Babers Presser...Hard Head, Soft Behind Edition

Coach Babers held his weekly presser today.  It was full of classic Dinoisms...the man is 100% quotable, that's for sure.

He was asked if the defensive improvements had helped build the confidence of the players.

He said that for the whole team that winning the last 3 games "helps to clear the air about some of the things that are said out there."

John Wagner asked what he was talking about in terms of things that are written out there...and Babers said some of the things written about the defense were read and that once you begin to achieve the criticism actually bonds the football team.  Then he said.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.  (Proverbs, BTW)

He said WMU is more balanced than OU and therefore causes problems.  And, having confidence is fine but you have the same problems when the ball is snapped.

Then Wagner asked about the defensive stats, which were shaky for the OU game.  He asked Babers what we should use to evaluate the defense.

Babers:  "I like to use my eyes."

He said that the defense has "gelled."  They are not "fighting over the things that don't matter.  The things that matter in defense are running to the football, tackling in space and creating turnovers."

In other words, he said, defense is about doing the little things well and less about the big picture.

He said having Ryland Ward helped.  He is very experienced and allowed BG to rotate safeties, which was important given that OU ran 110 plays.  BG was able to keep performance high even when facing that many plays.

He was asked about not having a long drive all season.  He joked right back, reminding the questioner that BG did have a long drive, 5:46, which was twice as long as the rest of them.

He did say that he was not happy with how the offense played.  The offense needs to do better...there were too many 3 and outs.

When asked about the inability to run the ball, he said first that his Father used to say that "a hard head makes a soft behind..." and then went on to say that OU was determined to keep BG for running the ball.  He said they were saying "throw it if you want to win."

And, Coach Babers added, "So, we wanted to win."

There was good news about DJ Lynch, who is now running with trainers.  We hope to have him back after the 16-day bye ("the longest bye I have ever heard of").

Finally, when asked about special teams, coach said he couldn't sleep and got up at 4:30 and watched the game again and that Joseph Davidson might have been the offensive player of the game for BG.  He forced OU into long drives...and it is "hard to be that right that long" and that was huge in BG's ability to stop drives.