|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 14, 2015DeAndre WashingtonMicah AweLubbock, Texas Q. Did you get a chance to watch any of that game between Arkansas and Toledo? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: We caught the end of it coming in. I think the last two minutes of the game. Q. Do you feel like it helps or hurts you the fact that they got beat because now they're coming in with a huge chip on their shoulder and they're furious and they have so much more to prove? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: I really don't think it made too much of a difference. You've still got to lineup and play those guys. You still got to go into those guys' home stadium. So I really don't think -- I'm pretty sure after how they played us last year they feel they have a certain level of confidence. So regardless of how they played last week, I'm sure they're feeling pretty confident about us. Q. Are you going to prepare differently the week going into your first road game as opposed to just playing at home? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Not really. Probably just get the young guys to make sure everything is more mentally focused than it would usually be just because we're on the road and little mistakes cost us. One mistake can be the game changer. Q. DeAndre, Coach Kingsbury said when referring to the Arkansas loss last year, we don't forget a beating like that. Has this been circled on your calendar as a game you've been wanting to play in for a while now? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Yeah, it's definitely one just because they came in and pretty much handled us the whole game. It's definitely something we'll be preparing on the whole week during practice and give us something to motivate us going throughout the week. Q. Can you talk about the difference between playing at home and playing on the road using silent signals and things like that? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Yeah, just the crowd noise. We can kind of control the crowd here at home, but they don't care about it when we go on the road. So we've got to make sure everything's on point as far as signal-wise, communications from the O-line, D-line, across the board. We've got to make sure we're on point during practice and everything will take care of itself on the weekend. Q. Who is the leader in that communication or is it every man for himself? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Oh, it starts with Coach King. He calls the plays, and then he gives it to Pat, and Pat just takes the down to the receivers and the rest of the offense. Q. Do you feel like in that touchdown run you had at the beginning of the that second half, at least to me it looked like you had an extra gear of speed I hadn't seen in, I don't know, maybe before your injury? Does it feel like that to you? Like maybe you've been operating at a higher level than maybe you were last year? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: I feel good, man. I feel good. I don't think I lost any speed from freshman year till now. But definitely feels good to finally get one of those long ones. Q. What do you remember of the Arkansas defense last year? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Just physical, fast to the ball, they didn't really make too many mistakes, and they kind of waited for us to make the mistakes and we kind of played into their hands with that last year, missed opportunities. Q. Speaking of mistakes, you haven't made many with regards to turnovers. What do you attribute that to? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Just focus. Those are two of the things we really harped on, penalties and turnovers. We had ways of constructive criticism and getting it right. And I think guys are finally starting to realize if we cut those down, how dangerous we can be. Q. (No microphone)? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Just kind of staying in the moment. The first two games they've been loading the box on us and just staying with our receivers, I guess. Just staying in the moment, and when your number gets called, just be ready to go. Q. What have you seen from the first two games of the offense? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Really not surprised. Pat's been doing that the whole off-season. It's a good feeling that you guys finally get to see it, but he's been making those plays all off-season. It really doesn't surprise me too much. Q. I know it's early in the season, but where would this team rate as far as explosiveness of other offenses you've played? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Probably in the top tier. Just because we have so many weapons we've got so much depth, running back, receivers, offensive line. So I'd probably have to say right around the top. Q. How difficult is it being a Houston native after the night the Cowboys had last night? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: Cowboys had a good game. That was just game one though, it wasn't the Super Bowl, so we'll see how they fair out the rest of the season. Q. Does it bug you when you hear about the SEC and what a dominant conference they are and the rest of the Power Five kind of seemed to fall in line? Is it the talent gap is so far apart? DEANDRE WASHINGTON: No, I think it's just fine, man. You can talk a lot, but you know, you won't really be able to tell until you see a lot of them play. They've got some great players in their conference. We've got some great players in our conference. You've got to lineup and play and that's when you'll be able to tell. Q. Micah, how you feeling physically? I know you're kind of beat up in the first game and bouncing back. How are you feeling right now? MICAH AWE: I'm feeling good, man. I'm just glad and thank God I'm able to play games and continue to play games this season. Q. What have you seen from the defense? Have you seen progress these first two games from week one to week two? MICAH AWE: Yeah, I mean, Coach Gibbs said that the biggest, you know, improvement is going to be from week one to week two. I think we improved a little. Still have a lot a lot of stuff to work on on defense. If you watch the film, we still made a lot of mistakes, but improvement was there. Q. So that long touchdown run, was it still issues of being in the right spot and gaps? MICAH AWE: Yeah, when we watch that play we're just beating ourselves. That play was just the definition of how we just messed ourselves up. That's just what we've got to improve on. The running back was very good. UTEP running back Jones was very good and he was able to see our mistake and capitalize on it