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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 11, 2019Travis BruffyLubbock, Texas Q. How much confidence does a win like that on the road against West Virginia give this group headed into a new week here? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Oh, and at a much-needed time, when everything seemed like it was going wrong, we had the ball bounce our way for one weekend and we've got to try and continue that success. We had a great week of preparation last week. We really turned up the intensity in practice. We had a focused game plan. We need just to stay in that for the rest of the year and eke out three more wins. Q. I'm interested in the play where KeSean got body slammed to the ground. You and Ta'Zhawn were the first ones there. Was that just instinctive? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Yeah, absolutely, you've got to protect your own, especially on the road when there's 70,000 people that were cheering for that play. You've got to protect your people when your back's against the wall. I feel that's my duty as a leader on the team, and I'll take the 15. Q. You seem too nice from that perspective -- TRAVIS BRUFFY: Well, you can put the pads on and test my politeness if you would like. Q. What was different about the offensive scheme that you guys had such success against their defensive line? TRAVIS BRUFFY: I think it was really just how the players, how we attacked it from a mental side of things. I think Coach Yost is very consistent on how he attacks the defense. He's very consistent on how well he prepares, how he tries to expose the weaknesses of each defense. His game plan doesn't really change. It changes week to week with how the offense is mentally preparing, how are we seeing what Coach Yost sees. He's a mad genius, so we don't speak the same language as him all the time, so when we get on the weeks where we're seeing the same things he does, that's when you'll see our explosive offense happen. That starts at the quarterback position. It starts with the offensive line room. Each position has their own things they're looking at, but when we're all clicking like that from the pressbox all the way down to the field, it's a very seamless offense, and that's what I thought we had this week. Q. You're one of the seniors that's kind of fighting for a bowl berth in your last season. You've been in the position of the younger guys where maybe you can look forward to next season if this one isn't going well. How hard is it to get 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds, how much do you worry about getting them focused on maybe the three games? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Yeah, you know, I have three games left, fighting for a fourth, and I think it would be a lot harder position for me to be in if I had regrets that I had these past three years, but I know that people before me, the leadership I had when I came in here, my teammates currently would never have let me take a step back and just wait for the next year. Those are the times when you're 18 years old that you have regret not fighting for these last three games to get that bowl berth, and when you're sitting in my shoes with however many weeks left, all of those regrets are amplified. I'm very fortunate to be in a position that no one let me have a regret, and I can't imagine dealing with it, walking out into Jones stadium for two more games having that on my back. What could I have done more? How could I have extended the season? What could I have done different to change my career here? I can't speak from that because fortunately enough, Terence Steele would have never let that slide. Whoever was before me would have never let that happen. I think an 18-year-old kid is never going to listen to me when I talk about these things, when I talk about regrets, when I talk about I've been in your shoes. But I really ask them to take a step back and ask what you want out of this college football career and what can you do in three years, for these next three weeks to change the course of these next three years for yourself. Q. What do you feel from your perspective has made in team so resilient this year where you come back in a game, you score at the end or obviously get the big win last week? What's made you so resilient? TRAVIS BRUFFY: I think it starts with how we're prepared from a coaching standpoint. Coach Wells is a resilient character himself. That has been amplified by Coach Scholz and his staff. I don't think there's been a game situation I've been in this year that has been harder than what we've been put through in this off-season with Coach Scholz' program. We know we can get through anything physically, and it's up to us as mental warriors, how can we make that next step, how can we match our mental focus to match our physical preparation, and then from -- when you're backs are against the wall, when you're huffing and puffing, you're keeled over on the sidelines, you have to think back to what the coaches have told you in the coaching rooms, in the film rooms. What are you supposed to be seeing, what have they done, what have they put forth on their game plan to make us successful, and I think that that ever-growing trust in that game plan, ever-growing trust in that physical side of things and the mental side of things is what really makes us resilient. I don't think we're doing anything special, we're just falling back to our preparation. Q. After scoring on those first five possessions, scoring touchdowns, not even a touchdown after that. What kind of positive would you say that you found from the offense even when you're not consistently scoring touchdowns in the second half? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Right. I mean, it's -- I would like to say, it's easy to feel good regardless of the score when you win a game. Especially on the road, it's a three-hour plane ride that you have a smile on your face and you're not thinking Xs and Os. But when you watch the film, a lot of our weaknesses were exposed just from individual battles. We weren't finishing blocks on the perimeter, we weren't finishing blocks on the interior. West Virginia simply out-efforted us the second half. I know the score didn't reflect that, but a bunch of props to them for coming out with such deficit and then fighting their absolute tails off, something that we didn't match. I think that gets overlooked a lot when we win, especially by a margin like that and on the road, and we want to pat ourselves on the back, but there are definitely weaknesses that were exposed last weekend, and we need to finish the game. We haven't really finished a strong game this entire year. So for us to continue the success, to build off of this win, that's something we really need to prioritize. Q. Is that just that mentality of when you get up big, not being just happy with coasting the second half? TRAVIS BRUFFY: I can speak really when -- I don't know, I can't justify everyone's mindset, but I can tell you that when you're on the road, everyone is yelling at you, and then when you shut them up, it's like the energy kind of dies. So sustaining that energy from the sideline, for self-sustaining that same spark that we fed off of coming in from the opening kickoff, keeping that flame going the entire game regardless of the score is always a challenge, especially on the road. But I don't think we need to -- I wish we could just block out the scoreboard sometimes and just play ball because that's when we play our best. Q. You've mentioned it a couple of times having your back against the wall, and I don't think it's a coincidence that Coach Wells has used that several times after the game and this morning. Is that something he's kind of preaching to this group or saying out loud, or is that just kind of a resounding feeling and emotion that the players and the coaches are feeling throughout this group? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Right. You know, I think Coach Wells is speaking it into existence, but we're not the -- we may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but we're very aware of the situation we're in. We all know how to count to six, and we have two more to get there, and with our backs against the wall, we only have three opportunities to get two wins. It's a dogfight. I think we have three amazing teams, probably three of the strongest teams in our conference up in front of us. We're going to have to play our best ball. Our back is against the wall. We're going to have to come out swinging, and we're fighting to get each step. Each week is a step closer to the goal that we have and we've got to make sure that we win that fight. Our back is against the wall, and I don't think we needed Coach Wells to address it for us to know it, but I'm glad he did and put it in the air. Q. What makes TCU's defense difficult to play against? TRAVIS BRUFFY: I think you know the answer to that. It's one of the best defensive minds in all of the history of college football as their head football coach. Much respect to Coach Patterson. What he's done there at TCU is amazing on the defensive side of the ball as well as the offensive side of the ball. They recruit great players on the defensive side of the ball with great leadership, as well. I have a close friend of mine that plays nose tackle for them and always speaks highly of how much effort they play with, how much passion they play with. But I really do think it starts with the coaches. Much respect for TCU, like I said before, and he has that ability to get all those players to buy into his system, so yeah. Q. How pleased were you all to give up no sacks, and who do you think deserves the most credit for that? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Oh, absolutely -- we're very pleased every time we keep Jett clean. I think we could have done a better job of keeping people off him. Even though the stat line says no sacks, he got hit a couple times just on some mental errors. But yeah, especially them coming off a week with eight sacks the Thursday prior when they played Baylor, they were on cloud nine, and we really knew we had a difficult task on our hands. So I think the fact that we had some of the young guys step up like Weston and Dawson really mature into their roles and take it upon themselves to keep Jett upright. I think if you were to ask who I'd give the most credit to, it would be those two kids, Dawson and Weston, for really maturing into those roles, realizing what was expected of them this week and just playing not a flawless game but playing with undenied effort, and that went a long way. Q. Coach after the game said y'all did a good job of identifying their linebackers' positioning because they move their linebackers. TRAVIS BRUFFY: Yeah, so speaking Xs and Os, they lined up with three down linemen, but they were bringing four people for pressure every snap. So