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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 10, 2011Manny DiazQ. The guys are pretty grumpy they couldn't get off the field on 3rd down. Do you share that grumpiness? COACH DIAZ: Grumpy is a good word. 3rd down is something we take very seriously. We have a lot of pride in our 3rd down defense. We knew it was going to be a key in this game, and realistically that was where†‑‑ to me that's where the game was won by them. Part of the credit goes to them for being good on 3rd down, but I believe that when we watched the film that we'd have liked to have made it harder on them than we did. Q. Is it a little frightening that you have six days to get ready for a team that does almost the same things as Oklahoma and does them equally well? COACH DIAZ: Well, they get the same production. They go about it a little bit of a different way, but I don't think it matters how many days you'd have to prepare for it. You could have a month and a half to prepare for it, they're still going to be hard to defend. Their offensive output this year, it's video gamish to be honest, and they're really well coached. They're very well drilled. They execute at a very high level. They can go fast, so tempo is an issue again this week. They can slow it down when we want to and go fast when they want to, and they're the style of offense that goes out and plays you and finds out what your plan is to defend them and then they start calling the plays that hurt that plan, so you've got to be ready to counter with them, and then the guys that are executing the offense are very good. Q. How do you make your guys believe that they can stop them when obviously I'm sure their confidence is a little shaken at this point? COACH DIAZ: Well, I think our guys†‑‑ I don't know that our confidence is shaken. I think our guys will feel good about ourselves, still. I think we will be ready to go. The one thing that happens when there's a game with the result on the scoreboard is that we still film it luckily and we watch the film with our players, and the reality is there's a lot of good stuff on that film. You know, they threw three fades to Carrington Byndom, and two of them he played outstanding and the other one got after offensive pass interference penalty on. I mean those are things ‑‑ against high, high level players. So there are things that†‑‑ we had some guys up front play the best game they've played all season, so it's always easy to paint the broad brush stroke and say, everybody is down in the dumps. There are some things we have to fix. There's some things that we can do better. Some of the credit has to go to who we play, but I think we'll feel good about our chances on Saturday. Q. You talked about the offense seems a little bit different, but does it help having just faced an offense as good as Oklahoma's right before? COACH DIAZ: Well, I think we understand†‑‑ I think the common denominator is what you understand, that if you don't out‑execute them they're going to make you look bad, and that's really what those offenses do have in common is that they both execute at a high level. They're pretty simple in terms of what they do, and so they plan on making it an execution game. Wat we saw is that against good teams you get punished for your mistakes. There's still a lot we did right, but when we did something wrong they were there to jump on us. Q. I know Calvin Howell can sing, but he also revealed that he can play, too. I think him and Jackson may have had the best games of the year. Would you agree? COACH DIAZ: I would say Jackson, Calvin, Alex Okafor was effective. I thought up front ‑‑ I would have never predicted going in that we would be able to play the run as well as we did in the first half and turn the game into a one‑dimensional game, which I don't think they minded because it was putting the ball in their quarterback's hand. But they threw it 27 times on Florida State, they threw it 50 times on us in a game that they were really in control of from the second quarter on. That was unexpected that it would turn into such a throwing game, but it's a tribute a little bit to our guys up front. Q. As the defensive coordinator I'm sure you're familiar with playing the No.†1 team and then the No.†5 team two weeks in a row. Anything you tell your defense about taking that approach? COACH DIAZ: I think when you get into the game week and the practice and the preparation, you really just start watching the film, and the rankings really sort of become irrelevant. Our guys know that they're really good, and no matter what they're ranked†‑‑ in terms of our challenge, to us they're No.†1. They're No.†1 because they're there this week. They're our opponent. But from an offensive standpoint, if it gets harder than this, I'd hate to see it. This is a really difficult challenge for us. So our guys will know that we have a great challenge. But here's the whole point: That's why we come to Texas. That's why we play, too. As a competitor, that's what you want. Our defensive backs want to cover their wide receivers. Our front wants to go up against their front. We want to play against their quarterback because they're great players, and that's how you want to measure yourself. Q. Is there anything Justin Blackmon doesn't do well? COACH DIAZ: He really can do†‑‑ he's got great body control, catches the ball so well, running‑for‑the‑catch guy, creates separation. You know, I don't know. I mean, dance? Cook? Knitting? I haven't seen it, not on the film they sent us. He does everything pretty well from what I've seen. Q. We were talking earlier, Weeden is like 28 years old. Is he just as difficult†‑‑ you've got to get to him. COACH DIAZ: Well, I don't know how easy either of those are. He sits back there. He has such a great sense of where to go with the football. You know, I was at Florida State when Chris Weinke was our quarterback, and Chris was in a similar situation, and it's a grown man. That's a grown man in the huddle. And as some of you all can attest, what goes through a 19‑ and 20‑year old's brain during the course of a week as opposed to what goes through a 26‑, 27‑, 28‑year‑old person's are two entirely different things. As if they didn't offer enough problems, yeah, that's certainly an issue, as well, in terms of his experience and maturity. Q. Was Weinke†‑‑ COACH DIAZ: He was older than I was, yeah. Q. That's a unique situation. COACH DIAZ: It was. It was a little weird, yeah. Q. Landry Jones was so good at getting the ball out quick†‑‑ COACH DIAZ: Well, they have both elements in their passing game, as well. That was a big thing. The irony is when we looked back after the game, Oklahoma actually only averaged 7.1 per pass attempt against us, which believe it or not, is actually less than the average against Florida State and Missouri. It's actually only a yard more than we averaged per pass attempt, which I don't think by the eye test that anybody would have really believed, but I think what that showed was that they were doing a good job of getting the ball out to try and protect him. I thought early in the game, I think this will be important, that when we brought pressure he did a good job of finding his hots, which where they out‑executed us in their hot passing game, the guys that we needed to be jumping to make them hold onto the ball longer didn't jump. That's where we always say that defending the pass is an 11‑man sport, that the coverage has to match up to the rush and then vice versa. So two pass plays over 20 yards, and one was the first play of the game. People are finding ways to get the ball out quickly on us, where your coverage has to be able to match up against that, and then usually when that's the case, it brings it back to 3rd down, because usually when they're throwing the ball shorter, then usually they're going to get into 3rd downs, and that's why it always comes back to our 3rd downs. Q. Did you feel like the 3rd and 25 was the negative big play of the first half? COACH DIAZ: I think that was the play of the game because it was 13 to 3, it was coming off of a turnover for us. They don't get it, they're faced with probably a punt, the idea to punt, and it's a situation where we should have had help on the play, and again, we did not execute the coverage, and against a quarterback like that it's ultimate punishment, whereas maybe some other quarterbacks it's not the same. But I think†‑‑ and then we had a 3rd and 5 following on the next set of downs, and I thought those two 3rd downs were crucial. But the 3rd and 25, I think if we would have gone out there and put the fire out after another turnover, after we had sort of done that already once in the first quarter, I really felt like that would have been a big momentum swing back in our favor, and that was definitely disappointing. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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