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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 1, 2014Sam EguavoenBradley MarquezQ. As one of the leaders on the defense, just talk about the performance of your defense this past week? SAM EGUAVOEN: It was poor. Wasn't what I expected.  I felt like too many guys were just coming out there thinking it was UCA and we were going to run all over them, but we didn't. It was just lack of discipline, really, all across the board. Q. Do you feel like a big piece of it was the confidence, taking on a team from the FCS? SAM EGUAVOEN: Yeah, that was that's all I can say. We just underestimated them. Q. Talk about this week against the UTEP team. Talk about what you've seen on film with their run game? SAM EGUAVOEN: I haven't watched any film on them yet. But I know the great coaching staff we have, they've probably already been breaking down their film. So we'll get on the film today and see from there. Q. Have you guys turned things around from just a lack of focus to being focused or was Saturday night enough of a wake‑up call? SAM EGUAVOEN: It was enough. It should have been a big reality check to everybody. The D‑line, I know they've got a big reality check; myself, I'm just not going to let that happen this week. So I think that woke everybody up. Q. What's it been like with the team over the last couple days? SAM EGUAVOEN: It's quiet. Nobody was happy. I felt better about some of the losses we had last year in the game Saturday night. Q. Do you worry about it and allow one to become two or do you flip the switch and get back in? SAM EGUAVOEN: Yeah, I know we're going to flip the switch. Hopefully we can flip the switch. I know we're going to have a hard week of practice, but our coaching staff isn't going to try to hold that over our heads too long because that's not going to help us in any way. Q. What are you going to do this week as one of the leaders to make sure you guys don't overlook another inferior opponent? SAM EGUAVOEN: I mean, I'm going to just keep letting the team know what we're capable of. We're capable of letting a D‑IAA team rush for almost 200 yards on us. That's what we're capable of. We could let that happen next week or we can stop it and just be in everybody's face. Q. Coach mentioned the deer in the headlight look from some of the younger players. How tough is that the first game as you go into this level? SAM EGUAVOEN: I mean, for freshmen, I remember my freshmen year it was kind of a big jump. I think it's more of a bigger jump for the guys that come from JUCO. Because if you look at the JUCO games there are probably 12 people in the stands, and they're probably star struck when they see all the fans in the Jones. It's always rocking in there. So I guess I was pretty nervous. Q. (No microphone)? SAM EGUAVOEN: Yeah, I like (Indiscernible) way better. Q. Can you talk about your secondary play from some of your younger guys. Talk about the secondary play and how positive that's going to be going forward? SAM EGUAVOEN: Yeah, I like it. They've got a lot of confidence back there. They're going for the ball. I chose both of my safeties or all the safeties back there in the rotation. The corner play is still questionable, even though we had some young guys out there going for the ball. They've still got a lot of growing to do. Q. Is there going to be an adjustment playing so late at night? 10:00 o'clock kickoff central time? SAM EGUAVOEN: Yeah, I'm pretty sure coach will have our curfew way later. I don't know what the time scale may be. Our curfew may be like 1 a.m. something like that, and they'll rearrange our whole schedule to make it feel like it's a normal 6:00 o'clock game. Q. Will you spend Saturday watching college football or are you just going to get focused on the game? SAM EGUAVOEN: Yeah, I like watching other games before we go out there and play, seeing my position and seeing other schools to get my mind right. Q. The game on Saturday night, how much more eager are you to get back on the field and get that bad taste out of your mouth? SAM EGUAVOEN: Really, I know I'm really eager. I haven't talked to many of the other players on defense this weekend, but I hope they're as eager as I am, because it's going to be a tough week of practice, and I hope they're ready for it. Q. Do you take any positives from the game on Saturday? SAM EGUAVOEN: No, I take all the blame for it. Q. Can you talk about the conversations that you've had with your teammates since Saturday night when you spoke to us and what the mood of the team is? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: I think we're pretty positive now. We've watched the tape. We've learned from it. Personally haven't gotten to talk to the entire offense. We met as a position yesterday, position by position. I met with the receivers and just told the guys we put in all the work this off‑season, this summer, this training camp and some of the mistakes we were making they were not the Norm for us. We were minimal mistakes that guys know exactly what to do, but I guess with the speed of the game and the receivers being so young just trying to get their feet wet and get them back under them. Everybody knows what we need to do, and we know that wasn't the performance we want to put out there. But I think we're excited for the opportunity to have another game on the road and to get better. Q. With the speed of the game, do you think you guys are still capable of going into the locker room and adjusting and come out with a better performance in the second half? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: Yeah, I think so. That is the plan. We have great coaches that they meet and they see things from up above that we may not be able to see. We're able to get a better understanding of what's going on throughout the game. They convey that to us in the locker room, and we've just got to go out there and execute as a team and as an offense, and I think we'll do that. Q. Is it a challenge to help your teammate use the disappointment in right way and not stay down too long? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: Yeah, that is one of the things I talked about yesterday. We've got to put it behind us. It's over with now, and we got the win and that's it. We have to learn from it. The film, we've watched it and it's on to UTEP now, don't dwell on it. Some guys forget the fact that we did get a victory. It could have been a lot worse. It's good to learn, like we said yesterday, it's good to learn from a win like this rather than a loss. So I think there were a lot of lessons learned from this game that can help us throughout the course of the season. Q. What was the chief lesson learned? