Monday Q&A with U of L coach Bobby Petrino

Louisville football coach Bobby Petrino on Monday reviewed his team's loss at Clemson and previewed the Cardinals' Saturday showdown with NC State.

Here's the full transcript of his comments:

Opening statement: As you look at it again, it's a real disappointing loss. We played real well on defense. We played fast. We tackled. We made a lot of plays. Offensively, we're really struggling. We're struggling to block the front. We're struggling to get open and with the timing in our passing game.

I do think that when Will (Gardner) came in in the third quarter, he gave us a lift. Our timing was a little bit better and we were able to throw the ball down the field and got ourselves in position to win the game.

As far as spiking the ball, that's a bad call. When you look back on it, and it's the nature of the business ... when you make a call and it doesn't work and you lose the game, it's a bad call. And that's all on me. I take full responsibility for it. It's a situation where I did feel like we needed to huddle and get the right play called, but it didn't work out, so therefore it's a bad call. There's no issue about that.

I thought we came back last night and our players had a good attitude. We watched the video. The vets went out and ran hard. The young guys went out and practiced. This is the most important thing is to put a hard loss like this behind you. We talked a lot about what you learn from it and how you get better and the fact that we have homecoming coming up this week. One of our goals is to win all of our home games and this is where we get started, so that's what I'm really looking for -- a good attitude, a good work ethic and making sure we come back tomorrow in practice and work to get better.

On tough losses: The hardest thing about those losses is you were in a position to win the game. There's a number of things that transpired throughout the game that obviously affect that. Again, as you look back on it, there were a couple easy things that made the difference prior to the last drive, but we maintained our poise. You can't say enough about how hard we fought. We got the ball with a minute-something left to go and we had to burn all our timeouts to get it. Our defense came up with a great stop on third down to force them to kick a field goal and all our players took the field believing that we'd find a way to win the game. It almost happened.

That's a step forward from Virginia. Almost the same situation where we got the ball late and we couldn't move it at all. I guess that's something to look at positively.

On how players handle losses: You always worry about your attitude and sticking together. That's one of the things I talked to the defense most, and the offense, about last night was we need to stick together. Let's be honest: Defense has been playing lights out and doing everything real well. Offensively, we're not doing our job well enough to win games on the road in that type of environment. They really understand that the biggest thing we have to do is be a team and stick together.

On the QB situation: I haven't gotten a chance to talk to the two of them yet today. We have a plan. I want to inform them before I tell the press.

How are you personally handling the offensive woes? Yeah, you're always a little frustrated. You keep understanding what is causing the mistakes. We're not blocking the front well enough. We're not getting open against tough, tight coverage well enough. It all works together. They did some really good things as far as stopping our run as far as their line movements and jamming the inside. They gave Reggie some different looks in the option game that he had done a great job of against Syraucse. They took it away with some of the things they did. When they do that, we have to be able to throw the ball. That was one of the reasons why we made the change.

On DeVante Parker: I wish I knew more. He did run today. He ran well without any pain, so it's really on a day-to-day basis. It's really how he reacts to the exercise and the movements that he does.

What does his presence do for your offense when he's healthy? Does anybody have a crystal ball? (Laughs.) If I did ... You don't know. You worry about his conditioning. You worry about he hasn't played for a long time. He's a tremendous player. We've all seen that. We've all seen the plays he can make, but you just don't know.

On Clemson DC saying they expected Louisville's last play: You're always concerned about that. We had two plays that we could've called down there and I wish I would've called the other one. That would've been a bunch play in the bunch formation and I wish I would've called the other one. You stay awake all night thinking, 'You dummy, why didn't you call the other one?'

On his confidence that the offense will progress: We need to progress. We need to do it right away. We're working hard at it. We're not progressing fast enough. Don't take anything away from Clemson. They're not sixth in defense in the country because they're not good players and they don't play well and they don't have great experience. That was one of the issues preparing for them going into the game, going and watching the film from last year and saying, 'These are all the same guys.' They are a very, very good defense. We saw that the week before when they completely shut down North Carolina State. What they did against Florida State, they limited them. Of course Florida State didn't have their quarterback, but they stopped their run game, which no one had ever done before.

On where the team is at this juncture: We're not happy about being 5-2. You look back on it, you have an opportunity, you could've been 7-0. That's where we want to be. That's what we're working and striving for. That's just where I would rather be.

On Louisville's defense: Yeah, they're pretty good. They really are. They play really well. They rush the quarterback. They tackle well. They play the ball in the air. Going into the season, we had great concerns about our safeties, with Sample and Holliman coming out and playing that way and T. Floyd being the nickel, and now we've got Reve back and he did a nice job making some plays for us. It's been jelling and they're doing a really good job.

On Jermaine Reve: He's even ahead of schedule from what we thought. He got injured in spring ball. All through the rehab, Kyle kept telling me, 'Jermaine's working so hard - we might have him this year.' We check in with him a couple weeks later and he said he's progressed even ahead of where he was. His attitude and his work ethic is the reason he's where he is at this time. He's ahead of where we thought he would be.

On NC State suspensions: I just heard about that. It's unfortunate. You don't wish that on anybody. You always want to play their best players. My understanding is that there are three of them that played a lot. That's something I was going to do right when I was done here.

On Louisville's BB gun policy: That's such an issue anywhere on campuses, whether it's a BB gun ... When I was here before, we had a paint-gun incident where I had to suspend two players for shooting a paint gun. It's something that, when you put the word 'gun' in front of anything, it's an absolute no on college campuses. We've seen it a couple times throughout the country.

On changing QBs: We talk about it. Garrick and I talk about it. What are we going to do here? Should we make a switch here? No, give him another series. We talked about it at halftime. We felt like coming out of halftime, let's get him moving around and get some of our play-action game and let him run the ball a little bit. Sometimes with a quarterback who has great instincts to run the ball, once you get his blood flowing and he makes some plays running, that helps him in the passing game.

On James Quick as punt returner: We've had two big fumbles on it, something that you're definitely concerned with and something that you work hard at. There's always that (shakes hand) on the fence ... He looks at the ball, he looks at the rush and decides whether I'm going to make a fair catch or catch it and make a run. In doing that, he's made some great plays running for us. But he has had the two fumbles that've hurt us. We have to work hard on him understanding that. We also need to get our other blocker out there and defend him better.

Have they considered a change there? No. We haven't even talked about a change.

If that last play had worked, the spike would've been a good call? That's the nature of the business.

That's something you think about all night long. Do you line up right away and throw a fade? Do you line up and run a movement play? One of the issues that we had with that noise was how many false starts we had when we didn't huddle and we were going no-huddle. You think about everything when you lose. None of it's good.

On crowd noise influencing false starts: Some of it. It's a loud place. Again, it comes down to -- everybody else plays in loud stadiums and we have to focus and concentrate and be able to not have the same person continuously getting us those penalties.

On Charles Gaines: He does a really nice job in tight coverage. The pass rush doesn't give them a lot of time to get the ball on that side. He's done a great job. He's a good player. He almost had a great pick the other night. The more he gets his hands on the ball, the more picks he's going to get.