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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 19, 2015

Eric Morris

Lubbock, Texas

Q. Is it all bad to have a reality check or a teaching tool from Saturday?
COACH MORRIS: Just depends how we respond. You'd like to not go through something like that offensively knowing you're rolling pretty good. Have a case of we're down a couple people, but then the people we had started feeling good about themselves and thought we could march out there and just run over them without even trying.

We got hit in the mouth starting the first drive, and we never really responded the whole entire game. We're terrible in key situations. Red zone was awful. We've been good all year in the red zone. That was terrible. Third downs weren't very good. Had some costly turnovers, and those are just things that can't happen, and we've talked about it.

Kids know they'll be addressed, and we've got to put this behind us and respond in a hurry because we're going to play a good team.

Q. Looking at the rest of the season, I know you want to focus on one thing at a time, but these are the five teams that you guys came up short on last season. How important is it for you to rise above the expectations?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, we expect to win every game that we play, just like you said. Yeah, we've got to compete with these people in our conference in the last half of our schedule. That's something we haven't done well the past two years.

But you can't look forward in this league at all, or you will get beat, and something will happen like it did last week. We've got to do a good job as coaches this week of coaching better and getting our players physically and mentally ready to go out there and compete because I promise nobody's going to feel sorry for us in Norman and take it easy.

This is a great team that's well coached. It has been for the last 15 years since Coach Stoops has been there. They played really well last week in Manhattan. So we got to come out ready to go and have a great week of practice.

Q. Do you think that, looking at a Kansas team that had no wins, that the offense just thought, oh, this is going to be a pushover?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, it looked like that. Just like I said, they came, and they hit us in the mouth. Started the very first play of the game, and I didn't think we did a very good job of responding to that, and we kind of let them dictate the tempo the whole rest of the game, which is not good to see.

Q. Coach Kingsbury said he didn't like the vibe he saw in warmups. Is that kind of the sense you had going through it?
COACH MORRIS: No, I didn't feel anything in warmups. It was one of those things when you hope a team with this much maturity and this many games underneath them and an offense like we've been performing, at least as time went on the game, somebody would step up and try to get things turned around and figure out a way to start making plays.

We challenged them at halftime, and they came out the same way in the second half, which was disappointing. Same thing, we shot ourselves in the foot. We put some yards out there and got some drives started, but had some key drops. Dropped a big touchdown, dropped a big third down earlier in the game. Fumbled when we're driving. First series we're marching down and throw an interception, and just stuff that's costly to your football team.

Really proud of the way the defense played and responded the whole entire game, and it's good to win games like that. There's games like that where you usually lose, but we got to learn from it and move on in a hurry.

Q. Coach, how big was the loss of Le'Raven?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, didn't change really the way we called plays. I think it might have been psyche for a little bit of the guys up front and got nervous and started pressing a little bit and didn't do their job, but these guys, that's why they practice every single day is they're expected to go out there and execute.

It wasn't just Le'Raven. Up front in the middle, we got crushed on the inside run game starting from the very front. So those are things that can't happen, and we've got to get it fixed this week.

Q. Can you speak to the Oklahoma defense, specifically Zack Sanchez on the outside and what you see from him.
COACH MORRIS: Good player. He's been there a long time. He has a lot of interceptions. He's not a guy that's afraid to gamble, and that pays off for him a lot of times, and sometimes it doesn't. Great cover guy. He's a long guy that is a fiery player. I love watching him on tape. I love the way he plays the game.

Our outside receivers will have a challenge in front of them. They do a good job. But everywhere, they're really good up front. Striker coming off the edge is really good. They've got some good pieces in the middle. Their linebacker Alexander is one of the best in the whole entire league.

So you can look at all three levels, and they've got really good play making ability. So, yeah, we'll have to come out and play fast from the jump.

Q. Have you guys decided to go ahead and redshirt Cantrell?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, hopefully, we can do that. We'll see how he turns, but the trainers are working hard with him right now. I think he's improving. At some point, you want to help the kid out a little bit. So get into week 7, 8, 9, and hopefully we can keep that redshirt barring any injuries.

Q. What is the issue with his back? I know it's spasms, but there has to be something structural.
COACH MORRIS: I don't know. The doctors would tell you more what the actual terms are.

