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BAYLOR UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 15, 2018

Matt Rhule

Waco, Texas

Duke - 40, Baylor - 27

MATT RHULE: Well, obviously, number one, appreciate you guys all being here. We're obviously disappointed in not just the outcome today, but the way we played especially early in the first half.

I would be remiss if I didn't start off by saying number one that our thoughts and prayers are with Duke as they travel back to North Carolina, their families, the people in Wilmington and along the coast and their safety. The flooding is far more important than any football game, so we wish them the very best.

Just a lot of credit to their quarterback. I thought he made the plays that he needed to make at crucial times, and we did not make the plays that we needed to make to win that football game. Saddening to me to look at the stat sheet and see we had more yards than they did. We had opportunities upon opportunities and things that we've done at a high level, from kicking field goals, to kicking extra points. You know, we were just unable to do it tonight.

At the end of the day, anytime that happens, that falls on me. That's my responsibility. What our team doesn't need right now is anybody looking at anyone else but me. So as I told them in there, everything that happens to you in life, it either pushes you ahead or holds you back. Hopefully this will make us a better football team as we get ready to head into conference play. I thought there were some good performances by some young players.

Great to see Christian Morgan block a punt. It was great to see Tyquan Thornton make the plays he made, and hopefully we can build on that as we move forward and begin Big 12 play.

So we're disappointed, extremely disappointed. We have a lot of young men in that room that put a lot into this. And to go out there, as I said, not to take anything away from them, but to beat ourselves and let it get away from us in the first half. We showed some moxie in the second half, but we should have had a much closer game earlier.

You know, hopefully we can other learn from that and realize we're not in a position yet where we can just go out there and beat ourselves. We have to catch the football. We can't have the penalties that we had, and hopefully build off of that.

Q. Do you think when you guys miss the field goal on your opening possession after you got the big kick return, and then Lovett's fumble that led to the touchdown, did you sense anything on your sideline that, oh, this is -- I mean, I know it's only 7-0 there, but did you get the sense that things were looking different on your sideline?
MATT RHULE: No, not yet. I thought we came right back out, and I thought there was a point in the middle of the second half, maybe the second quarter where like we throw a swing screen out to a back, he didn't catch it, it kind of bounced, he didn't go run. Then we realized he knocked it over, deep ball down the left sideline. All of a sudden they catch it. We get a first down. We hit a big play, they call it back to the hole.

So, I think if anything, and this is all psychological, I can't prove it, but if I thought of anything, maybe that at the end of the half is where you saw, oh, here we go. I think the guys at halftime we grouped and came out and played. But what we can't do is when things are going wrong, we can't let it escalate, right? We can't let it fall atop and let one thing build off another. So that was just really the disappointing part to me.

But credit to them. They played man-to-man. They made a lot of plays. Their defensive backs were very aggressive in their man-to-man, and we had a hard time blocking their front. Didn't get the run game going again for two weeks. So those are things that have got to be corrected. All of our runs came from the quarterback basically.

Q. You mentioned the drop passes and the penalties; did you sense a lack of focus at all in the first half?
MATT RHULE: I mean, I certainly didn't feel it. When I walked out there I was like, boy, this team is as ready to go as anything. They were focused last night. They were focused today. But it happens. So, I mean, I didn't sense anything. I thought that first drive when we were like clicking, opening kickoff by Fleeks. It was cool to see him do that as a true freshman and move the ball right down the field.

So that, yeah, I didn't sense anything of that. The only thing I sensed today is when we got down a little bit, a little bit of panic and we settled back in. Even in the end it's a 13-point game. We throw a pick six, which, you know, they were doing a good job. Showing some different looks, but Platt's about to come open for a big gain, and that was the unfortunate thing.

Q. Where was Denzel Mims?
MATT RHULE: So, he just, his hamstring, you know, felt it a little bit on Wednesday, and practiced on Friday. Thought he could go. Got out there today in warm-ups and said it just feels tight. So the end of the day we're always going to side on the health and welfare of the student-athlete. If he doesn't feel like he can go, we're not going to use him.

That was obviously a wrench in the plans in terms of Jared Atkinson stepped up and went out to play and Tyquan at the end played. We put extra duty then on Heard and Platt.

Q. You guys are still learning. What was your approach at halftime when you go in and talk to them? Was it peel the ballplayer off the walls?
MATT RHULE: No, no, no. What I said to them was that we're going to play the whole game. So at the end of the day, they had the ball -- we had the ball on offense and we tried to go down and score. We were throwing the ball, right? And we threw the ball. Seeing Ebner he catches for a big play and fumbles, then dropped. Then we hit another play and we threw and we drop it, right? So I said we're going to keep trying to score.

