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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 7, 2011

Bryan Harsin

Q. Where have you seen David improve the most in the last three weeks now that he's getting the majority of the snaps?
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, I think just decision making. It showed up in this game. We had a couple situations where one, he ran, on the 3rd down, where everybody was covered, he took off and had an explosive run on that. I thought it was a really good decision. He had been in that situation before. Then we had the throwaway. We ended up getting a penalty on it, but he got to a position that he's been in where he started to back up. We were in the red zone, realized this is not a good situation, just threw it away. Those type of plays that go off schedule like that, that's where the quarterbacks come in and they've got to make those type of decisions, just get us out of a bad play.

Q. Is that just kind of the light coming on for him?
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, you could say that. It's experience. It's going through those situations. It's being burned in those situations before and learning from it. You know, and that's just part of what everybody as a player, quarterback, receiver, doesn't really matter, you go through those experiences and you learn from them.

Q. Mack talked about the need to be more balanced and also mentioned the fact that things can be inconsistent if the quarterback isn't doing well. Talk about what you've been able to do with the run and how that takes the pressure off David a little bit.
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, I think we've got to do what we have to do, and being balanced is ideal. You'd love to be 50/50, so that way you're even more difficult to prepare for. But you know, as far as each game is a little bit different, you go into a game with run-to-pass packages that you're 50/50, and these guys got into a flow in this game and the run game seemed to be clicking, and that's why we continued with that.
But I think just from the pass game, there'll be opportunities there, there will be opportunities down the road that we've got to take advantage of. We had a few throws in there that were some big-play opportunities that we've got to capitalize on and hopefully get those in the end zone.
But I think from the receiver standpoint, the quarterback standpoint, those guys continue to practice and get more comfortable with each other, that will show up in a game eventually. But being able to run the ball and the O-line doing their jobs, running backs, tight ends, wide receivers, everybody doing their job in the run game, obviously if you can do that, I think any team would like to have the ability to be able to run the ball. It's something when you have to fall back onto it and you can do those things, then you feel more comfortable.

Q. How much is it not needing to be not one-dimensional?
COACH HARSIN: Our philosophy and my philosophy has always been to run the ball and everything else comes from there. As a play caller if you can run the football you feel a lot more confident and comfortable being able to do what you want to do offensively, and I think that's for anybody out there, to come back to that. It'll always start there, and we want to try to make sure that we can do those things, and when it's not there you've got to be able to balance it out with the pass game, and that will come eventually.

Q. I'm sure you'd obviously love to run for 400 a game, but chances are that the run defenses are going to get a little bit better the next couple weeks. Do you feel like the pass game has to pick up when you need it?
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, I felt like going into this game we had a good pass package, going into this game. Going back and looking at it, there were opportunities there we could have taken advantage of, and it's just a matter of the flow of the game. When you're running the ball the way the guys were running out there and the way the O-line was coming off the ball, you know, it's hard to take away from that and just change it just to change, you know, just to say you want to throw the ball and take away what they're doing when you're getting eight, nine yards a carry.

Q. Saturday and today Coach Brown said you have to be more balanced if you're going to win and compete. Why do you feel that way, especially over these next four?
COACH HARSIN: I think the number one thing is we've got to make sure we're doing what we need to do to win the game as a team. We've got to do our job offensively. We've got to take care of the football. And what happens after that as far as how much the balance comes out, that's going to be determined by how the flow of the game is going. We may have to throw 50 times in a game. We may run 50 times at the end of the game. It just depends on how the flow of the game is going, and that's the number one thing with what we're doing right now. It's not going to be a set number of plays for run and pass, it's going to be based off how the flow of the game is.

Q. If you have a full complement of your backs and they're all healthy and 100 percent ready to go, what kinds of things do you look at during the course of the week to determine which backs get which reps? Is it down and distance? Is it practice habits?
COACH HARSIN: It's a little bit of everything when you've got them all in there. It's a matter of we have one football, we want to make sure that we're trying to distribute that the best we can. But at the same time you want to allow one or two guys to get into a flow. It's more about series than it is really play selection or down and distance; let somebody get into a flow, let them play a little bit, let them see the field out there, and once that happens you have a chance to bring in somebody that's fresh to change it up, and then after two, three, four series you've got somebody that's got a hot hand in there and you let them throw a little bit and then you spell them as the game goes on.

Q. What kind of confidence does it give you guys to kind of now be forming your identity or having your identity, what you're trying to do?
COACH HARSIN: Well, I think the biggest thing just from a confidence standpoint is winning the football game. Number one, I think from our goals, not turning the ball over is huge for our confidence, that we have the ability to hang onto the football and not put ourselves in a bad situation, and then I think just ultimately with the last couple games, we had the chance to run the ball and we've run it effectively. I think the guys, it gives them confidence, gives them confidence in what they're doing out there on the field and their technique and their mentality is important with that, as well. All those things are just combinations that come from winning football games, and it's for everybody out on the field, special teams, defense, I mean, it all helps with everybody's confidence from that standpoint.

Q. It's obviously a good problem to have, but did you expect to have the problem of trying to figure out which 190-, 180-yard running back to get the ball to?
COACH HARSIN: No, but that's a good problem right there. Yeah, if you can keep doing that, I think anybody would take that. It's just a credit to obviously the backs who are doing a nice job, but when you really break it down, the O-line, the tight ends and the receivers down the field, you've got to give credit to those guys for doing their job.

Q. Talk a little about the offensive line, the way these guys have seemingly started to come together.
COACH HARSIN: Yeah, it takes time. It's doing the same things over and over. It's working with each other, it's communicating, it's building that confidence in what you're doing with your technique and those type of things. You know, we've had the ability in these games to run a lot of plays, a lot of run plays, and so that's just more opportunities for those guys to keep honing their skills out there on the field and just building more confidence in what they're doing, and the experiences they have, too, will carry over into practice, whether they got beat on something or they did a really nice job on it. They're going to go how to attack that next time versus the new looks they're going to see against these upcoming opponents.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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