The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Texas Tech quotes
11.03.2012 | Football
Nov. 3, 2012
TEXAS COACHES
Head coach Mack Brown
Opening Statement: I want to congratulate our staff and our players. It's hard to win in Lubbock. I thought it was the best team win that we've had all year. Defense played so hard and so well and came up with the blocked field goal at the end. Offense was unbelievable the first half, and then came back and really got stalled the third quarter, but dominated the fourth quarter physically with the running game.
So we're really, really proud of the guys. Got to try to get ready to get number eight against Iowa State.
On the win: A ranked team, picked to beat us on the road in Lubbock, a really, really hard place to play, had some adversity. Guys got into little trouble, momentum changed. Loved the way they came back to win. It was a fun game. Fun for me. I really enjoyed it.
On CB Carrington Byndom's resiliency: I thought he played really, really well throughout the game. He nearly gets his hand on another field goal, and then blocks the last one, which was just a game saver. It really put the game out of reach, if we can make a couple of first downs at the end. So he has to be one of the stars of the game. He broke up the two-point conversion. So I thought he played with confidence. I thought he might get an interception because they were throwing it his way a lot today. But he played with a lot of confidence, and he's more healthy, too. He's been banged up all year, but really proud of him. He was happy after the game.
On if the team made statement today: Guys have worked hard the last three weeks. They didn't like what happened in Dallas, and they've come back and played hard for three weeks in a row. They understand we have to play hard to win. It's something that we've just got to keep working on. Trying to get number eight next week.
On WR Mike Davis and QB David Ash: Yes, if you go back and look, Mike makes the big catch at Oklahoma State. He makes the big catch at Kansas last week, and he makes the big catch today. I'm really proud of David today. He came back and played a really good football game. No turnovers on offense again. We didn't force any turnovers. We didn't stop him on the two fourth down stops, but we made our fourth downs and the blocked field goal at the end was a really cleanly played game. But I'm really proud of David as well.
On RB Johnathan Gray: Jonathan showed us what we thought. He's fast. He's tough. He's really a competitor. He's not only a fast guy that can break tackles and make things happen for the long ball, but he ran a lot of power plays there at the end of the game and killed the clock. Really, really proud of him. He also has really good ball security. He's so mature for a true freshman. I'm sure he's proud to have gained over a hundred yards today on his 20 carries at a place where his dad's the second leading rusher in school history. I'm sure the whole family is proud of him today.
On the defense: I didn't do anything to help them. I thought [defensive coordinator] Manny [Diaz] and [assistant head coach] Duane [Akina] did a great job this week. They had a great plan - been really proud of them. They've been under a lot of scrutiny. Stopped the run today, stopped the run in the second half last week. When you stop the run, you have a chance to play. The game plan was to stop the run, stop the screen game. I think their running game was 112 yards. We had 163 yards rushing, and it worked. I thought Manny and the guys did a great job. They've hung in there and gotten better on defense.
On holding Texas Tech to field goals: I thought it was huge. Even [against] Baylor, we gave up so many points. From what we've told them, we're going to quit worrying about how many points you get or give up. We're going to try to get one more than the other team. Any time in this league you can force them to take a field goal if you're scoring touchdowns, it's a win-win. We put them down by two scores and really put them in a tough spot there. They came back and caught back up. But we told the guys starting in the fourth quarter, we'd still rather be us at 24 than them at 22. So let's start the game over in the fourth quarter, and we did that.
On if he thought Texas Tech's defense played better in the second half: I don't know. They played hard. Came out with a lot of energy, and I didn't think we played as well. We tried to run the ball some there in the third quarter, but just couldn't get going. They spotted the ball so quickly to start the third quarter, we had to call a timeout to get the ball snaps on the first play of the third quarter. So it wasn't a very good start.
On if this is the best team win this season: It's the best one this week. Yes, I thought it was the best the offense and defense played together and parts of the kicking game. If we hadn't played well as a team today - Texas Tech's much better than last year - we couldn't have won the game.
