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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 26, 2011

Manny Diaz

Q. Take us through a little bit of what you see from the Iowa State offense.
COACH DIAZ: Yeah, they pose a different challenge this week than what we've seen because they are explosive off schedule. Steele Jantz is uncanny in his ability -- you have to defend Iowa State for two plays, the first play and then the play that he creates, because every game there's a play, it'll break down, he'll run around, you'll think he's sacked by three different people, he'll crawl out, and then because he has a knack for that, because he's done this in the early game, the wide outs now believe in him, you can tell, so they continue to fight, to work to get open. And he's a guy that will scramble to run and scramble to throw, which is a major, major stress on the defense, and then he's found some guys way down the field that look like they came out of the band, they're so wide open.
So it is a major test to our rush to be disciplined in our rush. We have to be relentless because he's a hard guy to chase around, and then it's a major test to our coverage to -- number one, we have to cover him initially, we have to send the first play, and then when he extends a play we've got to stay in coverage, stay latched on and really prevent the explosive plays that he finds.

Q. Is that maybe Denard Robinson Bowl game last year, is it that same type of thought process that goes into defending it?
COACH DIAZ: Yeah, a little bit. He may be more dynamic in terms of -- and again, I'll just -- he may scramble to throw more so than Denard Robinson. Denard Robinson, which if I was Denard Robinson, I'd run, too, but like I said, if one always -- if it's not there and he took off, or if it's not there and he's going to scramble around and try to throw, you can sort of game plan accordingly. The guy that's -- it's a coin flip and can go either way is a major problem for us.

Q. Three interceptions the first quarter last week or the week before. How important is getting off to that fast start this week?
COACH DIAZ: Well, it's critical, especially on the road. Those are momentum type plays, and I think what's neat for the coaching staff is our players, they're really buying into seeing how team ball happens, where we get the interception, bang, the offense catches for seven. We fumble the punt, they got the ball in our red zone, defense goes out there, cleans up the mess, but then really the offense taking the ball and going 80 yards or whatever it was and scoring there where one side makes a play and the other side fed off the momentum and then because they made a play and we fed off their momentum, and really it became a snowball effect, and it's really good team ball, and as a coach it's really what you enjoy seeing.
We know that turnovers win games, so it is not something we view as a luxury, it's something we view as a necessity. The credit really goes to the kids in those instances because really, two of those were balls that if you watch games could have easily have squirted out and the kid sort of -- you clap your hands and say, next time we'll get it. But every time they threw it close to us we caught it, and had we not caught it, there's no telling what the difference in the game would have been.

Q. During the bye week were you able to teach more of your defense? What was it like for you?
COACH DIAZ: Yeah, when you have a bye this early in the season you're really still trying to improve and get better, working on us just being better at being us.
And then with our situation, especially with our youth, in our two deep, you never know what day one of the young kids is going to say, oh, that's what you've been telling me. So it's a constant -- they think bye, hey, it's maybe like when I was in high school, we'll hang out for a week and do nothing, but it's the opposite. We've got to push so much harder because our depth -- going into our conference where Iowa State, and we're going to see tempo offenses go fast where you can't play with 11 people, you've got to really have 22. So it's a major push, and we'll start again tomorrow, just continue to try and improve our football team. That's all we can really control is Texas, so that's really our main concern.

Q. For you as a coach, do you look ahead to Oklahoma State and start to think a little bit about those or do you still more week to week?
COACH DIAZ: Well, I think this weekend was unique because we were sitting around watching games, so you're watching everybody that you're going to play down the road. But we know this for our football team: Everything we've done so far, any bit of success we've had so far, has come brick by brick, and so for us to spend any time worrying about anything other than the bunch that's sitting in front of us right now, who obviously our players don't need reminding what they came here and did last year, I think we're very highly motivated for this next game.

Q. Do you get Demarco back this week and can you talk about what he brings?
COACH DIAZ: Yeah, I'm not sure. We'll find out what the deal is as the week goes on, but I knew this: What he adds is he adds more speed, certainly to our linebacking room. He loves to run, loves to hit. Just gives us a little bit more depth, and again, where you're starting to worry about your numbers.
We feel like he could have helped us in the first three games, but what we've got to do is get him up to speed and get him to where he can be in a position for success when he goes in. But we're certainly happy with the news we've gotten. We don't know when we'll get him full speed, but it's going to help us for sure.

Q. Can you talk about losing Nolan and what that does to the numbers there?
COACH DIAZ: Yeah, and obviously our first concern with Nolan is for Nolan. Texas football has been here long before all of us, going to be here long after us, so I think the Longhorns will survive. Our heart goes out to Nolan because Nolan had really been improving as a football player and the team, I think, had the highest respect for him.
With Christian Scott coming back, in a way you can look at it and say, well, that buffers the move. But really we were really counting on getting Christian back with Nolan and sort of getting all our people back, Demarco like you mentioned. It keeps us really with the same amount of people we had before in terms of experience, and we'll just -- Coach Akina is doing as good a job as he can do back there trying to get those guys ready to play, and again, what it does is shines a spotlight on our younger players, our younger DBs. I don't know if they realize how close they are to playing in these games with our schedule coming up.

Q. Christian has been practicing?
COACH DIAZ: Yes.

Q. Is he in a spot where he's ready to go and contribute?
COACH DIAZ: We hope so, but it's still -- it'll still be game one for him. But he is a guy that's been in some big games, and we will rely on his experience, there's no doubt about it.

Q. What does he bring back to you?
COACH DIAZ: Well, it's been sort of the theme of our secondary, he's a physical guy. He's a thumper, which we like, and we're sort of priding ourselves right now on being a very physical secondary. The kids, once it sort of happens, now the kids are all trying to outdo each other. You have some secondaries where all they want to do is race each other after practice, and this secondary, all they want to do is talk about who gets the hardest hit in practice. That's a really neat thing. Christian falls in line with all that. He's a good tackler, a good blitzer, so he has versatility. We can sort of line him up at a couple different places and do different things. He can play zone, play man, so he does add some flexibility to us in our package, and we just have to work him in and find out what his role will be for this game.

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