Everything Kirk Campbell said during his pre-Washington press conference

On what he's seen from Alex Orji and what kind of player he can be

Yeah, what I saw from Alex is, you know, his first start was in a big game. Huge game. Arguably one of the biggest wins we've had at home since 2021 against Ohio State. He was thrust in that opportunity. He was poised. He was composed. You know, the stat line might not have showed everything he did, but he had command of the huddle, leadership. And we walked away from that game excited. Last week, he had some development in the pass game. There were some things we need to clean up, but he's taking leadership of the quarterback position. And when he's in the huddle, he has full command. And the players responded to that.

On what can be done to help the passing game

Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, you know, number one goal is for us to win the football game. And, you know, when you get in the games, you know, they play out different ways. You get big leads in big games and you want to get to the finish line with the W. Like that's the ultimate goal. But to help out the pass game, one, we got to execute with more precision and detail across the board. Making sure we put them in good position. But then when the plays are called, we got to go execute them as well. So there's a catch 22 there. Like, yeah, we have plays in the call sheet to be creative that everybody wants. But when you're not executing at a high level and moving the football, they're hard to get off the call sheet. So once you start rolling first downs, you're able to call those things. And, yeah, not even having Semaj last week was a little bit of a detriment. You know, that's one of our most explosive players. And trying to get him involved, as you saw early in USC, that's what we were trying to do. So, yeah, we got to help those guys. But when the plays are called, we got to execute as well.

On Jack Tuttle's health status

Yeah, so like I'm not going to fully disclose on injuries, but Jack is progressing in a very, very good manner. And he's getting some reps here and there.

On what he's emphasizing for the offense heading into the first road game

Yeah, the environments, you know, as I've been told, is as loud as any we've ever been into. So we got to make sure we practice a variety of different cadences. We got to be prepared for the noise. So we're practicing that, making sure we can get off all on the snap count. And then, you know, make sure we're composed, right? Like, you're going to go in there. It's us versus them. And the environment, the noise is going to be great. And we're telling them we're going to take that environment and use that as our energy. So like, hey, all that energy that they're going to produce on their side of the ball, we want to use it as ours and playing fast and physical.

On whether this group is different compared to years past

You know, personally, I don't get that vibe. No, I think this group is ready. They're chomping on the bit to get on the road. You know, playing at home in front of the fans, the best fans in the country, we're excited about. But we also embrace the opportunity to go out there as, you know, 74 strong as a unit and go play against the entire, you know, Washington faithful out there.

On whether he overestimated the talent based on lack of explosion on offense

No, I don't think so. I think when the plays are there, we got to make them, right? And then we got to put them in situations to make the plays, too. You know, that's a statement I still stand by. We got really talented players. But we got to make some more plays. We got to call some plays to get them in situations to go out there and make them.

On what he's trying to do to get wide receiver separation

Yeah, so, I mean, there's multiple things that we have done and we need to continue to do. You get them in stacks and bunches and motions and all that stuff. And then you got to win by confines of the routes, the top of the routes. We know we're going to get challenged in the man coverage, and we got to learn to separate. We've made some critiques to practice just so we can go out there and make sure we practice or play better on Saturdays. We got to continue to emphasize those points and make sure that we execute them and come the end of the day.

On whether starting Davis Warren was the right move in hindsight

Yeah, obviously, you know, we made the decision that was best for the team every week. We're not going to go back and second-guess whether we made the right decision. It was the best decision at the time for the team. Alex will continue to develop himself. What was the second part of that question?

On whether he wished to Orji got more snaps earlier in the season

Yeah, just get him out there more. Yeah, obviously, that was the plan. We were trying to get him out there, but we were never in full control of the game against Fresno State. And then Texas kind of went south early and then we were going to get him into Arkansas State, and we didn't finish the job. All those games, we had the opportunity to step on the opponent's throat, and we didn't do that. So we need to make sure we start taking care of that so we can help develop other guys in depth on the team. As such, it would have been Alex in that situation.

