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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 5, 2015

Micah Awe

Lubbock, Texas

An Interview With:

MICAH AWE

Q. As leader on the defense, how do you keep the team's confidence going after a performance like Saturday?
MICAH AWE: I mean just coming out Monday in practice and being excited because we were still playing a good. It's football, and you win some, you lose some. And honestly, we're past that. You know, we all know that Iowa State's next, and we can still win against Iowa State. We can't do anything about last week. So main thing is just to, for these younger guys to just know that we can still win and we're going to win this week.

Q. Coach Gibbs said that when things are going really fast that players have a tendency to go back to bad habits. Have you seen that as a leader on the defensive team, players do some bad things that they know they've been coached not to do?
MICAH AWE: I mean just naturally. You do it, I do it. Everyone does it every once in a while. But not as much as we used to. Coach Gibbs has that down to a minimum level, and I think our main thing is just to learn from it. I mean we took a lot from those past two games against TCU and Baylor, Top 5 offenses in the country, and relatively speaking, things should be better now. You know, Iowa State is going to be a great team, but TCU and Baylor really made us learn a lot, and that's the main thing, we gotta learn from it so we won't make the same mistakes.

Q. If you had to describe the Iowa State offense, how would you describe it?
MICAH AWE: They're solid. I mean they're solid, well-coached offense. It's Big 12 football still. I mean anything can happen. I mean I think this is a great conference because of that reason; anything can happen. And we can't just go out there and think, oh, we're Texas Tech, we're going to beat Iowa State. We gotta put the work in starting today and all the way through Saturday.

Q. Micah, what happened from your view on the 79-yard touchdown run right at the start of the game?
MICAH AWE: Just a lot of mistakes at the wrong time, against the wrong people. Point blank. Baylor is a great offense, and you make a mistake against them, they'll make you pay with a 79-yard touchdown.

Q. What were you guys able to do on some first and second downs to force a bunch of third-down opportunities but not able to stop the run?
MICAH AWE: I mean third down has been an emphasis, you know, just in football in general. We gotta get them off on third down. We're a good defense but we're not that good yet and that's something we need to work on. And I think part of that's just growing up with Coach Gibbs and understanding the game better and just making a play sometimes. I mean sometimes you can call the perfect defense, but you still gotta make the play at the end of the day. I still gotta make the tackle; DB has still gotta knock the ball down and the D line has to still get off the blocks. So you can say all you want, but we just gotta play better defense.

Q. You've been through quite a few defensive coordinators. Is he the most candid and maybe honest with your all's performance of anybody in terms of how it is?
MICAH AWE: Yeah. He is. I mean Coach Gibbs, you look at his resumÃ©. He's been in the NFL. I mean sorry to say this, but this football game we play happens to be a business also. So he wants the best players out there that are going to do their job, and he lets us know. I mean I know I didn't do a great job last game. I'm disappointed, but I'm not discouraged, because at least we have Iowa State and the rest of the season to work on to get better on defense. But Coach Gibbs does a good job of doing that and just keeps you accountable, and I like it because I see a much more mature team. When a guy makes mistakes, he knows it and he tries to correct it on his own. No one else needs to talk to him. But it's just all part of growing up and we need to make less mistakes.

Q. When something goes wrong, like the 79-yard play, you got young guys on the back end, what do you pull those guys on the sidelines to say the secret or the key is playing harder or trying to play within themselves? What do you try and preach to them?
MICAH AWE: I mean the main thing, B. Jack and Pete Robertson, they are doing a great job of being vocal leaders out there. But sometimes you just gotta calm down and go back to your basics. I mean sometimes, or a lot of times if you try harder, you're going to make more mistakes. It's not about trying harder, especially on defense. I think a lot of people don't understand, going against these offenses in college nowadays, the worst thing you can do sometimes is try harder. The best thing you can do is just calm down and go back to your basics and go back to your fundamentals because they're going to make plays regardless of how well you think your defense is. So we just gotta calm down and regroup each and every play, whether the last play was a good play or a bad play. We just gotta regroup and continue to move on and be consistent because defense, I mean that's what defense is is consistency. The best defenses are consistent. They don't stop everyone, but they're most consistent and that's what we need to get to.

Q. With Iowa State, is that a different wide receiver? Is there something almost kind of deceptively good about their passing game that you have to play assignment football?
MICAH AWE: Iowa State, Richardson does a good job of spreading the ball out. I mean it's kind of like our offense. Just, oh, Jakeem is going to be the best receiver this week, or you know, Lauderdale. It's a different receiver every week depending on what the defense gives you. And we just gotta do a good job of containing their whole offense.

Q. You have a really mature perspective about take what we learned from TCU and Baylor. How wide is that mature perspective or is it something that you sort of try to sort of, pardon the word, cheerlead the younger players to do?
MICAH AWE: I mean it all starts from Coach Gibbs. That's kind of the mentality that he gives us. I mean, like I said, he's been in the NFL. You can tell he's been in the NFL because you watch film, no one is going to film thinking he's going to talk me up. You go into film thinking someone made a mistake here, was it me. And he's not bringing you down. He's just letting you understand that you made a mistake once, don't make it twice. Don't make it a third time. And it's just the mentality we have to have as defense. I mean everyone loves offense. You don't really -- most people who don't know a lot about football don't go to games for the defense, like I can't wait to see this defense. You go to the game saying I want to see a lot of scores -- a lot of points being scored. So as a defense, you just gotta know like they're recruiting great players out there, and the best thing you can do is when a play goes your way, make it. If I have a chance to have an interception, I need to get it because that might be a game changer at the end of the game. I mean we all know about that, turnovers are a huge thing to Coach Gibbs. You can be playing a horrible defensive game, but if you make four turnovers, I mean you can look the stats up, that's probably a win, you know. Just things like that, all of us are kind of just thinking that way because Coach Gibbs has just really led us to have that culture.

Q. So is the message this week calm down and play?
MICAH AWE: Yeah. I mean, like I said, Iowa State is a good team. They're going to get yards on us. They're going to score. But that's not for us to be sad. That's just for us to be, all right, we gotta minimize it as much as we can, as much as possible as we can. And as a linebacker on the team, I just need to communicate better. I think a lot of our past mistakes against TCU and Baylor was just communication. Part of it I can make excuses because they're going fast. It doesn't matter. I mean I gotta get the job done. That's something I learned, just communicate because I think we're a very good defense when we're all playing well together.

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