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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 2, 2019Matt WellsLubbock, Texas MATT WELLS: How is everybody doing? Good afternoon. Good, solid response (laughter). UTEP week, we have a little bit of a start on them last night and this morning. UTEP has a coaching staff that's very veteran, some that I am very familiar with. Dana Dimel is a veteran coach that is a very good football coach, has hired very good guys around him. All three coordinators I know. Joe Rob used to be here at Texas Tech, veteran special teams guy, highly thought of around the country. Chico Canales, good friend of mine, former Utah State quarterback, known him forever. Has done a phenomenal job throughout his career coordinating offenses, getting quarterbacks ready to play. He will no doubt have those guys ready to play. Mike Cox, veteran defensive coordinator. Coach Cox was at Utah State when I played as a junior and senior. I'm very familiar with all of them. Keith Burns, I worked for him for one year. Those guys are veterans. They'll have their guys ready to play. They're well-coached. That's a good staff Coach Dimel has put together at UTEP. Very early in the week. The analysis of them right now, really good back, 19 is a good back. Could have either one of two quarterbacks which are dual-threat guys. Very big up front on the offensive line. They're very big on the D-line up the middle. Three guys right at 300 pounds. In terms of their front seven on the defense, I think both safeties are really good players. They can come off the hash and put their hat on guys. I think they tackle well. Recap a little bit about Saturday. I thought we had a really good start to the game, scoring early. The first I think five series, three-and-outs on defense. That's a good way to start the game. I thought Broderick set the tone with a TFL on the first third-and-short play for us. I think kind of set the tone on defense. Didn't have any takeaways. Certainly that's a big part of our game plan and who we are. Except if you count the two fourth-down stops. I know you don't count it, the stats don't count it, but we do internally. You look at their possessions, this is kind of how we evaluate defense. They had 15 possessions, 10 times they had absolutely no chance to score. Eight three-and-outs on the day, two fourth-down stops. That will be the kind of production we need every single week to be able to play great defense, change the culture around here on defense. Offensively we had the one turnover. Very, very correctable mistake. But we will live with one turnover or less a game. That's kind of who we want to be. I thought we protected Alan very well. I thought the offensive line as a group played well. Travis Bruffy had an excellent game, probably our best player up there in terms of individual efforts. I thought Alan was very efficient. He directed the offense very well. Decision making, couple things that broke down, a couple DBs jumped some screens, ball on the ground on a snap when he took his eyes off the snap. He reacted in the right way, threw it out, got us to the next play. The communication from he to Coach Yost to myself on the sidelines, thought it was really clean. I thought he was clearheaded. He saw what he needed to see. I put a premium on that with quarterbacks just in can they verbalize what they're seeing out there. You know if they're into the game or not. He certainly was. Caught the ball all right. Had a few drops which I hope will be uncharacteristic of us. Then I thought the backs ran pretty good. The rotation at back was about what we wanted, which was just kind of like I said it to you last week. Now you guys start to know I'm telling you the truth. We do rotate them. That was going to be about a third. Ta'Zhawn played seven or eight snaps more than the other two. That's about what we want. I believe that will keep those guys fresh. I believe the reps are cumulative throughout the season on the hits those backs take. That's about what he we want. We'll probably end up playing the guy who has the hot hand in the second half of the game. A little bit about preview of the opponent. A little recap there. I'll go ahead and open it up for any questions. Q. You left your presser on Saturday talking about something that happened outside of football. When you have something like that happen, have you seen an effect mentally? How do you deal with that in a sport where you have to be locked in? MATT WELLS: Well, certainly what happened at Midland over the weekend is near and dear to a lot of people's hearts here at Texas Tech. That community, as we know, hand-in-hand with Lubbock in terms of the support for Texas Tech, for me, our football program. They've been great to us in the short time I've been here. Still learning everything here. I just think when somebody hurts that's close to you that you end up feeling it. In terms of our players, we have a handful from there. To be transparent, not very many of them had anybody affected by it, mean, really close to them except one of them. One was a teacher with a little girl that we went to visit in the hospital yesterday. It puts things in perspective. I think the whole hurricane thing in Florida where we don't have very many Florida guys, I've dealt with that at Utah State, we did have Florida guys. It affects your family, so it does, it's the human factor. You just try to do your best when you come into the building to prepare and practice, then