On what this game does for the rest of the season: It gives you a chance. I've got a note from Roy Spence, one of our top boosters this is week. He said you win by inches at Baylor. You win by inches at Kansas. You may win by inches at Tech, doesn't matter. Keep winning by inches and at the end of the season it will seem like you won by a mile. That's what these guys are doing. They just keep working. Coaches are continuing to work, players are continuing to work, and we need to finish this strong. I think controlling what you can control, and that's working hard in practice and continuing to get better, evaluating your team, and seeing what you've done well in the past and what you haven't done well and try to correct it.
On third and fourth down defense: Yes, we put them in long yardage situations. We've been great on third downs. We still can't get off the field on fourth downs. We got 1 of 3 or 1 of 4 maybe. But we've done well on third downs all year on both sides of the ball.
On stopping a two-point conversion early: It's one of the reasons that we don't go for two-point plays early, and I'm not second guessing [Texas Tech head coach] Tommy [Tuberville], because they had full momentum at that time. But great play by Carrington. Then, obviously, we were able to get our offense going again on the drive to start the fourth quarter. I thought offensively they got a little frustrated. But they settled back down and really took over. I love the fact that you can finish the game with a running game and not have to throw a pass. Most of what we did down the stretch there was the running game. I really like that. That means we are getting tough and growing up and becoming more of a tough football team.
On playing on the road: I don't know. I think they like it. They did tell me sometimes there is less pressure on the road because you don't have your parents around, or your friends around and it makes it easier to focus. We won't have that next week.
TEXAS TECH COACHES
Head coach Tommy Tuberville
Opening Statement: A lot of disappointment, obviously. We just shot ourselves in the foot. Made too many mistakes against a good football team. The last two weeks we've done that, so hopefully we can correct that. But we were right on the edge. I thought went into the third quarter, it was huge. We had to win in the third quarter, and we did. We had one three-and-out which really killed us after the punt return. Then we throw the ball on first down on the 1-yard line. We thought we had it. It didn't work, and somehow we got a penalty on the one, and it pushed us back. It's just hard to work through all those mistakes. They're a good team, and we've just got to come back.
On how tough the loss was for the seniors: Yeah, that's who we talked to. We didn't talk to the rest of the team. Seniors don't have an opportunity again to play against their in-state rival. That was it. Hopefully we can play better for them the next three games and get into a good bowl game. It's just hard to play so well at times and then play so poorly at times and have inopportune penalties. It absolutely took us out of it.
On if the penalties came from overaggressiveness: I guess it was. It seemed like they just came at bad times. We work on it all the time, but today they just went against us. Unfortunately, we couldn't recover from it.
On calling timeout before Texas' field goal attempt in the first half: Well, we were just trying to freeze him. He'd had problems from that distance, and we were just trying to make him think about it a little longer.
On losing momentum after the punt return and injury in the fourth quarter: Yeah, that drive killed us. I hope he's [Texas LB Kendall Thompson] all right. It was some good, clean blocks and a good return by [Austin] Zouzalik. We got the momentum, we scored and everybody was going full speed. Then we have three-and-out, and that was just -- it wasn't the game, obviously. But it put us in a bind of having to go down and score and having to score again.
On the running game: The running game was good at times. They obviously changed some things in terms of doing a lot of twisting and getting out of their gaps. They did a much better job this game. We don't have a breakaway running back. We're just kind of pluggers. There were times when we had an opportunity to break the line of scrimmage and maybe go the distance. But we couldn't get anything big.
On thoughts of abandoning the run for the passing game: No, because we hit the runs. Had you to guess with them, and we guessed right some and sometimes we didn't. I thought the three downs when we went three-and-out killed us. We ran it to second down and they stuffed us and kind of put us behind the count. It was definitely the last two series we'd like to have back in terms of the play calling.