On the importance of not being predictable on offense by throwing more on first down vs. Minnesota

I think that's the most we might have had since Texas, right? That force is in the throwing game. That's kind of the honey hole we've always lived in around here. You go back and look at J.J.'s last six games. That's kind of how we thrive right in there. So it is important to get the drives started, drives going, and I just felt last week for us, they were giving us some advantageous man situations to get the ball to Colston especially, early in drives. So that's what we were trying to do there. But when you get first downs early in drives, it's easier to continue to move the drives. So yeah, that's a conscious effort of us. That's more of the self scout that we look at is how we're calling the game, what we're doing with the game, not necessarily the yardages or all that. We care about wins and how we're calling the game and how teams may call them against us.

On extending drives and being efficient on first down

Yeah, so we stress getting the first first down is the most important thing on a drive, right? You don't want to go three and out when you do. It's detrimental to the defense, it's detrimental to the punt team. You're not playing complementary football. So we need to continue to be aggressive on first down, P and 10 especially, and then continue to get them to move the chains and go. Like in the second half last week, excluding the four minute drive, we had four drives and two of them were 14 or 13 play drives. The other two, one we were moving the football with a turnover, the other was a three and out. So we need to continue to establish more rhythm on first down and not get us in third and long, right? Nobody thrives well in third and long. So just continue to be more efficient on first down.

On why the offense has been boom or bust with its drives

Yeah, so obviously against USC we had a couple short drives, we had an explosive run, right? It's hard to drive the field in college football 14, 15 plays. When you do, that's great, that's outstanding, but it's hard. The defense is going to make a play, they're going to make a call, they're going to make an adjustment. The explosiveness that we mentioned earlier in the past game needs to show up so we get faster drives, right? Now, do we need to score in one minute, two minute like these air raid teams? No, that's not what we're asking for, but it's easier in seven, eight play drives when you get explosive plays in the throw game. Just can't rely on the backbone of the run game to create those explosives. Obviously that happened against UFC, we're thankful for that, but you know, it's not a reality that's sustainable through a course of a season.

On whether he'd like to see Orji more involved in the run game

I think that's a catch-22. Alex really involved in the run game. You're taking the ball out of Kalel's hands a lot. But there's opportunities that perceived maybe that might not be to the public that he is reading an extra defender and now we're using them in conflict and Kalel's getting the run. We are doing more of that than you'd probably think. But yeah, Alex is a huge part of it. Obviously USC picked up a bunch of third downs for us with his legs. Last week he did one in the pass game. I called pass and ran it. But yeah, he's important. He's got to be used in the run game. We tried to use it twice on third down. Neither one netted any success. So it's not as simple as just saying yeah, you're going to run them. We've got to go execute the call as well. He's done a good job. He's got to do a better job.

On whether he feels there's enough time left in the season to get Orji where he needs to be in the passing game

Yeah, obviously at this time of the year things have got to happen a lot faster. We've got to speed up the process and the urgency. He showed strides last week. Obviously it was first and 19 I called the pass play for him. He progressed through and got to his last read. He has the capability to do it. He just needs to continue to do it on a constant basis. We made adjustments in practice to help him get there.

On what the adjustments will be with Orji

I don't know if Coach Moore would like me to say.

On getting Donovan Edwards more involved in the passing game

Yeah, obviously you can go back and look. We did. He had the most snaps on 21 personnel. I didn't understand your question, but we did.

On whether he believes Jadyn Davis is an option this season and what he's seen from him

As far as an option this season, you don't know how this season is going to play out. We constantly develop him every single day. He gets reps just like the other guys. He's got to continue to develop. Nowadays with social media and everything, everyone wants this instant gratification of a freshman coming in and playing. I think Kevin O'Connell said it best, right? Organizations fail. Young quarterbacks fail. You've got to make sure he's developed properly and ready for the situation. He's going to have a bright future at the University of Michigan. Whether that's as fast as the outside perceived media or expectation is, that's not for us to make a rash decision based on that. We're going to put him in the situation when he's ready to go play.

