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BAYLOR UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 19, 2016

Jim Grobe

Waco, Texas

Kansas State - 42, Baylor - 21

JIM GROBE: Well, obviously very disappointing. Thought we had a great week of practice, thought we had a really good shot of winning a football game today.

But the thing that we worried about is exactly what happened. Coach Snyder and his team did a nice job controlling the clock. They had 36 minutes of possession time.

In our offense, especially when we're trying to go fast pace, you got to make first downs and you got to score points. So, the 14 points in the first half were really off short fields, off turnovers.

And then in the second half, to come away with seven points is not good enough.

Defensively, I really thought that we had a good plan going in and I thought that we played good early. But start of the third quarter, we felt like we finished the second quarter really well and needed to go out and get a stop and get a little bit of momentum. We weren't able to do that. And then, of course, offensively got nothing done. They went down and scored begin. So we were fighting back uphill the rest of the day.

It's the way that we told our offense that they wouldn't have as many possessions as they're used to, not as many opportunities to go score points, so they need to take advantage of every possession we had. We weren't able to do that.

Zach played okay, I think. He did some really good things, he made some mistakes that hurt us. We got to take better care of the football and we got to protect him better. I didn't think, especially early, we did a very good job protecting him. I thought that we had some miscommunications at times with the receivers and we weren't able to run the football. I thought, had we been able to run the football a little bit, that would have taken some pressure off Zach.

So, all in all, it's a team loss. I didn't think we, obviously, played well enough defensively in the second half to win and the offense didn't help them. We didn't do what we typically do, which is move the football and score points.

Then, in the kicking game, I think we're going to see some things that we did well. But, certainly, the long kickoff, when we cut it to seven, kickoff return hurt quite a bit. And just really not good enough in any of the three areas to beat a good Kansas State team.

Q. Third straight loss, home loss here. What's the mood like? Does it feel like they can turn this around at all?
JIM GROBE: Well, our guys aren't happy, the locker room, we play to win. And we had a good week of practice, I thought. That's disappointing. I thought Kansas State played really well.

But I will say that with four losses, I think that the last two weeks, we have had really good practices. And so the guys haven't given up, we're just not playing well enough to win right now. The thing that's a little bit disappointing, and you got to give credit to other good players, but I thought we didn't tackle very well today and that really hurt us defensively, because we had chances to get off the field. Some of our third down situations where it was third and long, we didn't get off the field and that's really disappointing. Those are things that, to beat good teams, you got to get off the field on third down. Especially when it's third and long. We didn't do that today.

Then, offensively, we really had no consistency. And we practiced pretty well this week, so that's disappointing. We'll continue to work hard on special teams. But I think that going forward, I'm pleased with what we have done the last two weeks. I wasn't pleased with, certainly, with TCU.

But I thought our kids played really hard against Oklahoma. I don't think we're going to be disappointed in the effort we got today. But, defensively, we have got to find ways to get off the field, we got to tackle a little bit better, need to have some three and outs, force some three and outs.

And then offensively, we got to make plays. I thought with Zach, I thought that he's typical freshman, we knew that he needed help and I don't think we gave him a lot of help. But I think going forward, even though we have loss four now in a row, I think we're practicing hard and doing the things we need to do to play well, so we just need to play well.

Q. You talked about it a little bit there, but the difference between defense first half, defense second half because I think you held them to like 170 something yards and just the one touchdown in the first half and they have the two long touchdown drives to start the third quarter?
JIM GROBE: Yeah, and I think again, we had opportunities in both drives to get off the field on third down and didn't get it done. And that's what you just can't do, you can't let people keep drives alive. So we got to look at it both ways. We have got to challenge our players to make plays on third down, but we have also got to look at what we're do you think scheme-wise and see if there isn't anything we can do to help a little bit, whether it's bring more pressure or whatever.

I do think that, defensively, if you stay out there too long, you just get worn down. That's not necessarily always the defense's fault. The offense has to help them out a little bit.

