	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 6, 2010

Tommy Tuberville

COACH TUBERVILLE: Real proud for this football team. They've been through a lot all year long. They fought hard, and finally things started to click for us on both sides of the ball at the same time.
Typical Texas Tech start. We didn't finish very fast, but we finally finished. We played defense and we ran the ball. And with everything else, that's about how we played after the first couple of series played good.
But got to give it to them they had a wide open offense and really put us in a bind with some of the players we had on the field. We got mismatched. And I thought the coaches did a great job of adjusting after the first couple of drives. Moving guys around, putting them on different players and being able to make plays.
But most people don't realize what difficulties we've had on defense. But that's pretty much about as good as you can play in the open field in against that type of offense that you can play. We forced their hand. Forced their quarterback to throw the ball down the field and we were able to make enough plays.
Offensively, Sheffield came in and looked a little nervous, and that was probably the best defense that we've seen all year long. They got after him, and he didn't settle his feet, and we just felt like it was time to let him settle down and put Potts in the game and see if he could get going, and obviously it helped.
I'm proud for Taylor, but I'm proud for Steve, too. Sticks, he's practiced hard all year long. He's been a great ambassador on the sideline, and wished he would have played better.
But, again, he took the brunt of what they were doing. I think Potts was able to sit on the sideline and watch what was going on and make some plays.
But it was a team effort. And it was great to get that win. First conference win at home for a lot of us. And our fans stayed with us, and it was really sweet.
But, again, it's all about the players. We had some of the Wounded Warriors in the locker room at the end of the game. You know, they're in there crying, and it means a lot to our players. All week long they put a lot into it, knowing that they were going to play for our soldiers that have been injured and even the soldiers that are still fighting for us. So what a great night. Great night for college football and great night for Texas Tech.

Q. Talk about Taylor Potts. How much did it help having him come in the in the second quarter and lead you down to get that touchdown right before the second half?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, it was huge. We needed some momentum, and I tell you, he was on. Normally if we go back and look at all the film, usually his first 7 or 8 minutes are not quite as fast as they are at the end of the game.
But we knew once he started making plays, it kind of had flashbacks of the Baylor game when everything was pretty much on. Made the plays, made the third-down plays. I thought at halftime even though they made two long plays, they were 0 for 5 in third-down conversions and that gave the ball back to our offense and gave Taylor some opportunities right at the end of the half.
Again, it was running the ball with the offensive line making the holes, and then being able to stop the rush because they were getting after us. Until we got the rush going, Taylor or Stick had no chance because they were really good pass rushers.

Q. Talk about the pass defense in today's game?
COACH TUBERVILLE: It was very good. What we did is again we started out. We tried something on the outside, it didn't work. We weren't able to get off our blocks, so we moved a couple of guys around. But we challenged them like we have the last couple of weeks.
You know, Texas A&M hit some big third down plays on us and really hurt us. This week we were able to make the third down plays and really throw the ball. I thought the key was us having the ball in the fourth quarter. They were having to throw the ball into the wind in the fourth quarter, and it really worked out well for us.

Q. What went into the decision to start Sheffield today and what can you expect going forward for Taylor and him?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, you know, we didn't play well last week. We didn't get anything going. And we put Sticks in the game, and he moved us, made some plays. You can just see it in the players' eyes is this the right combination? It's all about chemistry.
So we told both of them going through this week the one that came out on top in terms of completions moving the team would be the starter. And it was close, very close. We had to go in and just make the decision.
You know, the way we finished last week, you think the team might have some chemistry. But you forget about them not playing much, not starting, not going out and seeing everything early.
Again, Sheffield might have could have done it if we left him in the game. But when he started struggling there and getting out of the pocket real quick, you've got to let your offense run.
And he was taking half the field out and running to the sideline. He was taking a couple of receivers out of the play, so we felt like we knew Potts would stay in there and stay in the pocket because he's done it all year long.

