Everything Mike Furrey said in his first press conference as primary offensive playcaller

Mike Furrey spoke to the media for the first time on Wednesday since being tabbed as South Carolina’s primary offensive playcaller by head coach Shane Beamer.

Here’s everything Furrey had to say.

Since you took over playcalling duties, how much have you taken out of the original playbook? How much have you installed?

“Yeah, it’s a great question. With such limited time, it’s hard to just take everything out and redo everything, so we really haven’t taken out and added a lot. We’ve tried to just do what we’ve done, but yet maybe kind of put some wrinkles on it a little bit to simplify some things, taking out some things that kind of protect the scenarios that we need to be protected. And then, you know, obviously, we all have some ideas and we all game plan week in and week out. And there’s always going to be new things that you add based upon such situational things. So we’ll continue to do that, and we did that last week. Just doing an overhaul of the whole thing, it’s completely impossible right now to do that, so we’re just trying to do what’s best for our players.”

When you look back to last week’s game, how do you separate the two halves with the good and the bad? How do you kind of draw a line between those two?

“Yeah, there’s really one word. I mean, if you go back and watch the film, of course, I wanted to right away, because I just wanted to make sure that I saw what I saw going through the game from the first half, the second half, and reviewing the iPad in between series and things like that. But it really is just one word: It’s just execution. When you look at the first half last week, we were very explosive, and we were making plays. We were taking our shots, and we were completing our shots. We had some trick plays in there that we were doing. We completed some trick plays. And then obviously just the things that we wanted to do consistently, we were just getting some big gains out of and moving the ball, which creates energy, right? All that stuff and having fun and the guys flying around, creates energy.

“I think what happened in the second half, just going back and looking at all of it, I think in the first half, we were like five for six in really called shots. One’s a big touchdown, two of them were big touchdowns, one to Dre (Jacobs), one to Nyck (Harbor), obviously took the one that we got out of the pocket, he took it for 80. And then had some other ones. We had 14 explosives in that game last week, which is, you know, that’s a pretty good stat to have. When you go back and look at the second half, I think we were like two for seven in our shot plays, you know, two for seven in the chunk plays is what we would call. And when we didn’t hit those, when that puts you back in second and third and long, that’s not the game that you wanted to live in. And so we definitely executed way better in the first half than the second half.

“I think the other thing, too, is I think I got a little bit too aggressive. I thought maybe just from a playcalling standpoint, where trying to just put the game away at times, if that makes sense. And so learning lesson for me and going through this process and continue to grow in that area, and protecting those guys instead of just trying to put the game away and get some points and do something like that, just making sure we’re better fit for that, stick to the plan. But the one word is execution. We hit a couple of those big explosives in the second half, we just get one of them, you know, that whole game has changed from a time standpoint. And so that’s the two tales of those halves.”

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What was your reaction when you found out you were going to be the primary playcaller for the rest of the season? And for you personally, what would it mean to you to have that interim tag lifted off and you become the full-time OC?

“Well, you guys know me well enough. I’ve been around this business as a player and as a coach now that my job is what I do on a daily basis right now. My job right now is to make sure that I get our guys best prepared for this weekend and to try to put them in the best position to have fun and go out and coach. Shawn (Elliott) and I and (Marquel) Black(well) and all these other guys on this offensive staff to go out every day and try to make improvements and try to get these guys to continue to develop. That’s our job, right? It’s not about the future. It’s not about what’s next week. It’s not about what’s down the road.

“But I was excited when coach (Shane Beamer) called me into his office and said he had made a change and wanted me to call the plays and wanted to know if I was okay with that, in which I responded yes, and I was definitely up for that task and I felt like I could help the guys out and help him out, which is obviously all why we’re here is to help him out and help this program win, and we’ve all fell in love with South Carolina, to help this school out. But totally excited. It’s a big task trying to get this thing flipped around in all different areas and trying to find the best players to put on the field and put them in the best position. I felt the staff did a heck of a job last week preparing our guys, and I thought our guys were way prepared, but we’ll continue to do that this week, headed towards Coastal, and finish that up tomorrow and seal it up by the time we get to Saturday. But listen, I live day to day. I believe in somebody upstairs that controls all that. So that’ll be stuff that will play out down the road. My job right now is to make sure these guys are ready for Saturday.”

Once you get into the red zone, what’s one thing this team might be missing in terms of being able to convert some of the red zone trips into touchdowns?

