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TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 26, 2015

Gary Patterson

Lubbock, Texas

TCU - 55
Texas Tech - 52

Q. How do you describe the final 30 seconds?
GARY PATTERSON: Not my first rodeo. We've been through this. I mean, it's hard to win on the road. I've got to give Tech credit. I've got to give their offense, what they did. They kept battling back. I told the announcers before the ballgame on Friday night, I said, it's probably who's going to have the ball last. I knew we were down pass rushers and I knew you had to rush the passer to be able to do it, and we hurt ourselves. We did some things, we gave up probably three touchdowns just on missed assignments. But you've got to give Tech credit and our offense. But you can't have a field goal blocked and you can't miss one. You can have a that game out of reach, and you don't have to be in that situation.

There's some things we need to learn out of it. You've got Texas up next at home. I told my team back in January, well, whenever this came out, the four most important ballgames in our season was this four-game swing. It was at Tech, home at Texas and then Kansas State, then Iowa State, because then you get about a week and a half to get ready for a Thursday night game.

I didn't expect anything different. Obviously I'd rather not have given up that many points, but like I said last week, if our job on defense this year is to hold them to one less, than that's what we do. All we care about is every week we move forward and we win a ballgame, but you've got to give Coach Kingsbury, that's a lot different football team than I saw a year ago. Played all the way to the end, and you know, they about didn't come up short.

Q. What was your confidence level in the offense those last three minutes?
GARY PATTERSON: Let me answer. We knew we had three time-outs. They used their time-outs, and we knew they didn't have any. The biggest thing was -- my biggest thing was I didn't -- if I use the time out, then I had two. If we didn't score, at least I had a chance for them to fumble because I could have taken it to zero. Now, hindsight, well, maybe -- before we played the last play I should have taken it to the second last and winner take all, but I ended up with 26 seconds, and it happened to be 26 seconds the last couple weeks.

Q. How did you see Trevone handling the situation?
GARY PATTERSON: Oh, you know what, Slanina went down, probably down for the season, Emanuel is probably out for more than one week. We've got -- you know, we had guys have to step up. We had to take a couple guys, redshirt -- Torrance Mosley was supposed to be our starting corner and he turns his ankle on Wednesday night. Nobody knows Thursday if he shows up, so we don't have the next corner lined down.

I've got to give this group credit. I mean, they just keep finding a way to win because most people would say, you know, you weren't supposed to. We were down -- we were down basically nine starters on defense, and that's not counting the guys that graduated a year ago, so nine starters this year, three senior pass rushers, and we've got Michael Mosharrafa playing in the game, which he's never played in a game before in his life. You've got guys rushing the passer, and we found a way to win. A couple freshman linebackers, Travin Howard got burned a couple times, but to be honest with you we asked him to do a lot, and he learned from the experience, and he'll get better next time, and it's going to be -- I don't expect much week to be much different to be honest with you.

Q. Talk about Doctson?
GARY PATTERSON: Well, why not? About time. Been here 18 years, out scoring people for 12 ballgames. Why not? Everybody else has been doing it. I've been having to do it with defense and winning 17-10. How about we go nine and ten ballgames and out score people. That would be nice. You guys kill me. If I win 17-10 I have no offense. Now I win 55-52 and you're going to say we're going to have to ride Doctson and Trevone. There have been a bunch of guys in this league that have had great wide receivers and great quarterbacks and been doing it. The team right across here, they've won a lot of football games here in Red Raider land doing just exactly that. For me, I'm just glad we're here at 55-52 and we've got to go back to the drawing board tomorrow and try and get better and see if we can find a way we can beat Texas by one point.

Q. They get the one untimed play at the end because of the penalty. Then all of a sudden you see --
GARY PATTERSON: I'll be honest with you. I'm just going to tell you this right now. I wasn't happy with Davion, not because of his play but because of how he acted. I wasn't happy with Carraway. We had seniors that got bounced, and the head coach that gave him a 15-yarder because the referee ran into me. It was inexcusable. We had hope for a field goal and then we threw the quarterback down. We get hands to the face, we'd have them on 4th down. You can't win ballgames and play like that.

Q. Your thoughts on Aaron making that catch?
GARY PATTERSON: Thank goodness. I don't know where he came from, but thank goodness.

Q. Do you think that kind of play says something about your year?
GARY PATTERSON: You've been listening to me. I told you it wasn't going to be easy this year. I mean, do you think you can just go write a nice story and we're going to win by 30 points? That's not happening in the Big 12, not when you play six games on the road. It's not going to be that way. So I mean, if you don't like this kind of ball, then don't come. I mean, it's easy. Stay home.

Q. You thought it was going to be this type of season because he's that type of player?
GARY PATTERSON: Here's what happens: Any time you have a special year, people make special plays. You know, everybody said that Trevone may be a little bit overrated, well, you just need to start watching ballgames. The only thing -- he finally did something I asked him to do. During the ballgame he got down. I said, quit taking all the major hits, and when you've got enough yardage, get down, and tonight, he got down, most of the time.