very well. And Arkansas's going to do the same thing. Q. How do you think you fix that? MICAH AWE: Film-watching. I mean, linebackers are very hard in this league especially going against the offenses we go against and running backs and all the receivers we go against. Just watching more film and me and the rest of the linebacker crew need to watch more film to be able to adjust on go. It's okay to take maybe a false step there, but you have to recover somehow. Instead of a 90-yard touchdown, get a 20-yard gain which is better. So improvement's always going to be there. It's what we need to start doing. Q. Coach Gibbs said looking at last year's tape he kind of noticed a bunch of guys maybe toward the end of the game, I think you might have the defense in general, but would you kind of do your own thing if things start to break down a little bit? Is that something you noticed on the tape that maybe defensive plays weren't exactly being executed? MICAH AWE: I mean, last year we had a lot of issues to say the least. But this year Coach Gibbs is keeping us very accountable. There are definitely no favorites out there. You do your job, you don't do your job, you don't play. Simply put. So even if we're down 60 or up 60, you better be doing your job. I believe in my teammates this year. I haven't seen it yet to where someone just completely broke down and went back to their street ball ways, but that's what Coach Gibbs, you know he's going to watch film tomorrow. You know he's going to put it up there so don't do it. That's what we're trying to do is keep doing our job and what we've been taught. Q. Going back to the film watching, is that more of a personal discipline that you have to have the want-to to do that? Is that where that comes from? MICAH AWE: People have different ways of getting prepared for games. Some people watch less film. We all have a required film with the coaches. But my senior year in high school I had two hours of senior release, and all I did was watch film the whole time, two hours. Honestly, I can't tell you statistically I didn't do any scientific thing on it, but I think it helped a lot because I had a better senior year. So for me it's just watching film and seeing when you play linebacker and you're out there, you start to feel plays coming. That's what I'm trying to get to. Q. Last year Arkansas had a strong running game against you all and Collins is pretty strong. Can you talk about that challenge going up there this weekend? MICAH AWE: Yeah, I mean, I've never been to Arkansas before, first off. Playing the SEC opponent they're going to run the ball. That's what they do. They're going to do anything to win the game. They'll pass if they need to, they'll run if they need to. So we need to prepare for the whole gamut. I think just you know it's going to be up to the defense to do our job. At the end of the day, just do your job. They're going to get yards on us because they're very talented. You don't go to Arkansas just because you're a player. You go to Arkansas because you're a good player, so I think they're going to do a good job of running the ball. Q. You're going to be facing the biggest O-line in football. Is that more nerve-racking for you guys or more motivation to go out and put in the work this week to be able to prepare to face them? MICAH AWE: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I love going -- not just in college football. But the biggest O-line probably in the NFL. But that's a great thing for all of us. Especially thinking into the future, all of the senior defensive linemen, that's one question that the NFL guys are going to ask. Can they go against bigger guys? They're going to ask me the same question. I think it's a great challenge. I'm glad Arkansas has the biggest O-line man in the country. That's just a testament to how we can play against it and be tough and see how we do and just do our job at the end of the day. Q. What happens at halftime? You guys have had some struggles in the first half of both games so far this year. In the second half you've really been able to turn it around. What is the switch there at halftime that you're able to make that switch on defense? MICAH AWE: I mean, the switch happened at the end of last season, as soon as that season was over last season. That's one of the things we struggled with last year. Coach Kingsbury has been harping on it since literally the last game. We've been doing certain things in practice to help us get ready for halftime. We're just seeing what we've been putting the work into. So we come out at halftime and we're not doing anything special because we've been doing this since last season and the end of last season. Q. How do you feel the guys in the front seven who were in that game last year have improved to be in that position to face Arkansas this year? MICAH AWE: I think all of us have improved physically and mentally. Physically Coach Dennis has us doing great workouts. We're more than in shape. And mentally Coach Gibbs, like I said, comes down to doing our job. Sometimes you do your job and the other team still gets a touchdown. But as long as you consistently keep doing that, you can't be mad at the effort. So we're just going to keep on doing that and see where we are at the end of the game. Q. (No microphone)? MICAH AWE: Just physically as in being able to not being tired. I mean, I've always thought as a defense it doesn't matter how good your defense is, because when you get tired, it all goes downhill. So basically this game, especially in the Big 12, the first defense that gets tired, is the first defense that loses. I think we're better. We're more in shape. Again, we're just going to do our job and see what happens and give our offense the ball. Q. You've given up, I think, it was over 400 rushing yards to this team last year. Are you guys ready to get out there? I guess was this circled on your calendar to prove to these guys this was a different defense than what they saw last year? MICAH AWE: Circled on the calendar, I don't know, because every game is circled to be honest with that. From Sam Houston State, to UTEP last week, Arkansas is next up. We're just going to do our job. That is the theme of this whole thing is do our job because at the end of the day if you do your job, it should add up. From the beginning of football, X's and O's, it's 11 on 11, the defense sets it up right, technically it should be a zero yard game. But Arkansas very talented has great O-line, as you all said, great running backs, great receivers and a good quarterback. So we've got to do our job and have more effort and try to win this game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|