“Yeah, you know, that’s the first thing I was saying the whole time in the first half is just, man, we can’t kick field goals. We can’t kick field goals. We know that. I think, again, the biggest thing is just being more efficient in the run game, right? That’ll help you out down there. The DBs aren’t going back up as much, the closer you get to the red zone and pressure and all those kind of things start presenting itself a lot more, just trying to kick you out of field goal range. So we’ve got to be more efficient and not call some of the shot plays. I’ve been around a long time, and I know the old history of Coach (Steve) Spurrier while he was here and the turnovers and getting into the red zone and all those things, taking shots and being aggressive and stuff like that. Kind of a world that I wanted to live in and I’ve always lived in, but at the same time, what’s best for our players when we get into those situations and continue to just keep moving the ball closer and closer and putting more stress on them than trying to just get a one-hit wonder play to score a touchdown.”

You’ve obviously been around LaNorris Sellers for two years, but what was it like the last three weeks to kind of be around him almost in every meeting? What was your role in building his confidence and then also building his strengths in the game plan?

“When you’re a position coach, it’s your job to continue to love the kids around and the guys on the offense, defense, the whole team, that’s your job, right? Still be integrated and have relationships with everybody, but it’s not your job to coach anybody outside your room. And so we never really had those conversations leading up until last week. LaNorris is a young man who is, you know, if he doesn’t trust you, there’s not a lot of words that come out, which is fine, that’s great. He’s guarded and he’s locked in, he’s doing his job. And when he trusts you because of conversations, or now he starts believing, he believes in what you’re saying, believes in what you’re communicating, or what he sees and you see and there’s some dialogue. Now, all of a sudden, there’s some communication, and that conversation gets a lot bigger. I think that’s been the biggest thing over the last two weeks with LaNorris and I’ve been able to communicate on the phone when he’s away from the building, and what do you like?

“I told him, too, now, this isn’t gonna be like we’re gonna do everything you want. You’re still a young kid in college that still needs to learn and develop as a player. So there’s going to be things that you might like, but there’s going to be things I’m going to tell you that this is not what we do successful. So we need to do this. I think there was a relationship that we started building, of ‘Okay, I see that,’ and ‘Hey, you know, I’m not going to be able to get away with everything.’ This is what we’re going to do to help the team. And so I think that relationship grew a lot over the last two weeks and all the way into today at practice. I thought today at practice and this morning, he spoke to our wideouts about some plays that he wants to get done and what he’s demanding. And I think those are all steps for him from a leadership role that we’re pushing him to become, right?

“I know it’s a short period, but I think when you’re the leader of this football program, which quarterbacks are, that they instantly have to be the leader that everybody around you has to believe in what you’re saying or believe in what your actions are preaching. And so we’re working on that as well, not just throwing the ball, not just reading keys. It’s a full development thing that I think has definitely expanded over the last two weeks. And I’ve had fun with it because I’ve just gotten a whole couple of words here and there, and you know, we go paintball and do some stuff like that, but it’s still not a, ‘Hey, we need to do this, you need to do that from a mechanic standpoint.’ It’s just a relationship and a respectful relationship, but it’s been a lot of fun. He’s been very, very receptive.

“I think some of the throws that he threw in that game at A&M, I think the throw to his brother in the first half on the third and long staying in that pocket, throwing the corner route to Pup (Sellers), I think the ball he actually threw to Harbor at the end of the game standing in that pocket and throwing that thing on time. Those are things that he has continued to get better at. One, it’s trust in the guys up front, trust in what’s being called and executed. And so those would be things that will continue to work on here, as we finish out these next two weeks. We’re not going to take our foot off him at all or any of these guys. Our job is to continue to develop him, get him ready, prepared, and get him to play his best they can play on Saturday.”

On the 4th and 1 that went to Matt Fuller, and he got squashed behind the line, how much was that a turning point in that game?

“I think it was just the icing on the cake and the turning point of the game. I think there were some moments, I think the guys started feeling a little bit. This was my decision last week: do I go in the box, we had talked about it, do I go in the box, or do I stay on the field? One of the things is when you don’t stay on the field, it’s hard to vocalize, motivate, gather, encourage, collaborate, and all those things collectively. That’s hard to do when you’re not there, and that’s just something that I pride myself on in regards to making sure, hey, settling guys down, and this is what we got to do. So I think the lack of execution started with that build already, and then getting the ball back so fast, sometimes, and then all of a sudden doing it again, it’s just some of that lack of execution. And I think there’s there was some disappointment in there, too. There were some guys, we had some opportunities where guys were open and we just missed them, or we didn’t get to it for whatever reason. And so I think that was just the collective things that were just kept adding on. And then the 4th and 1, obviously, was kind of like the icing on it. It’s a learning lesson, it’s a hard learning lesson to learn, and we’ll be better from it, but trust me, there’s nobody in that stadium that wanted that 4th and 1 or the 3rd and 2 or the 2nd and 1 more than anybody for these kids than our staff. So we just got to do better and put our guys in a better situation to handle that. We’ll do that moving forward.”

