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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 28, 2011Manny DiazQ.  Baylor likes to play homage to the bombage, don't they? MANNY DIAZ: You're on fire. Well, yes. When you put the tape on, the first thing that jumps out is how explosive they are, and you see a big play by a wide out and you're like, that guy is so fast. Then you see another big play, and you're like, wow, that's the same guy. No, that's a different guy. And then the next play, man, that guy is really fast, oh, my gosh, what number is he, that's a different guy. I mean, if it was one guy, that would be different, but they have multiple guys that can attack you down the field. The quarterback's accuracy on throwing deep balls is really remarkable. I mean, even going back to the first game of the year against TCU, it's like a video game. You would‑‑ you would not expect someone to be able to throw the ball 40‑plus yards down the field five times a game and hit the guy right in stride, and yet he does it. There's a reason why they lead the nation in explosive plays. Before you do anything against them, you've got to find a way to stop that, but everybody has sung the same song, and it's been easier said than done. Q. How much will you hype up the no‑one‑wins‑a‑Heisman‑against‑us type deal this week? MANNY DIAZ: Well, I don't know that we will need a lot of hyping up. I mean, I think their film will get us hyped up. We have enough of a challenge as it is, and I will say this: If we don't play well, we'll end up on all the highlight shows, and we'd rather not do that. We don't want to go to New York‑‑ I'll put it that way. We don't want to be in the highlights in New York. And his body of work should not come down to this game anyway. He's just been outstanding, his résumé throughout the course of the season. If we need that to get us excited to play this game, then to me we're in trouble. Their film speaks for itself, and the danger they possess will have us ready to play. Q. Does he remind you of anybody you've coached against? Is he like Cam Newton in his ability to throw? MANNY DIAZ: I'm trying to think off the top of my head. No one comes to mind because he will scramble to throw and scramble to run. I mean, he's a passing quarterback, and then they can run all the quarterback run game stuff with him. They have a vertical passing attack, they have all the quarterback run game, and then you have a guy that you have to worry about taking off and running with a fleet of skill around him that's really dynamic. I mean, there's a reason they've done what they've done to everybody that they've played, and he's just sort of‑‑ he gets it orchestrated all from his position. It is not fun to watch, I can assure you. Q. What is the approach you take to stopping a guy like that? Is there one thing that he does? Do you say take that away first? MANNY DIAZ: Well, I mean, what my mouth would say is don't give up long plays for touchdowns because that is the surest way to get beaten. But I'm pretty sure I'll be the 12th defensive coordinator in a row to preach that. But what they do just puts that under tremendous stress because you have the quarterback run game, so you're worried about devoting the numbers to stop that because if you don't stop that, they'll run the ball right down your throat, and they're explosive in the run game. So you have that challenge. Then you have the challenge of trying to cover them the first time. Then you have the challenge of trying to cover them, and then the more people you try and devote to coverage, then it's very hard to keep somebody around him. It's like a simple thing; you want to spy him, but then the problem is you also want to spy No.1, you also want to spy No.3, and you also want to spy the running back, and you're just running out of spies. You're like the CIA. You can only play with 11 guys at one time. But I do know this: The game of football still doesn't change. You still have to find a way to make them go the long way. These offenses like this, they're going to be so good, they're going to gain yards, but we will play this game for points, and we have to find a way to hold them to the fewest amount of points as possible and the explosive plays. Q. Will you actually assign like a specific person to him, or does it change play to play? MANNY DIAZ: It can, but that's sort of my point is that the more people‑‑ again, the spy theory and you put people on him, then you're taking something away from somewhere else. We can have somebody stand there watching him as he's throwing a touchdown pass one‑on‑one down the field or something like that, so that's all going to be a part of it, and yet you have to have the ability to do both, but it's‑‑ that's sort of a theory that sometimes is, again, easier said than done. Q. When you sit down and watch film of him and you get a game plan ready, does it make you feel better about the way your defense is playing? When you think about the way your defense has played recently, does it make you feel a little bit better about what they're up against? MANNY DIAZ: Yeah, I have confidence in our guys, and that's the way we look at it. We look at this as a great challenge. This is fun. This is what you want to do. You want to go play against offenses like this no different than the offense we played against last week. No, I mean, we will respect who we play, but we will go and‑‑ we're not just going to make up the numbers. I mean, we're going to go do our thing, too, and we've been‑‑ there's things that we've done that we've been good at, and one of the things that we've been good at is not giving up long plays. Through the course of the year, I think we're third in the country in fewest plays of 20‑plus. So to me, above everything, that's the challenge in this game, them trying to get 20‑plus plays and us trying to limit them getting 20‑plus plays, and probably that stat will determine who wins and loses after the game, so that's strength on strength, so we're excited about that. Q. A guy that's been key in that, Carrington Byndom, how much has he improved this season? MANNY DIAZ: Carrington, really all of our defensive backs have improved, but the way those guys played Thursday night was‑‑ obviously it was outstanding. We talked about it being a game where you could make a name for yourself because of it being the last game. It was a heroes' game, it was a legends' game, and one of the great things