What Jax State's Charles Kelly said ahead of the home opener against Eastern Kentucky

Kelly spent most of his time diagnosing what went wrong in the 33-7 loss at North Dakota State, and his answer was direct: the Gamecocks could never establish offensive rhythm because they kept putting themselves behind the chains. Seven of Jax State's 10 offensive possessions reached second-and-11 or worse, the product of holding penalties, drops and backfield fumbles that stalled drives before they started. Kelly pointed to the final 1:46 of the first half as the swing point — the Gamecocks had the Fargodome quiet and went for it on fourth down after getting the ball at the 20-yard line, a call he said he would make again, but came up empty and never recaptured momentum.

On the injury front, Kelly said linebacker Walker O'Steen is expected to return this week, but linebacker Mac Sanders will be out with no timeline for his return. Kelly said young players who performed well in fall camp will get their opportunities, similar to how injuries created playing time a year ago. Defensively, Kelly acknowledged two touchdown drives that included explosive plays caused by missed tackles, but said the unit settled in after the opening series. Jax State extended its FBS-longest takeaway streak to 18 consecutive games, though one interception was wiped out by a penalty.

Rippa reflected on how a single opportunity in the 2023 New Orleans Bowl became the springboard for his career and discussed his leadership in the special teams room. Nix, who explained that the leadership council voted Rippa a game captain across all three phases, talked about stepping into the holder role and praised sophomore cornerback JQ Brooks for handling his college debut. He shared that he congratulated brother Tez Johnson on making a 53-man NFL roster — a milestone he called "a huge deal" — and said he and his brothers, including Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix, talk football more during the season than the offseason.

Full transcript

On the excitement of playing at home at AmFirst Stadium:

Charles Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things we take a lot of pride in is playing here at home. That's one of our goals, is to play very good. First of all, we've got a great university, great students, great fan base, former lettermen. So it's an opportunity for us to get better and improve, and that's what our job is every day.

On Eastern Kentucky and what the Colonels bring:

Kelly: They played a good Western Carolina team. I've known Walt Wells, their head coach, for a long time. He's a very good football coach. They're very sound on both sides of the ball. They threw the ball for a little over 300 yards the other night. It was a relatively close game until right at the end when Western kind of separated from them. They do a good job with the medium passing game and they've got some good stuff on third down. Our biggest thing is to focus on us. We've got to get better and improve on the things that we've got to improve on.

On the extent of the injuries to Sanders and O'Steen:

Kelly: I think O'Steen will be good to go this week. Mac will be out this week. We don't know exactly how long he'll be out, but he'll be out this week. We don't know a timeline yet of exactly when he'll be back, but we've got some young guys that have worked and have done good through fall camp, so they'll get some opportunities. A little bit similar to the way Matt got opportunities last year when some injuries happened.

On what he's looking at to improve after a rough day offensively:

Kelly: Well, first of all, I think you're right. What are we looking at? I think when you look as a whole, you've got to notice the problem before you can fix it. It's like if your car is torn up — if it's the battery and you change something else, you're not going to fix it.

I think the main thing was we never got in any rhythm, and there were a lot of reasons for that. We're not in the excuse-making business, but we do look for reasons. If you take the first drive — seven out of 10 possessions, we were in second-and-11 or more. You're not going to develop any consistency when you do that. You can't play from behind the chains.

We had the ball 10 times in that game. The first play, we gain 13, 14 yards, get a penalty. So now it goes to second-and-11. We come back, Creel makes a really good throw, we have a drop. So we have to punt the ball.

I felt like on the second drive, we didn't have a negative play and we went right down the field and scored. On the third drive — bam, bam, bam — we're moving the ball. We have a negative play with a fumble in the backfield. Now it puts us behind the chains.

And then the minute and 46 seconds left to go in the half — we got the ball on the 20-yard line, we go for it on fourth down. And yes, I would do it again. People say, "Why'd you go for it?" Because I'm trying to win the game. That's exactly it.

But in that minute-and-46-second stretch, in my opinion, that was the game. Because when you're — if you watch it on TV or you weren't at the game — what you've got to realize is momentum is so huge in football. Momentum is like a snowball. We had that place quiet. If we score right there, we go up 14-10 and we get the ball in the second half. The momentum's in our area.

But the main thing is we can't have negative plays. We can't have critical penalties. That's what I meant by detail after the game. We weren't as detailed. Yes, in the stat book, they had more penalties than we did, but ours were critical penalties. We had that holding penalty that was critical. We had a couple on defense.

And it's not all the offense. On the first drive, we've got a chance to get off the field on third down and we're six inches away from making a sack. We have a guy come out of coverage and they complete the ball. Well, if we get them three-and-out, that's another possession. That's 11 possessions in the game. And when you play good teams on the road, you can't make those kinds of mistakes. That's what we have to learn from.

On running back Jaylen Likely and whether his role will expand:

Kelly: We want to be able to run the ball more. We want to be able to throw the ball more, because there were some times — especially early in the game — the pocket was pretty clean. Kaden didn't have his best day, but until the end of the game he got the ball out of his hands.

In the run game, again — first play of the game, explosive play, first offensive play of the season. But we get a holding penalty on that, so that backs you up. That takes 15 yards off the rushing. And then when you get behind the chains, it's not as easy to get those guys the ball because you've got to get the ball downfield trying to get back in manageable third-down situations.

Yeah, we expect his role to expand, but we also feel like we've got some other backs. I thought Cedric played good on the first carry of his college career — he splits his own, runs up. There were some spots where you can say, "Hey, if we can do this consistently, we can do it at a high level."

