Takeaways: Cantrell, Lauderdale want to play sharper, with more physicality
The Red Raiders are getting ready to head out to Tempe this weekend for a late night showdown with Arizona State. The local media spoke with two of Tech's outside receivers on Monday evening to review what happened against SFA and talk about what they need to do against the Sun Devils on Saturday...
-Outside wide receiver Dylan Cantrell on getting to play his first game since 2014 last Saturday night: "It was a lot of fun. Long time coming, and me and Pat had talked about it, and the last time I'd played a game was November of 2014, so it was a long time coming, great to be out there again contributing, great to be out there with my teammates so we can keep this ball rolling."
-Cantrell noted that he had to learn a lot about patience last year as he was pretty helpless to just stand there and couldn't help his teammates. But, he's happy it worked out, and he feels he's better for it now.
-The Z receiver was asked about if Coach Kingsbury had addressed his displeasure with their play. Cantrell noted the head coach did a little bit, noting that both the second and first team offense can execute better:"We've just got to be better overall. In first team we can do better too, because that wasn't our best game. Those guys have a lot of inexperience with the new O-line, but the effort was high. We've just got to tighten up on the execution a little bit."
-Cantrell pointed to that they need to do a better job of tightening up their routes as receivers, the same as Mahomes needs to stand in the pocket longer.
-As for his long catch of the night, Cantrell said they'd been talking about running the play for a few series. On the route, he's supposed to sit at 10 yards if the CB was in zone or bails, and he's supposed to run the go route if he's pressed up in man. The CB bailed, but Cantrell felt the corner was leveraged far enough inside that he could run outside and past him, so he did.
-On the opposite side of the field, X outside receiver Devin Lauderdale got to play in his first game after missing the entire spring while suspened from school. His thoughts on getting to be out there: "It was just a good feeling to be out there with the team, motivate the team and the young guys in the second half, so it was fun to be out there and enjoying it."
-Lauderdale noted that he was targeted so many times because SFA was playing off coverage on him so much. It's why he caught so many underneath and screen balls.
-Lauderdale also noted that outside receivers coach Emmett Jones has really pushed his guys to be much more physical, which he definitely saw a big difference in when coming back from his suspension in the summer.
-However, the X receiver noted that Jones wasn't satisfied with the physicality against SFA: "It wasn't physical enough. He wants to see somebody on the ground when we're blocking on every play. He also wants to see more hustle plays."
-When asked about how much the ball was spread around against SFA, and asked about how many times he was targeted, Lauderdale made his thoughts clear: "I just want to win, to be honest with you," he said. "I may get 2 catches and someone else gets 12, or I may get 12 and someone else gets 2. It just depends on what we do for the gameplan."