Q. If Le'Raven can't go this week, are you guys going to play around with some different combinations? Or is it going to be pretty set as far as who you put in?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, Rob's our next tackle right now. Baylen will probably flip over to the left, and Castaneda will play the right. We'll try to stay right there. Next will be one of our freshmen in burning a redshirt and put one of those guys in at tackle.

Q. [No microphone]?
COACH MORRIS: I thought No. 10 beat us the whole entire game. It didn't matter who was on him. We kind of moved it back and forth because Robert was having a little bit of a tough time with 10, but Baylen had a tough time with 10 earlier in the game.

So both of those guys -- I mean, wherever we put them schematically, we're going to do some things where we're going to move Pat both directions. So they got to play. Baylen will move to the left to start it, though, if Le'Raven can't go.

Q. From a leadership standpoint, who would you expect moving forward to speak up when things aren't going well?
COACH MORRIS: No doubt, No. 5 has that ability. He's talking to those guys every single play. Jakeem Grant is a kid who's become more and more vocal this year. He's had some good performances. Really explosive guy. Should have got him the ball more in the second half than what we did. Jakeem would be a guy, and I think Jared Kaster is the third guy. All those guys are guys that we're going to lean on heavily and are vocal kids.

Q. Is this maybe an opportunity for somebody to take those three aside and say, here's an example of what we need from you on Saturday and what didn't take place to help for the future?
COACH MORRIS: The whole group will be addressed in that regard. We won't just talk to three of them. There's a lot more problems than one.

All of these kids need to come together as a unit. We don't just need a couple of them. We don't have any guys that stand out right now that are just dominant forces on Saturdays that can kind of lead the charge. We need a whole group effort, all 11 of them, to play with a passion that they need.

Q. DeAndre Washington had a good day. I know your line isn't kicking on all cylinders. How often is he turning lemons to lemonade? Is he doing a lot by himself?
COACH MORRIS: We changed the blocking scheme in the late third quarter and the fourth quarter. All those ones that he popped was a scheme that we hadn't run that game. So we should have got to it earlier as coaches. They were doing something that we should have recognized earlier, and finally, when we made the adjustment -- and not to say that. He did make some good runs. He broke some tackles in the middle, but the initial hole was a lot better than it had been earlier in the game.

Q. Was the change a result of something that surprised you earlier on? What did you see from them that caused the change?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, they played the front a little bit different. They played their middle -- they didn't line up in a three technique. They played two two techniques and moved the front. They slanted a ton, which is what Baylor did against us. So it was something that we need to get to quicker if we do see the slant in games up front.

Q. You said last week that Mahomes was hard to correct when he's scoring touchdowns. How is he going to respond to correction this week, do you think?
COACH MORRIS: I think good. He's a kid that loves the bright lights. Loves the big moments. This will be a big moment in the bright lights of Norman. It's a great place to play. One of the best atmospheres besides AT&T Stadium in the conference. It will be loud. It will be rocking. I think he'll be ready to go.

Q. Do you know what Ian Sadler's availability is for Saturday
COACH MORRIS: No. We'll know more as the week goes on. We're still hopeful, but we don't know. He's got to make some improvements this week to go.

Q. Kliff said after the game that some of those young wide receivers got a little nervous, couldn't beat man-to-man coverage. How do you fix that in a week when you're going up against guys like Zack Sanchez?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, he's good. We'll do some stuff in the game plan that are a little more designed for man. They didn't show a lot of man on tape, Kansas didn't. So we'll have some designs to help the guys a little bit, motion a little bit more, something like that. Those guys have got to win on the outside, and we still have faith in them.

Hopefully, we'll get Keke and Giles and all those guys back this week.

Q. How did Zach Austin play? He had catches but also a big drop on third down earlier?
COACH MORRIS: That's exactly how he played. He had a lot of bright spots, made some unbelievable catches that extended some drives for us, but it's a great pass early in the game, had exactly the coverage that we wanted, and we went to the right spot, and just stuff we can't afford, just simple drops right in his hands like that for first downs, drive killers.

So he played well. He graded out well besides the big mistake.

Q. What are your thoughts with Baker playing on the other side?
COACH MORRIS: Nothing. We're excited about playing them. We've moved on from it. We've got a pretty good quarterback that's playing well. Just excited to play the Sooners this weekend. Good team.

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