Then on defense, Phil, he called -- he could have sat there ask basically kicked the field goal, but he went max blitz three plays in a row. I said, listen, guys, we're not where we want to be right now in this game. This is not the score we wanted. But, you know what, I don't care if we lose 80-0 or 24-0, we're going to play. We're going to turn the tape on Monday and find out who plays and who doesn't. It's in those moments that you find out who wants to do it or not.

That was my thing. Guys, we're going to play the whole game. Whatever is happening to this point, go play the second half. That's -- I thought we did it the second half. It was still unfortunate, but we beat ourselves with some penalties. They didn't have a penalty in the game, so I've never seen that before. So they were extremely disciplined. But they didn't have a penalty, and we had five or six and we had some really tough ones. That was just the message.

Hey, we're not moving forward with guys that don't compete. I don't need front runners. I've got guys sitting on the scout team waiting their turn. I've got Squirrel Williams out there waiting his turn.

So, you know, let's push through this. That was it. Just said, hey, you are what you put on tape the second half.

Q. You had seen it in camp, but how big was that for Tyquan to step up the way he did with Mims out?
MATT RHULE: Yeah, those were two huge plays. That's all we said to them was, you know, the plays are there. The first half, you know, we had play after play that was either dropped or just as a guy was coming over him and he got hit, weren't able to make the throw.

So we believed that our guys would potentially make the plays. So to see Tyquan make that play was awesome. To see, you know, to see Tyquan make the second play was awesome. You know, it hurts my heart that he didn't touch the football. We threw it to him, and just wasn't able to get it to him. Got called back.

But I think what you'll see is hopefully a team that settles down from this game and learns.

Q. How frustrating was that to get on the scoreboard and turn around? There is a box snap on the extra point and kickoff out of bounds. Is that just sometimes things happen that way?
MATT RHULE: Yeah, and I couldn't tell you why, because, I mean, it hasn't looked like that any other game. So if there's a continuum with the first game, we couldn't catch kickoff returns, kick punt returns, right, so we had to correct that. Our kickoff coverage was a problem, and we've tried to work on correcting that.

But today, and you never know what it is. Right? Sometimes you go back and watch it, and it was a lack of focus or what, I couldn't tell you. But, you know, we'll go back and correct it. It's all correctible. We've seen them do it. We've seen them do it at a high level.

This is one of those games that that happened. If anything, I thought we did a good job of steadying the boat, calming the team down and trying to come back.

In the end, we're down 13 with the ball and a chance to go tie and throw the pick and we come right back. They go down the field and score, so there are a lot of things that could go wrong. That wasn't just the point in time -- it was not we get some momentum going and we beat ourselves.

Don't take anything away from them, but we're not in the position yet where we can just go out there and. We're beating ourselves and causing a lot of adversity. We have to catch the football. We're going to have to protect the quarterback. We're going to have to make plays and not have penalties, not have big plays for no reason.

So guys will make plays. Guys make catches going up the side line, I guy can't fair catch a wheel route. We have to do our job to play those plays.

Q. The fans started booing late in the second quarter. Do you have any thoughts or comments on that, and did you address that with the team at all?
MATT RHULE: I didn't talk about it. They're used to that. I have no issue. I mean, no issue with that. We were playing in such a manner, that that seemed appropriate.

Q. It motivate the guys at all?
MATT RHULE: I have no idea.

Q. On the drop passes, that was an issue last week. You were able to overcome it and win a game, but I'm sure it was a point of emphasis in practice this week. You've played football, you've coached football a long time. When guys drop passes, is it more lack of concentration? Is it them trying to make a move before? All of the above?
MATT RHULE: It's all of the above. There is a point of toughness to it too. Really, it was a hot day. Guys are having to play a lot. Really tough, mentally tough receivers fight to go get the football. So I just think we're at a stage development alley at that position where guys are learning to become that.

I think really what happens is if you see Tyquan, that's who Tyquan is. That's why we brought him here. That's the guy that you put the ball in the air, and I'll go get it. So you hope that will become contagious. Sometimes you have to make a tough catch. Sometimes you have to catch a ball when you're getting hit. Sometimes you have to step in and make a throw just as you're about to get hit. So that requires a little bit of toughness.

But you're going to drop a pass here, drop a pass there. There were just too many opportunities. A lot of them were hardballs and 50-50 balls, and you catch one or two of those and we're off and running. And part and parcel of that is having to throw it too much because we're struggling to run it. That's an issue for us right now.

