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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 9, 2010Baron BatchTaylor PottsTommy TubervilleTHE MODERATOR: At this time we'll take questions. Q. Baron, could you talk about the first success of the season with the running game? BARON BATCH: You know, I think this is probably the first time that we've really just stuck with it. I think that's what kind of contributed to it, we stuck with it. Also, we've been practicing really well, and I told those guys it's only a matter of time. It's going to translate at some point. We've just got to keep working hard and today we did. Q. Taylor, could you talk about the play where you kept the ball and took off running down the field, and what was going through your mind when you saw that much green and probably the longest run of the season for Tech so far this year? TAYLOR POTTS: First thing I thought of was -- bummer bro. First thing I thought of when I pulled it was, "Man, I might score on this one." And I started running. I feel some guys behind me. I thought, "Man, you better not fumble the ball." That's the only thing I was thinking, "Do not fumble the ball." Q. Taylor, talk about the way the passing game was working, too, especially in the first three quarters, seemed you all were able to do what you all wanted? TAYLOR POTTS: It's really a credit to putting drives together and being able to get multiple first downs on the drive and get down the field a little bit and get some rhythm. Get the defense tired. It's a credit to the whole line, how fast and how quick they play, and how well they're in shape and how quick they get to the ball and get set. It wears defenses out. And being able to throw the ball, that's -- the only reason you can throw the ball is if you're running the ball great. For us, if you have great tempo. Q. For both of you, would you say that this would be the best offensive performance you guys have had this year overall, and if so, why? BARON BATCH: Absolutely. I think we played kind of well to start off. I think there was still, you know, a few things. We just gotta capitalize and not make mistakes. The drives we stopped ourselves on is just mistakes, somebody lining up wrong or just jumping off sides or something silly. So it was absolutely the best performance that we have so much more potential. We've just got to keep going to work and we're going to be good. TAYLOR POTTS: I agree with Baron. I think we had a really good day. We didn't finish like we should have. We didn't finish near as good as we had played the first three quarters, and that's something definitely we need. We'll come down, every other game, like today, where we need -- the offense has got to show up. That was terrible. The offense has got to show up in the fourth quarter. And we can't go dormant like we did in the fourth. We've got to stay on it. If we're rolling, we've got to stay through it all four quarters. Q. Baron, if Taylor's got the longest run now, is it kind of a challenge to the running backs to maybe -- BARON BATCH: Absolutely. That's embarrassing. (Laughter) That's embarrassing. TAYLOR POTTS: That's not embarrassing. That's a credit to myself. BARON BATCH: I was probably more excited than you, man, when you pulled it. Because we talked about it during the week. If you pull it and you score I'm going to go crazy. I'm going to go crazy. But he didn't get in. And, quick, tried to change the ball, tuck it away. TAYLOR POTTS: Ball security. BARON BATCH: He had terrible ball security. It was bad. But that -- honestly, that was something big for us, that he pulled it out once, because it held the D ends the rest of the game. It allowed us to run the game effectively, it seemed big. Q. Seemed not only the running backs, but wide receivers, you guys were breaking a lot of tackles and getting a lot of yards after contact. Is that just hard running on your guys' part? BARON BATCH: It was something we focused on this week. It was one of the keys to the game was break tackles. The safeties play down really hard. So if you break tackles, you know, you're going to be able to go a long way. And that was an emphasis this week and everybody did a good job of that. Q. For either of you, seemed like you all opened up the play book today and did more stuff. How long had you all been waiting to break out some of that stuff? TAYLOR POTTS: We didn't. We really didn't open it up very much at all. We kept it simple and ran what we're really good at and it worked. BARON BATCH: I think the biggest thing today was we just, we got first downs. And in the past you can't do tempo if you don't get first downs and you just stop yourself and you stall and you get bad down in distance. I think we ran the ball really well in the first down, and that just allowed us to really just kind of do what we wanted and keep them on their heels and I think that was big. Q. Both of you, what was this like for the whole team, particularly coming off the big loss, the two-game losing streak and the big loss up at Iowa State? TAYLOR POTTS: This was really huge. Coach talks about it all week. Especially on the quarterback screen. He said, Man, this is going to make or break, not make or break but this is going to define our team how we play. As an offense, it's what we can control. We need to come out and put it all