MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama football head coach Steve Campbell, offensive coordinator Kenny Edenfield, defensive coordinator Greg Stewart, along with tight end Khameron Taylor, placekicker Gavin Patterson, linebackers A.J. Deshazor and Bull Barge met with the media Monday to recap the 41-31 win over Texas State in the Sun Belt Conference opener and preview Saturday's non-conference road game at Memphis.

Head coach Steve Campbell
Opening statement: "It was a great finish to the game the other night, I am very proud of the way that our guys responded after falling down by 15 [points]; we pitched a 25-0 shutout in the late third through the fourth quarter.  I was really pleased with the way the guys fought.  Through three games, if we can turn it into a dogfight we've been in good shape, I like the way our guys respond when they've been pushed back into a corner.  Last week over the last two-and-a-half, three quarters it was definitely a fight, I liked the way the guys finished.

"Now we go on a tough three-game road stretch opening up with Memphis, which is an outstanding football team.  Offensively they are very explosive, they are putting up a lot of big numbers and scoring a lot of points.  Navy beat them by doing a great job of controlling the football and limiting their offense, keeping them on the sidelines, and they played that in a monsoon.  They have an attack-style defense with a lot of great talent up front and speed on the back end.  They have a great return guy who has taken six kickoffs back to the house for touchdowns, they are good in all three phases which is what you would expect of a team that played for the American Athletic Conference championship a year ago with a lot of guys back.  It's a big challenge for us, but one we are looking forward to."

On getting the team's first win: "It felt great to be able to get that first one, I wanted it for our guys.  I want our guys to know what it feels like to put all that work and effort in and then be able to win.  Our goal was to be 1-0 at the end of the game, it was our first conference game and all we could do was win that one game.  Now we don't have to look up and we control our own destiny in the Sun Belt Conference, that's a big deal for us.  I told the guys now we have the high ground we need to keep it, don't let anyone take it away from you.  Everybody is starting conference play, there will be teams that start dropping off week by week so let's take care of one game; if we continue to do that, we will put ourselves in a good position.  But it is always good to get that first victory."

On starting games better: "That comes with experience.  I wish there was a pill that we could take, or that I could snap my fingers and we start better.  But I don't know how to do that, and I've been doing this for 30 years.  We can talk about starting faster — and when it happens we'll know it — but we have to practice at game speed, and I think we are getting closer to that.  We have a lot of young guys playing.  We want to start faster, we need to start faster, but that comes with experience and are getting more and more of that every week.  If we can turn it into a fight, I like our chances.  As coaches, we have to give ourselves a chance to turn it into that because I like the way our guys respond.  We need to find a way to put our guys in a position soon enough to turn it into a fight."

On penalties: "Some of them are troubling, the offsides bothered me and there was one unsportsmanlike conduct where the young man ran off the sideline.  We had three 15-yarders, and one of them was for a guy running on the field after a touchdown because he was excited; he is a guy who works tremendously hard, but did not play a snap.  We got the penalty there, but we didn't get one when we scored with two minutes left and we didn't have to kick off from the minus-20 because we made a big deal out of it when we scored in the third quarter.  We had two late hits, one when their quarterback was running down the sideline and just as he was about to step out we hit him and the other one the quarterback was just releasing the ball and we hit him; that's going to happen.  The offsides penalties, I need to get those corrected, but what I am going to make the narrative is how hard they played — I am not going to temper that."

On the performance of the offensive line against Texas State: "Those guys have gotten better each week.  We didn't give up a sack and I thought we played well down in the red zone, I know we got down there twice and punched it in with Tra Minter running the football.  I was pleased with the way those guys played, and we played a lot of guys."

On the importance of the win going into the upcoming three-game road stretch: "It was huge to be able to pull that one out, I am happy for the guys because they have worked tremendously hard.  When you haven't had a tremendous amount of success, sometimes you don't know that there is going to be a next play, there's going to be a tomorrow.  We tell them to do the very best you can and whatever happens, you're fine; just play the next play.  I think we are learning that.  At one point I went over to the defense and said to a couple of them that I didn't care if they scored on the very next play, just keep playing.  You turn around and they score on the next play, but the guys kept playing; they had 17 [points] at the end of the first quarter and scored two more touchdowns over the last three quarters.  I am very proud of the way that those guys responded."

