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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 24, 2011Tommy TubervilleCOACH TUBERVILLE: All right. Big win this week. Frenship beat Plainview 61-35 Thursday night. Got the weekend started off right. Now Frenship and Randall play, 8-0 each team, this week Friday night for the conference championship. I'm looking forward to it. But there has been a lot of excitement around my house. Obviously, the last two days has been kind of a whirlwind, but it's been fun. It's been fun to get back in the national picture as well as the state and local picture with this football team. We made a lot of strides. Proud of the team. The effort was just phenomenal, but it's been that way all year long. The great thing about this game is we went on the road. We played great defense early, and the offense took advantage early, and we scored points. That's what you have to do when you go on the road. You can't go in and mis-hit on opportunities on the road against a great team like Oklahoma. You have to take advantage. I think we certainly did that, and made a lot of great plays and execution on both sides of the ball. As the game went on, we knew it would be a battle all the way to the end, which it was. But we had enough confidence in ourselves to hang on, make plays and get out with a win. It was fun to watch. We had outstanding efforts on both sides of the ball. Our players of the week, defensive scout team player of the week was Cameron Wright. Our scout team player of the week was Michael Brewer who did a great job of playing quarterback and doing the things he needed to do to give our defense a look. Special teams player was Donnie Carona, 5 for 5 and a couple of field goals. Defensive player of the game whose birthday was also yesterday, we congratulated him for that. And probably one of the most improved guys I've seen, Daniel Cobb was all over the field making plays. He gives us a little more athletic ability in terms of playing teams that run the short passing game. Of course, offensive player of the game, everybody's offensive player of the game nationally and in our conference, Seth Doege, who you can't say enough about him. Just watching him play, he gets better and better. As we all know in this room, we've seen him do it all year long, other than the last half, or really parts of the Kansas State game, he had some problems which all quarterbacks are going to have. So it was fun to watch our offense execute. We had some excellent performances. Deveric Gallington coming in, really had never played center in his life. His third play of the game has to come in and play 76 snaps of center and of course we probably should give Seth Doege a golden glove award for catching grounders most of the game, because he had to do that. But there is a lot that goes into being a center, and those things will worked out as we go through the week. Keown hurt his other knee. It wasn't the knee he hurt at first, but he hurt the other knee. Hopefully he'll be able to come back this week. But he's moving around real well, and wants to play. As tough as he is, I think he'll have a chance to come back. But Deveric did a great job settling the offense down, him settling himself down and playing well, getting the defenses called. We had other performances. Seth Doege, Adam James had a breakout game, big third down catches. Get's better and better each week. Then you go back to the running back DeAndre Washington. What can you say about him? Here's a kid that a couple of weeks ago was having confidence holding on to the football, playing this level of football, and going on the road to play a team like we were playing had a phenomenal game. Defensively, there wasn't anything special. Everybody said what did you do different? Probably just got out of their way is what we did on defense, got out of the way and let them play. They broke on the ball well, they made a lot of pass break-ups. We did give up some big plays. We were leaking oil at the end, but that had a lot to do with them basically opening it up and throwing the ceiling at us. We've got to learn from that. We've got to play better than that when we've got a lead. We weren't conservative. We just kept doing what we were doing. And maybe got a little conservative in terms of giving our guys an opportunity to maybe blitz a little more in the fourth quarter, in which we felt like with the lead not to give them anything quick, but that obviously wasn't the answer. Special teams struggled in some areas. Coverage teams, we've got to be more aggressive. We've got a little room for improvement. We lost some games. How did we handle it? We handle it pretty good. A young guy that can run, can throw, same type of offense that's been giving us problems all year long. Everybody tends to run the same offense, so we have to have a good game plan, get ready to go. Defensively, they're a lot like us. They bend, don't break. Last year we didn't play well early. When we played at Ames, we got behind 24-0, but we fought back and didn't have enough to finish it off. This week, playing at home, we'll have a great crowd that the fans come out and let the players know that again the streak that needs to be the other way. We started one way, and we were lucky to get that one broke the way we did. We were excited about being back and going. Injury-wise, Darrin Moore just couldn't go 100%. That is the reason he didn't get much playing time. Blake Dees should be back. Donald Langley should be back, but we'll have to wait. There's no way to predict how well ankles or knees are going to get in a short period of time. We'll go back to work tomorrow and get ready for the Cyclones. Questions? Q. When you first got here you were kind of (Indiscernible) with the fan base. Did you feel you needed this game, or how nice is it? