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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 3, 2011Tommy TubervilleCOACH TUBERVILLE: Little bit about our last game. We're still finding a way somehow to win games, even though we're not playing as well as we can or are capable of on both sides of the ball and special teams. Special teams were great last week and the week before last and this past week were very average. We did a few good things, but we made way too many penalties. Our return teams had two blocks in the back. We had a late hit on one coverage team. It just wasn't very good. Donnie Carona was good on his field goal that we kicked from 46 yards. But there were some good things. We just weren't as disciplined this week as we were the week before on special teams. Offensively, we've got to find a way to get that engine running a little bit quicker in the game, one of us, anyway. Defense or offense has got to start playing when the game starts instead of waiting until the second quarter or third quarter. That's, as coaches, we've got to find that hot button to get that going. It's pretty important. If we do that now, there won't be a game in the next eight that we'll be favored. So we've got to find the right combination. But offensively, we looked good at times. I thought Seth really handled himself well in the pocket and took some licks, made good decisions, gave up one interception. But there was a wrong route ran, and there was an extra defender around, he just didn't see the guy, but it's still his fault. You can't throw it where there's somebody else standing. Eric Stephens was the offensive player of the game, and I thought he did an excellent job. As we started wearing their defense down, he just kept making plays and breaking tackles, and that's what he does. So we're excited for him. Our offensive line, wasn't their best game. I thought Terry McDaniel played very well. I thought he was moving out to right tackle from center. I think maybe a little bit of relief for him not to have to handle all of the calls and the snap counts and have to snap the ball. It looked like he really found a place where he feels comfortable. But we have Mickey Okafor back this week so we'll have some competition there. Justin Keown did a good job in his first start this year coming back off the knee injury, and then our receivers caught the ball well. Of course Eric Ward, what can you say about him? The plays he's making, and Cornelius Douglas really played a great game. Didn't play as well on special teams, but really played well on offense, so excited about all of those guys. Special teams player of the game was Terrance Bullitt blocking the one extra point. Gave a great effort on special teams. Two scout team players of the week were Derek Edwards and Branden Jackson. Then defensive player of the week was D.J. Johnson. So just talk a little bit about the defense. We've got to play better. We all know that. We were in the right spots, we're making progress. We've got them lined right most of the time. Guys knew what to do in terms of what to expect from different formations but we forgot to tackle the first quarter. Progress is being made. Sooner or later we'll put all of it together, but we missed five tackles wound play. I think the screen pass was the second or third play of the game, which we've got to play much better in that situation in terms of first guy there make contact or use the sideline. We seemed like we don't use common sense sometimes in playing, and I think that comes from having to think too much. Their head's spinning a little bit, and they don't react as well just because it's not natural to them yet. But I did see a lot of progress. As the game went on, we got more comfortable. We made some substitutions at linebacker, and it looks like we're going to have a little bit more depth there just by being able to see some success from Daniel Cobb and Cqulin. I think those guys didn't play great, but they tackled a lot better than what they had in the past when they were out there, so progress there. Secondary made some mistakes, but we did tackle better as the game went on, and our defensive front, not much pass rush. But we played the run a little bit better earlier than what we did the week before. So things are coming together slowly, but we knew that as the season would go along. We're 4-0. We're excited about that. Probably four games that we should have won. Now we're starting in the meat of our season, and we've got our hands full. Texas A&M has a good football team. They've had the opposite effect of what we've had. They've played the first half the last two games and not very well the second half. I know they'd love to have both halves back the last two games they played. But they played two very good football teams. It's one of those that I know they're real disappointed with, but they played hard. They're very athletic. They're probably the most athletic team in the conference. Got a lot of guys that will play on the next level, got an experienced quarterback. They have a senior-laden team. Most of the offense is back from last year that we had a lot of trouble with. Got great wide receivers, great running backs, an offensive line that's matured coming off last year being very young. So offensively they're very multiple. They're a pro-style attack. They do run a little bit of a quarterback attack where they read the end and the quarterback can run it. Tannehill can run the ball, can he throw it. This was his first start against us last year, so now he's played a complete season, and I know he's excited about his senior year, but he is playing