Cox Analyzes the Offense

Georgia practiced yesterday -- the first Sunday practice under Mark Richt's new schedule that gets the players back to work the day after a game and gives them Monday off. After the practice session, I spoke with Joe Cox about his thoughts on what went wrong Saturday against Oklahoma State. Here's what he had to say.

David Hale: Coach Richt said these Sunday practices were going to be about evaluating the last game and fixing some problems before moving on to preparations for the next week. So when you looked at the Oklahoma State game, what did you see?

Joe Cox: There’s just things that we’ve got to do better, plain and simple. I like what we did today. It gives us more time to look at things and to really go ahead and get it out of the way as early as possible.

DH: From my perspective, it just seemed like as an offense, you were slightly off. Things were close to clicking, but never quite got there, and you seemed out of rhythm. Is that a fair assessment?

JC: Things, it seemed like whenever we’d have a good play, there’d always be one person or two people that didn’t finish a block, or even me – we’d have a guy running open and I wouldn’t put it on him. It was just little things that really hurt us on offense.

Reporter: Did Oklahoma State do some things defensively that took you by surprise?

JC: They did some things we didn’t expect, but it wasn’t like they just had us dumfounded to the point where we didn’t know what to do. We just didn’t play well.

DH: You came into Saturday's game not really know what to expect from the offense. Did you learn anything from it that will help you establish what that offensive identity is?

JC: No. We haven’t played to our potential, and really we just have to play loose. I think there was a lot of people at certain points in the game played not to mess up. There was times where I didn’t just cut it loose, and I know it’s the same for some other guys. WE just need to find what we’re good at and get a plan that everybody knows what to do and can cut it loose and play full speed, and we’ll be fine.

DH: It seemed like, particularly after that first drive, you guys stuck to a core couple of players on offense rather than opening it up. Was that the game plan, and why weren't more players like Marlon Brown or Rantavious Wooten used?

JC: We definitely want to play as many people as we can and I’m not sure why we didn’t sub some other people in. That’s not my decision. Whatever reason Coach Bobo and the other offensive coaches did that for, you’d have to ask them.

DH: What was it like for you watching the film from the game?

JC: Obviously when you see things you didn’t do well on, you wish you could get them back. That’s just football. You’re going to have good games and you’re going to have bad games. You can’t dwell on the past but it is tough watching film, especially from the day before that’s still fresh on your mind and you know there were things you could have done better that may or may not have changed the outcome of the game. It’s just always hard to see things like that that you think about.

Reporter: Branden Smith was used a lot on offense. What did you see from him that made you think he could be a contributor?

JC: He’s a great athlete and I think he does well in all three phases. He can definitely make plays with the ball in his hand, and that’s why we put in a package for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if as the season goes along we give him more and more instead of just keeping it to a couple of plays, but we wanted to get him used to it and see what he could do, and he can definitely help us on offense.

DH: Smith seemed like one of many players that was close to breaking one but didn't get the chance on Saturday. Did it feel like you guys were close but couldn't get over the hump?

JC: Yeah, it’s just frustrating when you don’t execute. And that’s what happened – we didn’t execute.