On defensive bright spots — a takeaway for the 18th consecutive game, couple of sacks, negative plays:

Kelly: I felt like after we settled down after the first drive — we gave up two touchdowns and four field goals defensively. Both of those touchdown drives, there were explosive plays. We had the explosive run that popped out of there. We missed a tackle.

Usually on an explosive play, it's either a missed tackle or a missed assignment. Always comes back to that. That was a missed tackle. I thought overall we tackled pretty decent. The missed tackles we did have, though, were in critical situations and they turned into big plays.

I did think we settled down. I thought at the end of the game, I don't think it was an issue of our guys playing hard and effort, but you can't just win with effort. You've got to be able to execute. We had another interception, but we had a penalty, which was another big play — because we get the ball again right there in pretty good field position.

We've got some things to build on. We just — our focus this week is what do we have to do to make ourselves better?

On whether North Dakota State was simulating Jax State's snap count:

Kelly: I questioned that in the game, and I've brought that up to the officials. This is no critique — I thought the officiating, I thought they did a good job in the game. I really did.

But the issue that we did have was when we were backed up. We even talked with the captains about that, where we were going to take the ball, because in that area there were some — it was loud. But that's not an excuse. We prepared for that.

I go back to this, though, on the snap count: If we hadn't had a 15-yard penalty to back us up, we wouldn't have been in that situation. So that's on us. That's our responsibility. But yeah, there were some things that we brought up, and I'm sure that people will look at it.

Garrison Rippa, K

On how it felt to kick indoors:

Rippa: It's a good time. I haven't done that in a while. It really just helps you show your strengths because it helps the ball fly true rather than having outside factors affect it. Didn't do a good job in the game, but pregame I felt great and was seeing the ball come off the foot really well. Just didn't execute when the time came.

On being a leader as a kicker:

Rippa: For me, just being a leader starts in our room because we have a lot of different pieces than we did last year. I think we traveled only two returners from last year in the special teams room. So having that — that means we have a lot of different parts that have come in and don't really know how we do things. So being able to take them and kind of show them the way we do stuff and doing things the right way myself so that I'm teaching them the right way — it just starts with me.

On looking back at the New Orleans Bowl opportunity as a springboard:

Rippa: When I first got the shot, I was just in my head like, man, I'm really lucky that I get this opportunity. Not many people are able to say that they got an opportunity like that. So just being able to take advantage of that. And then kind of just having the success we had in that game gave me the confidence — oh, I can play at this level.

Going into the spring and having a really good spring that next spring and then fall camp, having a really good fall camp, finishing on that note and then going into the '24 season — I had some success there. Like coach Kelly said earlier, momentum snowballs. You kind of feel that as you keep going and you just kind of try to stack days. You take a quarter and you stack it up, and over time you've got a whole stack of quarters and you're sitting there ready to cash it in. That's how I feel about it.

Caleb Nix, S

On who stood out on defense and what they did well:

Nix: I think overall we played well. It just came down to critical situations. It came down to multiple third downs or fourth downs that we didn't execute. It came down to the red area, the red zone, that we just didn't execute our plan.

I think we had a few guys play well. I think JQ Brooks — for it to be his first college game ever playing, I think he handled the moment well. He's got some things that he can learn from, like we all do. But anytime it's your first game, it's a tough challenge. I think he played well.

We had linebackers — we ended up playing probably six linebackers, which is good to show the depth that we have in the linebacker room, which we'll need throughout the season. It's a long season. But I think JQ was one that I would highlight.

On Garrison Rippa's impact as a leader:

Nix: The neat part is that our leadership council is the ones who voted on the captains for the game. And so it shows that Garrison not only has had an impact on special teams, but that's offensive guys, that's defensive guys. He had to have everybody vote for him. I think that shows the impact he's had on the whole team.

He's been here one of the longest returning guys. His time here at Jax State — it shows how much time and effort he's put in, how hard he works. I think everybody respects his work ethic. Everybody respects the standard that he holds for himself. That's the biggest thing — he holds himself to that standard. So it makes him a lot easier to follow. It just shows the impact that he's had across all three phases, not just special teams.

On his relationship with his brothers Bo and Tez during football season:

Nix: It's a crazy time. Roster cuts were just made yesterday, and so I texted — Bo's kind of given that he's going to make the roster, but I told Tez, like, every year that you make the 53-man roster, that's a huge deal. So I just texted him congrats, that it's really exciting for him. He's worked really hard and he deserves it.

We talk a good bit. We honestly almost talk more during season than we do out of season. It's cool to have those guys just to be able to talk to and bounce ideas off of and get their thoughts and their opinions. They were both able to watch the game because their season hasn't started yet, so they had a little bit more time. It's definitely cool to get their opinions and their thoughts because they've been around it, and they're around it at an even higher level than we are. It's really cool and it's a unique, special blessing.

On stepping into the holder role and the attention to detail it requires:

Nix: It's all about detail. From alignment, being the correct distance from the center, from the center getting the snap right with the laces, all those things — to me hitting the spot with the hold and the correct lean, and then Garrison having the right steps. That whole process is just extreme detail.

It's been kind of a fun challenge to become a part of that operation and to take pride in my part of it — and then do my best to help Rippa succeed and continue to do what he's done.

Rippa on Caleb's performance as holder, scale of 1 to 10:

Rippa: He did a great job this weekend. Dixon really helped him out and the O-line definitely made all our jobs really easy. Dixon did a great job with laces, and that makes Caleb's job a whole lot easier.