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UNIVERSITY OF WEST VIRGINIA MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 11, 2014Dana HolgorsenWEST VIRGINIA – 37 DANA HOLGORSEN: Just want to start with congratulating our players and our coaches. They did a great job of not giving up. There was a couple of points in the game where it didn't look promising, so can't give our coaches and our players enough credit for just continuing to fight, continuing to believe in what we're doing. I think everybody will be‑‑ I think everybody was happy, was excited that I finally used a few timeouts and got our kicker in a position to make a school record 55‑yarder, which we knew he could do, had confidence that he'd be able to do it, which got us the victory. Really give Texas Tech credit. Kliff is doing a great job. Mike Smith is doing a great job with the defense. They had me guessing. They had me frustrated early. You know, they're getting better and better and would anticipate that they're going to win a bunch of games this year. So give them credit. They played hard. They were ready to go. Told our guys that they would be. We gotta get out there and we gotta do a good job of starting fast, withstand their energy. They always in the first half at some point have a barrage of points and then let the game settle in. So we let the game settle in in the second half, and especially defensively, we let the game settle in in the second half, played awesome on defense in the second half and was able to do enough to be able to get the win. With that we'll take some questions. Q. Looked like passing situations. (Inaudible)? DANA HOLGORSEN: I mean that's just who we are. I mean if they're going to put two safeties back, we got two great wideouts. We got two phenomenal wideouts. So they were going to put safeties back. They were going to play cover two, which means we gotta run the ball regardless of what set we're in. I was a little frustrated in the first half with not getting more out of the run game, you know, but we didn't abandon it. We stuck with it. Coach Crook and Coach Dawson did a good job on the sidelines of kind of adjusting a few things where we could get the ball out in the open. Q. What did you see in the second half, what were you seeing in the opportunities? DANA HOLGORSEN: Going back to kind of what I just said. They played those safeties deep and wide, just to take away our outside receivers. When you got guys like Kevin and Mario that are so dominating, it opened up a lot of stuff for Jordan in the middle. He went in there, he didn't get the start because Daikiel I think has been playing pretty good, but Jordan went in and had a huge game. The touchdown was great. He ran the route and made some big catches down the stretch as well. Q. Did you talk to Lambert yet? DANA HOLGORSEN: Who? (Laughs). Q. I saw you talking to him on the field. Can you just say what you would‑‑ DANA HOLGORSEN: I didn't say anything to him. I don't need to say anything to him. I knew when he missed that one in the fourth quarter I knew we were in great shape because I knew he would come back and drill one when we needed it. So obviously I know who Josh is, and is not rattled by any situation. So he's going to be a good one for years to come. Q. (Inaudible). You had four opportunities to push the score and you couldn't do it. What were you telling your team and how did they hang in there? DANA HOLGORSEN: We had probably more opportunities than that to tie it. So you know, both defenses held their own. You know, everybody wants to talk about our offense and their offense, but both defenses I thought stepped up and played pretty well. Q. What was the don't panic message with about seven minutes to go when you're looking at a two‑score deficit? DANA HOLGORSEN: I just didn't talk to anybody, to be honest with you.  I figured‑‑ I was coaching hard, I was talking, I was motivating, I was encouraging, I was yelling; and it was not working, so I just shut up and I let the coaches coach and I let the players play. Q. This game last year was an example of what not to do. You guys preached so much in the off season. I would say this is even better than the Maryland one. DANA HOLGORSEN: Yeah. Yeah, it is. You know, we just got done breaking it down in there. One of the players, K.J. Dillon jumped in and broke it down on finish. So that was good to hear. I've been talking about it a bunch. Been talking about it a bunch, and it's obviously good to see all the hard work that we've been putting in off season, through camp, not finishing in a couple of games that I felt like we could have finished and won earlier in the year, and to have this opportunity to be able to finish and win is rewarding. It really is. Q. What did you do (inaudible)? DANA HOLGORSEN: You know, we just challenged our guys to‑‑ we played more man coverage, and we challenged our corners. It's obviously nice to have Worley back. Their inside receivers are a problem. The matchups are a problem, so K.J. Dillon and Karl Joseph were put in man coverage a lot, and they played better in man coverage in the second half than they did in the first half. Q. What's it feel like to win here? DANA HOLGORSEN: Yeah, it feels good. I've won here before. I've won here before. I've won a lot of games out there. This is a great place. There is many fond memories of this place. Came here at Oklahoma State and won a ball game, and a couple of years ago obviously we did not play very well. It's good to finally get a win, yes. Q. (Inaudible). I know you started the shift a little bit on that last week. What's the continuation of that this week? DANA HOLGORSEN: Shaq Riddick, just keep getting better. Noble just keep getting better. Darrien Howard, get in there, play ball. Kyle Rose held the point. Did well. Brandon Golson is going to continue to get better. I personally challenged our defense to get to the quarterback, because he had hours of time to throw in the first half. I challenged our guys, all of them. I don't care who's in there, if it's blitzes, if it's a three‑man rush, we gotta do a better job of getting there, and I thought we did a better job of getting there, and I think we'll continue to get better on, especially up front when it comes to pressuring the quarterback. Q. Can you measure the magnitude of winning this game, go 4 and 2 as opposed to 3 and 3? How big of a difference is that? DANA HOLGORSEN: One game. It's a difference in one game. You can say, well, this is a big game and a must win. So Baylor is not and TCU is not and Oklahoma State is not and Iowa State is not and Texas is not? They're all the same. Big 12 is a great conference. Probably was a little bit underestimated at the beginning of the year. It doesn't matter who you play, where you play, it's going to be challenging, so our job is is to put our best foot forward each and every week, regardless if we win or lose. Go back home, reload on Sunday, get it over with and move on to the next one, which is what we'll do tomorrow. Long flight home. Enjoy this victory and then we will come in tomorrow and put this one to bed and start getting ready for Baylor. Q. And you said you couldn't block anymore. (Inaudible). DANA HOLGORSEN: It's probably obviously a little bit more complicated than that. I thought we did a bad job of tackling and we did a bad job of blocking. That's basic sound fundamental football. And I do think they tackled better than we did in the first half, and I think they blocked better than we did in the first half. Challenged them to do a better job in the second half and our guys really went out and played well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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