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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 21, 2009Mike LeachCOACH LEACH: All right, go ahead. Q. Coach, congratulations on becoming the winningest coach in Tech history? COACH LEACH: I appreciate it. Q. I just want to ask you what that means to you? If you could talk about that a little bit? COACH LEACH: It means a lot. We've kind of hashed over it a little bit. Got the opportunity to see Coach Dykes in the locker room. One of the greatest coaches of all time in my opinion, and who really was instrumental in building this program and being a part of his legacy is a real honor for me. But beyond that, really looking forward to playing baylor, you know. Q. How important was it to go ahead and get this win out of the way today so you can guys could be bowl eligible and not wait until next week to do it? COACH LEACH: We just want to win all of them, you know. And you know all this stuff is on the backs of a lot of players. I appreciate their effort. I thought our fans were incredible today. You know, thought they were enthusiastic as we were chugging along. Thought they really did a great job. I think I'm allergic to coffee, actually. They say if you do enough of something, you'll eventually develop an allergy, but anyway. Q. How do you think Nick played today? Give us a little background on that? COACH LEACH: I thought Nick played really well. I never had the opportunity to meet a guy named Nick Reed who was a linebacker for Kansas. And I always felt like he personified what a football player is and what a football player should be. I'd actual lying like to have a picture of Nick Reed. But anyway. We decided as Potts was going through his tough times, we decided all of our players, we'd like them to be more like Nick and led by Nick would be even better. We figured it wouldn't hurt us to have a Nick, so now we do. Q. Can you talk about how it felt to get this kind of revenge on OU? COACH LEACH: I don't really think of it as revenge. You go out and try to do the best you can. I mean, the biggest thing to me, you know, you want to play well. You want to play well. You want to play continuous. You want to play for 60 minutes, and you want contributions on all three sides. We did a good job of that. I think that was the best part of it, really. Q. What can you say about the way the defense performed today? COACH LEACH: Thought they played really well. D-line headlined by our defensive line. They tried to throw underneath a lot. So I can't say enough about our DB's and people underneath. We were all over the football. Both corners got a pick, so I thought that was good. Q. From the second quarter on, was that the best you've seen all three sides of the ball click in a while? COACH LEACH: Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don't know. There were ups and downs in this game. They're a great on opponent. You hit them and they hit back. That is the trouble. Team like Oklahoma hits back, and they hit a lot. They hit hard. You have to stay away from them. They were like, you know, a bunch of just big monstrous people swinging at you. You better not get hit by them very many times. I thought our special teams was key, too. I thought really good special teams effort. Q. Whose idea was the jump around songs today? COACH LEACH: It wasn't mine. Q. Did you feel like jumping around? COACH LEACH: No. I thought the first jump around -- maybe at the end. At the end a little bit. I'm not a huge jump around guy. Maybe at the end. I'm not a guy that even -- I was too self-conscious to dance, really. But the first one I thought broke our momentum up. Broke our focus, broke our momentum. We didn't play the immediate series after that, we didn't play well offense or defense. Then, of course, at the end when it's over when it says 0-0, that's a different deal. Q. What was different about Potts today? COACH LEACH: I just think part of it is his reps and just settled down and really took the thing by the horns. I thought had a great week of preparation. Was all over the film. You know, plus he had Nick on his jersey. Q. Can you talk about this group of seniors and just everything they've done for this program? COACH LEACH: Really good. Really impressive group. I think this is more the fans share with the seniors this time around because we plan to be around each other for another almost two months. So, you know, or month and a half, I suppose. So, yeah. Good for the fans to share in it. Get excited about what they've contributed here. Whole bunch of buildings around here and on the stadium that they've helped add to, without them we probably wouldn't be here. So we owe them a lot. But also we're going to spend plenty of time with them, so we're looking forward to that. Q. Can you elaborate on why you picked Nick Reed as a -- did he like do you remember he was like a tough hitter? Did he have a good game against you? Or what was it about him? COACH LEACH: He had good games against everybody. There wasn't anybody he didn't have a good game against. They went through some hard times and he was always just gritty and tough, and would hit anything that moved. Always a handful. A factor on every play that you played against him. Not one play stands out. Part of it is just the simple fact that in preparing for other teams you end up watching Kansas a certain amount and what not, and, you know, he's right in the thick of it. I wonder what he's doing now anyways. Anybody that got one of those phones that does a bunch of irrelevant things able to figure out? Q. Is he going to keep that name on his jersey the rest of the season, Nick? COACH LEACH: Yes, I would think so. I would think so, and it was his idea, too, while we're on the subject because I'm going to get blamed for this. I guarantee you. As the expression on his relatives and his girlfriend's face changes, on some level I'm going to get blamed for this. But for the record, it was his idea to have it on the jersey. I named him Nick. On the jersey, that was -- Q. Spike Dykes said you're probably the face of this university. What are your comments on that? COACH LEACH: I've never really thought of it that way. The university is the face of the university. Yeah, Texas Tech and the Red Raiders and all that to me that is the face of the university. And then even ahead of that, I always use Spike as the face of it. I guess because when I was coming up as a coach, a lot of lessons in coaching, how to be a coach and all that I drew from a whole lot of other people that were great coaches. I just think that Texas Tech is the face of the university, you know. You know, and the Red Raiders, everybody together. That is the face of the university. But, again, anything that our fans share in, like I say, they were really instrumental on this game. So I think that's the face of the university. Q. He's a rookie defenseman for the Seahawks. COACH LEACH: Oh, good. Q. And he got a sack last week? COACH LEACH: I'll bet he did (smiling). End of FastScripts |
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