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, well, it doesn't hurt. We haven't had everybody on the same page. We've got a philosophy, and we stuck with it since we've been here. It's kind of like a circus. It's not a one-ring circus, it's three-ring. It's not an offense. It's offense, defense, and kicking game. We're going to do it that way. That's how you win games on the road. We won. Saturday night, we had an offense that scored points, but no way in the world would we have won that game had we played -- we'd have been out of it so quick, our heads would have spun. So I'm glad other people sound like they're deciding to jump on and usually when you win a game, they do. But doesn't make any difference. Hey, we're going to do it the way we know how to do it and get this thing done. Our players have bought in, and I think everybody will eventually. But we know how to win a few games, and we know how to build a program, so we're doing it slowly. We're not even close to being where we want to be. We'll get better as we go. We'll be better next year. Most these kids are back. But we'll talk about the present this week coming up. We've got Iowa State, and we want to play better this week than we played last week, and we need everybody on board on the same page, win, lose or draw. We're going to have some ups and downs. Q. Does it surprise you at all that you were still dealing with that issue? COACH TUBERVILLE: No, I've dealt with people all my life. 35 years from high school fans to college fans, I mean, it's no different. Everybody wants to be on the side of the winner. I'm excited. I've been excited since I've been here. We've steadily been winning people over to thinking, hey, these guys might have a clue what they're doing. We do. It's about recruiting number one, and as we recruit, we'll win games. As we win games, we'll have more people on board. It's just a shame it takes that, because blood should be thicker than water when it comes to being on a team and pulling for a team. Not back and forth or not for any other reason other than they want your team to be successful, and I think that's going to happen. Q. Coach, would you talk about Seth's performance? Is he further along than expected? COACH TUBERVILLE: I never imagined any quarterback playing better than that. He's played light's out. Other than last week, the few mistakes he made, he's been there for us all year long. We haven't been good on defense. We've given up a lot of points and been able to outscore five people. A lot of it is because of the offense and how they've done it, and Seth has done that. It's really mind boggling how far he's come in a short period of time with the improvement, and the improvement of the offensive lines, and receivers and young running backs. Every time our offense goes on the field, I enjoy watching them. I think our fans enjoy watching them. We can make plays anywhere, anyhow, and now that we've got a running game. One thing I want to say about Saturday night, we were in a lot of second and shorts, second and ones, twos, and threes because we ran the ball on first down. Because we were able to do that, Seth was able to make those plays and keep them guessing whether you're going to run or throw on second medium or third down. So it all goes into a plan of how Neal Brown and his coaches worked the game plan. I thought we were going to throw it deep and, but we knew we were going to have to take our shots and receivers got open. Seth put it in there, and we got good protection. Then you've got to make the catch. It was a thing of beauty. Q. (Inaudible)? COACH TUBERVILLE: Oh, it's hard to compare quarterbacks. I've been around two Heisman Trophy winners at Miami. Several others that didn't win the Heisman Trophy there that were probably just as good, Of course, Jason Campbell at Auburn. It's hard. Seth is probably the most accurate guy I've seen. It's not just throw occurrences, but most of the time it's close to being exactly where you need to throw it. It's not always going to be perfect, never will be as much as we throw the ball. But it's hard to compare him with anybody. I will say, he'll prepare as good as anybody I've ever been around. He's going to be up here. He's going to be watching film. He understands the offense. He understands how to look at defensive players Neal's done a great job of coaching him in terms of how to study film. How to prepare for a game, what to look for, and he's going to get better. Again, we've got receivers that can catch the ball. I mean, we've got guys in. We're not flashy. We're not going to outrun many people. To see Alex Torres run the other night full speed was a sight for sore eyes, because I remember last year he was about half speed trying to catch it and run with his back. What a great day for him and all the receivers. We're getting physical. We block down field. How many times have we thrown that screen and looked like, man, we quit running that play. It doesn't work. Then all of a sudden we hit two back-to-back for touchdowns. That is how important it is to believe in what you're doing. The offensive line was as much of a factor in that of blocking down field after throwing that pass. So it's a great offense, but you've got to have a quarterback. You can't even think about running this type of offense unless you've got a trigger thrower, and we've got one that's getting a lot confidence. Q. Did you have the Heisman Trophy conversation? COACH TUBERVILLE: He would be in my eyes. But that's Blayne Beal's category. He left on that one. But there's not a better one in the country. I mean, look what he's done to this point. But you've got to do it over a long period of time, and we don't want to put that on him. There are a lot of guys out there, Andrew Luck. He knows all of them. He went to the Manning Camp this year with me. He was able to meet all those guys and talk with them, all the quarterbacks. I think that was a great learning experience for him to learn how they talk to guys and how they handle themselves. I think if he keeps working and doing good, he'll get all the recognition he's going to want. Q. You mentioned Cobb, that he's coming back. COACH TUBERVILLE: They'll split once we get Blake back. But I'm not going to put somebody out there that's 80 or 90%. We've had to do that in the past, and it doesn't pan out very well. We just need to build depth at that position. And Hubert, and Sam Eguavoen, and Winbush, we're starting to get a little bit more experience. We're not close to where we need to be. I think just watching our linebackers from now, from the first game of the year against Texas State, I think there is a night and day difference of how they're playing. Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit more about Daniel Cobb? You said he's one of the most improved players? COACH TUBERVILLE: He's got all kind of athletic ability. What he needs to learn, what we just talked about Seth, how to prepare yourself. A linebacker's like a quarterback. You have to study. You have to study formation, film, players, how they're going to run the play, look at reads of the offensive line backwards and forward. There are a lot of little things. You just don't go out there with ability and run the ball. You've got to understand splits and wide receivers, he's starting to learn a little bit of that. But when you're young like these guys, you don't have to put in as much time. When you don't, you don't play. There have been games that he's played very little. He might have the most athletic ability of any linebacker we've got. He's not going to go out there. Unless he knows what to do, I'm not going to play him. It's just a learning experience for all of them, and it's got to be a lot of film study and learning what to do. Got to buy into what we're doing. You get that feeling that they had after the game the other night, they'll make you want to work a little bit harder to regain that feeling that you had about -- what was it, about 12:30, 1:00 o'clock Sunday morning. Q. Can you talk about Coach Rhodes and what he's done at Iowa State? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, he went into a tough situation and had to build that thing. He brought in a lot of junior college guys and true freshmen and played them. First year he went to a bowl game. Last year he got off to a good start and got beat up. Had some injuries. This year he got off to a 3-0 start, and he's lost a few back-to-back tough ones on the road. He won his big state rival game this year though, and that is huge for them. He's a good football coach. He's solid. He understands players. He understands recruiting. He fits in up there, he's from there. His dad was a high school coach. He has done, and he'll continue to do a great job, but we'll have our hands full. He'll have them fired up and ready to play and try to bring the same scenario of what we did last week. You can win on the road. You've got to go play, you've got to play well, and you've got to play early. He's been around a lot of good football teams. Q. Coach, can you think about -- as a head coach that's been around a lot of big games and a lot of big wins, where does that rank up there for you? Do you kind of go back through your mind and the memories that you had? Do you even think about those things? COACH TUBERVILLE: Not too much. I think more about the players on our team. That win wasn't for me or for our coaches, it was for our players and for all the work that they do, the commitment that they have to the university, and they like to win because of their fan base. So there's been a lot of wins I've been around that have been gratifying. But for that one to be on the road against a team that's done so well since Bob Stoops has been there and well-coached and the players that they have, it's a feather in the cap of all these players of thinking that they could do it and getting it done. It's just fun to watch them and have the fun after the game. That's what it's all about. But knowing it's groundhog day again. We've got to start over. All that is out the window. We go and don't play well this week, that means nothing. It all goes back to, well, what have we got to do to get better? We didn't play well on special teams and didn't hold on to the ball, all those things come back. So tomorrow at 2:30, after they get today off, those are the things we'll talk about. But they know that. They already know it. They know it's coming. So we've got to get focused on what we've got to do this week, and after this week, try to do it again. Q. Some coaches are superstitious about some different things. You've been through two weather delays through the season and you found the radio broadcast part of the time in the locker room, and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Is that going to be a new staple? COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, it might be our new pregame meal. We do that because when we have to ride from the hotel to the stadium that's 30, 40 minutes, these guys eat like horses. You can't ever fill them up. So we give them something to either eat in the dressing room, maybe at halftime, a little extra energy, or maybe on the bus on the way over. I noticed a couple of them had one in each hand after about the first hour of the rain delay. They were pretty good. I had one myself. So we might start passing those around before kickoff. But it was interesting. It's a long time. You eat four hours pregame meal, which was what, 3 o'clock, and we finished -- we walked out of there at 1 o'clock, you had some hungry kids. And we give them boxed lunches on the bus, and we get on the plane and feed them again. You can't ever fill them up. I bet that was the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich they ever had because it was a long time between kickoff. Q. Can you talk about Carpenter coming in? COACH TUBERVILLE: Beau coming in, playing right guard, he hadn't played much. There are two guys at the center of your offense protecting the quarterback that have to complete passes against one of the best defenses in the country to win a game, And they did well. They didn't play perfect. As I said, Derrick was struggling with his snaps early, they got better as we went on. Actually with the fourth-down