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UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 5, 2015

Philip Montgomery

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Florida Atlantic - 44
Tulsa - 47

COACH MONTGOMERY: Just extremely proud of our football team. Battled all the way through it, fought to the bitter end. Never gave up hope. I thought our conditioning and our tempo, guys just fighting through adversity. We had some guys go down today. Guys had to step up and fill in those spots.

Just so proud of our football team and the way they continued to fight all the way through.

Q. You seem pretty calm now, but how emotional was this just the way you all won and everything you fought through? And such a long game.
COACH MONTGOMERY: I don't know what the time was on it, but it seemed long. When you're in those things -- and I mean, first game as a head coach, and then you go into overtime and all of those factors come into play, adrenaline's pumping. I felt like we had a little bit of momentum right there at the very end. So I think our guys did a great job.

Then when the defense did what they did in overtime, I think it was just an inspiring set of plays by them. So heart rate's up. Adrenaline's going. Man, can't get a better feeling than this.

Q. Did you dance in the locker room?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Maybe a little. Maybe a little. But there was a whole lot of dancing going on in there. I let the professionals get after it instead of me.

Q. Offensively, you run 86 plays, but still not the tempo you wanted even though it was 86 plays to their 96. You get the job done but still.
COACH MONTGOMERY: Really we sputtered early, and I think that hurt us a little bit, and it took us a while to get going. Then I think we hit a couple of big plays that kind of sparked us a little bit. Tempo obviously wasn't what I wanted. Some of that was our fault. Some of it wasn't. We'd get a little bit of a drive going, and we've got a player down cramping -- not we. They got a player down cramping. So they're stopping your tempo.

It seemed like we were going two or three plays, and then another guy's down. It's hard to keep your rhythm. I thought our guys did a good job of staying focused and staying in the moment.

Q. Talk about Redford making the field goal at the end after missing the first one earlier.
COACH MONTGOMERY: I had all the faith in the world in him. He does that every day in practice. The first one that he missed, I just walked over and told him, that ain't no big deal. That's not going to be the deciding factor in this thing. You're going to get another chance, and we're going to go down and put it on your shoulders again at some point.

I thought he did a great job, especially with all the time-outs and trying to ice him and doing all that. I thought he did a good job of staying focused, and he hit it clean.

I think -- I mean, if you watched it, Joe did a heck of a job getting it down. The snap was pretty good, and then it just kind of muddled it around a little bit but ended up getting it down, and Redford staying really focused in that deal and coming on through it. Good clean hit. It was a great job by him.

Q. Coach, after you got down by ten, it seemed like there was not a steady diet of Langer, but pretty good dose. I think on that one touchdown, he touched the ball on the last six plays. Was that designed because it was working with him or keep the defense off the field or all of those things?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Just a little bit of all of those things. It felt like we were finally getting some movement up front that we wanted. Again, with everybody falling out. It felt like our guys were in really good condition, and they were creating holes, and Langer does a great job of making a little hole a big hole because he's running with a lot of power and a lot of force. So it's about the guy that's hot at the time, and he was hot. So we're going to keep feeding him.

Q. Coach, you were able to celebrate on the field there with your family. Looked like you got a little emotional. What was going through your head when you were hugging them?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Just it's been a long journey. Just happy to have them with me.

Wow, I mean really? You're going to do that to me up here?

Q. Want to take a second?
COACH MONTGOMERY: No. A second turns into minutes.

Q. Start of the second half, they come out and score 21 quick. One of them's after a turnover. It looked like at that stage of the game Florida Atlantic's offensive line was starting to take over the tempo of the game. Then later in the fourth quarter, in the overtime, you see guys like Luetjen getting through, you see Brubaker pressuring the quarterback, sacks starting to pile up, and pressure. Can you kind of discuss how that turned and why you think it turned? Was it adjustments? Was it fitness? What do you think it was?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Coach Young and Coach Norwood did an outstanding job making adjustments throughout the game. I think those guys -- I think it goes back to -- I've been telling you all, and it's kind of hard for everybody to see it, but those guys physically, they've changed. And I think our conditioning, I think it paid dividends late in the football game, especially in the overtime part of it.