together for four quarters. We came out and put it together for three, three and a half. So we didn't reset goal. But we wanted to start the game really quick, fast, quick, go score in the first drive. We did that. But this is huge for our team. We needed this win for obvious reasons. But it's good, and I'm glad we got it. BARON BATCH: I think, you know, all week I was telling the guys like, Man, this is a must to have this victory. I don't think I've lost three games in a row since high school. And when you get on a streak like that and every other team you play starts smelling blood in the water, that's a big thing in the Big 12. So I think it's a good thing for us to come out and get this victory, because, like Taylor said, like the coaches said, this is a defining point in our season. We're a good football team. The two games we lost, mistakes, mistakes killed us. And we're really good. And I think sometimes that gets overlooked, just the talent we have on this team. So once we get it together, we get rolling. We're going to be good. We're going to be okay. THE MODERATOR: Coach. COACH TUBERVILLE: It feels good to get -- it feels great to get back on the winning track. We've had a much better team than what showed the last couple of weeks. I'm proud of our players. And both teams played hard. Baylor played hard and made a lot of plays and at times they made us look a little silly, and I think we did the same thing to Baylor. A lot of offense. And basically when it came down to the end, two things, being able to run the ball and move it and run the clock a little bit and also be able to play defense at the appropriate time. A lot of very good performances from our players. We continue to get behind. And I thought one thing, if we looked at what happened, we fell behind, but once we got the lead we never gave that up. And I think that was a huge thing for our players to learn from. But the last three weeks we've had to come from behind and the first two weeks we just dug ourselves too much of a hole and this time we were able to dig ourselves out of it. We made a lot of good plays. Much better this week. A lot more players played more consistent. The offense was outstanding the first half. And just that was the key. We were able to just kind of score it well. Second half, defensively, we gave up a couple of plays but other than that they had a good half. So overall we'll take the win. It's one of those that we can learn from. But we needed it. Got us going back in the right direction. Questions? Q. Coach, you mentioned about your defense coming up with big plays when you had to have it. This is something that you could take from this game and have it carry over into the next week? You made the key stops when you had to have it. COACH TUBERVILLE: We gave up a lot of yards, but with the type of offense we've got, we know we've got to be able to at times get the ball back for our guys, make a play, make a stop. We didn't make the first down there at the end to get the ball game over with. And we had to punt. And we were able to make a few plays there. But, again, we were missing three starters on defense. We had a couple of injuries in practice this week. Had the suspension. It's one of those things that we've got to overcome. We don't have a lot of depth, but I'm proud of the guys. I'll tell you they laid it on the line. With the quarterback like they've got on their team it's going to make defense look bad at times. Not just us. He's going to make more defenses look very, very undisciplined. Although you might know where you're supposed to be, but he can really turn the game around in a heartbeat. But, again, we've been in enough to get the win. Q. Was the onside kick in your game plan, or was that a heat-of-the-moment decision? COACH TUBERVILLE: No. We had it all the way. They played their middle guy about 15 yards off. It's kind of a no-brainer, no matter what happened we were going to pretty much kick it to the second kickoff. And it was there; we just didn't kick it far enough. For some reason our kicker, he didn't recover the ball. He's got to recover the ball. And we just didn't coach him well enough. I'll take full responsibility for that. But, man, it just knocked the air out of us. But, again, it goes back, our offense just came right back and took it under their wing and ran with it. And, man, did they do a great job after that. We kind of settled down. Then they ran the fake punt, and they ran a different formation, and our guys that is supposed to have him thought he was supposed to contain, they did a great job on that. You gotta give them credit for it. But we've got to do a lot better on special teams. We're not good enough defensively to give up points like that. Q. A lot of times on those swing passes, both teams, your guys seemed to come up and tackle, when Baylor would run whatever you call it out to the flat, couple yards. Your guys all day seemed to be breaking tackles. And Baron said that's one thing you guys kind of emphasized in practice, to try to get yards after contact. COACH TUBERVILLE: And the big thing they were doing, they were playing more of a defend coverage a lot of times what we call four deep. And we run cover four quite a bit. As a matter of fact, we gave up some big plays ourselves. We squat our corners a lot more. It's a little harder