that I really enjoy about being at this school is that guys can get that legend status here, especially when we talk about DBs. We actually talked before the game, they get referred to as one name or by a nickname, Earl or A‑Ross, Sed. You want to be one of those guys when people talk about you five, ten years down the road they don't even say your whole name, they can just say your nickname and everyone knows who you are. How do you get that? You get that by making plays in a game like we had Thursday night. You'll get that by making plays in a game like we play this Saturday. So that's what gets our guys excited about this game. Baylor has got great wide receivers. We feel like we've got a pretty good group of defensive backs that will be excited to play against them. Q. Was that your best game of the year Thursday on defense? MANNY DIAZ: Was it our best game? I don't know, as a coach you're always going to see the warts in the performance, but I would say that the way that our guys battled under the adversity and the quality of the offense that we played against, I would say it was up there with one of our best efforts. But at the same time, we still didn't start and finish the game to our standard, so as a coach, like I've always said, we come back in and just find a way to get better the next week. Q. When did they start to get what you wanted? At what point this year did you see it where you're like, okay, now they're just playing and they're doing what I want them to do? MANNY DIAZ: Well, as crazy as it sounds, the Oklahoma game, and that's what's funny is that when we put the film on, and sometimes you've got to dig under the rubble, but there were some things on that tape that we actually really liked. And the game is not complicated, will never change. The game always starts up front. Everything will always start up front. Really for the first‑‑ I guess that was our fifth game that was really the best game that we had played up front. Not perfect, not dominating, but there were some things that we were starting to see, the things that we were preaching. We felt maybe we had something. But then Oklahoma State came to down and we had to sort of change a little bit of what we did, then we went away and we had a bye. But all week in practice during all that time we were still hammering our fundamentals of the way that we want our front to play. And then Kansas comes in. Kansas has been a good running football team, and we played very well up front against them, and then Texas Tech, same thing, and it sort of goes on from there, Missouri, K‑State. So week in, week out, I think everything always starts with our front play, and we sort of saw it there, and I would say for the last six weeks they continued to get better and we're still showing them plays that we're not finishing and not making. But the game will always start on the line of scrimmage. To me that's where‑‑ and that's where those guys get a lot of the credit. You've heard me say before, stopping the pass and the run are both 11‑man exploits, and I thought the way that our guys up front put Tannehill on the run through the course of the game really helped out our guys on the back end, as well. Q. In that sense when you deal with a guy like Ganaway that's enormous and kind of has that bulldozer mentality, is it different than almost any back, maybe Coleman at UCLA? MANNY DIAZ: Like Coleman? Reminds me almost of Stephen McGuire at Miami when Dennis Erickson was spreading everybody out and he had that big solo back that just kind of hammered you. Again, when you have a quarterback as a run threat, so they really have an extra blocker for all your guys so everybody has a guy on him and you're trying to leverage and he's running through half a body‑‑ instead of you can outnumber them in the run game and you have an extra guy there for them, you have half a guy there for them, or you're so concerned about their pass threat down the field where you may not have the numbers to have an extra guy, so he can beat you by himself. They can just run the ball. That's really what they did this past weekend, they can just sort of run the ball down your throat. And they can be explosive in the run game. Like I said, that's why their numbers, they're in the top 20 in rushing and passing like a fantasy football team. They have everything that you'd want. Q. You talked this year about being able to rotate the tackles. Do you feel like you're finally to that point where you can play them all and you're not seeing much of a dropoff? MANNY DIAZ: I think we're getting there. I think at tackle I think we've been able to develop that type of depth at tackle. At end it's been a little bit slower to come on, but it has been coming. And now in a game like this where you've got to chase that guy around for who knows how many plays, it'll be as important now more than ever. Our guys know this is not lip service that we have to play a lot of people up front to play the style of defense we want. It's very hard to do what we want to do up front and come off the ball and play the whole game. I think that's probably also why things have sort of changed in the second half of the season as our depth has gotten better, the guys are realizing, hey, you know what, I can put my foot on the gas and let it all out for a four‑play set and then come out and my buddy can come in and do the same thing, and we're all better when we do that. Q. Of what you've seen on film, what makes Kendall Wright so good? MANNY DIAZ: Well, one, he's a blessed athlete. He is so fast, got great change of direction, his acceleration is so fast. The first thing that stands out is you can tell they're a well coached outfit. They just explode off the ball. They instantly are putting stress by trying to step on your toes. And then he's got great change of direction, he can make the play down the field and he's got great run for the catch. He's a guy that I hadn't had a chance to see a whole lot of until, but to me he is second to none in this conference. When you talk about the Blackmons and the Boyles and all those type of guys, to me you have to speak of him in the same breath as all those guys, and his numbers back it up. I think, again, as we've talked about, people are sort of waking up to Baylor and what they've done to everyone that they've played this year, and he's a big reason why. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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