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TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 5, 2016Gary PattersonTCU - 62, Baylor - 22 GARY PATTERSON: You never know about recruits, gentlemen. So I'll turn it off. So you're going to ask me, what's the difference? I don't think there's any difference except we just played. We didn't hurt ourself with penalties. We didn't give up, except one, we didn't give up the deep ball. We tackled the run. Outside of that. Q. Is this a little bit more rewarding, though, when the conditions played a factor last year in the game? GARY PATTERSON: Oh, no, I mean you don't care how you win, you just try to win. That's a good football team and there's a lot of good football players on that team. So any time you can come to somebody else's stadium and win, you're happy about it. Period. You know, the football gods, we have had some close ones this year, had a couple blocks, easily could be 7-2. So it's like I told them in the locker room, they shouldn't think about themselves any different this morning as they do right now. I told them, we got to quit worrying about all the things that woulda, shoulda, coulda, and just go play. We didn't hurt ourselves most of the time today on offense with penalties and then you can move the football. Guys made plays. We were able to run the football, made some plays on the edges. I've been talking about the X's and Z's, and I thought they played better. Defensively, we knew we had to stop the run and tackle and we were going to have to stop the play action. Didn't do a good job there in the first series, and then after that, we generally did a nice job, so. You say we did a nice job and they had 400 yards, so. Welcome to the Big-12. Q. The last two weeks, the defense has really played well. GARY PATTERSON: Well, really going to Kansas, I can tell you right after. Since we had, really the break and everything going wrong, we have been getting better, they have been reclaiming their confidence. And then you go back to Lewis, Julius Lewis. I told you guys, Travin is young, Howard and Denzel, they didn't go through two-a-days, they're both starting to make a lot of plays now. Travin had 18 tackles last week. I've only had one great, great, great one, LT, and he had to practice. You don't practice together, it's hard to have confidence, it's hard to do things. So, I thought we didn't hurt ourselves in special teams. Our kicker kicked well. Punted, you got to give our punter -- I thought he made a big difference as we got the ball inside the 10 yard line three or four times. You got a chance to stop people from scoring if they have got to go 90 yards as a general rule. Q. How important was the defensive stand in the first half? GARY PATTERSON: Any time you play Baylor, you're just holding on to your pants. They do a great job, they got great people on the outside. And so for us to get stops, guys made plays, and the drive they had right before the half, everybody said, well, you can't get the call, never mind getting lined up. It's hard for me to make a call if you're walking back, and they're going fast. So in the second half, we -- in the first quarter, well really a quarter and a half, they did a great job of playing the calls, tackling, breaking on the football. It was great to see Ranthony get a pick to keep building his confidence. Q. Did you do something to motivate them coming into this week? GARY PATTERSON: No. Like, everybody wanted me to make a big deal about it, I didn't make any -- I didn't point any fingers. I just said X's and Z's had to play better. Finally, E-man played the ball game the full game. It's great having Turp back, especially on special teams. He just gives the whole group energy. I mean, he's one of those cool guys that I'm upset with most of the time off the field. On the field, I'm always real happy with. But he loves the game and so it really carries over to everybody else. Q. Is there anything left to be said about Kyle? GARY PATTERSON: No, I mean, Kyle Hicks, he didn't practice all week, to be honest with you, he's got an injury. For him to fight through that and coming -- it's hard to play on turf, for him to play today, make the cuts he made and did, I mean, he would have been a big help last week because he catches the ball, he just gives everybody else confidence. And Turp being back. We didn't know last week how much Turp could go, so we didn't have a lot of game plan for him. We found he could go, so we had a lot more game plan, and we continue to have more game plan. And our job now is to get to six. We got two weeks, we got a really good Oklahoma State team coming to Fort Worth and that's our plan. We'll go recruiting. Go try to find some good players that are also good people and win championships, and want to win championships, and see if we can beat Oklahoma State. Q. Did you find yourself thinking about the lead that got away two years ago? GARY PATTERSON: No. In fact, I had a coach mention it and I said, if I would have wanted to mention it, I would have did it myself. Q. On the sidelines? GARY PATTERSON: No, in the locker room. Rule number one is you don't talk about things like that. I mean, you don't need to. You can think of history, history can help you learn something, and then you forget history. It's like being a corner, it's like being a quarterback, you can't. You got to throw the next throw. You got to cover the next man. You can't worry about things like that. Q. Now that it's over, do you take some satisfaction for holding on to something like that? GARY PATTERSON: I guess so. To answer your question, I guess the answer is yes. I mean, am I glad we held on? Yes. Q. You mentioned Ranthony a minute ago. What kind of sparked him the last three weeks, he really played well. GARY PATTERSON: Well, number one, he came off an ACL. You got a guy that came back and the first three or four games, he is playing on an ACL, torn ACL, he's go to the get his confidence back. It took Deante Gray, he didn't even play last year because he had the same injury. So, him coming back and focusing in, getting Julius Lewis back from the Achilles injury. He could have said, no, I don't want to play, I'm going to go ahead and keep my red shirt, and he didn't. So selfless acts, that always carries over to the rest of the football team, it always makes things go better, because everybody understands he did it. And that's what I talked to them about this morning, I talked to them about us, not Baylor, I talked about us. Us controlling us. When we control us, then life, you just worry about what you can control, and then you go about your business. Things get a lot better. That's what veteran teams do, they just worry about us, they don't worry about the opponent. If it's Baylor, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, whoever it is down the street. So the next one we just got to step up and get ready to go. Q. I'm not talking about you guys specifically, but you, as a proponent of defense, are we closer to the day when defenses can control the spread? GARY