Purdue's passing game needs a reboot.
It stalled at times at Rutgers, with its inconsistency contributing to the Boilermakers' inability to get into the end zone. Drops, at least six of them unofficially, didn't help matter. After practice Tuesday, we talked to passing game coordinator and wide receiver coach JaMarcus Shephard to get his take on the loss and Saturday's game vs. Nebraska.
GoldandBlack.com: What do you have to do to get the passing game going again?
Shephard: "We just have to catch balls. It's just that simple. We had opportunities out there this past weekend to make some plays and we just didn't. Bottom line is you've got to make plays when the opportunities come to you."
GoldandBlack.com: The simple plays too, right?
Shephard: "No doubt about it, but that's all football. That's what football is. You've got to pay attention to the details, to the small things, that's what matters."
GoldandBlack.com: Do you go back to look at the particular drops or do you move on?
Shephard: "It's just like any other position, you've got to have a short-term memory about those things. You learn from it really quickly and move on, but you drill to try to get better and work on things that will help you get better at your craft."
Q: They are plays your guys have made throughout the season, too.
Shephard: "No doubt about it. Routes that we've caught in games already, plays that we've done throughout the season already. It's like contagious, I guess, that's what it is. It started off early for us and then infiltrated us a little bit throughout the rest of the game. But I've got to be better at about that as a coach and get them to not have that and stopping the plays when they come. We're working at it."
Q: In one-on-one man coverage, Jeff Brohm has talked about the receivers struggling in those situations. Have you seen that?
Shephard: "If that's what the head coach says, then that's what it is."
GoldandBlack.com: Are defenses scheming anything different against you guys the last three or four games?
Shephard: "I don't think so. They're just playing their game and we've got to go out there and compete against what they're showing us on film. On film, they're showing us various different things and our guys have to know what it is and have to go out there and execute.
"A lot of folks try to make it about them. It's not about them. Again, if we catch those passes on Saturday, you guys aren't probably over here talking to me at all. The bottom line is we have to catch the ball."
GoldandBlack.com: On the two deep balls, what did you see from a receivers' perspective?
Shephard: "I thought on the one, Greg (Phillips) could probably could have come back to the ball and maybe got a PI, or something like that. It was a little bit inside, but if he comes back for it, maybe he gets a chance for a pass interference or something like that.
"And then on the other one, (Anthony) Mahoungou is trying to make a play. I put a lot of pressure on him to be a big receiver and go up and get the ball. He tried that. At the end of the day, we came up a little short on both of those deep passes. Just things we have to get better at as we continue to go forward. Other things we have certainly gotten better at and those are some things that getting those deep balls caught is something we have to get better at."
GoldandBlack.com: How do you drill those 50-50 balls?
Shephard: "You get out there deep and they throw them up there. And they go after it. Obviously, even in practice (Tuesday), a couple of guys went up and made some plays. Those aren't plays that they haven't made in practice in one-on-one settings and so on and so forth, they just failed to make them in this game."
Q: What about in terms of the new guys, the three transfers. What is keeping them from being more productive at this point?
Shephard: "You know what, Terry (Wright) actually made some plays in the second half of the game. Went out there and did some really good things for the football team. I think he could have more of a role going forward, but certainly have to get him going even so. I'm a firm believer in taking care of the football and not turning it over, so you can't have that.
"And then Isaac Zico, we've got to get him some more reps out there, some more opportunities out there. Early on, he struggled a little bit with knowledge of the playbook, as I've discussed before. But he's grasped it more at this point and we'll try to make sure he's in there to get some plays as well."
GoldandBlack.com: Do he and Corey Holmes need to show you something in practice to get in there?
Shephard: "Absolutely, 1,000 percent, but that's not different from any other players. It's not just them, it's all of them. What you do in practice, that's what you're going to do in a game. The plays we do in practice, that's what we're going to do in a game, so if you get in there and you make your plays in practice, then I'm going to feel really comfortable putting you in the game to get those plays as well."
Q: So how many one-handed catches does Mahoungou make in practice?
Shephard: "I'm not one who coaches the one-handed catch much. I like it to be two hands, you've got a little more probably of catching those. But it was a good catch by the young man. I was on his butt pretty hard and he made a catch to at least give us a chance late in the game. But the kid has a lot of fight in him — he really does — and I'm going to keep challenging him for the rest of the season to continue to get better. He accepts it."
GoldandBlack.com: So you're not encouraging him to make those third-down receptions with one arm?
Shephard: "No, I'm not (laughing). I'm asking him to catch them with two of them. But he just has to ... catch the ball with his hands. Sometimes, he's kind of catching it like a bread basket and he has that tendency. He has long arms, he has the ability to do it. Like I tell him, 'Watch the film with me again buddy, when you catch it when two hands, you look pretty good. When you do that (in on your body), you're giving the defensive back an opportunity and that's not what we want.'"
GoldandBlack.com: Where is the confidence level now?
Shephard: "I think it's great actually. One thing about me and the guys that I coach, we're going to have confidence. That's one thing about us. We're going to work our tails off to fix things that are not going in our favor and even when things are going in our favor, we find the small details that we need to fix.
"In some games, we've had some really good success and guess what? They came in there and I harped on the things they need to get better at. Well, it's no different this week. They know what the expectation is. When we have something to work on, we're going to work on that and get better."
GoldandBlack.com: What does Nebraska do well defensively that's challenging?
Shephard: "You can never underestimate any of your opponents. They have good players over there. They have good football players, tough kids, and that's what you're going to get in the Big Ten, so there isn't anything specific that I'd point toward that they do better than anybody else, other than they play their butts off. Their defensive coordinator who has been a head coach before, he's got those guys playing hard and well.
"They're very gap sound in the run game and in the pass game they do a great job of breaking on a lot of the quick-game stuff. They know what they're doing and they don't have any problem executing it."
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