they had one of their linebackers that was blitzing every single play, and we were trying to identify that pre-snap. It's what we spent the entire week game planning against, trying to figure out who that person was, how we could tell who that person was because they've had so much injuries, it wasn't just a personnel thing. So reading safeties and pre-snap alignment, things like that, was something that was asked a lot of us all, but really like I said was done very well by Dawson and Weston. I think they led the charge calling out who those people were and relaying the information to the rest of the five people so we could operate as one fist, and I think that's why we had success in the pass protection. Yeah, I really do. I think they did a great job of finding that person and making sure we were all on the same page. Q. What's your -- with SaRodorick being questionable today, what's your confidence level in Ta'Zhawn? TRAVIS BRUFFY: I mean, I think we all share the same confidence in Ta'Zhawn. We've all seen him play. He's one of the most elusive running backs in the conference in my opinion. I think questionable for SaRodorick translates to likely. That guy is a fighter. He's been banged up since I've known him, but he fights through everything. There's no bit of adversity he can't overcome. But to answer the question about Ta'Zhawn, the guy makes something out of nothing it seems like every play, so as long as we're giving him just a little crease for him to squirt through, I think he should have a very productive game for however long SaRodorick is out. Q. Against West Virginia, as a whole you only had 35, but I think two of those touchdowns were on 4th down. Was that just the mindset of we've got to do a good job of winning that key, key down? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Right, and I think we knew the situation we were in going into the game and how important that game was, not only from an actual record standpoint but just who we were competing against, the history between the two programs, things like that. We were very aggressive play calling that entire game as well as on both sides of the ball. I think that also it made me feel really good because I feel like the coach trusted the offensive line to get some of those short yardage downs. I know we didn't execute every single time, but especially around the goal line where he trusted us on 4th down, 4th and 2, 4th and 1 were the two downs to punch it in the end zone. We have great running backs, and all we needed to give them was a crease. We did that twice, and it made me feel really good as an offensive lineman because that's my favorite thing to do is I'm coming at you, come at me, let's put it in the end zone. But yeah, I think the aggressiveness from the play-calling standpoint and that approach going into 4th downs, I'm not a coach, I can't really speak on it, but I think that we all know what situation we were in, and we were going to give them our best shot and have all our guns ready to go and pulling all the triggers. Q. How important are the linebackers for TCU, especially No. 30? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Yeah, like I said, they're stacked on the defensive side of the ball. Always is a challenge going against them. It seems like every year they're having a draft pick as a defensive lineman. This year they might have two. That front seven is only amplified when they have great linebacker play, like you just spoke about. He's a heck of a player. We're really going to need to watch a ton of film on him and find out how can we attack him. It's going to be a long week of preparation, but I'm ready to go on Saturday. I'm really excited for the process. Q. You said a moment ago that you were good friends with TCU's nose tackle. Were you referring to Blacklock? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Yes, sir, Missouri City, Texas. We played on the same pee-wee football team, him, I, Grant Delpit, Lorenzo Neal. It was a good team. Believe it or not, he might hate me for saying this, he was a youth Olympian sprinter, won the 100 meters as like a nine year old. Next time I saw him he was 320 pounds. When your face is on the Wheaties box, I guess you eat a bit more. He's a good kid, though. We go back a long way. There's actually a picture of him and I at signing day from our district, arms around each other. Loved going against him. Seems like every year he's getting better and better. He was a power guy out of high school. He's quick enough to have some more finesse moves. He's really grown into that with the system and the coaching he's gotten there. In my opinion he should be, whenever he decides to go to the next level, an easy Sunday player, and I think that's a tribute to his work ethic starting from high school since I've known him back when we were six or seven. Q. I guess you played district rivals when you were in high school? TRAVIS BRUFFY: Yeah, he went to Elkins High School. The biggest rivalry in Missouri City, Texas, is Ridge Point and Elkins, and yeah, absolutely, yeah. We got after it. He went to the same school as Kenneth Murray from Oklahoma and Jonathan Giles. Yeah, we got a good connection. Q. (Indiscernible). TRAVIS BRUFFY: Yeah, it was all the same league. We played each other. It was good. Q. Your coach must have been (indiscernible). TRAVIS BRUFFY: I don't know what he did. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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