PATTERSON: Well, I mean we have done a pretty good job the last two weeks. You know, here's the deal, is you got to have at least equal players, and you got to be able to call your defenses and not just your base defense, just as fast as the offense does. If you can do that, you can play with them. When you don't do that, then it's hold on to your pants. Q. But you need help on the field -- GARY PATTERSON: Yeah, they have to do it. They have to understand what they're trying to get accomplished. It's a marriage. At least that's what I get told at home. I say it's a one way street, she tells me it's equal, I say it's a one way street. Q. What can this do for the rest of the year for you guys? GARY PATTERSON: You know, it's like -- here's what I told them. I'm not going to feel anything different than I did this morning. We're 4-4 and lost two or three in a row. I'm going to just keep my head down, try to get Oklahoma State, and then you got Texas at Texas, and then you got Kansas State, three really good teams. We got to get, we got to win one and hopefully win two or win three. But right now, we're hopefully Tipa's, okay, that's what my main concern is. And the rest of the group in there and like I told them, academically we need to get back into it, we have a couple days to be able to do that. And then we're going to get ourself back in the weight room. We got to get ourself ready to go and get ready for the next ball game. We got two out of three at home and one's just down the road, so you got to get ready to play. Q. Did Tipa make it back to the sideline? GARY PATTERSON: No, I don't think so. No, I would -- for sure they went straight to a hospital. Q. I'm talking about before the game. GARY PATTERSON: Yeah, he actually said he was tingling. He came up on the sideline, and then he just went down. He didn't go down on the field. Q. He ran off -- GARY PATTERSON: Yeah. You guys know about as much as I do. All of a sudden he was laying on the sideline. So, you know. Q. What did you talk to him about? GARY PATTERSON: Same thing. Told him we loved him. And he was getting a little bit emotional, and I told him he just needed to calm himself down and everybody was thinking about him, everybody was standing around, and we're all going to have great thoughts. Q. Talked a little bit about the defense earlier. What about 34 first-half points. It's been awhile since you had something like that. How key was that today? GARY PATTERSON: Oh, yeah, I mean it was good for them. I've been saying for a couple weeks they need to get their swagger back. So it's, obviously, it's when you get your players back on the field, you get Austin Schlottmann in and Trey Elliott being back starting at guard has helped us. He was a guy that was gone the first half of the season, he's been back the last couple weeks. Austin Schlottmann being back, and Emanuel Porter was out because his dad passed away, really emotionally, it bothered him for awhile, he's just starting to come around. Everybody always wants to know what happens on Saturday. Well, really to be honest with you, the way the world goes and everything happens is really what happens Monday through Friday. They're just 18 to 22-year-old kids and how do you help them manage it, because usually if their life's good off the field and if it's smooth, then they play well on the field. If there's things that are going on that aren't, then it's hard for them to manage all that. Especially when they're younger. When you lose a loved one and something like that happened today, like I told them, I said everybody has to take a step back and make sure you understand this game's important, but not more important than people. And that's the way I've always taught them. It's not more important than people. Q. What were your impressions of Kenny, just him specifically after going through -- GARY PATTERSON: I thought he was very tight and nervous early. That was just my impression. I thought some of the balls came out of his hands, I thought he was hesitating, and then later on, he quit hesitating. Q. What do you think changed that caused him to stop hesitating? GARY PATTERSON: I don't know. When I find all that stuff out, I'll write a book, and I'll quit doing this. Won't have to have everybody yell at me and call me names and do all the things you do. I'll be sitting on a porch somewhere talking to Carlos about, him and I will be having conversations about what they should have been doing in the first half. Carlos, I tell you, I don't think it was very good adjustments. (Laughter.) Q. What was said when they scored on the opening drive? GARY PATTERSON: What was that? Q. What was said when they scored on the opening drive? GARY PATTERSON: Well, number one, I knew that they, I thought they were trying to make a statement. So we came back and played man right out of it and nick dropped a pass, he shouldn't have thrown the ball. And they came back really quick, and we weren't ready. And Ranthony's there and he made the play. So they came off and I said, what did we talk about no deep balls? You can't let them behind you. Make them throw comebacks, that was our whole goal today. Just like it was last year, make them throw comebacks. And as a general rule, besides two or three balls, we were able to do that. Q. You had a fourth and two that Kyle scored on. It wasn't a field goal game for you, I'm guessing? GARY PATTERSON: You know, the one way that you gain confidence for your offense is to believe in them. So they felt comfortable about the calls they had and so we ran with it. A couple times we would have went again, except we got the penalty and it moved it back. We did -- it gives the defense a lot of confidence when they're starting on the four yard line. Everybody said well, kick the field goal. Not against Baylor. I mean, you either, you better score touchdowns, you better score touchdowns or you better make sure they have a long way to go. That's the way I approached it. If we have had success against them, that's the way it's always been able to be done. You got to be able to stop the run, don't let the ball get thrown over the top, and you have to play field position, and you're going to have to score points on offense. They're a good football team. They have always had a good football team. Q. Speaking of Travin Howard, you picked him up a few weeks before signing day a few years ago, what did you learn about him and, obviously, developing in the role that he plays for your football team? GARY PATTERSON: Well, what's cool about him is he gives me an opportunity to have a linebacker tough enough to play at 200 pounds and play linebacker. He's also athletic enough that we play nickel, and you don't have to run anybody on the field, and he can go cover 'em. And he's a very intelligent player. We were just speaking earlier about having guys on the field that can get lined up quick and run a defense, not just your base defense. He's one of those dudes. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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