On the usefulness of the bye week
“We have two of them. I think they’re very useful just to study yourself. When we talk about that, study your personnel. Are you playing the right guys? Are they in the right position? Evaluate their performance based on their tackling, their coverage win percentage, and their ability to get off blocks. Heavily evaluate our schemes and what we’re calling in certain situations. Whether it be by down and distance or by certain personnel groups. You spend that entire time reflecting, not only on the season but we had an 8-9 week period through training camp, through our first four ball games where we’re trying to assess your players, schemes, and how we best should move forward.”

On stopping big plays
“The big plays are happening in the run game. They’re only happening in the run game; they’re very specific. It’s not like they’re running the ball for 50 yards and throwing the ball for 50 yards. I think we have a good plan in terms of what they’re doing when we think they’re throwing the ball. We’ve got to solve the obvious, which is not just the run defense but the simplest of plays that we’re giving up in the run defense. Really, it comes down to the guys being in their gaps. Guys having the ability to get off blocks. Credit to the other team. I have to evaluate, can they block us? Can we tackle them? I think through the Cincinnati game and the Michigan game because they’re the two comparable opponents in terms of talent, similar to ours or better, you have to be able to evaluate. Right now, we’re getting blocked too much, and we’re not tackling them well enough. We have to practice that. We have to emphasize that. At times, we have to put more guys in the box, and as you know, when it’s 11 on 11, when the quarterback is running the ball, the more you put in the box, the more you make yourself susceptible to throws down the field. We have to address that because that’s the elephant in the room. Captain Obvious could figure out that we’re giving up too many explosive runs.”

On playing Aidan Chiles
“I think he’s a great athlete. I think he can throw in the pocket. He can throw on the move. He can run design. They have the quarterback draws that we’ve seen out of Cincinnati and we’ve seen out of Michigan. They have the same exact structure that we’ve seen. They run him a lot in the red zone. Then, he just takes off a lot and scrambles. He’s very difficult to tackle. You can see, he has a very strong lower body. You can see, he’s a very good competitor, which is what it comes down to in these games. The competitors stand out. The ones that are not on your team, the ones that are on their team. Much like Sorsby, when you see how well he’s competed even after our game. Those guys that have it in them, in their heart. They’re going to do whatever it takes to win. Those are the types of guys that you have to make sure you’re defending.”