And you got to score points. There's a part of it mentally that, when you're within a touchdown, three points, whatever, no matter how tired you are, you keep finding a way to reach down. I thought when we closed the gap to seven, I thought, here we go, we're going to hold them and go back down and score and make it a horse race.

But we had the long kickoff return and that was really disappointing, because their kickoff cover team is, for the most part, been pretty good this year. So just didn't make enough plays to get it done. I think, defensively, we were just out there too long.

Q. How do you get these guys locked back in for these last two games and do you still believe that at the end of this they will still want to play a bowl game together?
JIM GROBE: Well, I will tell you this: I sense that our guys like playing. I think that's the key. If you really like football and you like playing and you look the challenge each week, I think that would be the biggest concern. If we got to where the guys didn't enjoy practice, they didn't look forward to having another opportunity, I told them in the locker room after the game, the best thing about this loss, it's not the last game. I think there was a feeling among all those guys that we want to find a way to get better and find a way to win.

So with that said, you know, in football, unlike a lot of other sports, you got 12 opportunities. So you don't have many opportunities to go play. So I would hope that our guys are looking forward to playing football still. We got a lot to prove. We really, I think we're a better team than we're showing right now, and I think our guys need to bow their necks a little bit and show that.

Q. Off of that as well, it's a short week, after today. How much more difficult will that make it? Or in some way, is that easier because there's not as much time to think about what's happened?
JIM GROBE: I think that you make a good point. I think playing sooner rather than later's the best. I think getting right back at it, getting right back out there and playing again. The thing that we have got to do a great job of in a short week is we got to give the guys a plan that gives them a better chance to win. And we'll -- one good thing about today, I think from our perspective with Zach, is that we had a, we got a pretty good idea now what he can handle and what he can't handle and what we need to be doing to help him play better. Certainly, we need to protect better, run better routes and run the ball better, of all those kind of things.

But I think from a coaching standpoint, we'll have a better beat on how to help him and that may be actually cutting some things out of the game plan. And in a short week, that's probably a smart thing to do.

Q. Blake Lynch got to start at running back and got several carries, and I know you're banged up at that position. But can you speak to him and even some of the other younger players who over the last couple weeks, even during difficult games, have emerged or stepped up and made plays?
JIM GROBE: Yeah. Blake's been just really, I don't know that it's a surprise, because we know he was in high school, he played a lot of positions and was a great athlete and we know he's got lots of ability.

But watching him play against good competition, it kind of gets you excited, especially going forward. He's a guy that we need to find a way to get out there on the field. One of the things that's nice about Blake, with him being able to play running back is when you go empty sets, you can do that with him on the field, and he's one of our better receivers. And then when you want to plug him in at running back, you can do it in a hurry. So with the paced offense, he's a guy going forward that could give us an advantage, because you don't know whether they're going to, we're going to put him in the back field and let him run the ball or put him out wide and throw it.

Q. Obviously, K State has a good defense. Do you feel like your offense has evolved or regressed in any way in terms of, seems like the ability to score quickly isn't, hasn't been there lately.
JIM GROBE: Yeah, I think that, obviously, today that was the case. Trying to give Zach things that he's comfortable with and at the same time, try to do enough stuff to get the ball down the field, that's something we'll have to look at. Because I think that a big part of our offense has been explosive plays. And honestly, a lot of the explosive plays are not long throws. We hit slants and things across the middle, stop routes and things that turn into big plays.

So, we got to find ways to help Zach get the ball down the field, but we probably got to also challenge our wide receivers to make some people miss tackles and get going.

Q. Any injury updates? Xavier and Ryan, I think, went out. Anybody else?
JIM GROBE: I don't. I haven't talked to Mike yet. It looked like Xavier had a pretty good ankle sprain.

And then Ryan was able to walk in here and talk, so I think that I'm hopeful he'll be okay. But I haven't had a chance to talk to Mike. I think we came out of the game okay, not major. I think X would be the biggest concern right now.

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