UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 29, 2021

Philip Montgomery

Press Conference

Tulsa 17, Navy 20

PHILIP MONTGOMERY: You know, disappointing loss. Give credit to Navy. Played a good game. You know, just didn't execute the way we wanted to throughout the game consistently. Had flashes of it here and there but didn't convert when we needed to.

You know, as you look at Navy and what they've been able to do, saw what they did last week, saw what they did against SMU, you go back and study their tapes, they've been right on the verge for a bunch of it. So we knew we were going to have a battle today.

Just didn't make enough plays right there at the end. Had our opportunities early. Didn't capitalize on them. Had some unfortunate things that happened but we've got to overcome all of that.

And so with that being said, our focus now has to go to Cincinnati. We got them next week. That's going to be a great test for us on the road again at their place. And our focus has got to be there.

Q. For most of the first half, you did a terrific job of stopping their offense, and then they started to have a little success. What do you think? Do you think they adjusted or what do you think?

PHILIP MONTGOMERY: Right there, last drive of the half, they ended up getting outside on us on the pitch part of it. That was kind of our Achilles heel there in the second half.

I thought we did a good job on the interior stuff, did a good job on the fullback, did a good job on the quarterback. He really didn't get loose that much. I don't know what his stats were.

Started getting an opportunity to kind of get us unbalanced and get us flanked a little bit. Made some good plays in there obviously, but that play tended to kind of push the tide on us a little bit in the second half.

Q. When they can generate momentum and have these very long drives, how difficult is it to stay in a game like that?

PHILIP MONTGOMERY: That's the hard part when you play Navy. You know you're going to be limited plays, limited possessions. It makes you look at the game completely different.

And you want to be able to capitalize on some things. You know that if you can get you a lead of at least 17 points, if you can get that type of margin and put a little more pressure on them, they've got to come out of what they do offensively and gives you an opportunity to do some different things.

We had some stuff early that I thought was really there. We missed a couple of those things. Some of that is just a little bit of pressure here and there. But overall, we got to capitalize when we get those opportunities.

Anthony had a great run, obviously had a great kickoff return. We needed to finish his run with a touchdown instead of 3 points. But as you get in those situations, you've got to manage them.

Q. The timeout that you called before their field goal, what was going on?

PHILIP MONTGOMERY: Yeah. You know, we were trying to get Ezra in just because our normal guy that's back there is Kendarin Reh. Obviously out for the season. But we just wanted probably our most -- our best jumper at that point and the length that he brings to it.

So the other part to it is Tyon Davis was really close on a couple of different ones. So both of those guys are wearing 0 at the time. Didn't want to take the penalty obviously so needed to blow the timeout right there to make sure that we got that situation taken care of.

Q. It seemed like maybe a clock issue after the review there the last few minutes, like the clock started running after the review. Do you know what was going on there?

PHILIP MONTGOMERY: Yeah. You know, that's some communication things that have got to happen between us and the officials. You know, there's a couple things in there, but I'm just -- I don't need to make any -- I don't need to make them any money.

Q. You just didn't maybe know that the clock would be starting?

PHILIP MONTGOMERY: Well, at that particular time. And then you got the other issue where we've got a guy down, you know. I'm burning a timeout running on the field trying to burn it. Is it a medical timeout or is it a timeout? One of the two has got to be happening.

Q. Real quick, Philip. As you mentioned early the need to take advantage of the possessions against Navy because of the offense they run, the need to take advantage of possessions, drops where I think stood out. The one in the end zone was a killer. Davis put it right there, guy can't hang on, they get the oskie out of it. That uncharacteristic for your receiving core to do that, but hard to overlook the specific drops in a situation like tonight?

PHILIP MONTGOMERY: Yeah. I mean, that particular play, I thought Davis read it completely right. JJ ran a great route. That's what I'm saying. There's a couple of unlucky breaks in there. I mean, should have been a touchdown. But even if it's not a touchdown, I mean, he -- the ball just somehow as he's rolling on the ground ends up in his stomach and he gets a pick out of it.

At minimum right there -- I think that was second down, if I remember correctly. You still got third down, plus at minimum you're going to get three points out of it. So, you know, as you look at those scenarios, plus just the flow and momentum of the game on a play like that is pretty tough when you're in a dogfight battle.