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IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 21, 2017

Matt Campbell

Lubbock, Texas

Iowa State - 31, Texas Tech - 13

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. (No microphone.)
MATT CAMPBELL: Yeah, again, I think it's really good team defense right now. Again, a lot of credit, Coach Heacock, Veidt, Coach Rasheed, Coach McDonald, those four, they've been together for a while. I think they've done a great job of kind of coming up with a plan that each week it's a lot different. It has to be in college football today. Then being able to teach their kids.

I think you got to go to the other side of it and look at the senior leadership on that side of the ball, Vernell Trent, J.D. Waggoner, Joel Lanning, Kamari Cotton-Moya. Those people are holding people accountable.

It's a team effort. I think our kids are playing really hard. I don't think there's any magic to it.

Q. (No microphone.)
MATT CAMPBELL: I didn't know he could catch it (laughter). That part was really good. We knew they were a heavy screen team. I think, again, it just took patience. You kind of almost had to play a little bit of bend but don't break style defense against a team like this. You got to make plays when you need to.

I think we have a big fourth-down-and-five stop, which is really big, as they're driving the ball late in the second half. Obviously the interception was huge.

A lot of credit to Marcel. As you guys know, he's played really good football all year round and will continue to get better. Really excited for him.

Q. (No microphone.)
MATT CAMPBELL: Yeah, I mean, marching into the end zone, but at least having some consistency to what they're doing. I just think that's the kind of team they are. Offensively Randy hit it on the head, they know how to get yards and know how to make you pay. Again, don't give up the big play, make them snap the ball another snap, give yourself another chance to have success. I think that's what we were able to do.

Q. All three touchdowns were on the third down.
MATT CAMPBELL: Just like I said defensively, on the flipside, offensively you've seen us really try to hone in on situational football over the last couple weeks. Coach Manning does a great job with that. Bryan Gasser, Jim Hofher, those guys doing some really good things with our passing game. Not only were they third down, but third down in the red zone. Those are really big things to happen for us.

Staff doing some good things. How about Kyle's boys today. Flukey play on the interception, it really was. Then to be able to come back. Thought he really played a good football game again, has great poise. He's really giving us a chance to steady the ship offensively.

Q. How important was it to capitalize on the mistakes they made?
MATT CAMPBELL: Yeah, you know, again in a game like this, I think you have to. Our recipe for success is don't make mistakes, don't turn the ball over, force them to make some mistakes, and when they do, you got to do a great job of winning situational football.

We can look back for the last three weeks, that's been our recipe for success. Really when we've done, we've done it. When we've lost, we've been the ones that made the mistakes.

Q. One situation in the first quarter where you were on your own 34, what was the decision process trying to figure out whether you wanted to go for it?
MATT CAMPBELL: Well, it gave me a little life real fast. That's a tough call, but we were going into the wind. I didn't want to punt the ball into the wind. If we are who we say we are, it's fourth-and-one, you have to get the yards. We were able to do it.

A gutsy run by David. We got it by inches. It's one of those calls you feel like they had a little bit of momentum with the pick-six. I didn't want to have to punt the ball into the wind. I thought this was a chance for us to at the very least change field position.

Sometimes you make those calls and you look good, sometimes you make them and you look like a ding dong. I'm glad it worked.

Q. (Indiscernible) what you're doing for the Iowa State fan base.
MATT CAMPBELL: No, because I think that will be something at the end of the season we can look at and say, Did we reach our full potential? I think these kids, this football team, if you really want to be a good football team, all you can worry about is what you do. As soon as you start buying into everything else that everybody wants to say nice about you, bad things happen.

Our fan base is outstanding. I'm so grateful for them, that they get the reward of their loyalty over the last couple years to this football program. But our reward to them is doing a great job finishing the entire football season and bringing this football team for 12 guaranteed games and let's see what happens after that.

I'm just grateful for their support and their loyalty. We know we got a lot of work to do.

Q. How important was it for Kyle to be able to move on from the first possession?
MATT CAMPBELL: I think it's defining, right? You can go one way or another, especially on the road in a hostile environment. You're going to have to throw the football. I mean, they got nine guys in the box the entire day. You have to be able to throw the ball to get people off you.

I mean, I think he came back with some gutsy throws. That next drive, right, he makes a couple third down throws. I think that goes back to who he is, his poise, his demeanor, his mannerisms. He's unfazed. That's what he was on the side.

He knew it was a tempo play. Nobody was there. I think he threw it to what he saw was the right guy. Somebody there, flukey. Their guy made a great play. I'm not discrediting him, but it was flukey.

Q. Does it feel like your defense gets better as the game goes along?
MATT CAMPBELL: I hope that's one thing that we're good at doing on both sides of the ball, is making adjustments and having the ability to play better in the second half than we did the first half. You kind of have to do that on both sides just because the coordinators and the offensive and defensive staffs that you're playing in this conference, they're really good. If you just kind of stay status quo, you usually get yourself in deep trouble.

We try to do a good job on that communication point. But I think the defense you see continuing to get better because we're young in a lot of areas. I talked about the D-line being really young. They're continuing to improve. Really I think as a whole, we are in a lot of ways, we're still a young football team that's trying to get better one day at a time.

It's like I just told our kids, if we can just really understand the value of practice, that's what gives us chances. Then obviously you got to go play and make some of the plays. But if you practice well, it gives you really good habits to have success in the future.

Q. A couple first-down catches today. What kind of confidence in that wide receiver position?
MATT CAMPBELL: I just think that whole crew from Marchie Murdock to Matt Eaton to (indiscernible) to Trevor to Deshaunte to Allen. Seeing what Akers did last week, Jalen Martin did last week. I think there's a lot of guys there that can do a lot. That's not even bringing Chase Allen into the picture, some of those other guys.

It's great to have options because you saw in some situations today, they're trying to double-team some guys. When you try to do that, then you got to trust the other guys can make plays. We're fortunate to have some guys that can really make plays.

So happy for Matt. Matt is one of the hardest working kids we have in our program. He's come in with a lot of maturity. He really had a great day. I'm really happy for him. It's great to see him have some success.

Q. (No microphone.)
MATT CAMPBELL: He took a rough go. What I appreciate about him is he had his eyes on the offensive player. We tell our defensive backs to have their eyes on the offensive player, not the quarterback. He didn't take his eyes off the defensive player, but it cost him, the ball hit him in the head.

It happens. But he's a pretty tough cookie, so he was back out there.

Q. (No microphone.).
MATT CAMPBELL: He is. Nothing major, certainly not a thing that he's suspended. Just a situation where he has to get some things academically and off the field straightened out, he'll be ready to rock and roll next week.

Q. (No microphone.)
MATT CAMPBELL: I mean, there really hasn't been a letup all year. You can make every game the biggest game in the world, if you want to, but it's the next game. Obviously got a lot of respect for the team that comes in, but we've got respect for every opponent we play.

We got to worry about us. We got a lot of work to do. There's a lot of things we have to improve from today if we want to continue to be the team we want to become.

Q. (No microphone.)
MATT CAMPBELL: Well, I think the biggest thing was we tried to do that in a sense. I really give Kliff a lot of credit. I thought they showed a lot of poise hanging in there with the run game. We were trying to take and flood some of those passing zones, force them to try to run the football.

They were able to do it and have some success early in the second half. It's really what got them back in the football game.

I give Coach Kingsbury a lot of credit. He's one of the best in the country. I thought he did a great job of kind of holding his poise and doing a great job. Our guys were able to make some plays in some critical situations when we needed to.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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