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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 26, 2011

Bryan Harsin

Q. So deSean Hales is going to be the No. 3 quarterback?
COACH HARSIN: Absolutely. Bring him on, that's right.

Q. Any fliers going to be on campus for students to try out?
COACH HARSIN: I think they're already out. I'm kind of going off the water boy principle there. Seemed to work out in that movie.

Q. How much time do you have to put in to making sure there is a third guy ready just in case?
COACH HARSIN: No, we have to have a plan for that, and you know, it depends on a little bit of some of the game planning that we have in each particular game. But we'll have somebody available, you know, for those situations.
J.P. Floyd, one of our quarterbacks right now, is a guy that's been here, has been to every meeting, understands what we're doing out there, and so we've got some answers for emergency type situations. But we're going to have to find somebody else in there to fill in that role and be a part of what we're doing back there at quarterback.

Q. Can you tell us a little bit about the Ohio State defense and what you see?
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, physical, very well coached, and they run their scheme very, very well. That's what I've seen. They've done a great job. They're 3-0. Guys up front, their front seven, they play hard, they fly around, they get to the football, they're very physical. They feel very good about their secondary. They let those guys man up, press, play one-on-one outside so they can free a safety up to come down in the box and try to stop the run, and they're playing confident in what they're doing right now. They seem to know where each guy is supposed to be at and they get in the right spots. I give that up to coaching a little bit, that they've been in that system and know what they're doing.

Q. How advantageous was a bye week for you at this point in the season? Can you put a lot more of the offense in?
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, we went back the first two practices of this week, we went back to what we did in fall camp, looked at the fundamentals, looked back at the three games and go, okay, here are some schemes that we need to improve on, some techniques we need to improve on in certain schemes, and we spent time working on that, just Texas versus Texas, and just playing football is really what we needed to do. And I think for our team, that's something that we can just continue to do, just play, just go out there and play and get more reps on tape, whether we're playing an opponent, playing our defense. It's just getting out there, running those schemes, getting fast looks, playing fast, and that's what we spent those first two practices on, we're working on those, and I thought it was productive this last week.

Q. Mack said last Wednesday the team seemed full of themselves. Is that just a product of the early season success and trying to keep everything level?
COACH HARSIN: Well, I think it's just part of your team a little bit, the maturity of the team. You don't have anybody to play this next week. There's not an opponent waiting on that Saturday, and you know, so you're -- when you go out there, you're focus isn't quite as good sometimes, and I think that's what we tried to talk about this week in practice was it doesn't matter whether we play or not. When we go out there to practice, we go out there to play. We want to do it one speed, full, and we're out there to get better. That's the bottom line.
And they understood that. I thought we had a good practice on Thursday. I think this week just from making that point, we came back on Sunday, had another good short period of practice. These guys this week, fully expect them to come out ready to roll after talking about that, and they get it.
But it's just something that you've got to go through. We've been through this bye week. We're going to have another bye week in four weeks, and I expect us to be better when we get to that. But it's just going through that process. This entire season is a process, and that's just another step in that process there.

Q. What was it like just having a practice with Case and Ash and getting settled in?
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, it was good. You know, both those guys continue to kind of rotate the way we've had it and what they're doing. The game plan going to this game will be a little bit different, and those guys are just getting reps. That's all I can say about the quarterback position right now is we've just got to get as many reps at that position regardless of what we're doing for both those guys. They just need to continue to play. And they understand that, and it really doesn't matter what we're running, what we're throwing, it's just getting out there, it's being in command, it's taking the snap, playing in the game, and those guys did a good job of that this week and they prepared well and they're a little bit ahead going into this week, and that's what the bye week has done for the quarterbacks is help us just get a little bit ahead in preparation.

Q. When they're young like they are, is it an exponential growth that occurs?
COACH HARSIN: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it is. Again, it just goes back to those reps. You know, there's so many -- at that position there's so many different experiences you can have, whether it's practices or games, that you can go back and coach off of. Now that you've been through this, what would you do different or this was a great job responding to this scenario, and it's getting that stuff all implemented in their mind of going through that so they know what it happens again in a game situation they can recall that; what did I do that was good, what did I do that I needed to do better, and hopefully it's the right decision at that time.

Q. Any illustrations of luck maybe the last couple weeks?
COACH HARSIN: There's some luck out there, and that's part of football on both sides of the ball. There's a little bit of guys making plays, Case extending some plays in certain situations, which when you go back and look at that, is it luck? As you study it back on tape, I thought he made some really good decisions. I thought he did a good job on DJ's touchdown throw and the one he made to Mike Davis on the scrambles, he kept his eyes downfield. And you talk about that at the quarterback position, you're trying to keep a play alive and at the same time be aware of what's around you and if it gets too tight you can throw that ball away.
So in both those situations I thought he did a great job escaping knowing what's around him, that he's okay, keeping his eyes downfield and finding guys. That's part of the game. That's not what you want on every play and it's not going to happen on every single play, but that's something he's learned, that I can get out, I can escape, I can keep my eyes downfield. If it gets too tight I've got the ability to throw it away and save us from a bad play.

Q. What do you need this week from Darius, Miles, deSean? How much do you need those guys to step up?
COACH HARSIN: Well, really what we need is just not the guys that are going to fill in, we need the guys that have been playing to step up. You know, any time someone goes down, the next guy is going to come in and fill that role. Well, he doesn't need to come in and be superman. Now when that happens, just like what happened with Garrett, the guys around need to step up. The guys that have been playing, guys that have been out there and have experience need to step up and start helping out the guy that's coming in. That's really what we need. We need those other ten guys that have been on the field playing to help the other guys that are coming in now, and then we also need the guys that fill in to be ready to go. Here's your opportunity. You've been waiting, you've been preparing, and now here's your opportunity to go out there and show us that you're ready to play. And those guys understand that and they'll have that opportunity this week, and we expect those guys to come in and do their jobs like everybody else, and the guys that have been playing to step it up a little bit.

Q. What have you seen out of Iowa State and how much can you draw from the game you had last year?
COACH HARSIN: Well, you know, like I said, those guys have been playing very, very hard, very physical. Those guys understand their scheme very well and really we're just focused on the games they've played this season and what they're doing. They've done a little bit different than what they did last year defensively. But I've looked at those three games they played and I've seen those guys play well, I've seen them play fast, and that's what you assume you're going to get. They had a bye week, as well, so they're going to have time to maybe have a few wrinkles in there, change it up a little bit, get some fundamentals that they needed to work on a little bit better. So they're going to be ready to go and they're going to have some different wrinkles in there for us, and we've got to be prepared for that.

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