WATCH: Paul Chryst recaps Utah State, looks ahead to FAU
Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst met with the media on Monday morning to recap his team's 59-10 win over Utah State, and preview Saturday's matchup with Florida Atlantic.
The video above was taken by UWBadgers.com, and a few notes from Chryst's presser are included below.
News and Notes
-- 'Teams take their biggest step forward between their first and second game' is an old axiom that has floated around college football for a while, but Paul Chryst said he disagrees - and hopes that his team will continue to take steps forward as the rest of the season moves along.
"I don't subscribe to (the idea that) teams should make the most improvement from game one to game two," Chryst said Monday. "I think if you're going to be a good team you've got to keep growing every chance you can."
Chryst said he's hoping his team can clean up their game and commit fewer penalties during their game against FAU, after the Badgers were flagged nine times for 73 yards against Utah State. Last year UW averaged just 3.4 penalties per game, but Chryst said he knows his guys weren't looking to make mistakes on Friday night. They'll just need to work on cleaning things up moving forward.
"The pre-snap penalties, you try to minimize - really you try to eliminate them, but you certainly want to minimize them," Chryst said. "We had a false start and then we had two - because defensively we jumped and we had the two blocks in the back in the kicking game. Those are bigger penalties than the others because of the swing of yards. They end up being 30-yard penalties instead of 10 or 15 or 5. And not one kid went and thought that 'This is a good time to commit a foul.' I don't believe that. But we've got to do a better job. We've got to clean it up."
-- The Badgers got a few true freshmen some reps during their blowout win over the Aggies, including back-up quarterback Jack Coan. The Badgers obviously weren't concerned about burning Coan's chance to redshirt this season, and Chryst said that getting Coan and other young players those late-game snaps should help adjust to getting more reps later in their careers.
'We'd thought that we'd get a few more snaps and then the pick kind of changed it," Chryst said. "I think getting those first snaps for so many kids was really important. And they're always going to remember them, and that means that they value them. Any time you can get through a first, I think it helps you."
-- The Badgers have one game's worth of tape on FAU, who they'll welcome in to Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday, but Chryst said that it's still a little hard to get a sense of what to expect out of the Owls - now coached by former Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin.
"I think there's certainly an energy," Chryst said when asked what he's seen out of Florida Atlantic. "In watching the game, I'm sure the score wasn't what they wanted. But they flew around, and you saw a lot of good football players."
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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.