	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 7, 2011

Blake Gideon

Q. There's a lot of talk about this team having found its identity on both sides of the ball. Is that talk overrated or is there something to it?
BLAKE GIDEON: I think offensively any time you can rush for 400 whatever yards in consecutive games, then you kind of find what works for you.
Defensively I still think, which just because I play on defense, I think we still leave a little bit to be desired. There's so many plays that we see on film that we're so close, just if one guy takes one step this way, you know, if one guy is making the right read or whatever, so I think we can improve so much on defense. We have four games, four guaranteed games left to do it.

Q. Talk about that stretch because you do play three of the next four on the road, how that changes a little bit from the first couple of parts of the season.
BLAKE GIDEON: It's going to be tough. You know, everything that comes with the latter part of the season, just guys getting banged up, you know, just the general feeling that everybody has in the later part of the season, it's a little bit tougher to get out of bed in the morning. But that's football, and it's about toughness. We pride ourselves on being a tough team. Part of that is being able to play tough on the road, being able to get out of your comfort zone of your home stadium and go on the road in the Big 12 against some great offenses and test ourselves that way.

Q. What was that like when you got into college after being in high school and having that last month? I'm sure it did hurt a little bit more that first year.
BLAKE GIDEON: Sure. Yeah, that was a tough adjustment just because a lot of people don't realize what kind of pounding your body takes throughout a season, but at the same time, it is a job in that sense, that you have to take care of your body, and that's your job, to make sure you're in the best condition possible to be able to play a brutal 12-, 13-game season. It's what we train all year for, and it's why we run in the heat and the cold during the winter. We feel like we're prepared.

Q. You get kind of back to a read game this week with Franklin. Can you talk about that after some of the other quarterbacks you've faced?
BLAKE GIDEON: Yeah, Franklin, any time that you have a quarterback that is in the top 100 in the country in rushing, too, that's just another element and another thing you have to worry about as a defense. You have to account for his legs, and we can't just worry about flushing him outside of the pocket because sometimes he can be even more dangerous whenever he's on the move.
You know, we're going to have to be sound with our responsibility up front and be able to get our eyes back to our receivers and cover them twice, even whenever the pocket breaks down.

Q. Is it any tougher when you face a running back like Josey who's so small, sometimes maybe you don't see him?
BLAKE GIDEON: It is tough, a guy that he's a small kind of dodgy guy like that that can hide behind his blocks and he can hit seams whenever he sees them, whenever they open, before they close. That is tough, but if everybody is in the right gap and we're playing responsibility football, then it shouldn't be a problem.

Q. Have you said anything to the younger guys about the six weeks?
BLAKE GIDEON: I think they understand it. Those guys were there during those two losses, so they know what that feeling was like and what that letdown is like. None of those guys want to experience that again. All them are competitors, no matter how young they are. They understand the magnitude of it, that we don't want to stop here. We've got a great team we're playing this week, and next week we're going to be playing another great team. We just take it one week at a time to put ourselves in a position to achieve our goals at the end of the year.

Q. What's it like to get back in the mix when people didn't think you would have a chance last year and now you do?
BLAKE GIDEON: It's exciting as far as, I guess, the rankings and stuff and having a little bit of attention back and stuff. But at the same time, a lot of that is for you guys and for the fans, and we have to realize that we do have four worthy opponents left that could really break our hearts if we don't prepare like we should and play like we should.
You know, we all need to realize that, that six wins isn't where we stop, and even though we're at an advantageous point in ranking and all that right now, that can all go away if we don't take care of business.

Q. Did you watch LSU-Alabama?
BLAKE GIDEON: I did. That was a defensive struggle for sure.

Q. (Inaudible.)
BLAKE GIDEON: Absolutely, yeah. It was two great defenses going at it, and I think both offenses you could kind of tell that the game plan was for their offense to not lose the game, but yeah, that was a fun game to watch. I know a lot of fans may have tuned out just because any time you score 6 and 9 points, it's not very sexy to watch on TV. But yeah, as a defensive player I can appreciate how that game was being played, and it was a physical game. That's what football is supposed to be.

Q. The starts at Iowa State and UCLA, you guys jumped on them really quick. Especially on the road, how important is that, and do you sense if you do it on the road it maybe has a bigger effect?
BLAKE GIDEON: Yeah, it's huge on the road to be able to take the wind out of the sails of the crowd that's always excited for the game and is behind their team. That's always important to sort of settle the game down and not let just the momentum of the home crowd that can always jump on the back of an away team, it's always important for us to settle them down as much as we can so they can't build that momentum quick on us. Yeah, that's one thing that we always stress, that we want to start fast and be able to sustain that throughout the game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297