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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 12, 2015Eric MorrisLubbock, Texas An interview with: ERIC MORRIS Q. Obviously a really good performance on Saturday from the offense. How do you build on that going into this week? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, same thing we've been preparing since we started this season is when we don't turn it over, and when we don't go backwards with penalties, which we did a couple times, and luckily Patrick Mahomes scrambled around and made some ridiculous plays on third and long for us. He really helps us look like geniuses on this third down percentage. But if we don't turn the ball over, it's going to be hard to stop us. So really proud of some of the young guys that stepped up. And up front I thought we had a pretty good game, up front running the football. Morales came in and Robert Castaneda, they both split time and did a good job for us. We have to continue to get these young guys better. They're playing with confidence and playing faster. I thought that was the biggest thing is we got some of the young kids that are playing with a lot of confidence. Q. What did you think about your young guys at receiver, not only how they caught the ball but how they blocked and their effort on Saturday? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, really good blocking. We've got to get better. Up and down they had some nice ones that sprung some big plays. I thought Ja'Deion High was probably the best blocking receiver we had. He didn't crush anybody, but his guy didn't make the play one time. And DeAndre's long run, he blocked the guy ten seconds down the field. Really proud of Ja'Deion. Made nice catches on third downs. He's a possession guy, and he blocked really well. So good to see him step up in a time that we need him. Q. With Giles, it seems he's gotten better every week he's played. So what have you thought about his progress so far this season? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, really good. He's probably as good as we have when we put the ball up in the air, his natural ball skills, when times his jump, the way his hips open up and has great hands. So we'll continue to find ways to move him outside a little bit to get some of these jump ball verticals because he's really good at it. But, yeah, he's getting better. He still has a little bit of a quarterback mindset as far as his physical toughness, and we need that to step up a lot. The kid's making a lot of plays. He's going to be a really good player around here, but he's got to become tougher in the run game for us. That is the only knock on him I have right now. Q. You think over the last few weeks even with not only Mahomes' injury but being down three of your top four guys, you've even been a little amazed at the production that Mahomes has been able to create with the lack of starters around at least? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, no doubt. He's pretty special. It's fun to watch him create these plays and find people down field, and how accurate he throws the ball on the run is what's really remarkable to me. But some of these young guys are going to end up passing up these older guys. They're doing a great job right now. They have some real skills on the outside. So we've seen that throughout it. I think the more impressive thing is Pat more so than these young guys. We trust these kids. For them to get this experience at this time is great. The stretch that we're about to go through here in the last six weeks of the season, we're going to play some really good defensive backs. So they'll be battle tested. They've seen the speed. They've made plays during games. So that is the key thing to me is they're getting experience. But we have plenty of firepower at receiver to win any of these games we have left to play. Q. What do you see as the strength of the Kansas defense? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, I think their back end is pretty good, actually. They did some really good things on the back end against Baylor last week and got them into third down a lot. This is a week that we'll focus on us, and we have to execute and play really hard. They're not as bad as some of the scores show. I know Coach Beatty really well. He'll have them coached up and playing hard. So we have to go out there -- it's an early morning game at Kansas -- and just focus on us. Come out fired up just like we did last week. I thought we had the best practice week last week that we had since Arkansas. So that really showed up and carried over. So that's something that we're going to have to do again. We'll harp on it all week, and then we have to continue to play fast and make the plays that are out there. Q. How impressed have you been with Patrick being able to work with all these young receivers coming into the rotation? ERIC MORRIS: We throw with them all summer long. There's been a lot of timing worked for a long time. Over six months now he's been working with them. The thing is is a bunch of these -- it's not like we pulled the red-shirts. They've been working with him in practice every day since fall camp. So you have KeKe, Ja'Deion's been there for two years, Zach Austin has been here for two years and got plenty of reps with Mahomes. Tony Brown has been playing a ton this year. Giles is working more and more into it right now. I think it's not as surprising to us just because they have had a ton of reps together. They know each other. They know the timing of each and everything. Jakeem's kind of leading us right now. He's playing really hard and explosive and doing things he needs to do in space. So we'll keep leaning on Jakeem and give these guys some time to grow up out there. Q. Do you get a sense of confidence of how explosive the offense has been, it just keeps growing and spreading through the whole team? ERIC MORRIS: One thing we have to do is a better job of playing together. When they do get stops, we have to capitalize. We could have done it earlier in the game, I thought. When something happens bad to them, we have to do a better job to respond right there. It's getting better. I don't think it's close to where it needs to be right now with all three units playing together and feeding off each other. But I thought the defense came up with some great stops. It's remarkable. They come out in the second half it seems like every week and do great things and give us the ball, and that's what we need to continue to happen. The turnovers are really good. For us to get the ball and switch the momentum, not a very good performance when we get the ball inside the 10-yard line. That first drive of the game we had two plays that we love that we didn't execute on. And we have to settle for a three. We get the ball back right after that first play and get to go down. We thought that was a huge play in the game, and it gave us early confidence that we needed. Q. What is your in-game reaction when you see Mahomes do his thing and scramble it? Coach Kingsbury said over the headset it's almost like no, no, and then yes. ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, no doubt. He missed a couple early reads that he'll continue to get better on. And he made a lot of good early reads too. But it's definitely a sense of that. I'm getting more and more used to it up there. You keep thinking he's going to run out of luck one of these times and throw an interception, but he never seems to do it. It's pretty remarkable, the play he threw to Reg and in the back of the end zone, which is -- that rule is a little bit different. You all know the Hill rule? I don't know, because I'm watching it up there because we have a TV, and I didn't know that rule. The heel, I didn't think it counted as a toe. It touched his heel first, so it counts. His heel came down in, and the rest of his foot landed out near the ball, so it counts just like as a toe touching first. So a little bit of a change. I'd never seen that before. That was good. When he found Jakeem, it was just remarkable. I think our offensive line is getting better at continuing on their block and being able to redirect because you never know where he is behind you. So, yeah, I think in game, you just kind of let him do what he's doing. Q. Have you been giving Jakeem tips on how a guy who has not been blessed with a lot of height can see down field? ERIC MORRIS: No, he's way more athletic than me. I don't know how you tackle him in open space. It's really almost impossible for these guys that do it. We do scramble drill, more so than we have ever done here. We know their breakpoints and where they're trying to get. We kind of have a little method to how we want the guys to operate within the route schemes, once he does break right or left. We work it a lot. I think the guys are getting more and more used to it, and they're anticipating it a little more and getting to those spots faster, which is helping us. Q. The old adage of playing quarterback is you're not supposed to throw across your body to the middle of the field (off microphone). ERIC MORRIS: He's better at it than anybody I've ever seen, which is remarkable. Him going left, I've never seen anyone throw it as accurately as he does throwing left. It's hard. It's the old saying when you keep scoring touchdowns, and it's hard to correct them when they keep scoring touchdowns doing what they're doing. We've got to continue to just get -- I thought the running game was key to this game. At key times we were able to put it in Stockton and DeAndre's hands, and then it set up some play action stuff down the field when they have to move safeties down. So we'll continue to try to run the ball. It's going to be a staple. We're going to change schematically things up each and every week to try to force the issue on getting the ball in those running backs' hands. Q. Blocking from receivers seems like a remarkable improvement from last year. What would you attribute that to? ERIC MORRIS: Just them wanting to do it. We've drilled more of it, and the drills aren't even really drills. They're toughness drills where we put them in hard situations and they have to run into people and be tough and have the want-to. So I think it's 80% just the mental capability to want to do it, and 20% technique and effort. I think kids are closer to each other, they're bought in, blocking with each other, celebrating with each other when they do. We've got some boards in both receiver rooms that kind of show the knockdowns and cuts that we've had. The big touchdown blocks, as we call them, so home run blocks. Kids are taking responsibility for it, and they come in and look at it. Inside guys compete with outside guys, and they're trying to win. Q. Who won the belt this week? ERIC MORRIS: The belt has not been given out yet. I'll tell you tomorrow. Q. How much of that improvement is because they're hearing the same voices from the coaching staff? These guys have been with you guys since the beginning. ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, I don't know. You'd have to ask those kids that. But to me, it's if a kid wants to do it, he's going to get out there and do it, if he wants to do it for his teammates and block for each other. That's how we've sold it to them. They have to be good teammates and willing to sacrifice their bodies for the other guy. That's why football is the greatest team sport in America, is because these kids actually sacrifice their bodies for each other every single play. Some people don't understand that. But it's tough for Cameron Batson at 5'9" to block a 6'2", 295-pound guy. Now he can do it. But he has to be willing to sacrifice his body to do it. Q. Donta Thompson (off microphone). Where do you feel like they're at, and how do you feel about taking the red-shirt off those guys? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, they're getting better, that's for sure. I think both of those kids are going to be really good players here. None of them are even close to a bus. I think we've signed five really good wideouts in this class. Donta we moved inside last week. So he's going to turn into a big wide. We're going to try to put 20 pounds on him and make him into a little bit of a smaller Amaro. And Quan is going to be a really good player here. Just need a little bit of time to adjust to the system as fast as we run call plays. So I don't think we'll take either one of them off. I think we've got enough, and it's too late in the season, and the guys -- we've got a couple guys coming back from injury here in the next couple weeks that will help us. Now, what's going to be hard is figuring out how you get Giles enough touches when Sadler comes back, and how you get Zach Austin some touches. So we've got plenty of kids that are playing hard, playing good, so we'll be all right. Q. Coach Kingsbury said Lauderdale will be back this week. How big is that for you guys? ERIC MORRIS: It's big from experience. He's going to have to prove to us that Tony's doing some stuff better than Devin can do. Devin has the big-play capability down the field. We're going to split those guys, and Devin's got to prove to us each and every day in practice that he's better than Tony. So those guys will continue to battle out. That's what's made us better as a team. We've had so much competition from camp and even until right now. I mean, Zach Austin and Giles know each week, whoever practices better, that's who is going to start the game. So we're able to force these guys' hands a little bit by competition, and we'll continue to do the same thing with Devin and Tony. Q. What is Tony Brown doing better than Lauderdale? You said some stuff. What specifically? ERIC MORRIS: Yeah, he's running some routes really good right now. He's a natural route runner. He gets better and better each week, so Devin's got to keep bringing it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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