well. Again, their offense is playing well. They're scoring a lot of points. They had 660 or 670 yards last week. On an Arkansas defense, that's pretty good. So defensively we've got our hands full because they can run and throw, and they're very balanced. Probably the most balanced team that we'll see other than Oklahoma down the road. Their defense is multiple. They're a little different than what we normally see. Kansas ran a little bit of a three-man front last week, but it's a different type of style of defense that we've played against in the first four games. But when you play offense, the way we play, it's pretty much up to us how we execute. How we protect the quarterback. How we take advantage of the running game. Use their speed and quickness. It should be a fun game for us. I think offensively we're getting better and better as the year goes on in a lot of situations. We just have to play a complete game. We've got to start putting those together. We have no time to waste. So going to be a big match. Texas A&M, lot of interest in them going to the SEC next year. I know they're glad that's behind them. They can get focused on the season at hand. This could be the last time that they come to Tech for a long time. So hopefully we have a full house, and everybody's interest is top level. We're going to need home-field advantage. We're going to need a lot of excitement. Our guys will be excited about playing. It should be a fun game. Questions? Q. All of the linebackers, with the success that they've had, who do you see as the starters in those spots now? COACH TUBERVILLE: We'll wait and practice this week. The thing about it is as we practiced yesterday, Cqulin and Cobb were running with the first group. But there's not a lot of difference between the other two guys. I think a little bit of maturity on Cqulin and Cobb. They've been around a little bit longer. They've played faster. You could tell they made a lot of mistakes in what they were doing, but they played faster when they made mistakes. They tackled better. Not so say the other two can't do it. But it will be fun to watch those guys compete each week to see who is going to be the starter, but all four will play. So that gives a situation where we can practice those guys and all of them are going to be around for a while, so hopefully they'll make each other better. Q. You talked about at halftime start of the third quarter on the radio that the third quarter was going to be maybe the most important quarter of the season and might set the tone for the season. Neal said it was the best quarter of the year. Could you talk about the adjustments that you made at halftime, and your conversation with the players about that? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, the big thing was stop the run. They were a much better running team, and we knew that going in. We tweaked a few things with our defensive line, whether we were tight or heavy in certain situations, whether we played looser. Backfield sets were a little confusing to our linebackers, and our reads early in the game were off a little bit. When there are two backs in the backfield and they're all going different directions, we had linebackers that were not reading the right key, so to speak. So we tried to make it simpler at halftime. It's hard to do that when they're running as much misdirection as they ran. I think what happened is just the tweaking the alignments of the depth of the linebackers, backing them off a little bit where they had a little more chance to read, a little slower, all those things. We played not as aggressive at the corner position where we made them throw the ball underneath and give them an opportunity to throw over the top. Small things that you do in every game. Sometimes you do them and they don't work. Sometimes you do them Saturday and they work. So we got much better. I think as the game went on, too, we were able to read the quarterback a little bit better in terms of him looking certain ways and breaking on the ball. I thought the interceptions were the reason we won the game. We got the ball back for our offense and gave them more opportunities in the first half where we could catch up. Lot of things go into a halftime talk, sometimes you don't make any changes. More than anything that we've done in our first four halftime talks is kind of calm them down and getting them to play at a certain level. Probably cutting back on what we'd done in the first half. Q. How many snaps do you anticipate (Inaudible) having in this game? COACH TUBERVILLE: He's going to get at least half. We have four defensive ends that we'll work this week, and we'll roll them. We'll try to keep them fresh. That's what we were hoping to do at the beginning of the year. Now that hopefully if we stay healthy, we can do that. That is one area we've gotten much better. Jackson Richards has really improved. He's one of the most improved guys on the team. Dartwan Bush he was a good player last year for us as a true freshman. So those two guys along with Mackey who for really the first time he's played, you remember he only played about a quarter, and then he got his injury the first game. He held up good. He held up really well for a guy that really played the full-time as a starter at defensive end on the 1A college level. It's going to take a while for them all to come around, but I'm just glad we're getting into a rotation where we can keep guys fresh and kind of get their wits about themselves and not have to play every snap at the speed they're going to need to play the next eight games. Q. You're facing a team that for two games in a row has fallen