UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 5, 2024

Gavin Potter

Press Conference

Army 49, Tulsa 7

Q. How nice was it to be able to use your legs today against an Army team that obviously didn't really originally look at it that way ahead of the week? They looked more at that pass game.

GAVIN POTTER: Yeah, it was nice. I think it's awesome that we can use that in our offense. I honestly didn't expect as many carries as I did have today, but we game planned it and knew it would be effective. It was working, so we kept going at it.

Obviously just got to finish the drives. We were moving, getting a lot of 1st downs, moving the ball, but all year it's been we've got to finish and get points, get touchdowns, figure that out. And I think these teams we play at the start of the year are really good, and really some of the best teams we'll play the rest of the year.

I think it's a lot on us older guys to make sure the mentality stays sharp and we stay up and just realize we've played the best we're going to get, so now we've got to be the best we can be and finish out strong.

Q. It's probably hard to answer because you're focused on your job in the moment. What do you make sort of team-wise of a second straight week where for a quarter and a half, 25 minutes, you were right there, and then the dam breaks and ends up getting ugly?

GAVIN POTTER: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people will point fingers at the defense and be like, how do you hold them to 70 yards in the first half and then they end up with 400 or whatever. I mean, it's hard to stay going at it when the offense isn't putting up points and matching their energy and matching what they're doing.

I think these crazy scores, 49 points, whatever, is really on the offense. We've got to match what they're doing. And if we score, we don't have to score 49 points. They won't get 49 points if we just match what they're doing.

Q. I think there was like a minute and a half left on the clock in the second quarter. You have the ball. You guys were going a little slower, not really going as fast. Was there a reason for that before you aired the ball out?

GAVIN POTTER: I mean, there's different ways to attack the end of a half and the end of a game. You want to protect the ball, so that's what those first couple runs were, and if nothing pops, go into the half safe.

And you don't want to have a disaster like at North Texas right before the half. Really see what happens, and if you get a big pop, then you can decide, Hey, let's go for it, let's attack it, so I think that was the reason for those calls. We got a couple good pops and then decided to take a shot.

Q. How did it feel to get your first touchdown this season?

GAVIN POTTER: I threw a touchdown.

Q. I mean a rushing touchdown.

GAVIN POTTER: It felt good. I don't care who gets in the end zone, the offense needs to get in, so it was cool it was me, but I could care less who it was, we've got to get in there more.

Q. How do you try to be better from 30 in, because offensively y'all have been relatively effective moving it kind of between the 30s, especially the last couple of weeks. What do you see in what you were doing that can make you more efficient going toward the end zone?

GAVIN POTTER: I mean, a lot of them we just shoot ourselves in the foot. We'll have 3rd and 3 and jump offsides or just random holding. Bad, just dumb penalties that will set us back. The closer you get to the end zone, the more important each yard is.

If you're in the middle of the field and jump offsides, it's not as big because you have so much space to work with and can do so many different things. The closer you get, the less there is to do, the less space there is, and those yards are really valuable, so you've got to be sharp.

Q. We saw offensively out there what you did today. Was that pretty much what the plan was all week in terms of how often you shuffled, how you and Kirk went back and forth?

GAVIN POTTER: I mean, I wasn't sure exactly how it was going to go, but we for sure game planned things for Kirk, things for me, and knew it was going to be a lot of changeup. And hey, be ready at any time, we can throw you in; Kirk, we can put you back in. Just be ready for anything and stay ready to go.

I don't think they knew, just we wanted to see what was working, and the QB run was working pretty well, so I was in there a decent amount.

Q. Something you foresee going forward, or do you see it being more of a week-to-week kind of thing?

GAVIN POTTER: I think it really depends on who we're playing and how their defense is. Realized we could scheme some things up against Army this week. It was pretty effective, and we'll look at these teams coming up and see if that's as big a part of the plan as it was this week.