to get that play ran. We were able to break on it a little bit better. But the key to that is just nothing but a sweep. All it is, is a sweep. You've got to be able to tackle in space. It seems like at times we tackle better in space. A couple times we didn't. But that was a huge play for us all day long. And we just kind of took what they gave us. And that's the responsibility of a team. If they're going to give you something, go ahead and take it and have patience and, man, it really worked well for us. Q. Some of the players, Coach, alluded to it. Did you think this was a defining moment in your season? COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, it's a huge moment. We had a loss at home. Very disappointing game for us. That was a very win-able game our first conference game. Then we go on the road after an open date. We dug ourselves a hole. That was just going on the road and not getting it done. And today, this is pretty much like a road game being away from your establishment, although we did have a lot of fans. Had our band here, a lot more excitement. But this was a game here where we go 2-3 instead of 3-2, it really puts us really in a hole, knowing we don't have anything to gain confidence from. This game of football now is a game of momentum and confidence and believing in what you're doing, and if you just look back to the Texas game, we played pretty decent on defense. Offense we didn't even have 200 yards. Today, last week, we totally looked different at times in terms of offense. We're getting rhythm. Guys are understanding what to do. We've been able to run the ball better. Last weekend, this week. If that continues to work, we'll be able to score a lot of points for the next six or seven games. But this is one win, we'll take it. We've got a lot of big ones coming up. Q. Can you talk about the run game as a whole and maybe your thoughts on Taylor Potts, the running quarterback? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, we call him Flash. You know, it's something that you've got to do every once in a while. Because what we call the zone read. Of course they've got the perfect guy to run it because he is a runner. He can fly. But that was a huge run for us. We've been working on it, in our arsenal and doing that. But, again, running the ball, again, I talk about this, and we're a passing team. Run, pass the ball, set up the run. If we can get the run going like we've got it, we can beat a lot of people. We can score a lot of points. It's one thing that you overlook is the offensive line. The first couple of games of the year, three games of the year, we didn't look very good. We've gotten a lot better. We're more physical. We're getting -- understanding what we're doing. We're running a few more different types of running plays than in the past. And we ran tight end today on the field. We've put Chris Olson at tight end. We're just trying to run two types, making them balance up. Had a big play out of that. Good job by the coaching staff. Goes back to players executing and being more physical. Running game goes, it makes a lot positive happen for you. Q. Where was Will Ford today? COACH TUBERVILLE: Will Ford pulled a hamstring in Tuesday's practice. It was Tuesday, the first day of practice and Aundrey Barr twisted his knee. Q. Franklin Mitchem, did he get hurt again? COACH TUBERVILLE: He got banged up a little bit. His knee has not been right since, what was it, the New Mexico game. So he's been on and off. Played some. Played bullet a lot more today. But it was -- Sam Fehoko was about three-quarter speed. I'll tell you, he went out there and played, probably not many of us in this room would have played. He banged up his knee. He's fine, but really sore. Mickey Okafor played hurt. We don't have any choice but to play. We're at the point now where we're just pretty much bare minimum in some areas. Q. Without Mitchem and Ford back there, how did you feel about the communication in the secondary? COACH TUBERVILLE: It was pretty good at times. We messed a couple up. And we put them in situations probably we shouldn't have. But LaRon Moore played today, first time he had to play. We brought a couple of guys along that we thought about taking redshirts off. But we didn't have to put them in. And we're still up in the air on that just depending if some of those guys don't come back we'll have to start playing some players because we're down, we probably brought 40 players on offense today and probably 26, 27 defense we brought on the trip. We didn't have a lot. Q. How did you feel about defending the running element of Robert Griffin's game? COACH TUBERVILLE: I mean, you don't defend it. You just happen to fall into it. He's as good as you'll see. He's very talented. You can tell he is looking down field. Last year, you look at the film before he got hurt in his earlier years, he didn't look down the field a lot when he was scrambling. Now he's a threat, big-time threat, gets out of the pocket well. They do a lot with him. And he's obviously a very smart kid. They do a lot of offense with him. Got some huge receivers, as good of receivers we've seen, speed coming off the ball. And it showed at times. We struggled covering them. Thanks. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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