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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 24, 2011

Manny Diaz

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Diaz.

Q. I saw Ray Lewis talk about the Raven defense saying there were three phases: linebacker, secondary, upfront. All three are dominant right now. In terms of your team, would you think it's the same thing?
COACH DIAZ: I think it would be unfair to say the word 'dominating' defense right now. The fun part and aggravating part is I think we're close. I think that's what our tape shows. We're a very good defense. We are fighting our way to become a great defense.
That battle is being fought on two fronts. Front A, which is to eliminate the big mistakes. Those things are fixable. We need to have those corrected. Then the second front is being a little more dynamic in terms of our play making, which is creating more turnovers, creating more negative plays, not because we just think it is fun to do that, because it is, but that translates to winning football games. That's scoring on defense, things that generally speaking win you football games.

Q. Kansas will be a welcome change. Not high-powered, passing all over the field.
COACH DIAZ: It's a different style of offense. Kansas is going to be a run first offense. We've faced pass first offenses. When you say they're a top-30 running offense, if you're in the top 30 in running the football and you've only won two games, it means you're in the top 15. It really means that you can run the football. Generally speaking, when you're behind, you have to throw. The stats are probably misleading in the other direction.
While there's a lot of ways to throw the football and score points, the easiest way to move the football is to run it. They run zone schemes, gap schemes, quarterback schemes. It will be a good test for our run defense.

Q. Those big plays you mentioned, is that a bit of a worry because this team runs it well?
COACH DIAZ: I think what we have learned as a defense is you don't have to make very many mistakes to cost you a football game. Especially mistakes that are mental. If they're physical, we can fix the technique. Mental mistakes are hard to deal with. That comes back to coaching. We have to look at ourselves, get some things corrected, which I believe we did.
We've given up six runs this year for 20 or more yards. So there's no secret in terms of saying that's what's keeping us from being a next-level dominating-style defense.

Q. Compared to the SEC, it being higher scoring, how have you seen that difference in your time here?
COACH DIAZ: It is. The ball is snapped so many more times. That is the number one difference. If you look at the NFL, the SEC, which more mirrors the NFL, they might snap the ball 55, 60 times. We played Georgia last year. Each team had it eight times, eight possessions, for the whole game. In this league that's a half.
It's not more complicated. The more swings you have in the back, the more chance you have to get yards and therefore points. That's where we're at. That's the world we live in. There's still some things that apply. If we look back at what we have done well and haven't done well, it still comes back to no big plays allowed, be great in the red zone. The things that win in every league, that is never going to change.

Q. I don't know if it changes the approach at all, but the whole scoop and score mentality, trying to get to the end zone, does that change anything?
COACH DIAZ: Well, we really only talk about four major goals on defense. Scoring is one of them. I told the defense after the Oklahoma State game, Congratulations, we scored twice on defense. The problem is we scored twice on the same play. I would have loved to have declined the safety.
But what you have to do is you just have to continue to press, attack, be relentless. The plays are going to come. Get our hands-on the ball, finish the plays. We're talking about the other fronts, which is taking the next step, make the plays that win us the football game. Step in front of it, pick it off. We're close.
You don't want to become tight and tense and do more than what you have to do. You know what I mean? Make plays, trust your technique, do your job, go full speed. When you have the opportunity to make it, make the play.

Q. Can you talk about with Adrian Phillips being out how that will change things.
COACH DIAZ: Yeah, sort of like what we always do. Certainly we like what our young guys are doing, Josh Turner, Mykkele Thompson, getting more and more experience. That's what you can get during the bye week, get the young players more game ready. There may be a role for them.
Certainly Quandre and Carrington at the corner. We'll look at what we do with our packages, where it all fits in. We'll sort of maintain, do the same things that we do.

Q. With the defensive ends in particular, you've been saying all year, We're getting there, but not necessarily finishing the plays. Six games in, does it start to be a worry?
COACH DIAZ: In a way it goes back to the same thing we were just talking about. What we really need our ends to do, and they have to get better. We went back and looked at every pressure to see we had this year. We have to continue to just improve fundamentally, which is a big part. We still know we're young. Our two ends, one still played, one was hurt. We still like what we have there.
Numerically our pass defense, we're getting what we want. We're just not making the big plays. That's what we're talking about. We're finding the way to get that one extra step. What I prefer is I prefer our ends instead of being concerned about their sack total, I'd rather have them concerned about their technique. Worry about my hand placement a little bit more. If I worry about the process and performance more than the result, the results will come. They've heard it this entire season why they're not getting sacks.
Sometimes your plays, you're not dependent solely upon yourself for yourself. If your pass play were horrendous, if the quarterback were sitting there smoking cigarettes, throwing the ball down the field because he had so much time, then we would be concerned.
But that being said, we still have to improve. We want to (indiscernible) the quarterback. That creates negative plays. We're not discouraged with where we're at, but we understand there's room to improve.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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