MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama football head coach Steve Campbell, offensive coordinator Kenny Edenfield, defensive coordinator Greg Stewart, along with tight end Collier Smith, wide receiver Jahmmir Taylor and linebacker Nick Mobley met with the media Monday to recap Appalachian State and preview Saturday's game at Georgia Southern.

Head coach Steve Campbell
Opening statement:
"We're looking forward to this week, we're ready to get back out on the practice field and get to work on correcting the mistakes that we made this past week.  Obviously we were disappointed in the way that we played against a very good Appalachian State football team, give them all the credit in the world but I am worried about us and what we can do to get better each and every day.  That's what we need to take care of and give ourselves a chance to go win this game Saturday against a good Georgia Southern football team.

"Their only loss on the year was a tough game against Clemson and they are coming off of a big victory against Arkansas State.  Georgia Southern runs the triple option, they are very athletic at quarterback and have a lot of speed at the skill positions.  Defensively they have a structure that is very reminiscent of Appalachian State, but with bigger guys on the inside; they are very big and physical on the defensive line.

"It's a big challenge for us this week, but one that we're really looking forward to.  There is a lot left out there for this football team, when you look at the Sun Belt Conference standings right now we are in first place in our division.  I'm not looking at that or talking to the kids about that, our focus is on ourselves; let's get better each day, correct mistakes and see improvement.  But there is still a lot left out there to play for."

On the team's resiliency:
"When I was a young coach and a player I didn't know any better.  After you've been doing this for years and years, you know that's the beauty of sports — there is always next week, it's about the journey more than it is the destination.  We're going through a journey right now, there is going to be ups and downs.  We're in the middle of a battle, but what makes the best stories is overcoming that adversity knowing where you had to come from to get to where you are going.  I have all the confidence in the world that we are going to get there.  We are going through some stuff right now.

"We had the guys over for film and then the older guys got in the weight room for a good lift and we took the younger guys out and had a good scrimmage.  Their attitudes were tremendous, they are resilient and put it [the Appalachian State loss] behind the very quickly.  When you watch the film you can see the mistakes, we need to see how quickly they can be corrected.  It's not a Calculus III problem, it's just take a better step, wrap up, get your eyes up, have a little discipline.  Those are correctable things, it's not perpetual motion creating a new source of energy."

On scrimmaging with younger players:
"With the new rule that says you can play four games and use that as a redshirt, it helps those guys to develop in case we need them later on in the year.  If you do it over the course of a year — which is what we are doing — that's going to prepare them more, you're getting in 12 extra practices so you're basically getting in an extra spring training to try and help them.  We need to develop some depth and that's how you do it, but getting your young guys ready to go.  This year we've had a guy go down here and there, you want to be where it is next man up.  Our guys have tried to do a good job of that, and what we can do is help ourselves by developing those guys now."

On where the team is after the opening month of the season:
"I was hoping we would be further along in how we've handled adversity, there are some things you can talk about all you want but you have to be in that situation in order to handle it.  You can talk about that roller coaster all you want, but until you get on and ride it you don't know how you are going to feel and react.  But the more you do it, the more you put yourself in those positions, then you learn how to react.  I thought we had handled adversity well at certain points during the year, I don't think we handled it well in the first half [at Appalachian State] but I liked the way we bounced back in the second half.  We will learn from that, we've now been in that position.  There are certain things you just have to go through, I wish I could snap my fingers and there would be a quick fix but there's not.

"Hopefully we've been through it enough now.  I believe that once we get on that roll, we're going to have a really, really good football teams.  We have great young men, good character and enough talent and ability that once we get on that roll I think it can start building upon itself.  I thought we were close the other night, there was one point where we were close to catching fire and it went the other way on us.  We have to get to that point and let it catch fire and go, or if it doesn't catch fire have enough fortitude to keep it going.  I thought we were there and we weren't, but the beauty of athletics is that you get another opportunity to do that."

Offensive Coordinator Kenny Edenfield
Opening Statement:
"We're looking forward to getting back on the field. When you don't play very well, as a coach you're anxious to get back out there. We were able to get back out last night with some of our young guys and get back to work and ready to go. I think our guys saw some things we could have done a little bit better Saturday, we just got behind the chains early and kind of got out of our game plan; we have to make sure we don't do that. These guys are ready to go. They had a good attitude yesterday. Kids are resilient; they forget a lot faster than coaches and fans do. I'm excited about getting back to work and seeing if we can get better this week. I think we will."

On taking what they did on first drive of App State game and extending it for entire game:
"I hope what we'll do is look from the mistakes we had – and basically what happened there is we got started really fast. This has been the case most of the year, when we make a first down when somebody makes a play, we really get rolling and are able to play with some tempo – it really keeps things going. But when we don't do that, it's been a struggle for us. The challenge for us is to learn how to get that initial first down so we can play with some tempo and mix some things up. Hopefully what I can do is find guys to give them opportunities to make more plays."

