Mark Stoops’ Monday Pre-Louisville Cardinals transcript

COACH MARK  STOOPS:  Looking forward to getting back out to the action this week.  Team had a good bye week.  Rested up, got some good work.  Looking forward to a big rivalry game this week with Louisville.  They’re certainly playing some good football, coming off a big win this past week at ND.  So we’re excited and rested and ready to get to this challenge here this week.

1. (Dorian) Baker’s not on the depth chart?

COACH STOOPS:  Yeah, he got hurt last week, so he’s done for the year.  He’s going to need surgery.

1. On what?

COACH STOOPS:  Knee.

1. So if you went to a bowl game, he wouldn’t be available?

COACH STOOPS:  Yeah.  Unfortunate accident.  We were practicing against each other doing some good‑on‑good, but really it was no‑contact.  He just planted awkward and hurt his knee.

1. When you get back to basics during the bye week, what do you think they benefited the most from during that time?

COACH STOOPS:  It was good just to get out.  After a couple days’ rest, get out and do some good, competitive work.  Get back to some fundamentals.  Do some things that we do through camp where we go good against good, do some one‑on‑ones.  We do some half lines where we just technique‑wise need to get better sometimes throughout the season.  You get so enamored with the X’s and O’s and assignments that you drift from some of the basics.  We obviously try not to.  We constantly have individual (practice periods) in certain things, but it was good to spend more time with that last week.

1. Neal (Brown) mentioned you would break down every play they run, every position grouping together.  Is there anything you guys do similarly on the defense?

COACH STOOPS:  Yeah, we’ll go back ‑‑ when you have time like that, we go back and look at all the things we’ve done well, things we’ve done poorly.  Whether it be technique, somebody just getting beat, scheme, whatever it might be and try to zero in on things that they’ll be looking at and things that they’ll want to exploit.

So we spent a good dose of time looking at ourselves trying to get better, and obviously getting ahead of Louisville.

1. Does that reveal anything to you that you may be in the moment, or as the games were just going week to week, you hadn’t necessarily identified about yourself?

COACH STOOPS:  Well, I think you’re always learning.  As I say, just speak in general terms here, I think you’re always looking at things and seeing things you could do better.  Again, whether it be fundamentals or scheme.

1. You sitting here today, do you feel a little fresher as a coach?

COACH STOOPS:  A little what?

1. Little fresher just mentally.

COACH STOOPS:  Yeah, you can’t help but feel better.  Yeah, it gets to be a lot when you’ve got, I think it was eight straight weeks, so it was nice to have one day off.

1. Which day was that for you?

COACH STOOPS:  Saturday.

1. Did that mean you got to watch football on that day?

COACH STOOPS:  I did.  I did, yeah.  I couldn’t get away from it too far.  I didn’t watch as much as I normally do though, actually.  I got out of the house.  Took my boys out of the house for a while.