	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 28, 2017

Matt Rhule

Waco, Texas

Texas - 38, Baylor - 7

MATT RHULE: Well, appreciate everyone being here. Obviously, first of all, credit to University of Texas. I thought they played a good football game. Defensively I thought they were spectacular, and I thought Shane Buechele was really a difference maker when they needed him to be one, so a lot of credit to him.

Obviously we're disappointed with our performance. I thought the defense for most of the game played some of its best football that it has played, sort of under duress with field position, with turnovers, and I thought our kids continued to fight, whether it was a couple 4th down stops, blocking the field goal, picking the ball off in the end zone, sort of really signs of life from them, and we were just disappointed that the offense turned the ball over a couple times early and was really unable to get any sort of ground game going and get the ball in the end zone.

We have to continue to get better. We took a lot of injuries today. Zach got banged up, Charlie got banged up, JaMycal got banged up, Trestan obviously was knocked out of the game, Nicholson was knocked out of the game. Came back, and he was pretty banged up. So there was a lot of guys out there that were fighting and trying to play through some injuries.

There was some other kids that haven't played a ton, they got a chance to go out there and play, and hopefully that will help us as we move forward.

Obviously overall a very disappointing day for us. We went into that football game feeling like it was a game we could win, feeling like we had a good plan defensively, and just weren't able to -- just weren't able to get anything going enough on offense, and penalties and turnovers really kind of stopped that at an early point.

We'll continue to work, and we'll get ready for Kansas and continue trying to move forward and overcome the disappointment and go out there and fight next week. With that, I'll see what you guys have to say.

Q. With the quarterbacks, were you kind of going on feel?
MATT RHULE: Yeah, we thought we'd play Zach the first drive and do some more traditional things. We wanted to try to make some throws down the field that his arm can make, and then we thought the second series we'd come out in sort of the three-back option stuff with Charlie. Charlie kind of got dinged up pretty quickly, and that sort of took us out of maybe him running quite as much. And just after that it was just sort of a couple times it was, hey, who's feeling better because they were both pretty beat up. But yeah, we were just kind of hitting some packages for each guy, and we were prepared -- we were hoping Zach would take us right down the field and score and we could keep him out there, but we wanted to change up with the option backs, kind of got some things going and then moved the ball a little bit second drive and then had that penalty, and the penalties were really disappointing today.

Q. You talked about the defense there. They kind of kept you in the game in the first half because Texas had a couple (indiscernible) how big was that to at least keep you in the game that long?
MATT RHULE: Yeah, they gave up a couple long running plays at the end, but I thought in terms of the passing game and some of the things that have bothered us, getting some pressure on 3rd down, getting to the quarterback, it was one of our better defensive efforts. I thought they handled the run. So again, I went forward the one time until the second half on our own 40, didn't get it, so put them in great position to drop the punt. So they did not have great position sometimes, but I thought they fought and were able to make some plays, and I think our second interception of the year, so that's moving hopefully in the right direction.

Played a lot of young kids over there, and I thought you saw some of them show up and make some plays. James Lynch is a guy that continues to make plays, as are many others.

Q. Do you ever consider when you have 4th (indiscernible) going for it?
MATT RHULE: Yeah, you know, I think about it all the time. Sometimes we call like a fake punt that's a read. If he has it, he takes it, and we called that a couple times today. If they rush, he kicks it. But I definitely thought about it, but at that point, I thought we were playing good defense, and I didn't want to put them under any more duress. I wanted to try to pin those guys and get a stop. Normally if I would have felt really good about what we were doing, I would have called time-outs on 1st and 2nd down, but especially after last week, I wanted those kids to experience some success, so we got the stop and went for the blocked punt.

But had we been having a little more success, maybe I would have, but even the one we had where it was a 3rd and 1, we were really having a hard time knocking these guys back and getting some yardage.

Q. Was their speed on defense even better in person when you saw it today?
MATT RHULE: You know, I just think they kind of sat back -- they did to us what they did to Oklahoma State, sort of sat back and kept everything in front of them. I thought they rallied to the ball and tackled and made plays on the ball. There were a couple times we had a chance to make a catch, and they were there. They are so tall and athletic. And then when they blitzed, they brought it. They came, and obviously you could see at the end it almost got a little out of hand there in terms of our inability to pick up some of those blitzes. But yeah, they're a big, fast, athletic group. They've recruited really, really well, outstanding defensive personnel, especially as you sit out there and see them.

Q. It's obviously hard to beat another team when you're not -- I know there's no magic formula to it, but how do you get past the turnovers, the penalties, the things that you're doing to yourself?
MATT RHULE: Well, you know, you keep coaching it, and the thing that you see is like the penalties were down. Like last week we only had four penalties to their 11, so we thought, okay, we've got that figured out. We haven't fumbled the football by a running back I think in a long time. I can't even remember one. Then the second drive we fumble. You know, it's going to be 2nd and 4, and you can't beat that team fumbling on your own 20-yard line. You fumble another one, it goes to the 10-yard line.

We thought we had a lot of those things corrected. I think the one thing you see is you see kids that are pressing sometimes, trying to do too much, like that first interception the ball should be out -- either right away and then the ball is outside. You see kids that are pressing because they're good kids and they're trying to fight and they're trying to scratch and claw, and as a result you sometimes do a little bit too much. That's our job is to keep coaching it, keep coaching it, keep coaching it. I know that's a boring answer, but if I had a better answer I'd go sell it somewhere because it's just keep continuing to work hard.

I thought there were lots of opportunities for plays to be made. There were balls in our hands. There were some plays that we thought we had, some penalties and stuff brought back. Again, you're not going to win unless you go and jump up and make those plays.