Q. Coach, the past two weeks you guys have played some strong defenses with really strong fronts, and the offensive line has suffered a little bit. How can that be corrected and addressed?
MATT RHULE: You know, (Inaudible) the only way to correct it is just to work through it. But that being said, that's an issue for us right now. There is no reason to make excuses. There is no reason other than we have to find a way to make that happen and make that better, because when we get even on a little bit of a roll, get a first down or two like we were doing at the end, we become hard to stop.

So I haven't seen the film from this one yet, so I'll have to go back and watch it. But anytime you have, whatever we had rushing, they had 225 yards, you're not going to win. I don't care what the other stats are, the rest of the stats are meaningless.

We did two things you can't do today, return the ball and couldn't run the football, but we'll get better. Those guys will get better. We're still kind of shuffling guys in and out on the O-line. They'll improve and get better. I think you'll see a much more improved offensive line next week.

Q. After Brewer scored or had the touchdown, you blocked a punt. Duke scores after that, but you came back with Jalan McClendon was there any thought to go with the guy that was hot?
MATT RHULE: Yeah, that was a tough decision. It was a tough decision, but we thought his play him out there and keep other folks in. So, you know, we've gone through three games, three non-conference games.

We'll have to go back and look at it and see where we are. But that was a little skewed today because Jalan got hurt in the first half, so it was hard to see. Jalan took us down and we scored, right. We made that great throw to Tyquan on the left sideline. Took us down and he scored. I told I had the utmost confidence in him. Our issue today was not the quarterback position in my mind. So I was more worried about are we going to hold on to the football. Are we going to catch the ball? Are we going to protect the quarterback? If we protect the quarterback we're going to be really tough to beat.

But I will say this we knew coming in that Duke was one of the better fronts we've seen, and they're going to present challenges. And plays that should be lay-ups weren't all the time. So that was 3rd and 2. You run a play that should get three yards easily, and we weren't able to. So we'll improve on it though. I know we have a bunch of winners in that room that are going to work hard ask get better. I'll try to do a better job of giving them a better plan.

Q. What did Jalan do on that play? What got hurt?
MATT RHULE: Not sure. His ankle, but he was back and ready to go.

Q. When you say about the quarterbacks not being the issue. Do you still evaluate it like you have been the first two weeks as you get ready for Big 12 play with Kansas? How do you see that position moving forward?
MATT RHULE: Like I said, I'll go to this week and look at it this week and say, hey, it's better to play both, is it better to play one of them? I'll do it with all the guys. Like Lovett fumbled early and we didn't get him a touch again. Not for lack of trying, with you we've got to get -- we played a lot of guys. We've got probably -- I don't know what the right word would be. But zone in on maybe a couple guys. That this guy's going to be our future back, and this guy's our future this and future that. So those things are things that are frustrating or not frustrating, but things we have to do moving forward.

But it's hard to make those decisions and make those comments without seeing the tape. There are things that you see on the field that you think here comes the quarterback throwing the ball flat, run for 15. It doesn't happen, you turn the tape on, and the quarterback is a hundred percent right.

So I'm very reticent to say too much and in the postgame until I've had a chance to watch the tape and see what were the real issues here?

Q. Coach, their special teams set up a lot of their offenses drives to start at midfield or close to midfield for a lot of their drives. Is that something that you guys anticipated with their special teams coming out and firing on all cylinders like that?
MATT RHULE: I always expect their team to play well. I hope that we can play better. We had a hard time sometimes punting in the punt game in terms of making the plays, in terms of tackling. Their returner was a fantastic player.

I thought we made some plays on Fleek's return. I thought the blocked punt obviously, we knew, hey, these guys are -- we knew they'd be ready to play. As much as anything for that, it's also really on offense, not getting enough drives, slipping the field and pinning them back there. So had we done a better job on offense in the first half, I don't think they would have had the same field position they have.

A lot of it was penalties. Anytime you play a team with no penalties, it's going to be difficult. So we have to make sure we aren't getting the amount of penalties that we have.

Q. You're 15 games into this, and it seems there are a couple games you've been blown out. But there are still those if we wouldn't have done this, we wouldn't have done that, is that part of the youth inexperience or sometimes now forgetting how to win games?
MATT RHULE: That's a great question. I would just -- I mean, I'm going to give you the boring answer that I really believe that we're on this journey to becoming a good team. Good teams -- you can have talented teams, but good teams when they face other good teams. Sometimes you look at yourself and face a team that is talented. Good teams like there is a bunch of growing men on that team over there. There are a bunch of red-shirt juniors and seniors. When you don't -- when you beat yourself and you have penalties and you have turnovers, it's hard to win.

So, I mean, I love all of our players. It's just we're counting a lot of young guys too. So if you go out there and face a good team, you play a red-shirt freshman left tackle, and you have Tyquan Thornton as a true freshman catching balls and true freshman returning kicks, and you have a true freshman going to try to block punts, like that's not how I would set it up, right? But I'd rather have a senior going to block the punt because I trust that he's not going to hit them or not. But we're counting on some young guys.