flat in the second half. And you're just a mirror image of that. How does that get into a team's psyche? For you guys, I guess it would be in a good way, but for A&M, how do you think that effects their team's psyche? COACH TUBERVILLE: I think as mature as they are, they've got a lot of upperclassmen on their team. I don't think it will be a big effect for them. I think it's a bigger effect for us when guys who have never been there, done it, and they don't have that experience. With all the seniors that they have on their team and all the leadership that they have that goes along with that, I think that they'll look fair reason, but there's really not a reason. They just didn't play as well just because things didn't go their way. When you're playing teams that are pretty balanced as you are, sometimes the team on the other side has more to do with that than you do. But I'm sure they're looking for the answers as we're looking for the answers for what we do wrong. We don't have much time to waste. We've got to expect and really talk about playing well not just for two quarters, but for four this week. Q. Is there a concern to temper any of the excitement? COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, every day we have a practice or have a game, it's really the first time these guys have ever done anything like this. Some of them have never been in this situation. If you look at it, this is the first game that we've really been the underdog. So we go into this game and hopefully our younger players understand that. That the competition is going to be a lot more advantageous for the other team. We're going to have to cut down on the little mistakes that we make. We're going to make some mistakes, but we have to cut down the number of them and hope that we can play above our heads at some times. You have to do that. You have to be able to play better sometimes than you think you can. Q. Do you think that being the underdog, it might make them come out a little faster? COACH TUBERVILLE: It might. It might. We won't talk about it a whole lot. The one thing we'll talk about more as coaches is what we call, what we play what we want to do. If we want to be more aggressive early or laid back and see if the other team makes mistakes, or do we need to keep pressing our guys to do certain things? Maybe sometimes if they just keep making mistakes at. So I think a lot of that is coaching. How you play. But if you go back and look at last year, we had some problem with this last year in terms of offense and not starting really fast. So you've got to leave it to your seniors and your older guys on the team. They've got to get themselves ready to play too. You can talk till your head falls off. But if they don't concentrate themselves on what they're doing and just make it a point that, hey, I'm going to do everything right that first drive, whether we're on offense or defense. Then I'm going to play as fast as I possibly can, I think that's got to be more in terms of how a player prepares himself for a game. Q. Do you think you guys can afford to come out slow? COACH TUBERVILLE: It probably could happen. Anything can happen in a game. I would hope that we wouldn't start slow, but it could easily happen. Last year we started fast. Last year we started fast and getting ready to go up 14 points and fumbled the ball into the end zone. Either way, it doesn't make any difference, as long as you regroup whenever you can and pull yourself back in or on top or farther ahead. It doesn't make a lot of difference. Some of it depends on the other team and how they play. So we've got to be prepared to play the best that we can play, as fast and as soon as we can play in the ballgame Saturday. Q. When you were at A&M, what was your experience with this rivalry? COACH TUBERVILLE: I can remember it was a very close game. I think we won the game when I was at A&M 7-6 maybe. It was a close defensive battle. But I can remember a lot of talk about the rivalry between Tech and A&M had been long standing. Lot of fans on both sides, lot of talk about it. It's a good college football game. Hopefully it's a great atmosphere, and we all both teams hold our end of the bargain up. But it's a game. We'll play the game Saturday and we'll go start over again groundhog day on Sunday, and go over it again and get ready for the next week. But this is a pretty important game. A lot of these kid that's play for us know a lot of the players on their team, so that's what really makes rivalries. Q. How good is their running game? COACH TUBERVILLE: The running game is very good, two running backs that can play. The quarterback can run. They have a very good offensive line that can block. They run a lot of formations. Again, they're a pro-style attack where they're going to give you a lot of motion in the back field. It's a well thought out offense. Coach Sherman is a good coach. He's been around this type of offense. He knows it. He knows how to prepare. He knows how to adjust to what you do. So we've got to do the best we can and do the same things. Q. How many different looks do you think you'll see from Smith? COACH TUBERVILLE: It's going to take Scott a while. But he's been practicing hard. He's going to be in very good shape. We'll have to temper him back a little bit. He might want to play too fast at times where sometimes you don't play real fast. You have to make sure you take care of your responsibility. But he's excited. He's been waiting for this for a year. I hope he plays well. He's prepared himself. He's gone against our offense a lot. He's gone against our Sunday scrimmages with the younger guys and he's he