What were your thoughts on Nyck Harbor’s performance and the game he had on Saturday?

“You guys know I’m pretty close with Nyck, and I’ve really enjoyed watching him develop as much as a lot of these other young men that have developed their careers. But to see this young man do what he’s done, he continues to be consistent week in and week out, maybe not having the productivity that he’s wanted week in and week out. And then to watch him catch that ball and run, I think everybody sat there and said, hey, this is what we were waiting on. And what a great thing for him to finally happen. I think people were all excited about him turning around and outrunning four people. I think the most impressive part of it is him seeing release in the route, getting vertical, unbelievable in the transition, finding the hole in the zone, coming back to the ball, snatching it like there was nothing else, no concern, and then turning around and understanding where the defenders were at. That’s the development. That’s been the increase in his game. Then they ran down to the tunnels. But I’m really super proud of him that he got an opportunity to do that on Saturday and look forward to getting back and getting him healthy and continuing that journey.”

Because you’re such a presence on the sideline, how do you sort of close that gap now for Coastal, I guess, because it’s limited when you’re in the booth in terms of what you were doing all season?

“Yeah, I think he goes back to Jordan’s question, too. It’s building those relationships now in a different manner from a leadership role throughout the week. Them understanding why we’re calling things or, hey, we missed this, and we’re just off. We sat here on Sunday after the game, and we went through basically the entire second half, and everybody collectively basically said, ‘This was us. Like, it was nothing that A&M did. It was everything was us.’ That’s one, you have to understand that. You’ve got to understand that we are capable of doing these things, and then you continue to build those leaders in those individual rooms so that you can get them all on the headset, you know, during the drive and say, ’16, hey, go grabs and such, let’s get these guys together. Go rally these guys up. Look at the iPad. Hey, this is what we need to do, or this is our adjustment. Let’s get these guys going,’ and then we huddle that thing up before we take that field.

“Everybody’s in agreement that we’re going out and going to work, and let’s just execute and stay a little bit more fine-tuned on the details. And so that’s just we got to build that during the week. I think Coach Elliott, Coach Blackwell do a phenomenal job of that. We all know Coach Elliott lot longer than Coach Blackwell and his energy and his leadership is a bigger role now, too. He’s taking on a different ownership with the tight ends and O-line, and now us kind of being separated, me being upstairs, and him at the downstairs, him being able to collect all those guys, but we still need to build those leaders that can get those guys together and are comfortable saying, ‘Hey, let’s go to work. Let’s clean this up. Hey, did you see that? Let’s fix that. Hey, we’re this close. Let’s get this next drive. Hey, let’s go get one score here right here and put the game away.’ That’s all part of growth. And I do see that, and I felt it, and I’ve seen more of this week in practice, and I think that’s definitely heading in the right direction.”

You mentioned some of the trick plays that you guys ran in that game. How much of a focal point was that in putting together the game plan for the A&M game?

“Yeah, I mean, obviously, you don’t carry too many of them because you have equity in the play, you gotta rep that play, and you gotta make these guys comfortable in any situation. But I think anybody, it’s really just misdirection stuff. You’re really just trying to create a misdirection. I think gadget plays creates camaraderie, guys having fun, guys talking trash. Somebody’s throwing it that shouldn’t be throwing it, and somebody’s catching it that probably shouldn’t be catching it, or somebody’s blocking. So I think it’s always fun. I learned that from my time in Chicago, which was carried over from Kansas City. I mean, you guys all see what those guys do in KC, and they’re doing all this stuff in the huddle and all those things like that when they’ve been real successful, and they make that stuff up during the week. Same thing like we did in Chicago, a little bit with (Matt Nagy). And so it just creates camaraderie amongst the team a little bit as you go through practice. It’s not just monotonous of the zones and just the pass pro and things like that. It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s good to see those things be successful. You’d better have some nerve to call them, which is no problem when you start believing in them because you practice them enough, but you can’t have a huge quantity of them.”

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