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SAM HOUSTON STATE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 5, 2015

K.C. Keeler

Lubbock, Texas

Sam Houston State - 45
Texas Tech - 59

K.C. KEELER: I told the kids in there, there are no moral victories for us. You're as good as they are in our eyes. We lose the turnover battle 4-1, and you're going to lose. Our guys kept on battling until the end as we'd expect. That's nothing new. We had a lot to go on in terms of this is a talented team, we played a lot of kids. We played eight offensive linemen and we had two starters out, played five running backs. We're a really young team. We will keep on -- they'll get better and we will have our issues. You can't lose the turnover battle 4-1 and expect to win the game.

I'm disappointed. We thought that we'd come in and go toe to toe with them, and we're disappointed in the loss. We feel like we executed well enough but lost the turnover battle.

Q. Talk about what was working for you in the first half?
K.C. KEELER: You know, we take what they give us, and so we had the run game going pretty good at times, they got some guys in the box and got the ball. A couple mistakes hurt us, a couple drops, but (inaudible) big touchdown (inaudible) that's tough. He scored with, what, a minute and five, 10 left to go in the half, and you give up a couple big plays and they scored. Those are the type of things you can't do against a good football team. They scored a lot of points last year, and also they're greatly improved on defense. Obviously we put a lot of (inaudible) on offense, and they created those turnovers. Those that have been in the business this long know that you're going to lose if you lose the turnover battle, and we lost the turnover battle significantly.

Q. Talk about the quarterback play of Jeremiah and Jared, them swapping out the entire game. Some stuff has worked for each of them.
K.C. KEELER: Yeah, I don't know how many snaps each of them got. I don't know what the ratio was. Jared obviously was a guy who took us to the Final Four last year, threw for 3,200, and ran for 1,000 last year. But Jeremiah is tremendously talented. I've never been a guy who's played two quarterbacks. They're both very talented. The thing that makes them unique is also their personalities. They want to win. They want to be on the field, and they want to win. I don't think I can do this in a lot of situations, but they're both very talented. They both bring something unique to the table that's tough to defend, and (inaudible) play both of them. If someone gets a hot hand, we're going to go in that direction. If not, then we'll kind of go back and forth a little bit. I told Jared don't be shellshocked, don't think we're going to pull you on a bad play. Go out there and play for a while, then we'll find time to get Jeremiah in. He went 7 for 7 at one point and did some really good things. So excited I've got two quarterbacks I can win with, no question.

Q. What did Tech do defensively in that second half to make things more difficult for you?
K.C. KEELER: I think it was more self-imposed on our part. I don't think it was anything that they did so much. You know, so yeah, I think they did a good job running to the ball and made some 3rd-down stops. Obviously had a big interception for a touchdown was a big momentum shift there in the third quarter. He's open, it's ridiculous, and they threw to him for a touchdown. They had a 44-yard play. We've got to make those plays. There was a couple times we didn't make those plays, and those plays are what hurt us. My hat's off to Tech. They made those plays and we didn't.

Q. What did you think of Patrick Mahomes?
K.C. KEELER: Wow, he played outstanding. You know, we knew that they would challenge our corners, but he was spot on. I thought they did a good job getting the ball down on time, and I thought he was really aggressive. He's a really good football player, and he's going to score a lot of points.

Q. You guys get the bye week in your conference right away, earlier than last year. What can you take from this game moving forward?
K.C. KEELER: We talked about in the official sense it's another (inaudible) you guys are as good as these guys are. I said, that's great to hear, but that's not going to win you ballgames if you turn the ball over. That's not going to win you the ballgame if you're not executing. That's not going to win you ballgames if you make penalties. So it's great to know that there's talent. That's great. But we are going to take this bye week and capitalize on it like we did last year and really fine tune some things and make sure we limit the turnovers and make sure we limit the turnovers and make sure we play clean. It's our core values that we talk about all the time. When we play clean, we're going to win the ballgame. Playing clean is lack of penalties and playing clean is winning the turnover battle, and we did not play clean. We allowed Tech to force the turnovers, and they played cleaner than we did.

Q. There were 200 plays, a hot afternoon, four-hour game. How much did your depth help to keep your guys pretty much in it for the most part?
K.C. KEELER: Absolutely. We played eight offensive linemen, 11 guys the second half, and we played a lot of running backs, rotated in a lot of -- I don't think a lot of people could have done that against Tech. We could, because depth is our -- is where our strength is, so we used that as a weapon. This was a great test for us. I thought it was a great barometer as much as just a challenge to see where we were, and you know this, you're not going to get that one break on one play. There's just no way. You can't turn the ball over that much and you can't defend. But you see the ball go to the end, and there's just a lot of talent on this team and depth to this team. A lot to work with. We have a big challenge coming up here as coaches to kind of get those things squared away, and I'm happy as far as the guys we have on this team. But we need to take care of those things this week to be able to incorporate core values.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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