can sided about playing. Q. After seeing the way your team played in the third quarter, from a conditioning standpoint, are you happier now than what you thought because of how they played against Kansas? COACH TUBERVILLE: We're in good shape. Our strength coaches have done a good job. Had not we been in good shape, we probably wouldn't be 4-0 right now. But our guys have held up well. Our younger guys have played well, even guys that have just been with us four or five months going through the summer conditioning has really paid off. For what we do in practice, they're going to be in shape. As many snaps as we take, as fast as we go on offense, as many reps as we get on defense against our offense, it's really paid off for us. Q. What is A&M getting by going to the SEC? COACH TUBERVILLE: I think it's a move that I'm sure they thought about. It's a move that will bring a lot of good things and a lot of competitive things their way. If you look at our conference this year, there's a lot of good teams in this league too. So they'll fare well. It will be a totally different forum, different league, different travel, different stadiums, different personalities in terms of the coaches that they're going to coach against. But A&M, if you take all the teams in our league, they probably fit in the SEC more in terms of their philosophy because of how they run the ball, how physical they are, how they play defense. So they won't have any problem. It's just the adjustment that they'll have to make going into that league and just learning as I had to learn last year coming here of knowing how people coach and how people play. Q. Are you sad to see a rivalry as storied as A&M kind of just die? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, it is sad. You never would think a rivalry like this would end, and maybe one day it will start back up. You never say never. But they'll have their schedule. They'll have to organize and we'll do the same thing. But, you know, it's just the tradition of the game is what you lose, but all of that has been thought out. There is nothing you can do about it. There's no reason to cry over spilled milk. It's done and over with. We've got to go on and do what we need to do to make ourselves better, and make sure our conference stays together and gets stronger as we go along. Q. Because of everything surrounding this game, are you going to take an extra moment to kind of absorb the moment at all? COACH TUBERVILLE: No, not really. For coaches and players, really, it's another game. I know this is -- everybody looks at it, and our players will be more excited because of the rivalry, but once you crank up the game and it gets going, it's one team against another I think there will be more thoughts about that with the fans, former players on both sides. I think there will be a lot of talk about that. We hate that this is going to happen like this, but it is what it is. Q. Can you talk about Jeff Fuller? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, I saw a lot of him last year. I think we all did. He went up for a lot of rebounds. Looked like he was going up for rebounds on the sidelines on those fade routes he was catching over our defensive backs. We've got some guys that are back from last year that went through the same thing, so they know what to expect. Hopefully we play a better jump ball than they do. But he's a heck of a receiver. He can run, he can jump, he's big, he's physical, but he's not the only one they have. They throw it to 25 quite a bit. He's a guy last year that hurt himself. So, again, this whole offense is back. We know as much about them as they do about us, because, again, they're all back. I guess they don't know as much about us because we've got a few new faces, but it will be a lot of carry over. Q. Can you talk about (Inaudible) play last year, and maybe the fact that you guys know what you're going to face? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, well, he's a very good athlete. We didn't know who was going to play. Going into the game you heard speculation, but it was a great move for him. He got off to a heck of a start against us. I know they were really excited about what happened. Of course, they ended up playing well and beating Oklahoma at home. It's I'm sure his senior year, so he's excited about being the quarterback. But we've got to defend him like we have to defend any other quarterback that we play. This year most quarterbacks have been throwers and runners. Well, he does the same thing. First play the other night against Arkansas, he ran 25, 30 yards down the field with the football. It's just one of those things we've got to prepare for. Q. Do you feel like they're a bit of a sleeping giant here with a tough couple of weeks? COACH TUBERVILLE: No, they're not a sleeping giant. They know what they've got. They're disappointed they lost those two games because they know they had both of them at halftime and they let them slip away. But that's what happens when you play a game. Sometimes the best teams don't win. The ball bounced the other way, you don't get a break. I know that they're disappointed about it. But that's the reason college football is great. Anybody can beat anybody. Just go play and prepare your team. They'll come in there and play hard, and we'll do the same thing. Hopefully we'll hold our end of the bargain up. Q. Significant amount of rain in the forecast. Do you adjust anything? COACH TUBERVILLE: No. I quit trying to predict the weather here about 18 months ago when I moved here. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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