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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 10, 2018Sam EhlingerTom HermanLubbock, Texas Texas - 41, Texas Tech - 34 TOM HERMAN: We know how to make them interesting, don\'t we? I am really proud of our guys. I said on the radio, I said in the locker room, I\'m proud of our defense. I know when you look at the stat sheet and you see 595 yards you say coach what are you talking about? But, one, hats off to Texas Tech, especially offensively. That is an unbelievable offense as we all know. Kliff and those guys do an unbelievable job. Getting who is ever playing quarterback ready and they have got some monsters at wide receiver. But they got us the ball, our defense turned the ball over I think that was critical to the success and then for Brandon Jones to be out for the second week in a row for Josh Thompson then to go out. Davis to go out and Caden Sterns to go out and PJ Locks sprain his big toe in the fourth quarter and still we found a way to win. It just, I can\'t thank them enough for continuing to battle when things seemed pretty bleak there and the energy was certainly with the other team. And then offensively really proud, the second to last drive certainly not proud of, but extremely proud of them answering the bell whenever they were called upon, we have done an excellent job on that side of the ball of converting turnovers into points. I think we, I don\'t know how many touchdowns we scored, we were 3-3 scoring in the red zone. Not sure if they were all touchdowns, but we converted on third down over 50 percent, we scored in the red zone, and we didn\'t turn the ball over and we made some explosive plays. Again, our explosive plays are going to come from throwing the ball down the field. We don\'t have some of those jitter bug guys that can take little tunnel screens and make three guys miss or whatever, but we have got some great skilled athletes on the perimeter that can go get the football and our quarterback is seeing defenses really well. I\'m sure he\'ll tell you or at least he better, that taking the sacks that he took were kind of started us a bit slowly in my opinion on offense and we had a couple conversations about him trying to do too much and he certainly responded. He\'s playing really, really well right now. Injury up date, again, Josh Thompson right ankle sprain, did not return. Davante Davis, ankle sprain and knee pain. Did not return. Caden Sterns head injury. Key and at the end of the day I think ram, aggravated his hip pointer so he did not return. And then PJ Locke, with a great toe injury that happened in the fourth, but he stayed in. Just talking with our trainers, preliminarily the Josh Thompson Davante Davis Keaontay Ingram they don\'t look -- object we\'ll evaluate them, I don\'t want to speculate, but they\'re not significant enough to say that they will be out for an extended period of time. Caden Sterns obviously with any head injury we\'ll evaluate that in the morning and see where we\'re at. Questions? Q. Did Kliff leave you too much time? (Laughter.) That was awesome. Thank you for asking that. No, he didn\'t. You score when you can score. Q. About the defense though, I know you talked before about you do not want to blame injuries and I get that, but that\'s a lot of names that you listed off there, so how do you weigh when you measure the defensive performance how are you weighing well you were down a lot of guys but you still expect them to get it done? TOM HERMAN: Yeah, you got to put 11 guys on the field and part of our, one of our pillars of the program is competitive focus. Which means to perform and be ready when your number\'s called and now that being said, we were down to not just second team guys but third team guys that probably don\'t get maybe zero reps in practice and have to rely completely on mental reps. And so we have got to tip to get those guys better, some of those guys are really young. And this is a lot different than high school or a lot different than red shirting and/or running down on the kick off team. So there\'s a sense of urgency on that side of the ball to make sure that the guys that are going to play are ready to help us win ball games. Q. I know you prefer to look at film before you give any evaluations, but when you think of some of the plays that Sam was able to make today, especially in the fourth quarter, especially on that final drive, just give me your overall impressions on, one, your confidence in him and then of course his performance. TOM HERMAN: Oh, confidence? I mean, confidence is great. I think the confidence is great in Sam. Again, I\'m telling you, he sees the game as any guy I\'ve been around. I thought, again, tonight maybe it was on the road, maybe knowing the high-powered offense that we were going up against that early he tried to do a little too much and we\'ll address that certainly, but yeah, there\'s nobody that that locker room would rather have leading the team in a drive like that and to be able to do it in the red river showdown and then to be on the road and give up a 17 point lead, let\'s not forget, I believe this exact same team we had a 17 point lead in the fourth quarter last year too and that was last year\'s team and this is this year\'s team and I made that point very clear to them too, that we have grown up a lot and we have proven that we can withstand surgeries from our opponent and respond and, yeah, we\'re very confident in Sam. Q. You scored 41 last week, you lose. You score 