UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 14, 2020

Zaven Collins

Press Conference

Tulsa Golden Hurricane 28, SMU Mustangs 24

Q. Last play, or at least the last play for you, take us through what you saw and maybe what you felt?

ZAVEN COLLINS: Knew there was about a minute, a minute 45 left on the clock and needed a big play out of the defense. Kind of went into a sticks type coverage. Sticks means where the first down marker is and keep everything they catch in front of us.

I believe they went empty. I'm not for sure. But I was in the zone. My guy pushed his vertical. He went out pushing away from me. Just turned back inside and when I turned to look, kept searching, the ball up in the air and just went and got it and then knew, took off running. I was like, okay, I've got to get down so I slid and I was like, started celebrating.

And I forgot that there was a minute 30 still left on the field and I celebrated and saw the flag go up, so I was like, oh, my goodness, I hope I didn't just give them the ball back, first and whatever. But fortunate that's not how it works and it worked out in a positive way.

Q. That's a team that was averaging 40 a game or whatever, and you pitched a second half shutout. What did it take to accomplish that defensively?

ZAVEN COLLINS: We just went into the locker room, made good adjustments. It's hard with the offense of that calibre, spotting them that many points in the first half. We got to stop them from that. Some points were inevitable because we weren't on the field, but we just look at that as challenge for us. They score on defense, we need to score on defense.

Right there, of course, when I caught that pick, I wasn't thinking I need to go score to get back at them. Yeah, I could have done that, and if I would have fumbled the ball it would have been bad.

So whenever you give the offense like that that many points in the first half, you know you've got to come out the second half and just shut them out and that was our game plan. We made some good adjustments, and it worked out for us.

Q. You've got the celebration flag, but is it one of those where you could care less because a moment like that something you can cherish?

ZAVEN COLLINS: Yeah, I forgot, I wasn't sure of like how the flag worked at first, and so I was like, oh, my goodness, like I said earlier, I didn't want to give them the ball back after I just intercepted it and once I realized they weren't getting that, I didn't really care, yeah.

So I've never had a celebration all through high school, anything like that, and I just went straight to the bench. So it felt good having a celebration flag for once.

Q. When your defense was down that 21-0, what kind of mentality did you hone in on to keep yourself?

ZAVEN COLLINS: One series as a time. That's what Coach G kept telling us, just one series at a time go, out there, get a three-and-out and give the offense the ball and go to the next series, and I think we did that pretty well. We got three-and-outs I think for about three to four series in a row there. I think offense had some big opportunities in there and they went and scored on a couple of them, so that was an advantage.

Q. That celebration down the field, seeing Coach hugging his family, and you guys the way you celebrated together, this team, how close are you guys; if you let us into the locker room a little bit, what kind of relationship do you guys have?

ZAVEN COLLINS: It's a good relationship between everyone. Unfortunately we've been on -- this is the first time we've kind of been in this position, conference or overall season, this many wins, so few losses. We're fortunate but we've worked for it and been in situations like ECU last week where they were so close to beating us and lost it at the last minute, fortunate to be on the plus side this year in a lot of those close games, even this one.

I think those past years of that, those situations, and I think this helped us grow as a team and become closer together.

Q. The ECU game, the first half, looked like your foot was a little banged up and then you came back. Is it feeling pretty good now?

ZAVEN COLLINS: Yeah, the Navy -- fortunately, fortunate and unfortunately, we didn't get to play Navy, but I got an extra week off to heal my foot and everything is all good.

Q. You were down 23-5 against UCF and then 17-3 against ECU and then tonight, 21-0. I'm sure you would rather win 50-0 but what is it about this group, why so resilient or what does it I can that to keep pulling that off time and time again?

ZAVEN COLLINS: I think it's just the matter of fact, we have been in the situation of being down 21-0, except we didn't comeback. And unfortunately since 2017 when I got here, the past couple years, we've been down 21-0 at the half and would be like, okay, and the next game, 21-0 at the half. This game was no did I know.

The thing is you've got to turn it on and play the defense to get those positive situations for both offense and defense. I think that's kind of where we've matured and not freaking out. We call it DFO, "don't freak out" and that's what we're kind of living by right now.

Q. With a performance like this, you have a very quick turnaround, so building that momentum, obviously the sound is still playing in the locker room. How long is the celebration going to go?

ZAVEN COLLINS: I believe usually we have a day off, I'm to the sure how it will work. We don't -- we just need to get right to it and we'll end up forgetting about this, learn from our mistakes and go on.

Like you said, it's going to be a quick, super-quick turnaround, the fastest I've ever been a part of, and I'm going to be in the same situation last night being at the hotel Wednesday as I was earlier today. That's going to be super quick.

Q. Who came up with DFO?

ZAVEN COLLINS: I believe Coach G, don't freak out, yeah.

Q. Is that something we would hear on the sideline?

ZAVEN COLLINS: What he said DFO, "don't freak out", don't freak out if they have a third-and-long, not playing conservative, just do what we do and do it correctly, and that's kind of what we live by.

Q. How exciting is it to be coming up on late November and not have a loss in conference play and have everything still in front of you?

ZAVEN COLLINS: It feels great. It feels great. Like I said, we've never been in this position before, so we are kind of like a little kid at Christmas right now, but we are handling it well as a team, and we just, like I said, just got to move on to the next week and take care of Tulane, win against them, take care of Houston.

Q. You mentioned DFO and you and Zach are both leaders and roommates, you guys both enjoy the leadership seminars. How much has discipline in that regard become a defining characteristic of this team?

ZAVEN COLLINS: Zach has a really good head on him. He doesn't freak out. He doesn't jump guys whenever they are feeling down. You know, you've got to handle everyone as a leader differently. You have to know who can you get on and who do you have to treat a different way and he does a really good job of that, not freaking out, being a good leader of example, keeping his head high even when he's had a few mishaps in the early half. And he knows what he's got to do, he's a grown man, I think he does a good job of doing that. Just both being in a leadership role, kind of just telling each other from a leadership standpoint we need to get going. Especially if the offense is hot, defense is a little down, tell us, let's go and just relay the message.

Q. On his big hit that he took, do you think he should have got a flag on that one?

ZAVEN COLLINS: So me, Seth, Zach, Cannon and Bryson all live in the same house, and I walked up to them and I said, "What is he doing? He needs to slide. Slide in head first."

I was like, yeah, that's not good. I guess he didn't seem -- he ended up getting popped pretty hard in the head. I don't know if it was targeting or not, but yeah, his bell is going to be ringing tonight for sure.