Mike Macdonald: "We're Going To Be Resilient"

Mike Macdonald (0:01)

All right, good to see everybody again.

I just got off the radio show sometime, trying to like, do I give you new stuff or do you guys hear it? I'm not really sure. But obviously, it's a disappointing loss, three in a row on the short week. We had such a great opportunity and in a great environment. I thought our fans did a phenomenal job, it was such an awesome. We do such a great job at home, and our fans are loud, man, they do a great job. And in the middle of the game, when we're making the push coming back, there's a lot of great energy in the stadium, our guys were into it. And just didn't had our opportunities to win the game at the end, but we're falling short as a team right now. But right now, like we said last night, we get there's this is a heck of an opportunity to have an extra couple of days to really come up with a great plan of attack and let's go forward, man. I mean, like I told the team last night, we have the players, we have the guys in the locker room to become the team we want to be. And there might be some decisions on where we move them and how we're using guys and kind of everything's on the table right now. So that's what the next couple of days are for as a coaching staff. And let's come up with a great plan of attack and go to work on Monday.

SPEAKER_2 (1:19)

What do the next few days look like for you and the coaches? Like how do you use this time?

Mike Macdonald (1:23)

Well, watch the tape independently this morning before the 930 with Brock and Salk and then we'll get together here after this. And really just let's go through it with a fine tooth comb. Let's have some discussions on where we believe we are. We're gonna do a lot of some self scout stuff and really digest the numbers. And then let's come up with a plan of attack and things we need to work on. And that'll be over the next two days and then Monday we'll be with the guys. So I'll be in here and go attack the plan.

SPEAKER_3 (1:57)

What did the film tell you about yesterday?

Mike Macdonald (2:02)

I think it kind of confirmed what we talked about after the game. And right now it's where we are as a football team. There's things that are really good that we can build off of foundationally, effort-wise, physicality, intent, energy-wise, all that is positive. But there's too many things right now that are costing us football games that we can't do. The takeaway differential, missed tackles and explosive plays on defense, some decisions we're making in the return game.

All those things are what we felt like leaving the stadium last night.

SPEAKER_4 (2:42)

Mike, on the radio, if you don't mind repeating this, you said, when we make big mistakes, we're not living to fight another day. I'm wondering if you expand on that.

Mike Macdonald (2:49)

I didn't quite follow.

SPEAKER_4 (2:50)

Sure.

Mike Macdonald (2:50)

Well, takeaways are the first thing. So as soon as you give the ball away, then the other team has the ball. So that's the easiest one. Then defensively, look, mistakes are going to happen. You're trying to minimize them. Guys aren't going to play a perfect game for 65 plays.

But when that happens, you've got to be able to get it on the ground. So you've got to be able to tackle guys in space, take proper angles, get off blocks, pursuit from the backside. All those things can help get the runner down. But last night, we had two big ones that really hurt us.

SPEAKER_5 (3:26)

Have you experienced similar growing pains in previous installs of this defense? Or is it different maybe because of injuries on the personnel side?

Mike Macdonald (3:35)

I think it's all independent, but the spirit of how you work through it is the mentality of just attack. I told the guys last night, you can get two options. You can give up and say, okay, we're never going to play again, never win another game, or we can go back to work and go through these things in these tough times. And so I know one way and our team is going to know one way, and that's what we're going to do. And it goes with having tough conversations and honest conversations, and tweaking some of your systems, and a lot of the process that gets you some of these results. But this is a little independent. Every team is a new team. It's all new guys.