41 today, you win. What does that say about this team, this league and just how would you describe the magnitude of this win? TOM HERMAN: It\'s huge for our confidence, for, again, we\'re going to wake up tomorrow and we\'re, again, you guys ask me about next week, I mean that\'s going to be a dog fight as well and I think winning this game gives your team a little boost of confidence that maybe we had taken some pretty good blows the last couple week, three point loss and then obviously the heart breaking two point conversion loss and to battle back after that especially I think will certainly pay dividends in the overall confidence of this team moving forward. Q. The defense has given up points on eight of 10 first drives this year and obviously they did it again tonight. Do you think at all about putting the offense on the field first if you win the toss, just try and not get your guys maybe in an early hole or anything like that? TOM HERMAN: No, we\'re going to win with great defense around here and the head coach has to be the one that makes sure that they know that every time they take the field we have extreme amount of confidence in them. And you also get the ball first in the second half, so you\'re assuring yourself mathematically all things being equal that you\'re going to have, you should have extra possession in the second half, which is, obviously we\'re pretty good at making one score games around here. So any time you can have that opportunity to have the ball one extra time in the second half I think you\'re going to take and we have done pretty good coming out of halftime offensively too. Q. You mentioned the big plays down the field. Humphrey was one of those guys tonight. And then you didn\'t sit on the field goal attempt you kind of got aggressive there. Can you talk on those two things? TOM HERMAN: Yeah, I don\'t think where we were, again, I can\'t remember the. Q. I think it would have been a 47 yard? TOM HERMAN: Yeah, I think every situation is different. We have got great confidence in our kicker and our field goal unit, so had we been a lot closer, had that been 27 yarder, we might have centered it, called our last timeout with three seconds left and jogged that team out there to go win it. But I don\'t think you want to leave, no, I know you don\'t want to leave a field goal from that distance to be conservative and try to just milk the clock down and try a field goal of that distance. We were going to try to take a shot at the end zone. My men tore, Greg Davis, taught me a long time ago, that in critical moments of games think players, not plays. And for us 11 and 84 are pretty good players and they\'re playing pretty good right now. So we were going to throw the ball to LJ and knowing that we still had we were in field goal range at that time. Q. Could you talk about LJ\'s big game today and also obviously he\'s going to get overshadowed but why was Jerrod the next guy up for you? TOM HERMAN: Critical catches two. A couple third downs that kept drives alive, I thought we literally, because Collin got hurt on Wednesday I believe it was Wednesday, right? So Jerrod had been playing slot, H behind L J basically the whole season and we said okay, big bow, L J you\'re going to go to X, Jerrod or Jerrod as the announcer kept calling him, Jerrod, you\'re going to go and be the starting H oh but by the way there\'s going to be some plays with well we\'re still going to want L J at H so you\'re going to go to X on those plays and you\'re going to have to learn those plays. And he did all of that within about 48 hours. And came up really, really big for us in critical moments and a lot of those catches I believe he made not at that slot receiver position but at that outside receiver position. Q. The fourth and four on the eight minute drive and then the fourth and one on the goal line, that felt more like you, going for it. And I wonder, did you, if you could have done West Virginia over, were you conservative and tonight did you feel like you got to press it and red line it and give these guys a chance? TOM HERMAN: We can\'t do West Virginia over again so I\'m not going to even think about it. But I do think that in games where you know the opponent is going to score you got to be aggressive, game management, I think, is something that is completely loss in today\'s day and age. That the way that we manage the game offensively and defensively against Kansas State and Baylor is completely different than the way we managed it against West Virginia and Texas Tech. And for good reason. When you know you\'re going to be in a shoot-out you got to be a little bit more aggressive. And yeah we didn\'t hesitate -- and then the to give they will the ball on the minus one, again this was a game of field position. Those turnovers gave us greats field position, we forced the one, if you remember the one punt we forced a bad punt I think we got the ball on the minus 40, we scored on that drive. And then we stopped them on fourth down on the plus 35. And we turned those into points. Our first two drives however started on the 12 and a half and the minus four and resulted in no points. So we did punch it out on the minus four one to get, flip the field a little bit, but your original question, no, we, we\'re going to manage the game the way the game needs to be managed and our offensive philosophy is we are, is not to score as many points as you can, it\'s to score at least one more point than your opponent. Q. Was he the first option the whole time? SAM