The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Texas Tech quotes
09.19.2010 | Football
Sept. 18, 2010
TEXAS COACHES
Head coach Mack Brown
Opening Statement: I'm very proud of my guys. I told them this would be a tough game and that weird things happen in Lubbock ... I'm excited about the character they showed. We had a huge surge that happened at the beginning of the game, which usually doesn't happen out here. We had some turnovers in the red zone which cost us dearly. Give Tech credit - they came back and fought. We felt like we needed to dominate time of possession which I think we did.
On Quarterback Garrett Gilbert's composure: He didn't change his expression, I'm really proud of that.
On his defense: Tonight they looked really good ... tonight we were pretty dominating. I thought the defensive staff did a tremendous job, played a lot of guys, keeping guys fresh.
On calling the fake punt: I felt like we had tremendous momentum at the first of the game. I thought it nearly got away from Tech and then when we didn't score and they scored on one of the tipped balls that turned the momentum. And then in the second half at that time we didn't give them the ball back and let them have a spark, and I didn't think they would be expecting it. Nobody with any sense would call a fake punt on their 30 ... I thought it would be a big surprise.
Offensive coordinator Greg Davis
On how many 22-play drives he has called in his coaching career: Not many. But I thought we came out well and got some things going early. But then we just had too many mistakes in the red zone. Garrett had a tipped ball that was picked and another that bounced off the receiver's hands. Our kids played extremely hard, we got some explosive plays and we were able to stay on the field.
Defensive coordinator Will Muschamp:
On how his defensive unit played in tonight's win: I felt we had a great plan and great execution with what we wanted to do. They [Texas Tech] did a nice job on one drive with some tempo things. They ran some picks and we were running a lot of pressure early in the game. As the game grew on, we felt really good about our four-man rush and our plays down the field as players like Curtis came off and covered them well. That's what we ended up doing in the second half and it was effective.
On Texas Tech's Baron Batch's 25-yard run in the first half: The 25-yard run was on a reload off of a quads formation. They did a nice job of executing that. Other than that, we gave up a good play against an offense that has a lot of skill outside and an outstanding quarterback. I'm just real proud of our players. They're the ones who deserve this.
On how many plays DE Sam Acho was sidelined in tonight's game: I believe two series. We were going to rotate and play more but the amount of snaps we were in the game did not really warrant that. We were only on 24 in the first half, and I think, below 50 for the game.
Quarterback Garrett Gilbert
On his connection with WR James Kirkendoll tonight: James was able to do a great job all night long of getting open, making catches when he had a chance to and working on man coverage while finding his way into open space when he was covered.
On how he managed to bounce back after four turnovers in tonight's game: To start with, we can't turn the ball over in the end zone like we did. But the way we kept fighting is just a testament to our offense. The second half we really threw the ball well and stayed on the field. It really is just a testament to the fight of our offensive unit.
DB Curtis Brown
On how he felt about tonight's win over Texas Tech and his interception: I just feel we played a great game and I'm happy it ended on a good note. The interception, well, a monkey jumped on my back at the end but it's all good.
TEXAS TECH COACHES
Coach Tuberville
All right. Well, as I just told the team, effort was great. We just, number one, you've got to be able to run the ball, and we weren't able to run it at all.
We couldn't slow their front down. They just turned loose on us in the second half. We just weren't able to make any plays [on] offense.
Defensively we held our own most of the time. I thought if we got that many turnovers and played that well defensively that we'd be right in there ahead. But the kicking game was pretty solid most of the time.
It's just I did a poor job of getting the offense ready to play. We were overemotional to begin with. The bad snap put us in a big bind, big bind. And that's just our guys were just too psyched up. You know, we never had a bad snap in practice.
But, you've got to learn from it. But as I told them, you know, they played in spurts, no consistency. That's reading your practice. We'll come back tomorrow, look at the film and try to get better.
But I don't have to tell all of you that that just wasn't a very good football game on our side as a team, and again, there are some parts of it [that] were good, some parts of it wasn't very good.
Even coaching, again, I'm going to take as much credit as anything on that one. We just couldn't seem to pull out the right plays at the right time. They blitzed most of the first half. Second half they didn't do much blitzing, they just defended, and we weren't able to get the running game going against a four man front. And when you can't do that, you can't throw it down the field against seven guys with speed like they have. Questions?
How disappointed were you in the high amount of personal foul penalties on your team tonight:Yeah, that was I mean, we just killed ourselves. We gave them that last seven points and just took ourselves right out of the game with two penalties back to back. Then we get the ball back, and we make a drive, and they call a -I don't know - blocking down field or something. I don't know.
Just you can't play a good football team and make that many mistakes. What did we have? We had eight penalties. Most of them were 15 yarders. We seemed to not get a break. That wasn't the difference in the game. I mean we could have made that many mistakes, if we had done anything in terms of running the football. But we just couldn't keep our defense off the field.