On whether it's been challenging to get Colston Loveland involved in the passing game with defenses keying in on him

He played 16 plays and had four catches. We move him all over the field. He's played field one, field two, field three. Boundary one, boundary two. He's motioned all the way around. We had him in the back field at one point, too. He's got open all but one rep this year.

On the importance of the offensive line to not get dead ball penalties on the road

We're practicing on that. Coach Moore's cranking up the music at practice. Everybody coming off simultaneously. That's the hardest thing whenever you're doing the different cadences, various cadences. Obviously early in the game it's going to be super, super loud. Hopefully we can cancel that noise. If we do, we can go to various different cadences. It's important to come off the ball together. We practiced it a lot yesterday, a lot in the past couple weeks. We need to continue to thrive in that situation. When you don't fire off together, it's kind of hard to execute the run game or even the pass game.

On where he's seen Evan Link improve week to week

Evan has never flinched. Obviously he had some issues early in the season. He's gotten better. Last week he might have got beat once or twice in protection, but he played probably one of his better games. He's needed to continue to develop, and we need guys behind him to continue to push him and develop as well. That's also another part of the situation. He's got to continue to get better, but we've got to get guys behind him better to go out there. Competition breeds success, and we need more competition at those positions.

On Kalel Mullings

Kalel has been a superstar. As far as in the building, on the football field, ever since I've been here he's been asked to play linebacker, to come back over and play offense, to do special teams, whatever. That's the type of player you want in your building. Not only has he, quite frankly, he's bailed us out a bunch of times. That's outstanding. We talk about the players that make plays when there's not one to be had. Those are the special ones. He's done that numerous times, and that's what makes a special player and a special running back.

On the difficulty of having a quarterback trust his reads in the middle of a game

The best way to get better at football is play more football. The more you play, the better you get. We practice a lot of football plays. There's things he was doing in practice that weren't shown up in games that we'd coach him through in the game, and he got through it there at the end. The reps are invaluable. The more reps you get, you're either going to get better, or you stay the same. We've got to make sure that we continue to progress. I thought he did throughout that week. Quite frankly, we're one throw in the last game from being 31-3, and it's a much different situation. The point of emphasis I made to him is every rep counts. You can't take one off. You can't slightly make that mistake. Every rep counts, especially at this level. You're playing good teams no matter who they are in the Big Ten. We've just got to make sure we execute on every single snap. You're going to make errant throws, but they can't just go to the other team. You've got to make sure we can catch them or nobody can catch them.

On the general consensus from recruits when asking about the offense

The number one thing you hear from all the recruits is they love when we win. We won the big games. Ultimately, right now, the situation is we're 4-1. We're trying to go 1-0 every single week. We're trying to go 1-0 every single week. There's no wavering there. We've just got to continue to push forward and find ways to put the ball in the engines. Like I said, I think somebody asked me, what's a successful offense come the end of the year? That's scoring one more point than all your opponent every single game. We've done that all but one game, and we've got to make sure we continue to do that.

On the key to preparing to win Monday through Friday

Simulating the game atmosphere as much as you can. Making sure you get ample reps of the plays that you're going to call early in the game. But nothing The biggest thing is the noise that we have to practice. Practicing the cadence that Chris brought up. Making sure that we're all coming off the ball early. And having none of those pre-snap penalties. You can't get behind the sticks on the road then the crowd gets loud and you're putting yourself in a third and long situation. That's tough. So making sure we're staying ahead of the sticks and make the plays when they're there. We've done a great job of that in the past. We need to continue to do that. Obviously it's been a team effort. You think about Nebraska, we get the turnover right away, we cash it into a touchdown. That's complimentary football. We need to continue to do that.

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