Asst. HC/STC Chris Horton on replacing Tyrone Tracy in the return game

Chris Horton (0:00)

Good morning, good to see everyone. Just as we get ready for this divisional game, you know, our guys came back, they're fired up, ready to continue to play.

Really just try to play consistent football because we know that the things that we're working on consistently, that's going to help us achieve greatness in our phase of the game. Questions?

SPEAKER_2 (0:21)

What did you see on the kickoff return when you watched it back?

Chris Horton (0:24)

The kickoff return, it's just something as simple as we need to be right where we need to be right. From a fundamental standpoint, every kickoff return needs an edge. We play some younger guys, we put a guy out there and the ball just runs down the sideline. That shouldn't happen.

That's an easy fix and those things are the things that I'm talking about, that we need to be consistent in how we play and how we operate.

Evan (0:48)

You talked about how much you guys have faith in Dominic and Harv told us yesterday that he believes he can be a long-term solutioner. So with these latest misses, how do you continue to keep his confidence up knowing that he is? So many of you guys have a lot of faith in.

Chris Horton (1:02)

You know, Evan, just continue. I say this before, man, just continue to believe in the kid, right? And just help him understand, like, you know, some of those misses, a lot of those things are, you know, those are those are fundamental things that I know we can we can get fixed, we can take care of. And we spend a lot of time on the bye week, just kind of like diving into it and just thinking about, you know, what can we do on these kicks? And we just watch those kicks over and over and over again, and he will be consistent. And those are the things that we are expecting of him, and he's expecting of himself.

SPEAKER_2 (1:31)

At what point, though, does it become a worry or a concern? Like, when is it, like, yeah, we're sticking with it, he'll figure it out. So like, it might have been an issue here.

Chris Horton (1:39)

I mean, I don't think that's something that we think about, right? I think we think about the process of now, like, where are we now?

And so far, yeah, he's, you think about the kicks that he has missed, the five kicks that he's missed. Again, to me, those are all fundamental things that we can work on. I don't think you go into it and say, hey, all right, we need to be worried about this, we need to be worried about that. We just let him, we go out there and we perform and we believe in him, let him know we believe in him. And then, yes, we expect kicks to go in. That's a requirement, right? And so those are the things that we are asking of him and he's asking of himself. And then we put him out there and he'll go get it done.

Evan (2:17)

With Tracy out, just kind of what are some options you're looking at in the return game?

Chris Horton (2:22)

Just, you know, this is a next man up business, right Evan? So we got guys in the building, man, whoever we put back there, we expect those guys to come out there and have the same kind of success, right? But everything that Tracy's done, everything that Charlie's done, everything that Braxton has done, it starts with everybody, right? It's 11 guys, it's not just that returner. So we got to make sure that we're blocking. We're going to make sure that we're giving a lane so whoever we put back there, so they can continue to have success.

SPEAKER_2 (2:53)

As big a role as he's playing now in defense, would you consider Tay back there at all?

Chris Horton (2:59)

You know, it's a possibility. I don't think anything's off the shelf, right?

We talk about trying to win football games, right? And if that gives us the best opportunity to win the football game, we're talking about one rep, right? We're talking about one rep where we can go out there and have the most success. So I don't think anything's off the table from that regard.