On Memphis: "Memphis has done a tremendous job, Mike Norvell is an old Central Arkansas and Gulf South Conference guy who has done a great job of taking what Justin Fuente started and building on that.  Mike is doing an outstanding job on both sides of the football, offensively they are scoring a bunch of points and they are create defensively with a lot of great athletes.  He has his program where you know when you play Memphis right now they are a team on the verge of playing for a playoff appearance — they are that caliber of football team."

Offensive Coordinator Kenny Edenfield
On the Texas State win: "We still have to work on ball security, I'd say that's the one big thing that we've got to improve on. The thing that was really impressive was we talked about being able to make some plays down the field, and we had some one-on-one situations where Evan (Orth) did a really nice job of giving our guys the chance and of course I guys went up and made plays. I thought that was really big and was going to be the difference. When people are really stacking the box, it leaves those guys out there one-on-one and they have to make plays, and they did a really nice job of that. We have to continue to work ball security. We're working every day; we have to continue to find ways to protect the ball. If we can do that then we can get a lot better and a lot quicker. The other thing we have to do is just find some ways to get other guys like Tre' Minter in space sometimes and not always up the middle."

On Evan Orth's performance against Texas State: "He showed a lot of toughness. And he showed an excitement about wanting to play. He tried all camp to do what we asked him to do as far as not doing anything special, just make the routine play. I thought he did that Saturday night. He threw those 'go' balls out there and gave them all a chance to make plays on them, and we made way more than we didn't make."

On Memphis' defense: "They're a pretty aggressive bunch. They are primarily a four-man front; they will play some odd-man fronts, and they will play both man and zone coverage – pretty much what we've seen the last couple of weeks. They're going to press you if you're throwing quick and hitting short passes, and they will see if you can complete the deep one. They will blitz you some, I don't think they are an overly-aggressive blitzing team but they will pick their spots. They pretty sound and feel like they do a pretty good job. They have some good size inside and great length on the edges, so their front four look pretty good watching them on film. One of the reasons their offense is so good is that they (defense) get the ball back pretty quickly for them. We're going to have to do a great job of protecting the ball."

Defensive Coordinator Greg Stewart
On the defense coming together and improving over the course of the win and building on that performance: "Last week seems like it was three years ago. I thought we played hard and did a good job of doing that the whole game.  We also did a good job of executing stuff we had stressed the whole week with one of those things being working fourth downs. We have a goal that we try to hit each week on fourth down and we were able to stop [Texas State] two out of the three times on fourth down this week. Third downs, I thought we did well on, but we still have to improve there.  We tackled better, it still wasn't like we wanted it, but we did better in that area. We're still giving up too many explosive plays [a 12-yard run or a 16-yard pass] and our goal as a defense there is to give up no more than six in a game and that's something we still have to improve on.  I love the way our guys play; they play so hard. When you do that, good things are going to happen and we're going to get better at what we're doing [defensively]."

On the reason for the big plays allowed: "A couple of them was because of bad coaching. In every defense there are things you have to do and when you get a little stressed or tired, you still have to do those same things. It's almost because you're trying to do too much. When we get stressed and tired in a game, we just need to keep doing our job."

On getting off to a better start defensively in games: "I think that our players want to [play well early] so bad and we can't get frustrated and lose our composure when that happens. We just need to do what the defense says for us to do; take your gap, set your edge, stay deep, and just do the same things over and over again. ."

On A.J. DeShazor's performance against Texas State: "He did well. There was a lot of stress on him out there with it being his first college game as a linebacker. A.J. brings his ability to run to the position. Sometimes in the box stuff he was stepping around a bit and that's the thing he's going to continue to work on. A.J. mentioned earlier that he's going play faster and work on hitting the gap. He did some stuff [on Saturday] that would be hard to do for a first-game linebacker to do like we doing against the passing game where he has to see the formation and he has to push to another man that takes some work. He's a natural though. He's a football player and with a good football player, it doesn't matter where on the field you put him, they're going to do well.  A.J. is just going to keep getting better with snaps."

Tight end Khameron Taylor
On the win: "We came together as a team and everybody did their role. We came together and kept our composure like Coach [Steve Campbell] preaches. We made big plays at the end and made the right decisions – quarterbacks, receivers, everybody. It just came together."