play there on the goal line where we he decided to go for it, Seth was going to get it, and fake it, and run it off to the end. He dribbles it back, picks it up, and barely gets it into the gut of the running back, and then pulls it out and falls into the end zone. The thing you have to think about is you have all these guys running at you, and all he's thinking about before the snap is where is it going to come at? Is it going to be right, left, on the ground, over my head? He's bobbing up and down. So his concentration had to be totally on getting that snap first and then getting the ball down the field after he gets his read. I was just proud as ever about how he played and his protection, because he is very athletic. Q. Talk about the offensive line? COACH TUBERVILLE: I thought they did a great job. You're not ever going to keep them out and be a hundred percent. Seth got out of the pocket a little too quick on a couple of plays, he did too. But sometimes you feel it as a quarterback, so you have to go with your instincts. But our offensive line did great for 66 passes or 55 maybe we threw. I thought the draw play helped. It's a new play we put in to take advantage of speed. And sometimes you do. You take advantage of what the other team's good at. And if you're fast, then you take advantage of them running up the field and running by. That draw play was excellent for it, especially in the second half. That was probably the play of the game in the second half of keeping the ball and being able to have more time of possession, which I don't think has happened since I've been here. We've had the ball more than the other team in terms of time of possession. That was fun to see. Q. (Inaudible)? COACH TUBERVILLE: That was a game where it was a little bit different. We go up, and I don't think we had a day under 70. We roll in there and it's 35°, the wind is blowing, cold, we didn't react to that very well. I thought we were caught off guard a little bit. When you have to throw the football, it might be a little more difficult. Then we get down 24-0. But to fight back and tie it up. Starting to move the ball down the field to take the lead. Then we catch a crossing route, and our receiver dropped it. No contact or anything, he just dropped it. You could tell it was one of those nights. But you take those year to year and look at them, try to figure out the differences. Looks like this week should be cool though. For the first week, this should be a cool night, probably in the 50's, so that will probably be a little advantage for Iowa State, because it's a little cooler up there than it is here. But we've got to overcome that. We've got to play no matter what the weather is. The ball was wet the other night, and our guys had no problem. They looked like they were out there and having a lot of fun. Last year's game was a big disappointment, but they outplayed us. Outcoached us, outplayed us, and it wasn't a very good plane trip on the way home. But each year you get another shot, and this year our shot is here. But we'll get the best game from Iowa State, and hopefully they'll get our best game. Q. You mentioned it earlier, continued advice for Tucker this week? COACH TUBERVILLE: Any advice for Tucker? No, not really. They've done a pretty good job without me interfering. I try to be a fan. I holler at the referees like I do in games but I'm sitting on the 50-yard line out there at Frenship. They can't hear me. My wife gets embarrassed. But it will be fun. It will be a fun week to watch how they prepare and how he gets into it. He was standing on the sidelines Saturday night and I walked by him before the on-side kick, I said are you going to watch? He said ain't no way I'm going to watch. But he gets into our games like we do his. It should be a very good game. I'm excited for him. Q. Chad mentioned that after '05 (Inaudible)? COACH TUBERVILLE: We can talk about it. It's got to be engrained, players have to understand it. They've got to understand themselves of what they're getting into. Because now they've moved to a level where this team's coming in saying we've got to play perfect to beat a team that just beat one of the top ranked teams in the country. As coaches, we just want to get them prepared, get them in the same routine that we're in, and hopefully they get that focus, because it's about players really getting other players focused. Coaches can't do it. We'll talk our head off about it, but one thing I want our players to do is understand themselves, because in the future they're going to have to keep doing the same thing. So the more they do it within themselves, the better football team we're going to have in the next few years, and hopefully that will become an every-week occurrence of winning games. When you win, it will be a big deal, but not as big a surprise. We now have taken another step forward in our learning process, and hopefully we can learn from it and make ourselves better. Q. (Inaudible)? COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, he got stepped on in practice, same ankle. He didn't turn it, he just got stepped on. It was sore, and the trainer said let's not take him. We can get more treatment here, and he's not going to be able to play very well. In that game, you've got to play in space. In a game like that, you're going to be just watching 22 on the first running play of the game. We had three guys just totally miss him. That really didn't have anything to do with anybody being hurt. It just had to do with technique, but we got better at that. An injured player in a Big 12 game is not going to be very effective. We're going to go with the guys that are a hundred percent, that have practiced, and I hope he gets a hundred percent this week. We need him back. We need him to be able to go in and alternate and keep other guys fresher. The more players we have, the better opportunity we have to play very good in the fourth quarter. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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