FL atanta game look back on um I think there was some good there were some bad you know anytime you get into a game whether we win or lose it's always the same process for us in terms of evaluate the film reinforce the things that we did well and then talk about the things that we need to improve on and correct so that'll be the process no matter what the result is because if you do it that way you know game in game out then the goal is to get better coming out of each one of them so how happy were you that the first half I count out 22 24 players on defense and I didn't see any big communication game one with that many players in the system was that positive yeah certainly I think you know we always talk about and stress it you know I want it to get better even than what it was our staff wants it to get better even than what it was we did have a lot of guys out there playing we had a lot of guys um who maybe were in under the lights for the first time or just playing in their first game here in this stadium so um I thought for the most part we handled it well there was a couple occasions where we got to be louder and we got to do it better and we're emphasizing that this week Dylan and uh khil being out long term on the Jonathan said I was wondering how that affects your depth we saw Avon gross was in there playing a good number of snaps just how you see that secondary depth being hit by it yeah I mean there there are two guys that are good players that were in the plans to play a lot and they're not available for the uh you know for the foreseeable future so you know those guys go down and and other guys got to step up I thought Avon did a really nice job um you know he was uh spent a lot of the week on the Scouts and then all of a sudden you know in the game he's got to come in and he's got to go and play and that won't be the last time that happens it's a football season so uh some of the younger guys are going to have to you know be fast forwarded and uh be able to give us meaningful snaps so our for you and when we saw him last week I don't know if that was like personal or injury or say that again or morian Smith is he on the table for you was last week sort of a personal thing or an injury thing as much as you can say yeah I mean each each week's its own week obviously he's been you know having some some some personal um things he's been dealing with just with with his loss so each week so its own week um and so uh I think he's been able to to respond from um you know some of the things and get back and be around but those decisions were made week to week based on him and Coach Smith and whether he's available or not so with Dylan in particular when you talk about that the back end of your defense with his versatility how much coming into the year was he maybe integral to moving the different guys around the secondary yeah you know he's played multiple spots obviously played a lot of corner last year safety and nickel you know this year so I think when you have a guy who can do multiple things it's always a good piece to the puzzle the one thing that coach Adams does a good job with at safety he we we move those guys around a lot not only uh DT but you know all the guys so I think what it does is it creates flexibility and it creates some depth and creates some multiple skill sets so uh he certainly DTI one the young the young guys that we talked a little about freshman I can't remember Denson and Brinson was playing there but one of those guys able to maybe step in yeah Thompson Denson Brinson all three of those guys um are you know guys that we brought in in the secondary and I'm excited about all three of them I think they're all going to be great players for us um you know maybe their Tim tables moved up a little bit than what the initial plan was but it never goes according to plan so that's football you talked uh about how much you've learned week one what what were you pleased like when you see guys space week one as well as you guys did as many got different guys in the back field being disruptive like what's your initial sort of reaction in your chest as as you SE well I was proud of how hard they played uh that was the first thing I thought they played really really hard um I thought they were physical um and I thought that they did do a good job leveraging the ball um and and tackling in space like you mentioned we missed some uh but when we missed them we missed them with leverage uh which is which is the goal and you know I think every week you know that's something that you've that's a concern and it's a challenge for a defense and I think always at the beginning of the year it's always a little bit harder than maybe towards the middle or end simply because the limiting uh roles in terms of tackling and things like that you don't get to maybe tackle as much as you did uh back in you know 10 15 years ago so I think those things were positive how much was the like it seemed like you had Corners pressing a little bit how much was that based on a team that didn't throw the ball a lot down field versus what you'll see this week how much was that opponent specific versus S of what you want to do I would say it's game plan specific right so what we do is based on what we got to do to win the game and when I say that I know I smiled but like that's I've always kind of viewed at that like what do we got to do to win this game and so if that's press That's press if that's off that's off if that's playing cover two all game that's playing cover two if it's Balon and playing a third all game then that's what we got to do um so we we feel like we have the ability to mix um and the ability to do different things and each game plan kind of requires something different when you went back and looked at the penalties in particular I guess how do you kind of balance that line you done mentioned about the aggression with which they play yeah versus versus the unique nature of that quarterbacks and the slid I mean like how how did you view the penalty yeah I mean listen the the fact of the matter is you know we can't have that many penalties right it's unacceptable extends drives it givs first downs that's the first thing the second thing is you know there there's aggressive acts of playing the game and then there's like things that happen after game that have no or after the whistle that have nothing to do with playing football those were in the course of the game we got to be better when a quarterback slides of yoing and pulling off I mean to me quite frankly that's that's it we got to keep our hand down when we're straining up front on the D line we got a hand up in the face when we are able to get a guy out on the edge don't grab the horse collar you know wrap through the legs and again when the quarterback goes down late on you you got to be able to yield um and and so those are really how I it and you show the video uh we've done some drills on on it and and then we talk about it but I didn't feel it was a after the whistle that type of thing um which is even even less acceptable uh none of the penalties are acceptable we can't have we have eight again you know we're going to put ourselves in a tough situation to win a game it's been a while since people around here felt really good about the defense I wonder if you've heard from people this week fans anybody else just in your interactions have you heard from sort of in your walkabouts in life no reaction you same I'm kind of insulated I hear from my wife uh she said to take the trash out um my kids they just want to talk about Sparty um my dad always gives suggestions about what we could have done better regardless if we win or lose so so no like and it's one game right each game's its own week you know we talked at the beginning of the week There's a fine line between good defense and bad defense I've been doing this 24 years sometimes you you think it's it's not going real well you're this close to getting it well sometimes you're playing well and you're this close to playing bad so each week's its own week and each week we got to play with detail if we don't we won't have a good game the first points of of the Jonathan Smith era coming on on a safety as a defensive coordinator I assume you have to take some pride