I think those guys just had a fierce desire to go win, and that's what we've been talking about, fighting all the way through it and fighting adversity and continuing to work and do that with your brothers. Those guys are dependent on you.

So I thought defensively and defensive line, those guys did a great job of continuing to battle. I think our secondary and linebackers did a great job of contesting balls when we had opportunities to. And really came up on some key big down, third down things. Especially down there in the red zone. I was proud of them.

Q. Coach, you talked about the adrenaline pumping over there. How is it like between you and your staff, with the ups and downs of the game? How was just the communication level for a first game?
COACH MONTGOMERY: I thought it was pretty good really. Obviously, just like with the players when you've got a new staff, there's some things that you've got to work through obviously. I thought overall, I thought our staff did a great job of communicating. We kept our guys positive all the way through it.

I thought that was a big key to the football game, especially when you come out, like you said, and we give up 21 points there at the start of the third and we have a turnover in the midst of all of that. It would have been real easy to duck your head and say, well, here we go again. Our guys, I thought, really stepped up, bowed their neck, and fought all the way through it.

Q. The connection from Dane to both Keyarris and Keevan worked well. Talk about just that connection, the deep route that really worked well after you had to set up the run.
COACH MONTGOMERY: Some of our run game early just wasn't clicking, and so we started having to make some adjustments. Really, those two guys are studs, and we've got them involved all the time. They're guys that want the football in their hand. They're guys, if you give them opportunities, they're going to go make plays, and we're going to continue to do that.

But I was proud of the way they competed today, went up and got a couple of balls pushing down the field. Especially trying to play as fast as we're trying to play, and when you hit a big play like that, getting down there and getting lined up and not coming out of the game. "I'm tired. I just went deep."

And being able to have enough gumption about yourself and being in the shape you need to be in to continue to stay in that game and know that number's going to get called again. Those guys, I thought, did a tremendous job.

Q. Your assessment of Dane's effort today and how he handled what you want to get done.
COACH MONTGOMERY: I thought he did a good job. Obviously, we're going to look at the tape, and there's going to be things we're going to want to fix and work on.

The thing you know about Dane is he's a fierce competitor. I thought he fought all the way through. I thought he had a little bit of adversity, obviously, and sometimes he forced some things that I didn't want him to. But I thought overall, I thought he really played well, handled the situation, and I thought he did a good job of leading our football team, especially in those closing minutes and how he talked to them and got them going and handled the situation.

Q. Philip, in terms of game management, clock management, stuff like that, there was some hiccups at the start of both halves, first half and second half. Can you describe the process as a first time head coach, you're responsible for this now or you're responsible for that, where previously as offensive coordinator maybe you weren't. I don't know what the situation was.
COACH MONTGOMERY: It just depends how you want to look at it. We were doing some things right there at the close of the half that I thought we had an opportunity here or there and kind of got away from us. We're going to stay aggressive with it. When we got time to sit back and think about it, then we'll look at it, and we'll reassess. I thought as a staff, I thought we handled those situations pretty good.

Like I said, any time we're in those closing type moments, we're going to stay aggressive.

Q. You had three time-outs to end the first half, and Dane drops back and takes a sack, and the half ends like that. That's not ideal. Would you have rather called a time-out there?
COACH MONTGOMERY: Kind of goes back to we'll look at the situation. We'll see if we really want to do something different there or not. Obviously, didn't want the sack to happen. We had Keyarris sitting down on the sideline and just didn't have enough time. That's about the time Blake went out, and we got a fresh tackle in there that was probably a little bit nervous at the time, pressure-type situation. We'll be all right.

Q. Coach, I know you thought you had a good idea about your team going into this game, but now that you have this win under your belt, did you learn anything about the team?
COACH MONTGOMERY: There's no question about it. Those guys, when you go to war with somebody and you're on the field with them, you get to learn a whole lot more about them. You saw some guys step up and make plays on both sides of the football and in special teams.

We've got a lot to do, a lot to learn, a lot more to grow with. But as far as a first official outing with them, on both sides of that thing, us with them and them with us, I think we learned a lot about each other today. I think we're going to continue to grow and get better as a football team.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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