody's getting on the players? Do I have to pick them up? But be honest with them and be very direct. So it's just a combination of things and and hopefully my 33 years of experience will will help us pull out of this thing. And the same with the assistant coaches, assistant coaches feel awful when they lose and then everybody says they should be fired. That's a 100% if you if you took the the message boards and and and a lot of the media across the country for every team that lost yesterday, just change the names. But all the comments are the same. It's just it's unbelievable how consistent it is about he's an idiot. He should be fired. Um I can't believe those stupid fools don't know any better than this or why are they playing that quarterback? I mean, it's just That, that it is what it is and I've seen it for 47 years. So it only difference is now you you can see it and hear it more than you could when I first started. You have to hear it walking off the field with somebody calling you an idiot. But but I think that the thing is there's a kid. Each team, there's a kid. Each kid. And and my job right now is to, to step up be strong, be positive and try to find the key to this team that, that we haven't found yet. And the real key is consistency and why can't we get everybody to play at the same time? I don't know. And I'm working on it. I met along with the team yesterday, I met along with the staff yesterday and and told them this is not good. It's unacceptable. Were, um, were disappointing to ourselves. Um, we, we've done a great job of not letting one loss beat us twice. So let's go back to work. Why don't we all play good on the same saturday? It's legal. I checked it. We can do that. They allow us to, so let's let's do it. But uh, it's 100% my fault that they're not. And I mean I I can, I can duck it. I can say something else. I'm responsible for everybody that's hired here. I'm responsible for how they coach their players and we are responsible for how those players play and we can put it back on the players and say it's your responsible to be ready to play. Were older and been around longer. We gotta help him and we, we've got, we've got to be more consistent as coaches to get our team to play more consistent than we've been As 100% no ducking, it is what it is. Thank you coach? Thank you. J. B. Andrew jones. Go ahead. Hey coach, I asked you after the game saturday about a common thread between the second half against Georgia Tech and there's two middle quarters on saturday and you said guys were in the wrong place, miscommunications, secondary Jeremiah backed that up when we talked to him about it. This is a, this has been a consistent problem that when things go badly for the defense, it just kind of sticks around and goes badly for a while. How do you go about fixing that? Is it a matter of coaching them up differently or is it a matter of maybe simplifying things a little bit more? Uh and coach Bateman, I think we're about as simple as we can get, so I'm not sure, I know we moved a few people around its safety and, but, but we cannot continue with communication problems. Period 100%. It's gotta stop. And Um, if I went into detail with you, you'd be shocked at some of the reasons one of the touchdowns happened. I've never heard it before in 33 years. Um, I mean it's just crazy stuff. So, but we gotta, we gotta fix it. Good teams don't do crazy stuff that get them beat and and we gotta fix that. The other thing is, and there's two other things Jeremiah said it yesterday when we were talking is. Why does this team not fight as much when they have adversity as the last two? Maybe we're too cool and we we thought we were going to be better than this and they get discouraged too quickly or they get frustrated too quickly. And that, that, that again is our fault. Um go fight. Everybody's about alike. So you went comparative scores with them like I did you all some and wake Forest and Syracuse, Syracuse and florida state florida state and Notre dame, Virginia Tech and Notre dame Georgia tech and Duke. I mean, just look at this stuff, it's uh it's just absolutely crazy stuff. Um So I think it's again, uh oh miss gives up 51 points. Arkansas bragging on them, their top 20 team, they give up 52 points. Texas is ahead 28/7, they give up 55 points. Um there's craziness out there, but it doesn't matter. We got to be on the positive side of the craziness and, and and that's what we gotta do. The other thing I can't figure out Andrew for the life of me is why we stink in the second quarter. It's the only supporter we're not out scoring people and we stink In the second quarter. We had a great first quarter, we're ready to play, were up 10 to nothing. They had the ball very little. The first quarter. Why do we stink in the second quarter, I don't know last year, uh practice, we had him hold up two fingers every time we we start the second part of the the first half of the practice. Um So I don't know, I've never seen that before, I can't figure it out and it's been for 2.5 years. I don't know. That's that's why I gotta I gotta keep trying to figure out the fight that you're looking for is it doesn't matter if a guy stepping up just making a play that might change the disposition out there or is it something collective? Maybe get a little bit more ticked off and and the guys can use that to kind of galvanized to change the course of the way things are going. Yeah, we need more leadership and and leadership makes that play, they step up, make the play and it does excite everybody else. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Greg Barnes go ahead. Hey max sticking with the struggles to deal with adversity, given the number of returning guys and players that have played for three years for you now is that surprising that they're not handling adversity the way they need to be. Yes, it's surprising and disappointing and I think the only thing I can attribute it to is um again, all of us bought into the hype and and when we, in the past, there were no expectations. We've won two games in three games, we won five games in two years. So what the heck, go play and go have fun and right now, I think they're trying so hard Greg to reach. That that thing that they, people said we were that we weren't and now that we aren't, they get down so fast because they don't want to hurt anybody's feelings and they feel the pressure of not playing well. Um So it and instead of taking adversity and making you stronger, what we have done in some cases is taking a step back and you just can't do that. This is a great learning lesson for all of us are our guys have got to keep fighting. I got to go forward florida state could very easily won every one of their games. They're a very talented team and and and they were last year. So when you let them make plays, they just feed off of it and get more confidence and got better. And that's what this game is. You got to beat down the other team, you've got to take away their their chance to win. You've got to um to to make sure that you discourage them and we didn't do that after the first quarter on saturday. I also wanted to ask the final touchdown drive. 11 plays in five minutes and 25 seconds when you ah When you score, there was two minutes, 47 seconds left. I know there was a couple of penalties there in a sack was a sense of urgency where you wanted to be on that drive giving you were down by 18 points? Well, we were going one minute offense, but I do think we needed to get the ball ends on faster. So I agree with the ice cream and come on man, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. But um, we, we didn't score as quickly as we wanted to. Thank you. Thank you even more. So Greg the first and goal from the five and a chance to win the game and we don't score. And somebody said, Why didn't you kick a field goal? Well, we needed points. That would have cut it 15 but we weren't stopping them. So that was the other thing, I didn't know that three was going to help us. And when you look at analytics, they said, uh, six kicked a field goal, five go for it five or six or less. And um, you know, but I, I thought surely come on man, we got one of the best quarterbacks in the country, we score here. That, that really gets us some momentum and gets us going. Maybe we'll get excited on defense. But um, yeah, I didn't, I didn't think we got down there as fast as we needed to thank you. Thank you. Feel Brown go ahead. Hi Mac, when you, uh, when you mentioned that, uh, you're basically resetting and starting the season over? Um, does that change what success looks like for the rest of the year? And does that change your expectations? And and how hard uh you may you may push them? Uh cl it doesn't change anything except it is what it is. So we we've got to win this week and then and then we'll have to beat Notre dame and then we'll have to win the next week and we'll have to win the next weekend. And what we've gotta do is get better as a program. We got to get better as a team. So we're not going to January one bowl. Uh we're not going to the playoffs. Uh We gotta we're not gonna win the conference championship. I got all that. I mean, I'm I can read, I think I got this. Uh what we've gotta do is get better for the future of our program and we gotta get playing with passion again. We gotta get everybody playing on the same page. We gotta figure out our second half problems. We've got to clean up penalties. Um so we've got a lot of things that we need to do as a program builder to try to help us get to a bowl game and have an extra 13 days of practice. We're not even married to guarantee the bowl game Because we got hard games that they're left every one of them. So um so my goal is for us to my job and my goal is for us and our staff to better prepare these guys to play with passion, and and play 60 minutes and fight adversity and overcome it to get back on track. That's our program. We have been a roller coaster and college football in general to roller coaster and that doesn't help us at all. It doesn't make any difference to us what everybody else is doing, but it's time for us to play better and, and therefore we need to coach better. And you mentioned, you said like the past two seat, uh, those teams handled adversity better. Was there a common thread with those? Was it players leadership? Was was there a common thread with those two teams that you see that that made them handle it better? I think number one, the preseason hype wasn't there were not used to this. So it's, it's new Forest. That's not an excuse. That's a fact. Um, Anything we did was good. Everybody was hoping we'd beat somebody now. We're expected to beat everybody and we're getting everybody's best shot. I got that, been there, done that. Not gonna change around here. I know that going forward. Um Miami's had 16 days to prepare. We'll get their best shot on Saturday. It's not an excuse. It's fact that's where you want to be. Uh, but we haven't handled it very well and I think we, we lost a tremendous amount of leadership with a few guys that we lost and probably impacted us more than we thought. And now we've got to have some now. We've got to have some new leaders step up. Excuse me, Coach Luciano go ahead business. They go to hope you're doing well and thank you for your time this morning. You uh, you touched on it a little bit during your opening statement, penalty 30 year team a lot during the game. Is this due to a lack of focus and proper execution during the game? Or is this now a serious issue for your team? I think it's uh, hopefully it's, it's one we have officials at every practice. We have cut down the number of penalties in practice all year to a point. I thought that was behind us. Um the offense played better than the defense and they had the more penalties. So I don't know uh again, if you can figure some of this stuff out, I wouldn't be coaching, I'd be doing something else. All right coach, that was the last one we had for this morning. We appreciate a few minutes. Thank you guys. And let's let's let's all take a step forward and see if we can help with these uh mental health issues because it's uh it's serious. It's real, it's out there for our our young people. Um, and unless let's let's take it serious unless I'll do something today to try to help some young person that's struggling to get through their day and have a better life