you kind of go back to reality and life, things that are outside of football. I just think we're all sensitive to it because it's real life. Unfortunate things happen in this world. Q. Do you have a general injury update on some of the guys? MATT WELLS: Our injury policy, if a guy is out for the year, I'll tell you. If he's out for an extended time, I'll tell you. If he's day-to-day, I'm not going to go any further than that. I've said that, stated that. That will be it. Q. Who is the player that you mentioned that was affected? MATT WELLS: Landon Peterson, freshman offensive lineman. Q. You played your starters until pretty late in the game. Had the game in hand. Did you want to get more reps for your ones and twos? MATT WELLS: No, the game was not in hand. We had a fourth down -- third-and-nine stop. We forced a missed kick. Three or four plays later Xavier goes for a touchdown, and that made it 38-7. At that point I thought the game was checkmate, to be real honest with you. If they score at that point with 12 minutes to go in the game, it's 31-14. I'm going to say they make the extra point. That's a two-possession ballgame. 12 minutes to go. Don't think my mind wasn't racing at how many possessions are left in the football game. Is that on-side kick coming? That game was not in hand until that point in the game. At that point in the game we did start seven, though, where we went up 38-7. Q. At the spur position, all August we talked about Evan Rambo and Adam Beck played the large majority of the snaps at that spot. What was the thought process there? What did Adam do in the last couple of weeks to put himself into position? MATT WELLS: I think Adam Beck, Rambo, Xavier Benson at the other outside backer spot, Kosi Eldridge, we're trying to figure out where everybody's best spot is. Rambo, 6'5", 220 pound kid, is he better rushing on the edge, inside box, Willie. Depends on the formation the offense gives you exactly where those guys line up. Week-to-week, I think how they practice, where they fit in that week's scheme. I think that Coach P has a few moves to make every single week. I think you'll see a bunch of those guys move around, so... Not one thing in particular led to him playing more. Q. What was it kind of like, you mentioned it last week, nine months ago when you were hired, now you finally get to run out there with your team? Was it a special moment for you? MATT WELLS: Yeah, it was pretty neat. I think that's one of the best entrances in college football, the smoke, fearless champion, the horse. It's not about me. It's about the players. I got fired up coming out of there. But it's about greeting the players. It's a players' game. Coaches usually lose ballgames by their inability to get their team prepared or put them in situations. Players win games. It's about the players. I appreciate the question. It was nice. I'm one win. I'm even in Jones Stadium. I'm 1-1, told you I was going to try to get to 1-1. See if we can win this week. Q. Jackson Tyner, is he QB two or still to be determined? Over Duffy, what made you go with him? MATT WELLS: The body of work for the last two weeks. That will be, again, determined by Coach Yost later in the week depending how this week goes. That's a good competition. Both those guys need to continue to show improvement. They have to do it in limited reps now that we're in season because Alan will take all the ones and he'll take a decent amount of the twos most of the because that's how you prepare QB one. Q. How is Terence progressing, Terence Steele? MATT WELLS: He's day-to-day. Q. After the game you mentioned the defense had a lot to work on. Now that you've reviewed them, some of those things they were lacking that you can improve on? MATT WELLS: Rephrase that again. Q. The defense, what can they work on? MATT WELLS: A ton. I mean, we had some miscommunications just in terms of stacks, bunches. I'm sure UTEP is going to stack us, bunch us, motion to stack, motion to empty. I'm sure they're going to empty the backfield, to see how we messed up that, see if we can get it fixed. Q. With Alan, obviously a lot of passing yards. Knowing quarterbacks, what are the main stats you look at to see how a guy is doing? MATT WELLS: I think the first thing you look at is your touchdown-to-interception ratio will always be I think a key stat. Completion percentage can be misleading at times because we're going to throw a bunch of bubbles and (indiscernible). Your completion percentage on bubbles and screens should be 95%. You're looking at your accuracy in terms of drop-back passes, those kind of things, RPOs. Alan was pretty accurate. You're looking for command of the offense. The more leniency or rope that Coach Yost gives him in terms of checking, he will call a little bit to a decent amount of the game because Coach Yost will gain confidence and more confidence in Alan, and Alan will be able to call the game, put a few of our guys in better positions. I think we look at some of those kind of things. Q. The only field goal is like a 31-yarder. Trey was the only one out there on Saturday kicking extra points. Will that be kind of the strategy going forward? Is it a distance thing? MATT WELLS: To be determined. That's a strategy question I'm not going to let out on Monday. A for effort (smiling). Q. Thank you. MATT WELLS: You're welcome (laughter). I got to find a better way to answer that without laughing, don't I? Q. It's been some time since we've seen the offensive coordinator