STANFORD UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 20, 2021

Tanner McKee

Postgame Media Conference

Stanford 11, California 41

Q. (Question about Tanner feeling rusty.)

TANNER MCKEE: I mean, at the beginning of the game, I thought everything was good. I thought we had a really good week of practice. Maybe at the beginning of the week, I had to kind of knock off a little rust. But throughout the week, I felt like it was all gone, felt pretty good, and felt very prepared for the game.

Q. The initial opportunities, the two fourth down opportunities early in the game, what could have gone better on each of those sequences?

TANNER MCKEE: Yeah. I just think we really had to execute. Each time, it was kind of a little different thing. Whether it was leverage or getting push or me kind of putting a little more air under the ball to let our guy go attack it. It was just little things that we have to kind of execute that we practice all the time in practice. And in the game, we can't really change anything about that. So with more reps and everything like that, we'll be able to do that, no doubt.

Q. Was that an audible, on the fourth and goal when you tried the QB sneak at the fourth and goal?

TANNER MCKEE: Yeah. I kind of went to the line with a couple of different plays. Kind of ran down -- the play clock was running down, got set pretty late. So just had to kind of pick a play and kind of roll with it. So, yeah.

Q. Hey, Tanner. Could you just talk about the Cal defense, the challenges they posed from your perspective that made them so difficult to face tonight?

TANNER MCKEE: Yeah. I thought they were really good. A great defense. I felt like they capitalized on one-on-one match-ups to make the difficult throws.

Their safeties I felt like were very experienced. There were multiple times where they showed one coverage pre-snap and then switched post-snap to a different coverage. And they disguised it very well.

And so I just thought the mix of those two with them making plays, not missing tackles, and then disguising, I thought they played a really good game.

Q. You and Coach Shaw mentioned how good a week of practice it was. How surprised or disappointed are you that it turned out this way given that?

TANNER MCKEE: Yeah. Obviously, a little disappointed. This week we just had great energy, great juice, thought we were executing well. But obviously it wasn't good enough. So this week it's got to be that much better so it can carry over into the game. We can't just practice great and expect it to happen in the game. We have to make it happen. We say momentum doesn't create itself, you create momentum. So that momentum has to be brought into the game through practice.

Q. Kind of a quick follow up. How important is that to play well against Notre Dame? It's obviously the last game of the season. (No microphone.)

TANNER MCKEE: It's huge. We have to practice angry. We've obviously had a lot of games that didn't go the way that we wanted to. And so we kind of have to practice with a chip on our shoulder and come out and not just expect for things to change but to come out and play angry and get a little meaner up front and make our plays on the outside and for me to make my reads and make plays at the quarterback position. We have to play with more of a chip on our shoulder. I think that will benefit us for sure.