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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 19, 2019Matt WellsLubbock, Texas Iowa State - 34, Texas Tech - 24 MATT WELLS: Okay, congratulations to Iowa State. They won it. You know, the message in the locker room is a couple things. You know, first of all, when you play a team that's as good as them and the program that they've built and where they're at, you can't come out of the gate and spot them 20. Obviously we weren't dialed in at the beginning enough. Something just wasn't there, to be honest with you. Don't read into that wrong. I thought we were emotionally ready to play, but there was just something really on both sides of the ball that wasn't there, and we didn't have the fast start, especially on defense, that we'd had before. You know, I think the second thing coming out of that deal is, you know, it was very interesting to see us fight back. You get it to 20-10, and we fought, we came out at halftime, put a good drive together, unfortunately it finishes with a field goal, and then it's right back. We almost had a walk-off basically right there, and they get another lead, and then we just keep -- we kind of fought back. On the one front, it seemed like it was about to crumble and was going to be not in the game, and then all of a sudden we had a few guys that stepped up and made plays. We had a pick and then unfortunately we don't convert it into a touchdown late at Damarcus's interception. But we had some guys fight. The biggest thing with the game of football that I talked to our players about is the game of football when you invest at a high, high level and you practice at a high level and you're accountable and you're ready to roll every single week, it'll pay you back ten fold and it's a tremendous game and it's awesome, but it can also be an ugly game from an individual standpoint when you don't invest the right way, and it can be something that sticks out. Obviously when you have a game like this, I don't know what the final was, 10 points, but it's -- every loss to me is always disappointing. We'll go back and we'll regroup and we'll set our sights on the next one and try to get back to 4-4, and obviously we're still fighting to get bowl eligibility, and I think those are right in our sights. Our guys know that, and we've got to find a way to put this thing together and play better, obviously, and give a better effort and find a way to go win on the road. That's kind of the message coming out of the locker room. Q. What did you see from Brock Purdy today that made him so effective? MATT WELLS: Same thing I've seen for whatever games I've studied, all six of them this year, and I went back and watched a couple last year. He's efficient, knows where rush is coming, kind of moves a little bit in the pocket, and sometimes you've just got a little bit of an innate ability. I told you guys that in the Monday press conference, and I saw it. He did it, and he's very accurate, and he gives his guys chances to make plays. Q. Coming into this game, Breece Hall had 212 scrimmage yards for the season. He put up 256 today. What was it about him that makes him so hard to contain? MATT WELLS: He's a good player, runs hard. I think a couple times we don't set the edge of the defense. Any of those backs at Iowa State could have run around it when we don't set the edge of the defense. He does a nice job of sticking a foot and getting north and south, and he's a good back. He's a good young back. Q. Matt, you kind of alluded to it, two weeks ago against Oklahoma State, last week against Baylor you come out and play well defensively early. Are you still kind of teaching guys how to sustain effort from week to week to week? MATT WELLS: What's the question? Q. Are you guys still teaching, instilling how to maintain that high level of intensity from week to week? MATT WELLS: We are, yeah, we're still teaching. Accountability, we're still teaching, day-to-day discipline, we're still teaching, how to practice and how to get ready for a game on Friday and Saturday morning. I think a lot of the effort was there. I'm certain in a game like this when there are a couple balls that get loose on you and you don't set the edge of the defense, we're going to see some effort issues because we're going to make sure we don't deviate from anything in our culture, in our foundation that we're setting. To answer your question, I think we're still teaching a lot of things, and I think we were after wins, as well. Q. What's causing the lack of efficiency off of turnovers offensively? MATT WELLS: That's a good question. I'm not sure I know exactly what that answer is from today until we go back and look at today's tape a little bit. But you know, you always want to ride a little bit of momentum. Football can be an emotional game, and riding momentum and certainly you hope to play off that momentum, and the one -- I think we just had one turnover today. Certainly at that point in the game we certainly needed that, to turn that into seven points. Q. Two weeks ago Duffey threw for 444 yards, 9.16 average. This week 200-plus yards, but he's only averaging 4.6. What was it Iowa State was doing that made you want to stay short passes underneath stuff? MATT WELLS: Well, inasmuch as that, we weren't effective, we didn't do a good job blocking on the perimeter when some of that stuff was thrown. We had some shots early, protection breakdown, Jett didn't see it, a couple times we had guys open. We certainly need to take more shots, we need to execute better shots, to be dead honest with you. Q. What was going through your mind after the missed 42-yarder after the interception? MATT WELLS: You know, kind of like -- I don't know, are you on our side? You're a Tech guy. I was disappointed. You're like -- you know, it's an emotional game. But I try to keep a level head and a lot of that stuff, but Trey has had a good season. He just didn't get his hips through. He knew it right when he came over; he said, Coach, I didn't get my hips through it; that's on me. But I mean, it's absolutely within his range. Q. When you said he needed to take more shots downfield, does that mean you need to -- MATT WELLS: Yeah, when I say take more shots, don't read into that that David didn't call enough shots. There's certainly -- probably internally we'll look at a handful that maybe you could have called a little bit more, but you also can't put yourself in 3rd and 8, 3rd and 10, 2nd and 10. Any of us know what's coming next in terms of that. 1st down efficiency I didn't think was very good, and some of that was related to my answer over there a while ago, I don't think we blocked on the perimeter very well today. Q. When you say you know what's coming next, you mean extra pressure or it's going to be hard to -- MATT WELLS: No, Iowa State didn't pressure five times. Q. Can you elaborate when you say you know what's coming next? MATT WELLS: (Indiscernible) type of guys and they're going to have underneath coverage, and we can't -- you know, it's going to make it a whole lot more difficult. 