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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 14, 2019

Les Miles

Lawrence, Kansas

LES MILES: Good afternoon, men, ladies. Nice to see you.

Q. How you doing, Coach?
LES MILES: I'm doing pretty good. Had a nice open week. We did some recruiting, did some self-scout, and coordinator was pretty comfortable with the logistics of how we call things, so felt like we got a lot accomplished.

Q. What's impressed you about Brent Dearmon as you've worked with him for the last week or so?
LES MILES: He's just got a really fresh approach. He's been fun for our players to work with, and he's played quarterback, and he kind of seems to fit in that quarterback room for us.

Q. Some of the other skill positions, how involved is he with them now? I'm guessing a little bit more involved, even if he's focusing on quarterbacks, like he's working with the running backs and receivers? What type of dynamic is there?
LES MILES: Yeah, he has a -- I think he's got a great relationship with the team, or certainly starting a great relationship with the team. I think there's opportunities to throw and catch, and I think any time there's opportunities to throw and catch, the receivers kind of like to hear that from the guy that's calling the plays.

Q. Your decision to make the change at offensive coordinator, would you say that was more about instruction and coaching during the week or play calling on Saturdays?
LES MILES: I just thought that -- I thought the initial hire was the best hire, okay, and I felt like that there needed to be change, and I think Les did a strong job. I think he worked hard. We just needed a change. And change philosophically as I saw it.

Again, I think Les is a quality man, did a great job for us, and it's time for us to look at Dearmon.

Q. When you said initial hire, were you talking about Les or Chip?
LES MILES: The initial hire was Les.

Q. I'm just curious, how did you first identify Brent Dearmon as a candidate to kind of work with you guys as an analyst?
LES MILES: Yeah, well, his name kind of floated around Auburn, and I have some friends in football, and they said that he would be an ideal coordinator. What I was trying to do was put myself in a position where I could, if need be, go to the next man. Lessons have been taught, and you can kind of see some of the other schools, Alabama made a nice change, Kiffin to kind of exit, and Lane is a tremendous coach, but it was a good change for Alabama.

Q. I'm sure the kids have noticed some changes in practice. I'm sure you notice those changes on offense, as well. How different will it look on Saturday to fans and people that are watching? Will it be pretty noticeable?
LES MILES: Yeah, I think the -- I think there's some similarities and some dissimilarities. I don't know if they'll find it unusually different. Yeah, I don't think that they'll -- I think it'll look hopefully more successful.

Q. Has Dru Prox been able to practice yesterday, and would he be available this weekend at Texas?
LES MILES: Yeah, I do not see Dru Prox being available to us this weekend.

Q. I wanted to hit on the change at OC again. With Koenning, what exactly was not working out?
LES MILES: Nothing. Nothing was not working out. I just felt like there was an opportunity to be better.

Q. With the self-scout stuff you guys did on the bye week defensively, what did you kind of key in on? What did you learn about the defense and what you guys need to do going forward?
LES MILES: Well, the good news is that they're a pretty talented team, and we'll -- yeah, I think they're the kind of team that will continue to play and play and play. I like the three-down up front, and I like the linebacking corps. I think a team gets better.

Q. How important was it for you guys to get out on the road and just go out and see some of the recruits for the first time since the season started?
LES MILES: It was really -- one, it was fun. It was nice to see high school football, and we were in the state of Kansas and the Kansas footprint, and it was good. I think the people that -- there was a very comfortable -- they knew and recognized the brand.

Q. After Chip did leave you guys, was there consideration to just giving Brent a shot at offensive coordinator right then?
LES MILES: Again, I don't want to kind of continue to go over what happened what seems to be a year ago. We hired the best guy that we felt like that could put us in position to win, and then we turned to Dearmon. I think it's going to work out really well.

Q. I also wanted to ask you, you have from social media a very famous quote about Columbus Day. I don't know if you had anything else to say about Columbus Day today.
LES MILES: (Chuckling.) Well, I can tell you again that it's a favorite day of Italians because Columbus certainly was Italian, Magellan was Italian. There's a lot of Italians that enjoy Columbus Day, and again, to paraphrase a quote from a wise old coach, this is not St. Paddy's Day, this is an entirely different day altogether. St. Paddy's Day is generally more festive, though, and is celebrated with green, which green is just the only color that we don't have.

That's as good as I can do on short notice.

Q. I wanted to ask about Carter Stanley. You've gotten to see him for six weeks now. What improvements are you looking for him to make over the back half of the season?
LES MILES: We just want him to play like he played at Boston College. And he is. He's getting better and better. That's the style of leadership that we want. Yeah, I think he'll prove to have a back end as strong as some of the front end games that he played well in.

Q. And then on the other side, Sam Ehlinger for Texas, what have you seen from him, and what challenges does he present?
LES MILES: Well, Sam is a big, strong, full-grown quarterback. He handles the short-yardage plays. He's a great wildcat at times. And yet his passing stats, he's thrown for 1,600 yards, seven touchdowns and an interception, and five rushing touchdowns. He's a focal point for the Texas offense and very good. Very good player.

Q. Does he remind you of anyone that you've coached against?
LES MILES: Well, Tebow a little bit. You know, Tebow was maybe a little bit more -- maybe a little faster, maybe a better runner, but not much.

Q. With Tom Herman now at coach for the past couple years with Texas, how have you seen that offense develop with him at coach?
LES MILES: I think him turning to Sam made a difference, and I think that the -- I think he's got running backs and big strong offensive linemen and now a talented quarterback that's in place and making plays. I think the offense is growing.

Q. Any good, interesting, funny stories you have from the OK State days of playing Texas? Anything that stands out or would have been funny from your trips back to Austin?
LES MILES: No, no. I thought about a couple of them, but nope.

Q. None of those, that guy from Oklahoma that was your buddy that you told us about last time, no UT fans like the guy that used to always go after you in Norman?
LES MILES: No, no. The Texas fans have always been a real quality group of folks that show up at the stadium, and generally speaking, are very civil to the visitors.

Q. After the bye week with the second half sort of ahead of you, what do you look at with freshmen? Should they have learned enough to make a noticeable step in the second half?
LES MILES: Yeah, yeah. And there's a necessity at times. The good news is we put them in a position to improve as they have gone on, and hopefully now that we're in the back -- certainly the half, the back half of this season, those guys will be counted on to make big plays.

Q. Do you like what you've seen so far?
LES MILES: Yeah, I think the -- and as I visualize, I visualize the linebackers. I think we'll be fine at linebacker.

Q. I think you said this morning you guys practiced three times last week during the bye week?
LES MILES: Mm-hmm.

Q. What did those practices look like compared to a typical game week, and how much were you able to get some extra prep for Texas?
LES MILES: We certainly turned to Texas pretty routinely, but we were making sure that we were putting in those things that would be comfortable for the season. But there's some similarities between some of the fronts that we've played and Texas, and we've prepared pretty extensively for Texas and this week.

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