Photo by Todd Van Emst
Clint Moseley took a beating in his first collegiate start.
LSU hit him early, often and kept putting Auburn’s sophomore quarterback on the ground. Under that kind of pressure, some quarterbacks panic, but Auburn’s coaches and players universally praised Moseley’s ability to stay calm in the face of a blowout loss and the worst beating Moseley said he’s ever taken.
“When we went three-and-out and gave up a sack, he’d come to the O-line and say ‘C’mon y’all, we can do it, I still trust you guys, give me a little time,’” lineman John Sullen said. “He’s a very patient guy.”
Moseley seemed to almost surprise himself with his cool under pressure. After admitting he had never been hit like that before, Auburn’s sophomore quarterback said it never rattled him.
“I caught myself thinking, I don’t really know what to say,” Moseley said. “We were getting beat so bad, I’ve never been in this situation before.”
One thought kept running through his mind, and Gene Chizik backed up Moseley’s calm earlier in the day by saying that Moseley never panicked.
“The only thing I could come up with is, I’ve got to keep my composure, because if the line sees me panicking, then that leads to more,” Moseley said.
For more, follow the blog on Twitter. More news and notes from Sunday’s media session follow…
- Moseley echoed the major refrain from Auburn’s players by saying that the Tigers need to eliminate mistakes. “We’ve just got to eliminate stupid mistakes… It’s little things we work on every single day that’s killing us.”
- T’Sharvan Bell talked about how hard it was to handle LSU’s 35-point barrage in a span that only lasted 12:33 by saying that some of the younger guys on the team — and there are a lot of them — seemed a little shell-shocked, eyes wide open. As a team leader, Bell said, it’s partly his job, and the job of the other older players, to get them focused again.
- LSU has a reputation as a team with a lot of swagger, but T-Bell didn’t see the top-ranked team in the country doing anything that was unsportsmanlike. “Of course there’s going to be some chatter, but they did a good job of celebrating amongst each other and with their team.”
- Bell said LSU didn’t do anything the defense hadn’t seen in practice. “We put a big premium on this (eliminating big plays) from last Sunday all the way til Friday. The coaches are taking it hard because it’s a team loss, like I said, and it reflects not just on us but on the coaches as well.”
- Defensive coordinator Ted Roof had an interesting comment on how tough the coaches take a loss. “In this business, you feel the lows of the losses more than you feel the highs of winning,” Roof said. “As a coach, you can’t allow your players to see that.”
- Neiko Thorpe took the loss hard. Judging by his interview, the loss — and the big plays LSU made in the passing game — really left Thorpe disappointed. “Me being a safety, that says a lot,” Thorpe said. “To score, they have to get past us. I took it hard, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”
- Thorpe, a former cornerback, said both Robenson Therezie and Chris Davis, who were victimized by Rueben Randle on long touchdown catches, have to have short memories. A guy can’t dwell on a mistake like that.
- John Sullen echoed the defense’s words about not being able to execute the game plan. “They didn’t do anything too out of the ordinary, but we just didn’t trust our technique and trust what we were taught to do throughout the week.”
- Communication, Sullen said, played a large role in the offensive line’s struggles against a top defense. “We didn’t communicate like we usually do.”