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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 7, 2015David GibbsEric MorrisLubbock, Texas Q. Coach, what was your message to your guys after the game? DAVID GIBBS: Just smile and wave. You know what? It is what it is. I've said all along, you are what you put on tape on Saturday afternoons. Obviously, we didn't play very good, don't know why. I'm still in the process of figuring it out. But I've done this a long time. I'm not going to panic. We're not going to panic, old-school coach. You go back to the basics and you go back to stance, you go back to alignment, you go back to reading your keys and doing your job, and it all sounds good. For whatever reason, they went out there, I don't know if it was first time in front of a crowd, I don't know what it was, but unacceptable. I take the blame. It's not their fault. They weren't prepared. That's your job as a coach was to get them ready to play. Sam Houston was better than most people thought they were. Now, were they that good? No. But they were Saturday. So, obviously we've got a lot of corrections to make, we'll get started this afternoon at practice and build off the turnovers, which is probably the only positive we had. Didn't tackle well, didn't lineup well. Played a lot of guys, so I guess that's good news. But we'll get back to work this afternoon. Q. Coach, they forced four turnovers, I think, and also one including on downs in the second half. But how did they grade out from the first half to the second half just based on assignments and where they're supposed to be? DAVID GIBBS: They obviously got better. They got more comfortable with the game. Half the fans left the stadium, so it was probably a little more quiet, you know, so they could communicate a lot better. A lot of it was communication. But that's not an excuse because you know going in it's going to be loud and they knew. Just didn't get it done. There was improvement. You'd have liked to see them finish the game, but got tired. I mean, I got a bunch of excuses, but bottom line, didn't get it done and we've got to play better this week. Q. When you talked about the adjustments you made at halftime, would you say you saw that improvement from the first half to the second half? DAVID GIBBS: We really didn't do anything different. We really just talked about -- the very first play of the game by formation I knew what play was coming and so I made a call to stop that play, and we didn't execute. So once you get to that stage where the players, they should know by what call I make by what I'm trying to stop. That's where we're going to get, eventually, and that's a process. But I give the kids credit for coming out in the third quarter and making some plays. But as far as the scheme goes, we didn't do anything much different. Q. Were you surprised by some of the option plays that they ran? DAVID GIBBS: No, we practiced every play they ran. Every one of them. Q. Were there some plays or some fits that kind of gave you some trouble? DAVID GIBBS: You know what? Yeah, I'll say that. It's my fault. They weren't ready. But hopefully we'll improve this week. Q. (Audio issue)? DAVID GIBBS: Football. Got to coach them better. Q. What did you see from your guys? DAVID GIBBS: Yeah, you know, they didn't panic. They're just, you know, it's part of trying to build a defense. They're so used to doing bad and then freaking out and giving up big plays, just going crazy. I didn't feel like they went crazy. I just kind of felt like they weren't sure exactly what they were supposed to do, which comes from a new system and new coaching staff and all those things. But we had plenty of time to prepare for that offense, and it's not acceptable. Like I said, we'll be back to work this afternoon. Q. Can you talk about the turnovers a little bit? The interceptions and the fumbles, they're all big plays in the game? DAVID GIBBS: They were, they were. You know the thing I try to preach to them is if you have a chance and I put you in position to make the play, just make the play. That happens on every play, whether it's a tackle, whether it's taking on a block, whether it's intercepting a pass. To their credit, they took advantage of the passes. They took advantage of the fumbles. When they had a chance to punch the ball out, they did. But the same thing happens on an every-down basis. You have this gap or you have to leverage the football this way. The more we do this and the more we keep practicing and playing, the more they'll understand that it's an every down process. Q. You mentioned before the season you said if guys don't stay in the gaps they're not assignment sound they won't be playing. How many instances of that? DAVID GIBBS: Man, you're going straight for that, huh? I hear you. You know, somebody's got to go out there. We'll see. For the most part I felt like they tried to do what they were supposed to do. Obviously didn't do it. When you give up that many yards and that many points to a team that you're supposed to be a lot better than. I'm not going to defend anybody. Nobody played good. We won't have a defensive player of the game. It's not acceptable. But we'll build off the positives. It does no good to be the grim reaper and cuss everybody out and fire everybody, because at the end of the day we've got to go back out there Saturday and go play a bowl opponent who is a really good football team. Q. Coach, from what you've seen, what makes Aaron Jones their running back such a great player? DAVID GIBBS: He's elusive and he's hard to tackle. I mean, Arkansas, there are four or five times Saturday where they couldn't tackle him. They ended up pushing him out of bounds. He rushed for 70-some yards against him. Just the way the game got out of hand, they couldn't hand it to him every time, but I'm sure he'll get it 40 times against us. So we've got to find a way to tackle him and just slow him down. You're not going to stop him. He's too good a player. He obviously was underrecruited coming out of high school. He's a big-time player. Q. Are you going to spend more time watching last year's Tech-UTEP game or the Arkansas-UTEP game? DAVID GIBBS: I'm going to spend more time watching us and fixing us and fixing our problems and trying to get us better, because at the end of the day we know what's coming down the road. And UTEP's got some great players, but until we can lineup and know what gap we have and know what leverage we need to keep on the football, then who we're playing really doesn't matter to me. Obviously, we'll talk about certain players, the running back, the different quarterbacks they play, because they run different plays with different guys. But we've got to fix ourselves before we can move on to the next phase. ERIC MORRIS Q. It looked like you guys were maybe a little more big play capable this year than last. Do you see some of that? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, no doubt. Had a lot of explosions, as many as we've had since we've been here. In the passing game I think we had over 13 explosions. We had four in the run game. You know, it's just the guys are a little bit older. They're playing faster, and obviously there are a lot of things out there. The film is as good as we have to teach off of. There are some small things that are so little that are costing us some big chunks of yards. Obviously the two penalties. I think I counted up -- I made them chart it yesterday -- like 92 yards off of penalties, and that counts we have two explosive plays and penalties come back. That's inexcusable. It's stupid, and we've got to get that fixed immediately. On the eight drops that we had, 173 yards that we left out there. So I think a much better starting point than where we were last year at this point. I thought 5 did a great job of getting in and out of some good plays. Obviously, when it breaks down he can do some stuff that's fun to watch. But we're just this close from really being like ultra, ultra explosive. So it was good to see. It was good to see. Some of the freshmen didn't -- they're just not many -- you saw it last year. First pass we threw to Ian Sadler at UTEP. It's going to be a 60-yard touchdown. He looks nervous as all get out and he drops it. Saw some of that with some of the freshmen. I thought Jonathan Giles was probably the best freshman we had. His look was really good before the game. He played hard. He played smart. He got open on some stuff. He didn't get the ball, but overall, there is a bunch of stuff that's bad with the tape. Don't get me wrong. But a really good starting point. Week one and week two, we have to make a big jump on some execution things. Q. (Indiscernible) a great game for you guys, really seemed like he was stepping up to be the next big receiver. Did that just seem like he carried that momentum from last year what he brought into fall camp and finally did it on Saturday again? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, no doubt. Really explosive, but really disappointing on his overall effort every single time. And that is the scary part is that if we can fix a couple of those things, that's what we told him. He can be as good as there is in the country. He has to stop taking a couple plays off here and there, and dropping here and there. He can be scary good. He's not a selfish guy, and if he's tired and needs to get out. But he's a guy that's more consistent. If he brings it consistently like he did for the majority of the game, then he can be as good as anybody in the country. Q. The drop passes, are you attributing that to just like a lack of focus or what is it? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, I mean, just those guys got to catch balls or the next guy's going to get in the game. I don't know if anybody has any remedies to the point where I'll take suggestions on it. But, same thing. Lauderdale had three, and he had won the whole entire fall camp. So, yeah, focus, they get tired. After we played a little bit, besides the second play of the game, he scores on if he catches the screen. So it's something that those guys got to fix. Q. Were you surprised how quickly Giles picked up receivers? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, it's been fun to watch. We watched him run a couple routes when he was a wideout and we were evaluating him in camp. You could tell. He was just really rusty, but real natural hands. He has great hips. But as far as from day one through fall camp to practice 19, he's the kid that got better every single day. It's been fun to watch his process. The tricky part is Ian Sadler's playing pretty good right now and finding reps. So we've got to find a way to get him on the field a little bit more because he's earned that right. But he's playing behind a pretty good player right now. So that's my job as a coach. I've got to get him maybe 10, 15 more snaps a game, different places. Whether he goes to some of our empty packages, because he's playing better. Q. You talk about the lack of killer instinct there at the end. How do you address that this week? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, I think that's got to be handled by our players. It's something we sit in here and talk about. We have older guys, Le'Raven and Jakeem, and guys that are putting out some great individual efforts, but at some point all the good players I've been around, and you have that, that comes in a huddle with them together, and some of those leaders saying, hey, come on, let's bury these guys right now. So hopefully some of these players, they've even made points of emphasis about it, so hopefully we can get some of these key leaders. You watch Le'Raven, he has his guy on the ground the whole entire game. But at some point, we have, as a team, we have to feed off that mentality. He's got to do a better job. Jakeem played outstanding. As good as he's played here throughout the course of the whole game, not just catching the football, but blocking, so same thing. He's a fiery guy. He's got to get -- when it gets in those situations, we have some guys that I think have the ability and they have to do it in the huddle and get those guys going a little bit. Q. The ones that don't have it, don't realize they don't have it. And the ones that do have it need to say to the other guys, you Sneed to step it up? ERIC MORRIS: You know in sports, there are guys that coaches call it the "it" factor, and nobody knows exactly how to explain it. But we have to have some guys that step up in those moments and can really lead the charge on it. Q. (Indiscernible) to work with. How much easier is it to teach off a good tape instead of telling them how you want them to fix it? ERIC MORRIS: Both are good. Both are good. You know, my dad told me a long time ago you can learn just as much from a dumb person as you can a smart person. So we try to do both. We point out the good examples and point out the bad examples. You learn what not to do sometimes, and sometimes you praise the kids for their effort and what they're doing right. So I think it works both ways. I think you have good tape to teach off that can be mistakes and that can be, you know, encourage them after having some positive reinforcement. Q. You guys had ten receivers, each catch the ball. How much does that help you guys as a team? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, I think I talked about it last week. It's going to be challenging how we're going to get all these guys touches, along with the backs. So, I think what they gave us was a little bit more inclusive for us to tackle them down the field and where they played and where they played their safeties. So that's kind of what we did, starting with the second drive there when we hit Lauderdale down the field. We saw something in that first drive that we liked, and we thought we could move Lauderdale inside and attack a safety, so we did. But I thought Pat did a great job of getting it to the different people in space and not zeroing in and going through his reads, and actually just getting the ball out to different people based on what their coverage and leverage was. But, yeah, that's what we've got to do. We've got to make them cover the whole field. I thought that as far as us getting it to every single receiver, I thought it was pretty good. Q. You want your receivers to catch every single ball. Is there a number that maybe you go into the game expecting two or three drops? Is there a number where hey, that's probably going to happen every game? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, we throw it so much. You expect them. You're not going to go through and have a perfect season. But eight's way too many. And too, we did a drive chart, and when we had penalties and drops where the drives that we ended up having to punt or kick a field goal. So it's a direct reflection of what we're trying to preach in here day-in and day-out. We need to take care of the ball number one, which we did a pretty good job of for the most part. We had the one tip that passed Ian's hand and got intercepted. And interceptions are going to happen when you throw it that much too. But eight's way too many. You heard the numbers. If we cut that number in half, we're talking about an extra 150 yards added on to what we did. Q. What is the number you're looking at? ERIC MORRIS: I don't even know. I'd like to say zero, but we're not going to -- we don't expect these kids to be perfect either at any time. So if you leave with one or two, I think would be the most that you're looking for during the course of a game. We're talking about uncontested balls hitting them right in the chest. We counted Jakeem's as a drop. He's got his hands on it, he dives. That's a really tough catch. We expect him to make that. But just the routine, nobody's around you, ball's right on the money, those are the plays we can't be giving up. Q. That tip ball, is that pass intended for Ian? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, intended for Ian. Q. (Indiscernible)? ERIC MORRIS: I don't remember off the top of my head. Stockton, Stockton had two. One on the wheel route, and we threw a screen out to him that he dropped as well. Q. (Indiscernible)? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, it was pretty cool to see Ja'Deion High, huh? Really proud of him. Kid that's worked his butt off for three years here. We move him down to the bottom of the depth chart twice since he's been here and he's had great springs. Just ended up that he had the opportunity to go out there and start a game, and he played exceptionally well. He graded out great. He ran some great slant you routes where he beat man coverage, which we've been looking for that for a couple years now. He went down and got a low ball and got up field without putting his knee on the ground and got us out of bounds so we could score at the end of the half there. Thought he did great. Proud of him. His whole family was in from Hereford and that's one of the good stories where the kids been working and he's found a way to fight through adversity and got himself on the field. Q. UTEP, what do you expect out of them? ERIC MORRIS: Same thing. Same thing we saw last week. They're really similar. They're going to pressure a lot. They're going to play similar man coverage, one high, safeties are extremely aggressive. They have some young guys in the secondary. I mean, they started a couple freshmen last week and a freshman nickel back. Obviously the film against Arkansas doesn't give us a good judge if they've changed anything. So I thought they had some success against us last year, so I don't know why they wouldn't come out and do what they did last year which was similar to Sam Houston, so same thing. We're going to continue to have to beat man coverage, which we did a better job of this last game. We'll try to get some of these play makers in space and try to get them going early. Q. (Indiscernible) didn't check some of those earlier reads that he was hoping to, I guess, fix this off-season. How easy is that to fix and how big is that that a true sophomore realizes that this early in his career? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, that's what I told Coach Kingsbury after the game. That's his position and he does a phenomenal job coaching them. Sometimes I said, Coach, this is the fifth time he started a college football game. Is it fifth or sixth? How many did he start last year? Four last year he started, right. So this is his fifth start. The kid is not going to be perfect. He did a great job, I thought of getting us out of some run games that we called that were bad looks and had safeties down in the box. Checked some stuff to get it out quick. On third downs he checked some stuff in the quick game stuff, which I think we were 4 for 4 on all the quick game checks he made on 3rd and medium, which we call 3rd and medium, 3rd and 5 to 3rd and 7. So third downs are huge in this game, as you all know. So did a great job. I think we were 63% on third down, 62%. Which is good. So I thought he saw it well. I mean, there are a couple things that he's going to come back and watch film and he's going to learn from. But for his fifth game to start, I thought he did a remarkable job of getting us in and out of some stuff, and getting the ball out quick and into the right person. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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