EHLINGER: Yeah, we knew in that situation we were right on the verge of field goal range and we figured that they were going to bring some pressure. We maximum protected and gave him a chance. We knew that I mean we have been doing that with Collin and LJ and Devin as well, giving them a chance and let them go win and that\'s what he did. Q. (No microphone.) SAM EHLINGER: I was just told that that was awesome. Q. Was that good or better? SAM EHLINGER: I don\'t know. I mean I\'m not going to compare them but for me that was absolutely better. Q. Talk about the last drive? SAM EHLINGER: I was very relaxed. We had full confidence that we were going to be able to go down and do what we needed to do. We had done it earlier in the year against another really good opponent and we worked on it every day in practice or every week we always have a two minute situation, so there was never any doubt, we knew that if you gave us the ball back with two minutes or whatever there was that we were going to go finish. Q. Did it seem like they were giving you a lot of cushion out there? Did you ever feel like they adjusted? SAM EHLINGER: Yeah, they started the game bringing a lot of pressure, and we hurt them a few times on throwing it behind them when they were bringing the pressure. We did a great job preparing for the looks that they were going to give us and I felt that we kind of, we were hurting them when they were bringing pressure and getting big plays off of it so I think that\'s when they kind of backed off and went to their base a little bit and started playing a little more cushion and we were running the ball really well. Q. What did coach say to you after those first couple sacks? SAM EHLINGER: Oh, I don\'t know that he said anything, just relax, you\'re good, keep doing what you\'re doing, throw the ball away if you get in that situation. Q. Were you mad at your self after those sacks? SAM EHLINGER: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I shouldn\'t, A I should have had the ball out of my hand quicker and B, I can\'t let those guys tackle me like that. I got to get away from that. Q. What did you see on that fourth and one with Devin, the fourth and goal? SAM EHLINGER: Oh, we had been three consecutive plays we had been trying to run the ball inside, they did a great job of stopping us at the one yard line, and we wanted to go a little play action pass and try to hit Beck right at the goal line. The backer who was manned on Beck under cut it and Devin did a great job of with his release to get leverage on his corner, broke out and did a great job of getting separation that fit the ball into that little tight window. Q. Did they ever double LJ tonight? SAM EHLINGER: I mean they had a couple coverages where they were clouding, but man-to-man coverage or anything like that, there was never any double teams necessarily, no. Q. What did you think of his catch? SAM EHLINGER: Oh, I knew he was going to do it. I\'m just, I have so much confidence in him and he\'s one of my best friends and I love seeing him just be so happy because he knows what he\'s capable of and we all have so much confidence in him and it\'s just really great to see. Q. You talked about that, with as that the epitome of what you mean when if you throw it he\'ll go get it? SAM EHLINGER: Absolutely. If you go back and watch the DB actually zone turned, which means he turned with his eyes inside on me instead of man turning where he\'s looking at LJ and hypothetically you don\'t want to throw a back shoulder ball when the DB\'s looking at you. I believe it was the USC game my freshman year when I learned that lesson, because they see you throw it and they can break on it just as your receiver can. But with LJ it\'s a little bit different story. And I just put it in an area where it was a 50/50 ball, just having full confidence in him and look what happened. Q. What was the first thing that you said to him after you saw him after the catch? SAM EHLINGER: That I love him. Because it\'s true. That I was so proud of him and I knew he was going to do that. I\'m going to just continue to give him a chance and that\'s what he did. Q. Do you feel like you\'re made for endings like this? SAM EHLINGER: Oh, um, I really, really would like to not have to be it in those situations where we have a 17 point lead in the fourth quarter, but I do love those situations, I do love having the game on the line and the ball being in our hands because we just have so much confidence in ourselves and we knew that was going to happen. I don\'t think I was born for it or anything, but I absolutely love it. Q. Obviously the outcome last year was a loss. Does this game maybe sort of showcase how far you\'ve come and developed since your first time? SAM EHLINGER: I think it\'s the whole team\'s development. I was watching the game from last night, I mean sorry, I was watching last year\'s game last night before I went to bed and just sitting there just in awe of the mistakes and the things that we didn\'t do last year when we had opportunities, and they have improved drastically as well as in Texas Tech, so much credit to them. But I think that as a team it shows the progress that we have made especially offensively and I\'m just really proud of our guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports ![\"ASAP](\"http://www.asapsports.com/webscripts/images/ASAPsportsLogo1.png\") ![\"tech](\"http://tech129.com/images/tech129_logo_small.png\"){kind=logo} |
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