Clark Lea says Joey Lynch is the playcaller

Clark Lea took to Zoom to meet with the press at 11:30 AM today. As always, we watch so that you don’t have to.

• In response to a question from Robbie Weinstein, Clark Lea says that Joey Lynch is calling the plays now, not offensive coordinator David Raih. This is an... interesting decision, but Lynch is the one offensive coach on this staff who has playcalling experience. He wants Raih to focus on the receiver group. Lea says that this happened about a week into fall camp.
• Weinstein also asks about Ben Bresnahan’s status. Lea says he’s going to be out this week but doesn’t anticipate it being a long-term absence.
• What’s the biggest challenge in trying to get improvement out of this group? There are plenty of small areas that we can improve upon, specifically when it comes to execution on offense. How we’re running routes, how we’re adjusting routes, the reads we’re making at the quarterback position. That will be where our focus is during the week of preparation. There are some good things we took from our performance but we didn’t get the result. Bigger things are how we take the spirit, enthusiasm, and energy we have in training, and this is part of the process of becoming a successful program and sustaining success. Gameday is a celebration of the effort they’ve put in. I don’t think that the performance lacked effort and yet I didn’t feel like we represented our full spirit, energy, and enthusiasm on the sideline. As good as East Tennessee State’s effort was, we didn’t put forth our best effort as a team.
• A majority of drives did end in ETSU territory, is there a concern about finishing drives? The two things that stand out on offense: we have to cease self-sabotaging drives (pre-snap penalties, blown protections.) There are details within the execution that will allow our offense to be more explosive. There’s so much in there that we can clean up.
• Is the altitude a concern at Colorado State? Yes, in so far as it’s an element of the game within the game that will require our attention. We’re going to limit our exposure and intensity leading up to the game. (I think he’s mostly talking about walkthroughs and warmups on game day.)
• Chris Lee asks if he’s named a starter at quarterback this week; Lea confirms it’s Ken Seals but says we’re going to continue playing two quarterbacks.
• Joe Rexrode asks if anything jumped out at him on film. Lea says a lot of the issues we had, particularly offensively, were things that we had experienced in our scrimmages. We played a team that executed really well and we never put enough pressure on them. We went into the second half and our margin for error was so small. When we made mistakes, they capitalized and made us pay for them. That’s specifically the formula that we want to use in attacking our opposition.