What can you do differently in the future to generate a running game. So far this year it hadn't materialized that much: No, you're exactly right. Against teams we should have. We knew that. We work on it half our practice. And it just -the point of attack - people do a good job of getting off blocks and making plays. And, again, when we do get in the secondary, we never get to the second level because we haven't had enough practice on it.
But as I've told all of you, we're not going to be a good football team, and you can't win championships unless you can run it. We ran a little screen pass the first half and made some plays on that, and that's kind of like a running play.
But we've got to lineup and be able to run it downhill. We're not going to give up on it. We're not going to turn into a team that's going to keep throwing it 70, 80 times. You can't do that.
If our defense continues to get better and we get in the running game, we'll be a much better team.
You said you didn't see them blitzing as much in the second half. But it seemed they were still penetrating a little bit. What did you see happening there: What that was, we knew we got into a situation where [we] couldn't run the ball. They just speed rushed our tackles on the other side and we couldn't block them.
Couple times Taylor stepped up and got around it and got the ball off, but it all starts with being able to slow the front down. As I talked to Muschamp after the game, he did a good job. He saw we couldn't run the ball, so there's no reason to blitz when you can get a rush from the outside and don't have to, you know, worry about the run.
Bottom line, that's what it goes back to. You've got to be able to run the football. You know, we're dedicated to it. We're working on it in practice. We've got the running backs to get it done, we're just not making the plays at the right time.
Can you talk about the decision to put Sheffield in: Well, we were going to put him in all along. Taylor got knocked around there pretty good on the interception, which was, I thought, the turning play of the game. We're driving down 14 14. We get to the 30 yard line, and their nickel back just read him all the way. He looked at the receiver, and you can't do that against experienced defensive backs.
He stared him down through it, picked it off, and he got hit pretty good on that play. He didn't hardly get up. So we felt like we'd give Steven a chance . .. Got the ball back, and gave Steven a chance to try to make a play while Taylor got his breath back, and, obviously, we didn't do very much in that situation either.
Can you talk about the play of Scott Smith a little bit: Yeah, Scott's, as we all have seen, and those of you that have been at every game, he's getting better and better. He gives us a pass rush when we don't get penetration because he's so tall. You know, our pass rush was probably the area of pretty average tonight.
We got sacks, but there were times when you've got to get a little bit more pressure on somebody on the third down. We gave them a few third down conversions where we didn't get any penetration. But Scott does a good job of getting his hands up because of his height. But we usually put him in a situation where he's in the passing lane. You know, he's going to be a heck of a player for us.
Again, I'm proud of the entire team because of their effort. We just didn't execute well enough to have a chance to win there at the end. I thought we'd score in the 30's. But, you know, it's just one of those things where we just never could get the tempo or get anything going on first down.
TEXAS TECH PLAYERS
Taylor Potts
Taylor, you guys kind of struggled to move the ball tonight, and a lot of that started not getting any running game going. Can you talk about that: We just didn't execute like we needed to. That's what it came down to in the end. If we would have been able to execute every play call, we would have been all right.
Taylor, when you've been part of an offense like you've been for the past four years, how frustrating is a night like this: You know, it is frustrating, but it's one of those things we need to overcome, and we need to overcome quick, because conference starts quick. We've got a lot of games left. We've got nine games left.
I think we'll take this week to prepare very well. Iron out anything that is going wrong. Definitely not take this week off by any means. We'll have really good practices this whole week, and we'll be all right. But we've got a long season left, and we'll be good.
What did you see them doing in the fourth quarter: Coach said they weren't blitzing, but they were defending really well.
What kind of coverages were they giving you: You know, they were playing hard and they were playing good. But it came down to us and us being able to execute every play called and staying on the field when it was third down, and we didn't do that.
Playing in a scene like this and the situation like this and the defense giving us the opportunity to stay in the game like they did, it is our responsibility to be able to move the ball, and we didn't do that.
We'll go back and look at the tape, correct whatever we messed up and the mistakes we made, and we'll come out and fix it.
Scott Smith
Scott, can you talk about the defense's performance tonight and the way you guys were able to generate so many turnovers:Well, I thought we had a great week of preparation. We were pretty fired up before the game. Coach told us we were going to get five turnovers before the game, we were all pretty hyped. Like I said, the week of preparation was great and that played a big part in that.
Can you talk about what you saw from the offensive line on the two sacks that you had a in a row there: The offensive line, they were tough. Getting a sack is about having a motor. You've just got to keep going, keep going, keep going. But I really think it was great coverage because we were only rushing three guys. So it was really coverage sacks. I've got to give it up to the secondary on that one.
Taylor Potts
When you see the defense doing their work out there, do you almost feel like as an offense you guys just want to pick them up, you're almost letting them down:No, you know, they got, what is it? Four turnovers? Four or five? There were four or five opportunities that we had to score, and we didn't get it done.
So, you know, it was a night that we needed to get things done and we weren't able to. We needed to stay on the field, and we weren't able to.