in you would you saw him and then also with Alex being you know we hadn't seen him in two years and he gets a start yeah I mean it's again you he's on the flip side of that right we got a couple guys that got banged up in the game Alex is coming back back from the being banged up so you get put in those hard situations they're either going to strengthen you or weaken you I mean that's in life right hard strong strengthen you or it makes you quit and so he's gotten stronger from it so it was exciting to have him out as far as the safety listen this nothing we're not think about it historical or perspective wise it was like we got him down there we got two points we got the ball back for the offense let's let let's go so you've been a part of the Big 10 now 12 12 years or something I mean you were on the other side and these guys had some of their very def I'm sure you remember to have is your hope though that your defense at some point will be like a program identity again that it once was yeah I I think if you're a defensive coach and that's your goal right you you you want to play really really good defense you want to have a defense that plays really hard you want a defense that plays physical and goes out and does their job and can be something that that that the football team and the program the university in the town can kind of hang their hat on I mean I think that would be the goal of any any so is that something we aspire to yeah do we have work to do to get there absolutely you know so um that that takes that those things kind of happen over the course of time what you see in Martinez coming out of the portal and and how's he gone about this Camp you know just being here about a month or so to as much as we saw ball skills you know um when we looked at him in the portal I thought he had really good ball skills and I thought he did a nice job in coverage and was you know willing willing tackler and you know through camp and through game one you know I think he he's he's shown himself to be that he certainly has things we want to continue to see him get better at but um you know I think he's he's he's working hard coach Smith talked about the dline depth yeah um obviously before the season you probably knew as a staff that was a big strength you guys had but how encouraging was it to see it really come into full effect yeah it was good I mean I think we you know we would have sat here in mid August and you know we just talk about depth in general in terms of having a lot of guys that we feel like we could put in the game and hopefully everyone feels like we hope true to that you know and we get a lot of guys in you get guys snaps it keeps people involved it helps build depth it gives people uh opportunities to go out there and shine so I I thought it was good to have multiple kind of dine and rolling through and and really at all the positions when an offense is struggling to produ and the dth is able to you know generate points or get takeaways and stuff usually they can feed off of that and it can kind of like help swing the momentum back in favor of whatever team but um you know Brian talked yesterday how that didn't happen and um I guess what I'm curious about is like when when it's not happening how like maybe demoralizing that could be for a defense when you're setting your offense up for success and then how do you prevent that like late game fade because that's kind of been an issue for Michigan State's defense in past Seasons yeah so I think here here's how I view the game like is the defensive job is to go out and stop people regardless of what the circumstances are whether the ball's on the on the one yard line or if it's on the 99 I know you know so they got to go 99 yards that's got to be our mentality we talk all the time about the ability to respond when things aren't going well we come in the training camp and that was one of the points of emphasis for training camp that I gave them there was three things and one of them was the ability to respond because this year is going to be hard okay the year is going to be hard and so when things get hard how are you going to handle it are you going to pull together or are you going to pull apart and so that's been like a theme of ours on and on and on right and so it it's not demoralizing it's hey what do we got to do to help our teammates out what do we got to do to win the game that's got to be the mentality now the teams that fall apart they start thinking about themselves okay and they start blaming and complaining and blame and complain is not a recipe for success in any Walk of Life so what do we what what what happens we got to pull together and we got to get their back and they're going to have our back they're going to be a game where we're not getting enough stops I can promise you that now no one wants to hear that but I'm just telling you because that's football right and and we're going to go out and we're going to outscore someone and that day is coming and they're going to have our back with it too so that's just the football that's how you play together and it's complimentary football did you see moments of guys pulling like especially on defense like pulling together absolutely because I'm in the booth so like my big thing is like after you know something occurs like I sometime I'll ask the staff hey how how are they down there how they doing you know and every time I asked they're like they're good you know even the touchdown we gave up in the second half where like I I didn't think we executed real well on the drive we kind of we we we had some things that allowed them to get down there and I said how are they I said they're fine they're good so you just got to go out and play so that's that's always critical but even more of an unknown this year with so many players that didn't know each other eight months ago absolutely you got to be happy with it I was concerned about that to be honest with you because of what you just said because that's built over time you know the ability to to have that continuity but I think we we talked about it right when we got there and I think the assistants the defensive staff have done a really good job of preaching it and we've just kind of brought it up but I think you can kind of control that a little bit as a coach too how you handle things right if you freak out all the time right what are the players going to do they're going to freak out all the time so you know th those are the things where like if how when something doesn't go to your way how do you handle it how do you respond and uh you know I think our defensive staff does a really good job with handling it in practice not that when things don't go well it's not acceptable but it's like here's what went wrong here's why it wasn't good enough let's fix it and time for a couple more uh Maryland yes um another quarterback that will run it but also throws in the pocket real well and speed a receiver and explosive running back this weekend yeah they're very good I mean they put up 50 points they had I mean they moved the ball at well they threw it they ran it they got talented receivers they got depth they got size they got two returning backs All Conference guys uh the quarterback I mean not even what he did in the first game but you watch what he did in Auburn last year in the bowl game came in they jumped up I think 21 uh and and so they're they're impressive you know I got a lot of respect for their their program and their skill players and their their offensive line I thought did a nice job opening holes and they've ' always been a challenge they got really good coaches they got a veteran staff they got a got a lot of guys on staff that have been former head coaches so they're a really good program and you've coached against them before yeah in the past how how similar is this to the taloa teams or just in general well their OC's have been different they've had I think this is the third one since I've coached against them um they've always been 11 12 Personnel team they've always usually operated out of the gun but like the flavor is a little different obviously based on who the OC is but they've always been a team that can score on you fast and um they they certainly have our full attention thanks