WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — No. 2 Oregon shutout Purdue 35-0 Friday night at Ross-Ade Stadium.
Ryan Walters recapped the loss for the Boilermakers (1-6, 0-4 Big Ten), who are off next week.
Below is a transcript of Walters’ postgame press conference.
No. 2 Oregon (7-0, 4-0 Big Ten) vs. No. 22 Illinois (5-1, 2-1)
- When: Saturday, Oct. 26
- Time: 12:30 p.m. PT
- Where: Autzen Stadium, Eugene
- TV channel: CBS
- Stream: You can watch this game live for FREE with Fubo (free trial) or with DirecTV Stream (free trial). If you already have a cable provider, use your login information to watch this game on cbssports.com.
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RYAN WALTERS
On the offense being shutout:
“Especially early we had self-inflicted wounds on early downs, like negative yardage on early downs. I thought we were able to move the ball, especially on the ground. But we have a false start or misread where we keep it instead of give it and you take a negative-yardage play. Now you got third and long and those hard to get especially against a talented team.”
On Ryan Browne:
“There were mistakes early. I thought he played hard. Thought he operated the offense well. But did he play perfect? No. Absolutely he didn’t. Some of the plays that he made a week ago just weren’t able to make those type of plays because of the type of opponent we were playing. But he’ll grow Obviously he’s a redshirt-freshman in his second start. Obviously disappointed with the atmosphere, the game and all that was available from an opportunity standpoint. I thought our fans showed up and showed out. It was a beautiful night and a beautiful stage to do something special and I’m just disappointed we weren’t able to get that done.”
On plan for bye week:
“We got to give them tomorrow off because of the short week. We’ll get in on Sunday and put the game to bed, watch the tape. We’ll practice early next week to get a jump start o Northwestern and add some new wrinkles here and there on offense and defense. Then at the end of that week we’ll get on the road recruiting.”
On Hudson Card’s status:
“Just not cleared in time. He wasn’t in the full clearance of the protocol. He’s doing fine now though. So expect him to be available next time we play.”
On whether they’ll play two quarterbacks in the next game:
“Let’s get to the week and we’ll evaluate it.”
On if the offense was more expansive this week:
“We’ll continue to add wrinkles as we go based on what the opponent presents as maybe things that we can try to attack or exploit. We get CJ Smith back next week. I think that will be huge for us. We got to continue to execute. I thought we were able to move the ball when we were clean, just couldn’t convert on some of the third and longers and definitely can’t take negative yardage plays on early downs.”
On his play-calling on offense:
“I felt comfortable at being able to get to calls that I wanted to get to. I’ll continue to get better. I’m very thankful for the offensive staff and some of the ideas that they’re presenting and the communication on game day. But we had zero points today so obviously didn’t do a good job.”
On Corey Stewart’s status:
“I think he’s OK.”
On maintaining the buy-in:
“I haven’t needed to beg them to continue to play or continue to be bought in. I think when you have failures you need to be able to point to why you failed and come up with solutions on how to improve. I think when you can do that and point at something tangible it gives a sense of hope and an explanation on how to get better. We got a group of guys that are prideful and want to go compete and want to go play. We’re not having to beg them to go prepare, to go practice or go play.”
On if they have the answers on offense:
“Obviously, we had an explosive output last week against a really good opponent. We just played the No. 2 team in the country. We got a lot of young guys that are playing as well. Thought we were able to move the ball, it’s just we were what on third down? 4 of 12 on third down and we took negative0yardage plays early. I think we got the pieces. I think we’ll come up with more answers as we go and diversify what we’re doing, especially in the throw game and we’ll continue to improve.”
On starting slow:
“You got to execute. The first drive we were moving the ball and then we had a false start and now all of a sudden you’re behind the chains. You can’t do that when you’re trying to start a drive. We’ll continue to look at it as a staff and continue to emphasize the importance of starting fast but you can’t negative-yardage plays. You can’t have penalties opening drives.”
On Nyland Green:
“It’s not his foot. He had a pretty significant injury and his status is kind of up in the air right now.”
For the rest of the year?
“I’m not sure. We’ll see.”
On pre-snap penalties:
“I think part of the issue tonight was some of the snap operations. We were doing a lot of shifting and moving so they were communicating a lot. So maybe we look at how our cadence is and how we can sort of clean that up to not go on the defensive sound. I think that was what was getting us tonight.”
On Browne’s passing:
“I thought he drop-back passed really well a week ago. There was a number of reasons why the drop back game wasn’t there tonight. Whether it was the time he had or the people being open. Again, he’s a redshirt-freshman in his second start so there’s going to be a learning curve there. I know he had a great week a week ago. But he’s still a redshirt-freshman and he’ll continue to improve.”
On if the bye week changing due to circumstances:
“We’re going to stick to our process. I’m confused why we would change our process.”
On if what they’ll do is different than what they would do in another off week:
“It’s a bye week. We’ll stick to our bye week plan.”
— James Crepea covers the Oregon Ducks and Big Ten. Listen to the Ducks Confidential podcast or subscribe to the Ducks Roundup newsletter.