So they'll do some elite, good things at times and make some mistakes and we'll coach right through it. But we'll be a team that doesn't beat themselves. We are significantly further along there than we were.

I'm hoping today was an anomaly in terms of the first half. I thought you saw improvement in the second half. But we really do need to get better up front. We need to block the other team and run the football. They can't give us a five-man box and twist and hit us in the back.

So, that, I'm not going to make excuses for. That's not a lack of effort. That's just the back makes somebody miss and go run like their backs were doing, then the O-line come off the ball and knock them back, it's a lot of different things.

Then defensively there were a lot of guys playing a lot of snaps on defense right now. So hopefully we'll get some more guys back on the D-line and we'll be a little bit better.

But there were some good moments. We hit the quarterback a lot. We had some big stops. So is it inexperience, youth, probably all of the above, right? It's probably all these guys going through this process of learning how to win. Sometimes when you win, you expect it to be easy the next week and it's not. You find yourself in a dog fight, and you have to -- we just can't wait to get to halftime to reset.

In the middle of the second quarter, we've got to have a team that says, hey, let's get ready to go. So we're not there yet. We have a week to try to get there.

Q. Did you seen any indications of Christian making that kind of impact on special teams?
MATT RHULE: Well, Christian was with us in the spring and in the fall. I think Christian is extremely, extremely talented football player and he's got all the physical gifts. He's working hard to be a guy who can play on defense and on teams. So, you know, where we are right now, we're playing a lot of freshmen on special teams.

A lot of those guys stepped up and made plays today, which was good. Again, Fleeks kind of what I was hoping for. But, yeah, Christian's got -- he's an elite athlete. You know, that was a well-timed play.

Q. Did you go with Fleeks because you knew Tyquan was going to have to play more receiver?
MATT RHULE: No, we've been watching Fleeks, and he's probably one of our top offensive threats. There is a lot to learn on offense in terms of plays and all that. So I was hoping to go a little different way and we'd be able to use him a little bit more.

But we knew, hey, you know what? We're going to put him back on the line on kickoffs. He told me, always worry about freshman ball security, and he said, Coach, I'm not going to fumble it.

If had a little more protection blocking he might have had a couple more. So we'll continue to use him as a weapon, and continue to grow his role on offense as we move forward.

Q. On defense, on the rush defense, it seemed like for the majority of the game on just draws up the middle, you were pretty solid on that. Whenever they need a big rushing attack, it was either with the quarterback scrambling or an end of round where they brought someone off the edge to flip the field and get to the outer edge. How have you kind of work on having the team play run defense for the whole field? Because it seemed like you're good in some areas and not, obviously, the edge this week.
MATT RHULE: Obviously the edge, you need guys that can get off block and make a play. That's what it comes down to.

Then you block, defend a run, and (Inaudible) makes a play. We had play after play on offense where we got the ball on the sideline and we didn't get the first down. The guy made a play. And being out on the perimeter, Blackmar went down in the game, went down with an ankle. Pitre went out there and was competing to play. Lot of guys stepped up, I thought, out there. But they were able to make some plays coming off that edge that we weren't stopping those.

So that was really it. That was their offense. It was quarterback draw, speed sweep and then some RPOs. We had to just get off the block and tackle. It sounds boring, but really when you get the ball in space in the perimeter, that's what you're trying to do.

Trying to get one-on-one blocks and make someone make a one-on-one tackle, and that's a one-on-one battle. So the ball isn't up the middle. It's a little more about restricting lanes and knocking people back. I guess on the perimeter it's way different.

So we'll get better at that. We practiced it a lot. That's what a lot of the Big 12 is about is getting the ball and guys making plays in space. So we did it today. They did it today. They made more plays than we did, and we'll come back next week to try to make more plays.

Q. You had to burn some early timeouts in the first half the last couple of weeks. Is that guys lining up wrong? Is that a variety of different things? What's been the bugaboo with that?
MATT RHULE: Today was just a little bit more about guys not playing positions because of some injuries, guys getting a little confused. So frustrating as it is, but last week was a little bit more head sets and the noise. This week was a little more timeouts and that component.

We used one today was they came out in the set and we knew the play was coming on defense that we didn't like. That wasn't one to be in. So for me, timeouts in the first half, they're expendable. I don't care about them as much as timeouts in the second half that I try to -- we saved all three timeouts for the end and played until the end and tried to get a stop and they got it on fourth down.

But there are some things that we need to clean up in the first half especially in terms of guys being in the right spot.

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