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STATE FOOTBALL NEWS |
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Mississippi
State Football News
September 5, 2006
Croom comments/Tuesday press conference
Opening Comments
"We start back to practice today after
having been off since after the game. We did not do anything yesterday
(Monday) except for have a meeting, review the film and got some pretty good
conditioning in. Today, we'll get back into our total preparation for
Auburn. The time off did give us some time to get a little bit of a jump on
Auburn because we will need a jump. We are playing a very good football
team, they had an excellent victory the other day against Washington State
and they don't seem to change much from year to year. The have talent,
experience and it will be a great challenge for us going into this ball
game. In the aftermath of our game, there was a great disappointment for us
because we did not win, we had opportunities to do so but that game has
passed - we move on from there and get better and improve on the things that
we did not do well. We played very well defensively; we had guys like
Jermaine Johnson, Antonio Johnson, Quinton Culberson and Jamar Chaney who
had exceptional ball games. Overall, I think we had no pre-snap penalties
and very disappointed about the injury to Mike (Henig) but that is part of
the game as well, but we move on. I thought Tray (Rutland) did a
commendable job on certain things coming into the ballgame. He will be our
starting quarterback going into this game. Omarr Conner will be our back
up, Omarr will work some at wide receiver and quarterback. He will spend
most of today (Tuesday) working at quarterback and tomorrow he will resume a
lot of his role as wide receiver. All in all, I'm disappointed in the loss
but when you sit down and look at where you have come from and where you
have been - we are a lot better than we were at this point last year."
On Tray Rutland
"I have not even talked to Tray (Rutland)
since Thursday night. I have been studying the film trying to make sure
that what we do ask him to do in the game plan that it's down to the things
that he truly does have a thorough knowledge of, and things that he is
comfortable with. I expect him to prepare well and think he will do a very
good job. I was very pleased for the most part with his composure - even on
the things that he made mistakes on; he readily acknowledged and understood
what we needed to do to get it corrected. I think with a week of practice,
there will be some things that we won't ask him to do and there will be some
things that we add because of who he is. He brings some things to the
table, some mobility and some things that Mike (Henig) did not have. We'll
ask him to be Tray Rutland and not somebody else."
On Anthony Dixon
"His talents as far as his running skills
are obvious, but it's the details that he has to get down and that is part
of being a freshman. Alignments, steps, reads and protections that go into
making a good running back, it's not just taking the football and running
it. He left a lot of yards out there, he ran well but he left a lot in the
running game because he missed some holes - and he missed the holes because
his steps were not right. If your steps aren't right it will not allow you
to see - it cuts your vision in half if you don't take the right steps."
On Kenny Irons
"He is an excellent runner. Irons (Kenny)
gives them a dimension there that they really didn't have there last year
when we played them. He is a hard runner, excellent vision, he has speed.
If you over-run him, it's out the gate, so that is something we're going to
have to do an excellent job of because our defense runs very well. We have
to make sure we take care of our gap responsibilities and not over pursue
the football.
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