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: We just need to come out and start faster. We need to start faster and probably the most obvious thing is to cut down on the penalties and the mistakes like that that put us in bad situations in 3rd and longs, 2nd and longs that shorten our playbook and make us more predictable. I think if we cut down on those things, I think we can be really, really good. Q. Can you talk about after the game the other night and watching the film, how frustrating was it to see those points out there that you guys left on the table on Saturday night? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: Yeah, it was. It was frustrating just watching it. But it was expected and it was just things you realize as an offense that you've been doing these things for a long time, and some of the things that were being done in the game were just uncharacteristic of these guys. Like I said, I think we learned from it, and it's going to help us a lot. Q. Do you guys feel like you struggled a little bit when you put up 636 yards and 42 points? What's it say about the capability of this offense? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: That we can be really good if we can just cut down on the mistakes and the penalties and not stop ourselves. I think it will be really big for us. It was a lesson learned through a win. Like I said, it's going to help us a lot. Q. What's that do for you and your teammates when you have 15,000 students out there? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: It's great. Our fan base and especially our students, it's really big. It's an excitement, and they make it really tough for opponents to come in there and play. Just having those people and the support we have around campus and going to class and things of that nature. I think we have a great student body that supports this program as a whole, our athletics department. So it's great to see the support and how they come out in big numbers. Q. You looked really comfortable in the offense and you have to be excited about your performance this past Saturday. Talk about that and moving on? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: Definitely I was excited to have a game like that and to be able to help the team. Like I said, I'm a senior. This is my last go around, so I want to do everything possible that I can for this team, whatever it may be. So I'm just excited and I just need to be more, me personally, I need to be more of a leader on the sidelines as I felt like I kind of let my team down in that aspect. With Coach Morris being in the box and Coach Kingsbury having his hands full with the offense, somebody needs to be able to talk to these guys on the sideline, and I felt like that's something I can do a lot better, and I will do a lot better going forward. But as far as the performance, I just did what I had to do when my number was called. We got a victory, and that is the most important thing. Q. You guys ever worry about this 9:00, 10 o'clock start? You're college kids and you're used to staying up late, the whole business of adjusting things doesn't matter to you, does it really? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: I don't think so. At the end of the day, it's football and you're excited to go out there and play football. The times really don't matter. We'll get plenty of rest, that's for sure. But I don't think anybody's thinking about the time too much like everyone else is. Q. What do you do in practice to cut down on penalties? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: We just got to go out and practice and not have those penalties. We have refs out in practice as well that officiate our practices and help us. We've gotten some penalties, but we just need to cut down on them as a whole and play within ourselves and stop trying to do things out of the ordinary and just play our game. I don't know exactly what we can do to pinpoint something, but we're definitely going to have a tough week of practice, and that's to be expected. Q. The big catches that you had in the fourth quarter (No microphone)? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: Nothing was said in particular. We had discussed some things as far as some routes that were going to help later on in the game that were maybe open earlier. But it was nothing in particular that was the sum of or the solution of those big runs and those big plays. It was just great plays called by Coach and good checks by Davis and good throws and just going out there and making the play. Q. (No microphone)? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: It's nothing. I wasn't too excited about it. At the end of the day that was one play and we had to learn from the whole game. We had some lessons to be learned. So as far as looking back on it, just going out there and making a play, there are things I need to be out there doing for this team. Q. Could you talk about Jordan Davis and his knack for making big catches for you guys? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: Yeah, he's a great player, and he shows that each and every day at practice. He's not the biggest guy, but he runs some of the best routes on this team that we've seen since I've been here. And the DBs here will tell you Jordan Davis runs really good routes and he sets himself up for success with the way he practices, and the games the way he has performed and making those big catches is not a surprise to everybody around here. Q. Coach mentioned he was disappointed with the wide receivers performance. How do you get the other guys to step up and start performing and doing better? BRADLEY MARQUEZ: We've just got to learn from the film. We talked yesterday. Those guys as well as myself we've seen some of the mistakes we were making are things that we're not supposed to be doing and we haven't done. It was just uncharacteristic. If we just go out there, play, relax, and I think with having this game under our belt it will help out a lot for these young guys. They're going to go out there and make plays. We've got some big play makers on this team that will come about coming up throughout the course of the season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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