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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 14, 2015

David Gibbs

Lubbock, Texas

Q. Did you (Indiscernible) back Saturday night?
COACH GIBBS: No, I did not. You know what, we gave up a 91-yard run; that's not acceptable. The crazy thing was it's probably the easiest run they ran all day, which just lets you know where we are. The good news is within this game, within the system we all know who is responsible for the play, so we get it corrected and move on.

But if you can't stop a basic iso in football, we might as well not even head down to Arkansas this weekend because they'll run 50 of them.

But the kids played hard. Obviously didn't start out very well, but they kept fighting. You know, it is what it is. We'll continue to work to get better.

Q. It seemed like Pete really got the defense pumped up. How clutch was the attack?
COACH GIBBS: Pete obviously is a great football player. He's probably our leader on defense emotionally. He plays hard. He's Pete. You know, when he's out there flying around it makes everybody else play better and gives everybody else a little more confidence. Pete wasn't clean in his game. Obviously he didn't play in the first one, so he was rusty. But he finds a way to make plays and that's at the end of the day that's what it's all about.

Q. You talked a little bit about Arkansas's running back who is so very good and Collins and what you see from him that might be problematic.
COACH GIBBS: Well, I heard last week he was sick all week, so that's probably why he didn't play very good Saturday. He's a special talent. He could have gone anywhere in the country out of high school and he went to Arkansas which is a credit to those guys.

He's hard to tackle. He's an NFL running back. Obviously we hadn't tackled very well the first two weeks, so if we don't tackle better, he's going to gain a lot of yards. I'm sure they're not pleased with their run game right now. They'll be looking to fix that against us. If I was watching our defensive tape, I'd run it every snap. I would.

So we'll get a full dose of him, and we have all week to improve. Like I keep saying, we'll continue to improve and we'll find out Saturday night.

Q. You said earlier that usually you see the most improvement week one and week two. Did you see what you wanted to see?
COACH GIBBS: We made some improvements. I'm glad we didn't play Arkansas Saturday. I'm glad we got an extra week of practice. But some guys did some better things. They played a lot harder. There's a lot, like I always say, there are a lot of excuses and reasons why. But give the kids credit, they did play harder and they showed some improvement.

Q. Looking at last year's tape, where do you feel the front seven is this year compared to where they were then?
COACH GIBBS: I actually just got done watching it for about the fifth time and not so much for the outcome, just to watch how our guys competed and fought. I said it when I got here, what happens to bad defenses is they start doing their own thing and they start jumping out of gaps. I'm in there with the coaches asking what the defense is and why is so and so here when he should be there.

It starts up front. If your front doesn't play very good, then your linebackers have no chance. If your linebackers have no chance, your safeties have no chance. I'd like to think we're a little bit better, but, again, I'm not the guy to sit here and talk on Monday. We'll find out 6:00 o'clock Saturday night because there is nowhere to hide.

Q. How much defensive improvement do you feel like you saw based on the first half against UTEP and then compared to the second? Do you feel like some of that might have been because, obviously, Aaron Jones wasn't there for that second half?
COACH GIBBS: Could very well be. Truth is we played power back-ups most of the second half. So you could say our back-ups are better than our starters. I'm glad he didn't play. I don't feel bad about that at all. It is what it is. We'll continue to improve. We practiced tackling every week and we practice run fits every week. Like I keep saying, we'll keep doing the same things over and over again, and eventually we'll get better. Eventually it will show up throughout the a whole game Saturday afternoon or Saturday night.

Q. Did you see a progression from any of those linebackers playing in the second game as opposed to maybe some in the first?
COACH GIBBS: We did. We did, and that's part of it too is figuring out who can play where, who can play in what spot. We're in the process of finding out who can actually do what in a live situation because you just don't scrimmage a whole lot anymore. So what happens to you is you really don't know until the live bullets come. We've seen some live bullets here in the last two weeks and obviously Saturday will be some fast bullets.

Q. You talked about your guys up front and how they need to remain strong. You're going to face the biggest O-line in football, what exactly are you expecting of your defense?
COACH GIBBS: Just to lineup properly, play with proper technique, take the proper foot work, hand placement, things you coach, things that you can control. You can't control that their offensive line is ginormous and they're bigger than all the NFL teams too. You go out there and play with technique and do your job. I think it then comes down to Xs and O's, and can you tackle their running backs?

If you go up there and try to do crazy things against a 6'8" 350-pound guy, he's obviously going to kill you and knock you into somebody else and that's going to cause more problems.

We're going to get a crazy shot from them, which they usually don't have to do this early in the season, but after just getting beat, I know the head coach. I know what's coming.

Q. You coached in so many different conferences, even the SEC. There are a lot of people who crown the SEC as kind of that top conference and everybody falls in line after. Do you see that difference in talent between the SEC and the rest of the Power Five conferences?
COACH GIBBS: My plate is full right now. I'm really not worried about -- no disrespect. Yeah, when I coached down there I worried about it all the time. All I see is an NFL offensive line. I see an NFL running back. I see a fifth-year senior quarterback who started a bunch of football games. They don't turn the football over. I don't see a whole lot of weaknesses.

I watched that game from Saturday five times already. I don't know how they lost the game. We've got our hands full. Again, I don't -- I'm going to go fight and see what happens.

Q. You said you played the back-ups in the second half on defense?
COACH GIBBS: We played a lot of back-ups, got a lot of guys in the game. Just the way the rotation went, the starters played a lot in the first half and wanted to make sure. Obviously when your offense scores however many points, it's a lot easier to put your back-ups in and give them extra work. But we put the back-ups in the week before earlier in the game and they didn't stop anybody.

So, again, we've got a bunch of guys we're still working our way through this thing and trying to improve every week, and hopefully we'll continue to do so.

Q. Arkansas just announced that Keon Hatcher is going to be out for about six weeks. How do you envision that kind of changing your game plan?
COACH GIBBS: So they'll put another All-SEC guy in there for him. I can't focus on one guy. The truth is defensively we have our problems and we've got to continue to work to get better, and I know it's a broken record, but it makes this thing shorter if I keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Q. Does Collins remind you of anybody?
COACH GIBBS: No, because he's big, he's explosive. I've learned this about college football, everybody's got a really good running back, some are NFL guys size-wise, height, weight, speed, some are not. The guy we just played is pretty friggin' good. The guy we're going to go play is pretty friggin' good, but I'm not going to compare him to anybody.

Q. (No microphone) Arkansas you and coach know each other pretty well. You had mentioned you know him. What is that relationship?
COACH GIBBS: We just grew up coaching together. He was at Iowa and I was at Minnesota, and it goes on and on and on.

Q. So you've been across the field from him a few times?
COACH GIBBS: I know what's about to happen. We better lace them up.

Q. Are you all friendly?
COACH GIBBS: Yeah, no, it's fine. Just buddies.

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