On scripting plays to start the game:
"We usually script about 10 for the opening drive and try to stay on that. Sometimes you'll get off of that, but we've been doing that for a while – it's pretty helpful. You practice those plays and the kids know what plays are coming. A lot of times it's not the plays you're running as much as how confident they are in the play. We find that out as we go. You have to carry enough offense to where you can counteract what they're doing defensively, but you want to make sure you don't have too much; that's kind of the fine line there. There are plays we installed early on that we're really good at right now – that's usually the plays the kids have the most confidence in. At the end of the game when we moved the ball better, it was from the plays we've been running all along."

Defensive Coordinator Greg Stewart
On the challenge of facing Georgia Southern's offense:
 "Coach [Steve] Campbell, Coach [Kenny] Edenfield and myself have won a lot of games running option stuff. It's a good type of offense. It's assignment football where someone has the fullback, someone has the quarterback and someone has the pitch; you have to do it over and over [in practice]. [Georgia Southern] has some really good players, their quarterback is a runner and I think they are averaging 270 [yards] per game rushing. They do some different stuff. I've always enjoyed preparing for these kinds of offense. We do have a little bit of an advantage in the fact that Kenny [Edenfield] and offense do some option stuff and we've seen it [in practice] and hopefully we'll be ready to go and play assignment football."

On the safety position:
 "Spencer [Perry] came in against App [State] and did some good stuff making some tackles. I'm fired up about Spencer; he's a good kid who has worked hard. We always talk about opportunities, well his opportunity is here and I'm looking forward to going out there and seeing him play. I also think that [Tyree] Vines will play a little bit at the boundary safety spot."

Tight end Collier Smith
On the game this week at Georgia Southern and getting back on track:
"Georgia Southern is a good team. They just beat Arkansas State. It's hard to go into this week and not remember what happened last year in Statesboro. I don't think they won a game before they played us. We had just beat Ark State and Troy, then we go into Statesboro thinking we're going to have a pretty good chance of beating them and they destroy us. Now it's flipped. We're kind of down. They just beat Ark State and we're going to go right the wrong that happened to us last year. You have to take it personal as a player and as a team this week when we prepare, go in with some fight and leave on top."

On trusting the process after a couple of losses:
"You say trust the process. Sure it can be easy to get down on yourself when you don't win, but it's not about winning and losing when you trust the process. Things are gonna happen and stuff isn't going to go your way. Trusting the process is about every individual play. It's about winning that play. I think if you go back and watch some of those games you'll see that we're not short on effort. We're not short on winning the one-on-one battles. We just need to do it more. What happens if we stop trusting the process? We'll keep losing. Trusting the process is most important now when we've lost games. Relying on the coaches to put us in a position to win like we need to do this weekend is what it's all about. I think you'll see us trust in it much more this week."

On the attitude of the team after the last couple of games:
"Obviously you have dreams, you have goals and you have a vision. Sometimes the vision has to change. Before week one the vision was to win every game on our schedule. Then week one happens. The vision has to change. After this weekend, I know for me personally and for other people, the vision went from beating everybody in our conference to know beating the rest of the teams in our conference to go to the conference championship, play Appalachian State and get back at them for what they did to us. It's personal. I hope they beat everyone else on their schedule so they can go to that championship game so when we show up we'll right what happened this past weekend."

Wide receiver Jahmmir Taylor
On the game this week at Georgia Southern and getting back on track:
"I believe it starts one day at a time, take one practice at a time and get better each and every day. Let's have a good week of practice and hopefully the good things we do in practice will carry over into the game on Saturday."

On trusting the process after a couple of losses:
"That's part of trusting the process is taking the lows with the highs. Everything is new. We're fighting and we're going to keep fighting until the levee breaks. Something has to give and we're a pretty good football team. When we get rolling, we're gonna keep rolling."

On the attitude of the team after the last couple of games:
"The attitude of the team is to just keep going and keep grinding. Let's work harder and keep doing the things that we're doing. It's never as bad as you think it is and it's never as good as you think it is. Everyone is just going to keep fighting and keep pushing until we break through. It's coming pretty soon."

Linebacker Nick Mobley
On how anxious the team is to get back out and show what they can do:
"We're pretty ready to get back out there. We can't rush because it won't happen any slower or any faster, but when it's time to go we need to be efficient and get things done."

On where the breakdowns were last week against Appalachian State:
"We had a few missed tackles, but nothing that we can't fix."

On keeping the team's confidence up after two tough losses:
"Confidence wise, we have to keep believing. Bad things are going to happen during the game, but if we lean on things we understand and things we did during practice and in preparation, we'll be fine."

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