Coach Mendenhall Press Conference - Florida State

The following is a partial transcript of BYU Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall's weekly press conference:

Good morning. We’re anxious to put the Air Force game behind us after we had a chance today to apply all the lessons we need to with our players and move forward. We’re looking forward to the return match-up versus Florida State and in trying to improve our football team.

Considering the uniqueness of Air Force’s attack, how much can you take from that and make improvements or adjustments?

It’s a really good point. Not much, quite frankly, from a schematics standpoint, but quite a bit from a fundamentals standpoint and quite a bit from just a team maturity and overall program standpoint. We knew it would be a significant test playing Air Force this early in the season, especially with this particular team. What became really apparent is that even though we had an excellent week of preparation with two extra days, when you add the offensive scheme of Air Force in a normal practice week – even though I thought practice went well – you could tell it still wasn’t quite at the same level and you could tell in the execution. Probably some of the issues I’d expected to see in week one manifested now in week two. It’s much better to have them in week two than week five, and if you have to learn those lessons, which I wish we didn’t, it’s part of the growing pains of this team. Hopefully now, myself and my staff will be able to make the corrections.

Do you think the offense has a hard time with its identity with the current quarterback situation?

I’m not sure that had as much to do with it. We really played, and are really trying to be as effective as possible at grooming and training our younger quarterback in Jake Heaps. At that time, again with the help of Coach Doman, it seemed with the way the game was going it’d be wiser to play a more experienced and mature young man. Even though Jake is very, very capable and he’s going to be a fantastic player, and probably this year, it just seemed wise to protect him a little bit in that game.

How different is this year’s Florida State than last year’s?

It’s hard to say after watching two games. I think every team in the country is still trying to get a great handle on identity and where they might be, so I’m not really prepared yet to say from what I’ve seen on film.

Where you happy with the Air Force game plan and execution?

I wasn’t involved at all, defensively, in terms of the plan. I positioned myself more with special teams this year thinking that was going to be more beneficial over the long haul. The plan was very similar to what we’ve done before with only a couple key issues besides the fundamentals. We saw some formations that we were late to get adjusted to, but I thought the plan overall was fine.

Are you nervous at all to take a freshman quarterback into Florida State?

It would if it was a normal freshman, but I think that you’re already finding with Jake Heaps that he’s quite seasoned and we wouldn’t even be considering him as a freshman if he wasn’t sort of atypical. So I think he’ll handle it well based on the role that he’s given.

What is the plan for the quarterback situation for Florida State?

It’s still being developed. We met as an offensive staff this morning which is something I never do. I can’t give you a definitive answer right now, but most likely when a plan does come into place we’ll probably move away from the every-other series to see it becoming more situational, but it’s too early to give you a definitive answer on that one.

Oklahoma was able to throw the ball effectively against FSU, will that affect which quarterback gets the most reps during practice and the game?

It might. We need to throw the ball more effectively than we currently are. If you looked at the Air Force game in particular, we ran the ball effectively but had very little success throwing the football. The Washington game was more representative of the balance I think we’re hoping to get. In order to beat FSU, it’ll have to be more toward the first plan than the second plan and we’re still in the early stages.