Video: Jeremiah Allison at Monday press conference

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Linebacker Jeremiah Allison spoke to the media at Washington State’s Monday press conference. The video is courtesy of WSU athletics and a transcript is after the jump.

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(Have you looked at USC running back Javorious Allen?)

Most definitely. He’s a very good running back. Our defense actually likes challenges, especially in the run game so we look forward to running against him this week.

(How important will it be to pressure USC quarterback Cody Kessler?)

Our goal is to rattle the quarterback and I mean we look to do just that and we look to have a good game rattling him.

(Is the team too amped up at the start of games?)

I don’t want to say over amped up, I’ll say that we are a little too frantic. Like, the effort is there but we just need to calm down and focus on doing our jobs and playing focused and within ourselves.

(With no practice were you still doing football-related activities yesterday?)

That’s one thing we will do on coach Leach’s team is do something football related. I was watching film and just getting our bodies back ready to prepare for this week.

(So you watched more film than most Sundays?)

Yeah, we watched our game against Arizona and we corrected those mistakes.

(What jumped out on film?)

From the Arizona game? Basically just our assignments, executing our assignments and getting lined up properly. That’s about it.

(Was there a singular reason for Arizona’s offensive success?)

They’re No. 15 team in the nation for a reason. They’re a really good football team, those receivers are really dynamic and their tempo is very good as well. They executed and we kind of took a little bit too long to execute our plays but when we settled in we started making our plays.

(Did fatigue play a factor?)

No, we were prepared for that. Fatigue didn’t play a role. One thing we do around here is run.

(How do you feel the defense responds to turnovers?)

We could have responded better we never want to give up points. We should have rose up in those occasions and had the offense’s back. We just let those opportunities get away from us.

(How far is Dorsey High from the Coliseum?)

Like five minutes away. We played our city championship there.

(Did USC recruit you?)

Yeah.

(Did they offer?)

They didn’t offer, UCLA offered.

(Connor Halliday said after the game that it’s too easy for people on the team to accept losing. Do you agree?)

I agree totally with Connor, he hit it right on the head. Basically, we move on from the game a little bit too fast. I know no one’s supposed to dwell on things that long but I mean with a loss it should hurt you and you should come back inspired to never want to taste that taste anymore. Basically, Connor did a good job of alluding to the fact that we do kind of move on from the game but at the same time we have to prepare for the next opponent.

(What do you take from the loss?)

One thing I take from it is when we in all phases of the ball, offense, defense, special teams and the sideline are into the game we’re pretty scary to stop and we’ve seen that on film. We have all the qualities that a team should have to be victorious. One thing we need to do is just be consistent and stick with it so we’ve just got to stay involved and start off early.

(Is everyone still confident that you can win out and make a bowl game?)

Oh most definitely. That is our ultimate goal is to win out. Basically, one thing that I’ve been talking about, even one of my best friends, Darren Mitchell, who’s close to me, he alluded to, he said this is ‘hook or crook.’ Basically it’s a four-game playoff series and we have to do everything in our power to come out victorious for these next four games.

(How do you manage that pressure to win out?)

I think one thing that I keep alluding to is our seniors. This is some of the seniors’ last time out here that they’re going to play college football and it’s maybe the last time they play football, period. So I keep alluding to the seniors. We want to send them out with a bang and once everyone understands that it may be the last time you even see some of these guys it should add fuel to the fire and it should erupt.

(Do you feel like everyone’s engaged on the sideline during games?)

Yeah. I feel that sometimes it may hit a low, sometimes things don’t go in our favor but one thing that our strength and conditioning coach Jason Loscalzo and Marco (Candido), coach (Tyson) Brown and coach (John) Graves will do is make sure our sideline has energy and then that’s whatever side of the ball that’s not on the field at the moment, it’s our responsibility to make sure the sideline is up as well. We have to do a better job of doing that but I feel like our sideline is into it.

(Do you think your teammates are taking coaching as well as they were when the team was having success?)

Yeah, of course. I feel that they are taking coaching well, they just try to figure out a way to implement their game and the coach’s game as well and just do their job.

(When you say implement their game and the coaches game, what do you mean?)

Just play more freely. That’s about it. Just have fun out there. I think one thing we haven’t been doing for the last couple weeks is having fun so we just have to have fun out there.

(Are players so concerned with being technically sound that they tighten up?)

I think that, especially with the younger guys, this is their first time being in front of os many people and under the lights like this and then you bring along a name like Arizona or USC and the team they grew up watching, they want to make sure everything they do is what’s written on paper but we have to break them out of that shell and allow them to play their game which got them here.