Q. After those first two long touchdown runs, how much of a danger was there just having it all go south on you?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, real dangers. But you have to understand, we can score some points fast. We got behind 24-0 against Iowa State and came back and tied it up.
There were a couple of other games, Texas, we got down 14-0 and came back and tied it up. In the past we haven't been good enough to finish it off. Again, going back and looking at tonight, running the football won the game for us.
It kept our defense off the field. We were able to make some third down plays even running the ball, and then it slowed their pass-rush down.
If we had not been able to run the ball, we wouldn't have been able to get the ball down the field. We had no chance in making plays throwing the ball. And we had a couple of play-action passes.
I thought one big play we had in the game was 4th down and 1 where we ran the reverse, and I thought that took a lot out of them. If you just watched their team on the other side in the second half, we had 101 offensive plays. I don't care how much depth you have, you're going to get tired.
The big key was being able to make the plays and keep the ball away. Not scoring a lot of points, but keeping the ball away from their offense. Because as we saw early, they're pretty potent.

Q. You mentioned that (indiscernible) finally a 100-yard rusher this season?
COACH TUBERVILLE: I don't know. I noticed we got close to 200. We do that, we'll win a lot of games. That's going to help a lot of things. But running the ball, throwing the ball, it's all a team effort. We couldn't have won the game tonight had our defense not stepped up.
We didn't make a lot of plays on special teams. We did kick the one field goal that really helped. It was a long field goal. But I felt we did a good job with the win. Their punter was phenomenal. If their punter had a bad night we might have won by even more than what we won by.
But, you know, we played it pretty close to the vest. And, you know, it was just a well-played game and well-coached game by both coordinators. I thought they made great adjustments and did a very good job.

Q. Coach, on the sideline during the game you had combat boots on. Who set that up for you and how did that come about?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Under Armour did that with the Wounded Warrior situation. We, all the coaches wore shirts that had Wounded Warrior project on it. They asked me if I'd wear boots and I might wear them every week now.
On our military's the most important thing we have in this country, and we wouldn't be able to do what we did tonight without them. So it's just in respect for what they do.

Q. What are your thoughts on your special teams tonight?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, we were pretty average with our punter. We've got to do a better job. We can't, for some reason, turn the ball over. But they didn't get a lot of returns, and that was the big thing. We didn't use the win in the fourth quarter very well at all out of the end zone.
I thought a big key in the game was Detron's kicking the ball and being able to run it back 25, 30 yards and making it a shorter field. But if you go back and look at it, we had a 92-yard drive after their kid had to punt it 70 yards. And he did a great job of kicking it and going sideways and being able to turn it over.
But the field position didn't hurt our offense. Once we got the ball, we were able to be a lot more consistent than we have in the past.

Q. Will the quarterback continue to be a week-by-week decision, or did you see something that would make a permanent decision?
COACH TUBERVILLE: I would think tonight that Taylor for this week coming up. We'll continue to work Sheffield, and I think that again, he's a good quarterback. It's just the situation worked out tonight where he didn't do as well as Taylor, so he'll be the starter going into this week.
But it could change as the week goes on. It just depends how both of them respond and we're just looking for the best guy.

Q. What does this do for the mentality of the team after having so many games being down, coming back, tying it, and this one finally going ahead and sealing it off?
COACH TUBERVILLE: The odds were in our favor. We've been behind in almost every game. You'd like to go back to last week, a lot of things happened. Just a few plays in the game last week put us in a tail spin. We didn't play as well tonight.
The consistency was there a lot more. But, again, you go back and look defensively, they had like 60, 65 plays. That's not very many against an offense like ours, and we were able to get off the field.
So it's a big win for us. We've got three big ones coming up, and we've got to go on the road again. But it was great to come home and see our fans and our crowd and be around a lot of people that are familiar with us.
So glad for our players and especially our seniors. We've got to put this behind us now and get ready for next week.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297