Again, let me just go back to you. I thought Coach Kingsbury, his staff did an unbelievable job between where they were last year and where they are this year, where they're at. That's 3-1. They went on the road and beat an SEC team, having been here two years ago being 4-8 and understanding what it takes to come back and win more ballgames than you lose. To me hats off to them. That was a great ballgame, great crowd. I mean, you don't want to come into a stadium where they like you. That means they've been beating you all the time. You like to be hated. That's what you want. I've got a lot of Tech fans, and I get a chance to go to dinner after the season because there was a couple years I didn't win on the road and I was buying time, so now it's time for them to buy. So until we play next year.

But obviously you saw our kids. We were happy. You know, I don't know -- I'll be honest with you. I told them before the ballgame I didn't think they believed they could win this ballgame, all the people that had gone down, all the emotional leaders, all the things, and Kolby Listenbee didn't play today, Emanuel went down, Slanina went down, and these guys still found a way to move the ball down the field and found a way to score 55 points. You've got to give a team -- no matter how the rest of the year goes, you've got to give this group of kids a lot of credit. I mean, they fought through a lot. It's not been the way they wanted it to be, and hopefully at some point in time the next couple weeks we'll get Lathan back. Hopefully a couple guys, Torrance will come back.

Q. Listenbee's status, do you expect him back?
GARY PATTERSON: I don't know, I hope so. When you lose a 10 flat 100-meter guy to blow the top off the deal, that's a big deal in your offense now. That's a big deal. But I'm going to tell you something right now. Josh Johnson is a good player. For a guy that walked on, they knew where we were going to throw, they still doubled him and he still about caught it. I mean, so he's just a really good player. I mean, just really good.

Q. What can you say about your young guys on the defense?
GARY PATTERSON: Well, you've got to just get stops because we're going to look at this film and find out it was not necessarily what Tech did on some of them. It's what we did. I mean, when the guy doesn't blitz and they run us down and come back where he was supposed to be coming off the edge, we're playing man free and a guy plays inside press coverage on the 3rd and 7 for their last touchdown run, press outside. I mean, there's things like that, the little things that they need to learn that you've been telling them, until it happens to them in a ballgame and it's at a pivotal point, they don't get it. So for me, everybody says, well, you're not playing -- no, we're not. But all I've got to do is get better next week. I've got to get better the next week, and one of the ways we get better is to get people back.

So right now, very excited about winning 55-52. I mean, because it's hard to go on the road and win in this conference. Hard. We haven't won here in four times, and we took a ballgame like that to win it. It's tough to do. Why would you want it any different? TV ratings? I mean, if it would have been 45-25, half you guys wouldn't be here.

Q. What are your thoughts on Doctson's performance in this game?
GARY PATTERSON: Awesome. Yep, awesome. I haven't seen any of the film and I didn't have a sheet. What was his yardage?

Q. I didn't see the final stats. 19 catches, 18 catches, I can't remember the yardage. Close to 300.
GARY PATTERSON: So he was like 210 or 230 was his biggest game. I mean, to win a ballgame like that, you're going to have to have somebody do something like that.

Q. How much do you feel like the previous success of this program kind of gets you through this?
GARY PATTERSON: Well, it doesn't help our young players because they weren't part of it, but it helps our old players because like Derrick Kindred, they've been through the 12-1, they've also been through the 4-8. The freshman coming in, the junior college, the new one, they haven't been through any of this, so they don't know, so a game like this was big. It was big for Coach Cumbie.

I saw some where there was bad blood because he left. As far as I know there was good graces. He wanted to be a quarterback coach, and he was told that he couldn't be a quarterback coach, so he wanted to go be a coordinator and be a quarterback coach somewhere. I mean, I've lost coaches. Every one of my coaches last year got offered a job to leave, all nine. One left.

So that's all as a head coach you want. You want guys that are doing well and being successful and they get offered jobs and move forward. Guy gets offered a job -- go down the list of guys. Kenny Perry was the only guy left and he went to Kansas.

For me, as I get older -- you know, when you're younger you don't get it. As you get older, yeah, it's winning, losing, but still about how do you help people get where they need to get to, and this was a big game for everybody, and I'm sure for Texas Tech it was a heartbreaker because they wanted this one back, and they played like that. Now here we go, and fortunately for us we scored a couple more points.

But I was in an overtime -- triple overtime game against them at our place two or three years ago where we lost it on the last play, and so I figure between Tech and West Virginia, these games are always going to be like this, so just keep -- I've gone from one baby aspirin to two; I can tell you that. Next I'll be taking Extra Strength Tylenol. Jiminy Christmas.

Q. What was going through your mind on that last play where they started to do the whole Stanford thing?
GARY PATTERSON: Yeah, when I saw the offensive line, I was like, you've got to be kidding me, and then he flips it to No. 11, and you can't hardly tackle him in a phone booth. So we've got guys running all over the place, thinking how is one guy going to get him on the ground. Til we saw the final one -- now, a younger Gary Patterson would be mad because we gave up about 70 more points of total yardage. The older Gary Patterson is just glad we won by three points.

Q. Did you see Aaron catch the ball from where you were?
GARY PATTERSON: Yes. Obviously the foot went down so quick so you didn't really know, so when it went down, as soon as I saw it go down, I knew it was a catch. But like everybody else, I was looking at the big screen. I mean, I've got my popcorn and...

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