Mar 30, 20216 min read

COACH O SPEAKS: ONE OF HIS BEST INTERVIEWS

by LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN

@LonnPhillips

COACH O RESPONDS TO THE GLORIA SCOTT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST HIM:

"First of all, I was deeply upset when I watched the video of Ms. Scott's testimony. It was the first time I'd heard of all the horrible details of her encounter with Derrius.

I am sickened about what she went through.

Heartbroken.

No person, woman, mother or grandmother should ever be addressed in such a disgusting manner.

It is 100% unacceptable.

I'm devastated that it happened to her.

I want Ms. Scott, her family and others to know that.

I completely cooperated with the Husch-Blackwell investigation and I will continue to cooperate with LSU's internal investigation.

As I told them, I truthfully do not remember speaking with Ms. Scott three years ago. But I do know Ms. Scott needs to be heard and admired for her courage.

I have been, and will continue to be committed to a culture of integrity and compliance. Out of respect for Ms. Scott, all survivors and the integrity of the university's investigation, I have to further questions of this nature to the university. I hope this helps."

COACH O ON DEFENSIVE LINE ROOM:

"Yeah, I love it and when you look at young guys like Maason Smith had 3 sacks, an excellent pass-rusher. Jaquelin Roy had 2 sacks, Joseph Evans is probably our most productive interior lineman right now: run and pass.

So those guys are coming along...along with Neil Farrell and Glen Logan...

Then you look at Ali Gaye, Andre Anthony and B.J Ojulari, we are very fortunate to have those guys out there.

Soni Fonua did some things at defensive end...and then you got Bryce Langston coming in, ya got Saivion Jones coming in.....so, we're really pleased with that group."

COACH O ON JOSEPH EVANS' VERSATILITY FROM O-LINE TO D-LINE HELPING HIS RISE:

"I know (switching from O-line to D-line) helped him out. Especially when he hears all the calls up front (laughs).

COACH O TALKING ABOUT UTILIZING UP TO EVEN 5 D-LINEMEN ON THE FIELD, INCLUDING 3 DTs AT ONE TIME:

"Oh yeah, there's no question that we can do that...if...if the personnel dictates that we do that...we can do that easily."

COACH O'S VISION FOR JAY WARD:

"First of all, Jay's an interesting....ya know, Corey did a great job of recruiting him, but the night before signing, he was committed to another SEC school.

I called him at 12 o clock at night and I said 'listen Jay, do you wanna compete at the highest level?' He said 'yes sir'. I said 'you come to LSU, you're gonna get that chance'.

So, ya know....he wasn't an LSU Tiger until about 1 o'clock that morning on signing day.

So that was a great story about continuing to compete and a great job by Corey Raymond. But I thought that Jay Ward played the last few games like an All-American, I mean that play he made at Florida...the awareness to get back in bounds...and then the two plays he made against Arkansas: ya know, those are outstanding plays.

But, he can play nickel for us. I think Cordale...I know Cordale is gonna be our starting nickel.

We're gonna move Jay Ward to free safety, because we need help there. So obviously he's a utility guy, we'll see if he fits well at safety. If not, he can play corner or nickel...it's like...Jay Ward is like three players for us."

COACH O ON SAFETY:

"Obviously Jay Ward went back there for this scrimmage, and it looks like he's a natural back there. Jordan Toles and Derrick Davis are battling back there...Todd Harris has been battling some injuries, uh so we're creating depth right now.

But the two starters right now would probably be Todd Harris and Jay Ward right now I think, with Jordan Toles and Derrick Davis would be right behind them, and Cam Lewis is still there. We moved Alex Adams from offensive WR to safety.

It's gonna take him a little while to learn, but we saw that in high school...he was very tough. Then we still have Ryan Sage (Sage Ryan) and Matthew Langlois, so we're gonna have some depth, we're gonna have some new players.

But I think moving Jay Ward back there: if we start Jay Ward and Todd Harris we have two veteran players."

COACH O ON SUMMER OF 10,000 CATCHES:

"Yes no question, well....I put up that Koy Moore has 6,600 catches before Spring Ball....that was...okay...and he has the least drops. You wanna talk about a young man who had a great scrimmage: you know he's played every wide receiver position, he's played tailback, he's catching screens, he's having a tremendous Spring for us.

Obviously Kayshon is an outstanding player.

Another young man who's having an outstanding Spring is Devonta Lee.

I mean Devonta's big, he can get off the press, he has a nice shock release, he catches the bubble screen well, he's got big hands and catches everything within his radius, so I'm glad to see that Devonta is having a good Spring."

COACH O ON NAVONTEQUE "BUGG STRONG BEING "A THUMPER":

"No question, man, you know, and again so please to see in our evaluation process that was a position of need for us. We went to junior college, Mississippi Gulf Coast junior college....we thought that he was the best in the country.

We never met him personally, all we did was talk to him on the phone...and uh...he's everything we thought of and more...he's a great young man, a mature young man and he will get under your pads and hit you. He loves to hit....the more he hits, the more excited he gets."

COACH O ON RUNNING BACKS:

"Yeah...very....first of all, It's frustrating because I know we have some outstanding backs. But Tyrion Davis (Price) continues to have little nagging injuries which are keeping him out of practice.

Tre Bradford has a hamstring and you know...that takes a while. And.....you know, we don't want him to go out there and re-injure it.

And then John's coming back from a surgery...

We got John in a gold jersey.

He's going through thud practices, in fact we're gonna change Thursday's practice...we were gonna scrimmage on Thursday before Easter, but we're going to change it to a thud practice so we can have John run the football.

Josh Williams has done a great job, Corren Norman took 39 carries, Nick Demas a walk on back there (usual position LB) took 25 carries, so you know we have some guys who that are carrying the load. But we need to get our guys healthy, then we gotta get our two outstanding backs in here.

I think fall camp is going to tell the story of who's gonna be the most durable back; who can go in there and who can be there when we count on 'em.

This is a big position about identifying what we can do and who can do it in fall camp....because right now, it's been a very disappointing position."

COACH O ABOUT PEETZ'S NEW OFFENSE FOR RBs:

"Yes and ya know, let me tell you: we have the plays now. Last year, we didn't throw to the running back nowhere near as much as we did in 2019. And now we doin' it...and John can run that little choice route, and those other guys coming in: I know they can run it.

And as you know, if you can isolate on that MIKE linebacker, you got a chance because it's hard for that MIKE linebacker to cover that choice route."

COACH O ON BACK-UP CENTER &

THE OFFENSIVE LINE DEPTH:

"You know...you bring up a very good point (to T-Bob)...here's what I told the back-up offensive line and the offensive line coaches. We cannot expect, that just because we have a veteran offensive line, that we can slow the development of these young men...because they are one play away. One guy gets hurt and they're gonna have to play the whole season.

I think their development is good right now, but we have to speed up their development.

But right now, if we were to go into a game, Charles Turner would probably be our back-up center, him & Marlon Martinez. They're doing very well, but I can't say they are able to go into a game right now and compete at a high level."

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