On his first collegiate catch coming in a big spot: "I was just happy to help the team. I was thankful that Coach gave me the opportunity in my first college start. I appreciate Evan [Orth] throwing it to me, the o-line blocking and everybody doing their job. It just came together and helped me make the big play. I'm just thankful."

Placekicker Gavin Patterson
On getting the first win and building some confidence heading into the Memphis game: "It was a big team win for us. Our goal going into [Texas State] was, like Bull [Barge] said, to be 1-0, and get that first conference win and not be looking up at anyone in our conference. We got off to a little bit of a slow start, but everyone picked up the tempo and made big plays. It was a good team win for us."

On the role special teams played in the win: "A lot of people forget about that aspect of the game. As you guys saw in the NFL on Sunday, it can win games or lose games. Tra [Minter] has been doing a good job returning kicks. We obviously have one of the best punters [Corliss Waitmann] in the country.  The other 10 guys of the field goal unit don't get enough credit. They're the ones doing the dirty work down front, getting big and blocking everybody. I want to give a special shout out to our long snapper [Jake Harwell]. It was his first game starting and he came in and threw dimes all night. I trust [holder] Corliss 100 percent holding the ball. Everyone on special teams has a job, my job just happens to be getting three points on the board."

Linebacker A.J. DeShazor
On the win: "The resilience that we had … we were down big in the second quarter, 17-3. We stuck to what Coach was talking about: keep playing and going hard and we'll get back in the game. We had to make a stop and get some turnovers to get the momentum back. The resilience of our team to come back and stay together was a big part of that win."

On being able to see what the coaches have been preaching: "It's a big confidence boost for our guys. For my first start, being on the field on the defensive side and getting a feel for the pace of the game, that settled me down, and I got the feel of my teammates and trusting them. As long as we're on the same page, we can get the job done."

On his reaction to getting to play linebacker: "I was excited, to be honest, just because I had the opportunity to get on the field and actually contribute. In high school, I played a little [at] inside [linebacker]. When he told me, I was ready to step up. I had a good senior in front of me in Bull (Barge), and other great leaders like Nick Mobley and Khalil McDonald. We keep the faith in each other. I know when I have guys like that supporting me, nothing can go wrong."

On the biggest challenge making the move to linebacker: "I'm not the biggest guy, but at the same time, I feel confident in my game and in the guys around me that I don't care how big the o-linemen are, I'm going to scrape, get over the top or whatever I have to do. Those are things I have to work on as the year progresses. That comes with experience. For my first game, if I were grading myself, I'd give myself a 'B,' but I have a lot to improve on. It was my first game and I'm looking forward to the next one."

Linebacker Bull Barge
On getting the first win and building some confidence heading into the Memphis game: "It always feels good to get a win, to get the first one out of the way and for everyone to feel what it's like to win again, especially with the new coaches. We want to have that feeling from here on out. Last week is in the past now. We wanted to be 1-0 coming out of the [Texas State] game and we did that. It's now time to get our mind shifted to our next opponent. It was great to get the win, but we now have to get back to work and try to get another one."

On the way the defense played over the final three quarters against Texas State: "We felt that during the backend of the Texas State game that we became the defense that we knew we were capable of being. It took a little bit of time and as some of the coaches said to us on Sunday, we now see what we are capable of when we play the way we are supposed to play. Now it's time for us to do that from this point forward every game from the beginning of the game. It felt pretty good to go out and execute well, and come up big when the team needed us to. We feel that if we play like that from start to finish, that there is no telling how good we can be [defensively]"

On A.J. DeShazor stepping into the linebacker role: "I'm proud of A.J.. That was a big-time [performance] for a redshirt freshman. He's played big ever since he's been here. Every spring game, he's made plays and he's made plays in practice. We've always told him that one day his time would come. We didn't know where or when and it just happened to be a linebacker. From the moment that Coach [Greg Stewart] told him that he was going to play a lot [against Texas State], he's handled it well. I helped him out on the field with some advice and he did his job every time. It's good when a guy is able to listen, learn on the run and get the feel for things, and then go back and watch film and continue to get better each and every day. When we watched film [Sunday], he saw that if he had cut-loose more, he could have done that much better in his first game. A.J. is the type of player who can play any position on the field and he's going to help us a lot at linebacker from here on out. We really trust him and love the way he came in and stepped up."

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