here call the plays from the press box. MATT WELLS: Since Spike Dykes was the coach. Q. Can you take us that your role on game day, what you do on the sideline with regard to your involvement in the specific plays, defense, offense? MATT WELLS: Good question. I think I'm on both headsets. I'm making a decent amount of calls in terms of the kicking game with Coach Tommerdahl. I help Coach Yost in terms of going for it, punting, kicking field goals, all that kind of stuff. You just manage the game from a head coaching situation, time management, your timeouts, substitutions, special teams substitutions, special teams adjustments, a handful of offensive adjustments, looking at what they do on offense to help the defense in any way I can. KP is going to call all the defensive calls, Coach Yost calls all the offensive calls. I'm involved, I guess I would say, on everything. I'm in both meeting rooms throughout the week, making a lot of personnel decisions. Special teams, very highly involved in special teams. Coach Tommerdahl does a great job with that himself. Q. Can you talk about UTEP, what concerns you about them? MATT WELLS: Well, I think I just mentioned it. The early analysis just early this morning, not being knee deep into it until later tomorrow and tonight, is they're big and physical up front in terms of their O-line in the middle. Their defensive line is big, thick, physical. Can we move them inside? Their safeties, I think they're really good up the middle. The backers, inside interior O-line, that's how you build a defense inside-out. I'd like to think the same thing about our defense. Broderick, Nick, Jordyn, Rico, Frye, Coleman. I see UTEP is being built the same way. Their players up the middle are very good and very talented. The runningback had a really good game. That doesn't do anything to us in terms of what we think on defense because our first thing we want to try to do is stop the run, just like probably everybody else. Q. How do you approach this week playing a FCS team, Power 5 school the next week, are you eager to get the better competition later in the year or are you excited to fine-tune a few things coming up this week? MATT WELLS: Play it as it lies. You don't get any bumps in the fairway or the rough. You play the schedule as it lies. It's all about us. Everything is about us. It's what we do, how we do it. The respect for your opponent will be there every single week. I think you respect your opponent by your preparation. I'm trying to teach our guys how to do that. Our staff is trying to teach our guys how to do that. The investment you put into preparation, it doesn't matter who the opponent is on Saturday, whether it's a league game or non-league game, whether it's at home or on the road, you don't leave. You don't leave victory to chance on Saturday. You prepare the same way, you invest the same way. That's how you respect your opponent. I 100% respect UTEP. We'll have to play better than we did Saturday to win the game this week. Our guys have to understand that. I believe in how we're going to practice on Monday. This afternoon is the most important thing I'm worried about right now. The rest of the preparation, as soon as I get out of here, start continuing to game plan. But the preparation this afternoon and the practice is all I'm worried about, then tomorrow morning 6:30 game plan, install meeting. That's all that's on my mind. All that needs to be on the players' minds. We have to instill that as an attitude to them, it's all about us, what we do, how we prepare. You don't just wing it on game day and roll the ball out and win. That doesn't happen, I don't believe. I don't believe you can do that once we get to this league. Everything we do has to be the same or equal or more investment every single week. Q. Sometimes it's tough for guys when they are competing against two of the guys for a spot or position. You look at runningback, the wide receiver. Is it nice to say we're competing against other people, but you all get your opportunities, a chance to shine in a game if you keep working your butt off? MATT WELLS: First and foremost, the tape, in terms of their performance, is an indicator and validation of reps in a game. You earn them in practice, in scrimmages that lead into game one. Then it becomes your game day film and your résumé. You're only as good as your last film, you're only as good as your last game you played. In terms of validating that for the players, it gets real in each meeting room, whether it's the receiver meeting room, the runningback, DB, the H receivers. They see it and they see the guys in that room. But it's so much more than what you just mentioned, to be honest with you. They need each other. Some of those positions aren't ready to play 90, however many snaps. How many did we have? 95 snaps. They're not ready to play all 95 snaps. At some point, our theory and our philosophy in having those players play those many snaps, divy it up, if the performances dictate it, I think they're continuing to buy in that. I'm fresher, I can be more productive, I'm fresher throughout the week. As the season builds, they will continue to see. They don't see it yet right now. It's only week one. But I think they'll see that. They've bought into it for the most part so far. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. MATT WELLS: Thank you. Thanks, y'all. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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