OPENING STATEMENT: I don’t need anyone to tell me when we don’t measure up. That starts with me. I feel so awful for our incredible fans. It was incredible to see them, their support for us, and to not perform any better in games this year like this. I promise you that — I don’t need someone to tell me I didn’t get it done. I think our staff and our young men, starting with our staff, starting with me, have got to create a standard of the way we consistently work, consistently compete, and figure out how to be a true team. That is my goal in 2024, and I’ll need these two to help me and the staff to help me, but it’s disappointing today for our incredible fans and our support from our administration that we didn’t perform any better. Congrats to Coach Locksley. They came prepared and certainly outplayed us.

ON THE QUARTERBACK SITUATION AFTER THE LOSS: It’s wide open. I think Hank has something to him for sure. The guy threw 42 touchdowns, one pick his senior year in high school. There’s something to that. I’m constantly evaluating players, staff, everything, and if we see that my evaluation has been wrong, then we have to change gears and reevaluate to make us better, then that’s the steps we should make. That position should be an interesting one certainly in spring practice.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF AUBURN’S INCOMING CLASS OF WIDE RECEIVERS: Well, I love our wide receiver class. I think it’s one of the best in the country that we signed, and certainly that’s a place we need some depth and some added playmaking ability. So congratulations to Rivaldo (Fairweather) on that. Yes, the receiving corps coming in we were absolutely banking on them helping us and making us better and more diverse so we can do more things, but also we have to play around every position, and I didn’t think we protected well in the first half, didn’t think we ran the ball well in the first half, either, so it’s all of it. Defensively we played really well defensively the second half, but it goes back to that standard. It’s not okay just to play really well and you do your assignment for a half. But we are excited about the wide receivers coming in for sure.

ON HANK BROWN’S SHOWING UNDER CENTER: Hank has incredible poise. I saw it every day when he was running the scout team, and he has very little protection and he stands in there and makes throw after throw after throw. I think he has incredible poise for a freshman for sure. He has great humility. Wants to be taught. Wants to learn. Has a good IQ for the game. Understands timing. Even the last throw that I thought the receivers should have kept coming, that’s kind of what Hank anticipated, but he anticipates throws really well, and he’s got great poise for a freshman.

ON THE BIGGEST DISCONNECT IN THE LOCKER ROOM: don’t know that this is just a case for Auburn, but it’s certainly something that we are battling some. It’s just the disease of me. I think that’s in a lot of areas of life now, and we’re not exempt to it in our locker room. I think we’ve got to face it head on. It’s not everybody for sure, but there’s just a lot of things that I’m hopeful that can be a part of the Auburn football program that, man, we really do care, love, trust one another to put the team first. I think those are the ones who are going to excel in building sustainable programs that compete at a high level. We’re not the only ones to have to battle that, and you see some that are battling it pretty effectively. We’ve got to — particularly when you’re disappointed and you’re not in the playoffs or you’re not in — what do you do then? I think it’s those challenges that make football the best training ground there is for life, and there’s a lot of lessons that we need to learn for sure.

ON AUBURN’S OFFENSIVE GAME PLAN COMING INTO SATURDAY: Well, obviously I don’t feel like it was an effective one. I didn’t get too involved in it for most of the part until this week because of recruiting, and really wanted to kind of evaluate everything about our program. We didn’t run the ball. It starts there. We have to go look at the run schemes that we had, and did we not play hard up front? It’s really hard for me to tell. But they really dominated the line of scrimmage against us. They did load the box now. They forced us to — they had extra hats in the box for sure, and that’s when you’ve got to be able to throw it some. But we didn’t protect the passer real well. It wasn’t all the O-line. Sometimes the backs didn’t get the protection right. But anytime you struggle like we did, it’s not — I don’t feel like the plan was great.

ON AUBURN’S FIRST QUARTER COLLAPSE: Yeah, I was real surprised. Really thought defensively we had — I know we were playing some young kids, but really thought we would start faster and could catch up with these guys. They hit us in a big screen on the first drive, and everything just kind of snowballed. But we had a ton of misalignments and miscommunications right in the early part of the game that really cost us. We’ve got to look at ourselves as coaches first to see why we weren’t more effective in getting those things communicated with our kids.

ON WHAT HE WOULD’VE DONE DIFFERENT IN YEAR 1: Well, every game is different. If you go look at the Georgia game, I wish we would have protected better because we had some shots. If you go to the Ole Miss game, I wish we would have gone more tempo. If you go to the Alabama game, I wish we’d have been able to punch better and I wish we’d have taught 4th and 31 defense better. But ultimately you have to look at yourself as coaches. Our kids are going to make some mistakes sometimes, but in those critical moments, are our kids coached well enough to get it done, and when we don’t get it done, you have to look at — I have to look at myself. Every game is different as to what you would have done differently, but you certainly don’t enjoy having to say that or feel that, but that’s the way I feel right now. We’re going to improve the roster and all of that, but we still could have gotten more out of this season, I believe, for our young men and our wonderful fans.

ON HIS BIGGEST TAKEAWAY FROM SEASON 1: We’re incredibly blessed to be at Auburn, incredibly blessed by our administration and fans, and it hurts like heck to let them now and not compete on given days. But my takeaway is that I’m still as confident as ever that this can be an elite football program again, and it takes great recruiting, but it also takes player-led teams that put team first and the standard of the team every single day first. We’re still learning that, and we’ve got to demand it as coaches, and we can’t waver from it when we get back in January, and I’m looking forward to the leadership of our team doing that.