3rd and 10 is not real fun to be in. The national average is if you get over 20 percent of 3rd and 10 you know you're operating a a really, really high level. I'd like to try to get our chances a little bit better at that. We all do. That's what I -- Q. Late in the game, I think it was like 4th and 3 down 10, did you ever think about going for it on 4th down and what's the effectiveness of your defense? MATT WELLS: You're talking about 4th and 3 from the 3? Q. From the 34 I think it was, after the missed field goal I think you guys got a stop defensively. MATT WELLS: 4th and -- oh, on our minus? Yeah, good point, because that can be debated, either with all of us today, and we can kind of debate it internally. You're talking about on the minus -- Q. Yeah, on the minus 34. MATT WELLS: Yeah, at that point you go, okay, are we going to go do-or-die right here because it was a three-score possession. We had that conversation. It's either do or die. You don't get it right there, the guy is going to be in field goal range, he's got the wind behind him, and now it's going to be ballgame at that point. Excuse me, it was a two-score ballgame at that point. We elected to kick it and try to get a three-and-out right there. I think that probably is a 50/50 call. Q. Back in the first quarter, I think it was the very first possession, you had 4th and 3 at the plus 41 and you punted there. Any thought to going for it that early in the game? MATT WELLS: No, hang 10. We're going to try to pooch it up and catch it inside the 5. I think that's the second one in seven games that's gone into the end zone, and really Myler just lost a little side -- it kind of came behind Myler, but the target area was off just a little bit. We're trying to pin that thing inside the 5. Obviously you look at it from one standpoint it's net, wasn't very much when it goes into the goal line, but I had a lot of confidence in Austin in that area. Q. Early on, how much of Purdy's success was his ability to kind of stand in that pocket and find his receivers? MATT WELLS: His success was based on what? Q. Based on the inability to get as much pressure as you wanted -- MATT WELLS: Oh, I think any quarterback's success is always based on that. You let him sit back there and comb his hair, he's going to have -- especially a good quarterback like Brock, he can get all the way through the progressions and then he pulled it and ran a little bit, but his legs didn't hurt us. I think a lack of pressure on the quarterback hurt us more than anything. Q. What kind of a match-up problem did their big tight end -- MATT WELLS: A little bit. They exposed us a little bit there in terms of the one-on-one match-ups with our safety, one time a corner. They certainly had that advantage. Q. With all the Mackey Award guys that David had, is that -- MATT WELLS: I'd love to have tight ends that you can be able to go from 11 to 12 personnel. They got into 13 personnel a little bit more than they've shown throughout the season. But yeah, six, seven tight ends that are big, go up and get it, if there's any out there and they want to come play for the Red Raiders we'll take them. Q. When you mentioned a lack of pressure a few moments ago, how do you address that in practice this week? MATT WELLS: Well, it's the right combination of calls and do we have to add guys to the pressure. Obviously you do that, you thin out your secondary, and that's a Catch 22 for a D-coordinator. If you're not getting pressure with the three or the four because we have an add-in, so most of the time it is a four-man rush because we have an add-in backer just like most three-down fronts do, so it's fundamentals, effort by those guys, got to improve, got to be better. Credit their guys. Credit to them, too. I mean, they did a good job of protecting him, the big tackles did. But certainly you either add guys to the mix or you've got to get home, and we weren't getting home, and then when we were adding guys, they exposed us in the back end, and like I said, we weren't as sharp on the back end as we need to be. Q. Speaking of that, with the guys that you have down in the secondary with David Crosby going early today, you basically have five guys that have experience and not much depth behind that. Was that a factor today? MATT WELLS: It's always a factor. We're thin. We're thin. We've had injuries. You didn't hear me say, I'm not going to give us an excuse. I've got a no-excuse program. I promise you that. But you're correct in your observation. I mean, it makes you thin. Guys are playing a lot of snaps, and that's part of us. We've got to develop that, we've got to recruit that, and we've got to continue to add depth in a lot of areas, not just the secondary. Q. Have you heard anything early about Adrian from the doctors? MATT WELLS: No, not yet. I should know by Monday. Q. Xavier Martin today, was that a situation where he was kind of getting to the rotation due to injury or was it just something you saw from him in practice this week? MATT WELLS: Yeah, injury, yeah, just to help with Mannix and Rigdon. Q. You've had a few 11:00 a.m. starts. Are you a fan of these or does it change possibly the way the games are starting for you sometimes? MATT WELLS: No, because I think two weeks ago we started real well. 11:00 a.m., we'll be ready to go, 3:00, 6:00, it doesn't matter. Again, that'll never be an excuse coming out of me or our program. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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