Q. With what you're dealing with, is there anything positive that comes out of today?
MATT RHULE: Well, I thought defensively -- I thought that was better than it has been, and I thought not giving up the big play in the passing game was -- they had the one, the sprint out on 3rd down, so I guess that's probably not the greatest thing to say. But I thought the 4th down stops, the sacks, the hitting the quarterback, that was good defensive football. They just could have used some help from the offense.

But yeah, there wasn't a ton very good today that we can take away from it. The truth is always somewhere in between, so to sit here now and say we'll turn on the tape and we'll see some people play better, we'll see some guys didn't do -- as I said to them in there, I said, when you go through this, sometimes some guys will come in and say, oh, it's not my fault, why are we doing this, why are we doing that. Other guys will say, boy, if I just do X, Y and Z, we can win. So you hope that guys will come out of that today and say we can do a lot better.

What was the score at halftime? 21-7, so you're really talking about -- yeah, a must have had snap and the pick. I thought our defense really played well in the first half and then maybe just got a little worn down in the fourth quarter, and even that last touchdown I think bounced we off of them and they were still going tempo there and we got a little tired, so we probably could have done a better job subbing some kids in. But yeah, there's always something positive in it, but right now as you sit here, it's kind of hard to feel it.

Q. Blake wasn't playing on offense?
MATT RHULE: No, he played corner, he just came over and just took a couple snaps. He was a guy we weren't sure if he was going to play. You're probably sick of me saying this, but he had the stomach flu all day yesterday and today. It's running rampant through our team apparently. No, Blake will hopefully continue to play defense and then give us a couple snaps here and there on offense.

Q. Do you have any idea the severity of some of the injuries? Zach Smith's shoulder was bothering him?
MATT RHULE: I wouldn't know now. We'll probably get some scans and some things on some of those guys, X-rays or whatever on some of the guys. I wouldn't have a good feel yet for -- there was nothing surgical, but there were a lot of guys that were banged up, so we'll see what their ability is for next week.

Q. Ebner?
MATT RHULE: Ebner got hit on his thigh, so they'll probably take an X-ray to see if anything got hurt. That play to me was a great example of the day. That was -- that ball should be a touchdown, and it's four lead blockers and one defender out there, and their kid made the play and we weren't able to. That's a credit to their kid. I want to make sure I say that; that's a credit to the player from Texas. But also, opportunities were there, we've got to take advantage of them. There's an opportunity next week, and we have to take advantage of it to go play another team and continue to try to move forward.

Q. You have had to work on the mental part of this team as much as anything else with a lot of things. Is this going to be a week where that's critical?
MATT RHULE: I told them we'd find out on Monday. I told them they'll either come in on Monday and there will be a lot of truth being told. You have a good team when guys come in and say, boy, I know I messed up X, Y and Z; I've got to do this better. If guys are coming in and we're having to pull teeth, then we're not. We have to go beat Kansas, and to go beat Kansas really starts now with what our minds do between now and Monday. Nobody is going to feel sorry for us, so we have no time to feel sorry for ourselves. Nobody is going to give us anything, so we have no time to ask for handouts. We have to go play and we have to go take what we want.

I think there's just too many -- there will be some guys probably that feel that way. There's some guys that it's just too hard and they start to crack a little bit, but there's too many guys here that are too strong. There's too many guys. Again, I think you see the way the defense came out and played early on. There's too many guys that are getting better and trying too hard to not go out and compete at a high, high, level.

Q. What do you like about Eric? What does he give you on the defensive side?
MATT RHULE: I mean, Eric has a chance to be a difference maker when he's out there. He's fast, he's explosive. Even the one long run that they started to have, he ran the guy down. He can be -- he's not always the most disciplined in terms of doing what he's supposed to do and then he got banged up in the game, so he was a little limited as the game went on. But he takes away people's screen games at the field better than anyone else we have right now. He does a nice job of fighting and leveraging and he is competitive and he is tough and physical. So hopefully he'll be healthy for next week.

Q. Do you envision rotating Charlie back in or will that maybe depend on how healthy he is?
MATT RHULE: I think a lot of it, first thing we'll probably have to figure out is how healthy they are. It didn't seem like Zach was going to be able to go back in at the end of that game, so I was sort of examining option three. At the end of the game there's some kids on this team that fight hard, and I wanted to make sure they got a catch or had a chance to touch the football. Wanted to make sure Jayson Clements had a catch. I wanted to make sure Obim Okeke got a chance to carry the football. You know, we're down to probably -- I don't know if we'll have one quarterback, maybe two next week.

Q. Defense started putting a lot of pressure --
MATT RHULE: I think they are. I think they are. But you know what, as I said to them, we can't feel sorry for ourselves. No one is going to give us anything, and we have to go fight. So there is pressure, but it's real. They want to win. They're a much better team than -- we are a much better team than our record says we are. But Bill Parcells says you are what your record says you are. I know they want to have that feeling of being victorious because they're working so hard, and so I think sometimes we do press a little bit, sometimes we do push, but at the end of the day those are all just words and emotions. This game was about blocking and tackling. It was about winning the game up front. I thought our defensive line played pretty well, but their defensive line got after us and hit our quarterback way too many times. This is about football, and we've got to play better football next week.

Q. How about Marcus Jones? We're really seeing a lot of him.
MATT RHULE: Yeah, that's where we are just right now with Pooh being down and R.J. being down and Platt being down, so we put Marcus in. We had moved him over two weeks ago back from corner. He had played receiver, then went to corner, and we moved him back over. He's a 4.0 student. He's brilliant, and so he can pick things up quickly. I thought he did a nice job, made a couple catches. I think one of them got called back because of a penalty, or they said we had lined up wrong or something. But I thought he did a nice job, made a good 4th down catch. He's one of our faster kids on our team, and so hopefully he can continue to give us a few snaps.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297