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LOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 1, 2016

Skip Holtz

Ruston, Louisiana

UTEP - 7, Lousiana Tech - 28

Q. We talked at half-time, kind of a weird first half, you didn't have the football a whole lot, you at the point did a good job the whole night long of kind of controlling the football. Defense bent but didn't really break, only gave up the one touchdown. You have to be pleased?
COACH HOLTZ: I thought they tackled really well in space for something that we really struggled with the last two weeks, and just the way they tackled in space, I thought they did a great job. Did a couple things where we got out of some zones and gave up a couple bigger plays.

But I thought Ryan Metz, their quarterback, played an excellent job. He was 20 of 28 until he came out of the game there at the end, but I thought he did a heck of a job managing the game and doing what he did.

You know the tailback -- Aaron Jones coming in here, that was rushing for 150 yards a game, averaging seven and a half yards carries, and that's against some pretty good football teams, as well. And for our defense to hold them to 94 and four yards a carry, just really proud of him.

But you know what, first half, we threw the ball an awful lot, had some success with it. They started playing some games and they had us guessing a little bit. They were bringing the house, playing pure cover zero, or they were dropping everybody out and then only rushing three. Had us in a little bit of a guessing game.

But there in the second half, we put a tight end and that that offensive line and Jarred Craft took over and made for Jarred Craft to end up with 11.2 yards, averaging 146 yards on 13 carries, just couldn't be more proud of the team.

We won a little bit unorthodox from the way we've been winning but that's the mark of a good team. You know what, you do what you have to do and we put that tight end there at the end of the game and put the saddle on the offensive line, and Jarred Craft, they did a great job to finish it up.

Q. That will be one of those box scores people look at tomorrow and say, why didn't he give Jarred the ball more if he averaged 11 yards a carry.
COACH HOLTZ: Well, I mean, because, you know, we are predominately a spread offense in what we do. They had a good plan. They had a good plan with what they did and they were willing to play cover zero, and also put them in a position where it hurt them a couple times, too. We ran a little trap play and caught them in cover zero and split the seam and there was nobody left and Jarred Craft went 80 yards for a touchdown.

So it's risk and reward when you want to play zero. It helped them a little bit and helped them get a couple three-and-out stops on us. But you know, like I said, I thought the defense, they bent a little bit. They gave up a lot of yards but yet they didn't break and they kept them out of the end zone except for that one drive. Just really proud of the way they bounced back.

Q. Early in the third quarter we had a couple empty possessions down in our own end. Ryan came off the field, you were a little bit frustrated, had some conversation with him, kept telling them, just run the offense. There was one play you really wanted them to hand the ball off and he tried to force it outside with Trent Taylor. How much leeway does Ryan have within this offense when he gets to the line?
COACH HOLTZ: There's a lot of, they call them RPOs, run pass options. We do a lot of run pass option and conflict stuff trying to have run pass choices for the quarterback.

But you know, the play we went 80 yards on and scored was the exact same play. He just handed the second one off. The first one, he threw it.

And I was just -- I thought he forced the ball to Trent one time down here. Just when I thought he had the ball open down the field, I thought he just was forcing the ball inside to Trent just a little bit too much. And on that one, I felt like he should have handed it, and that's what I was telling him: Just run the offense, that's how you got here, that's where you good is when you run the offense. When you force things and pre make your mind up, I'm going to do this or that, it's not very productive for us as an offense.

We made the first down and got a holding call to start the third quarter, and then it pushed us back. And then the next series, we lost eight yards on first down and Cam caught that ball and kept running backwards. Now you're in long yardage situations. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit.

But like I said, the way the defense was competing, we only had 50 plays as on offense, so we knew we weren't going to get many chances at it. I wish I would have went to a tight end a little bit earlier in the game, and I put some of that on me and should have taken some of that off Ryan a little bit quicker with some of the confusion things they were doing to us.

Q. When you have a wide receiver like Trent Taylor, do you think at times Ryan almost gets too confident in his ability?
COACH HOLTZ: Yeah, and you look at the guy, here is a guy that had 17 catches last week, they are double-coveraging him. They are playing him inside-outside, doing what they are doing. You start forcing the ball to him and it's easy to do. But he still had 10 catches for 120 yards. It's not like he had a bad night tonight, and you put on top of that that he had a touchdown to go along with it.

I think it hurt us a little bit with Carlos Henderson not being there; playing Rhashid Bonnette again for a whole game. We just have got to keep better and keep coming along. Those guys are getting a lot of reps and they are getting better and better as the season is going on.

Q. And bottom line, 13 straight quarters Ryan Higgins has not thrown an interception; taking care of the football.
COACH HOLTZ: And you know what, that goes back to, you take that half -- the half-time of the South Carolina State game, we've only had one turnover now in really, I believe, three and a half football games. We've had one turnover.

I'm proud of what the offense is doing. A big part of that is Jarred Craft, the way he's protecting it. And Ryan is doing a really good job of not putting the ball in danger. And so we keep doing that, it will give us a chance, but that's what good offenses and good football teams do. They don't turn the ball over.

Q. I know you usually have a 24-hour rule, but you're going to play a football game here Thursday night against a very good Western Kentucky team, you have to turn it around pretty quickly?
COACH HOLTZ: It's going to turn around quick. This was a physical game. We had some guys that are bumped and bruised and didn't finish at the end, but it is going to be quick. We've got five days, and you know normally, you take Monday as your day off and you have a day to heal and lick your wounds and do all that. Well, we've got to come right back in and play. And I know they are coming off, I'm sure, a real physical battle against the Houston Baptists. I'm sure they are going to have the same issues that we are, as well.

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