|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 8, 2012Mack BrownCOACH BROWN: What a special night it was in DKR on Saturday night. Nobody's fans anywhere in the country that I've ever coached were more excited, louder, more electric than our fans on Saturday night. They were just unbelievable. They made a difference in the ballgame. It shows what we can do each week, and they also made a huge impression on our recruits. We've just gotten tremendous response from recruiting over the last two days, not only that our team fought so hard and had a chance to win the game in the end but that they'd never been in a stadium like that before. We also had great energy on our bench. I thought the guys that weren't playing, the young guys, helped stir up the crowd, and I thought it was just a special night in so many ways. We need to be the same way every ballgame now. That's standard set, and if we expect our players to play the hardest they can, we've got to expect our fans to yell and cheer as loud as they can each week and even up in Dallas this weekend. Our guys, like the fans, played really hard. There were so many great things that came out of the game that we can build on. It's just a shame that we lost. You've got to give West Virginia credit because it was a great football game, and they just made the key plays in the end and we didn't, and that's simply what it comes down to. We forced 10 turnovers and only lost three this year. We've outscored opponents 56‑3 when we've forced those turnovers, and Saturday night is the first time in 57 games we've won the turnover ratio and lost the game. So there's so many things that, again, lead back to where we did enough things right to win. We aren't where we want to be. We're much better than we were last year. I don't think last year's team could have even hung with West Virginia because we couldn't have scored enough points. But we're making a lot of progress, and at some point this football team is going to be really good, and we are getting better each game. Offensively the things that we did well: On 3rd downs, again, we were 8 of 14. We're 43 of 74 attempts, second nationally at 58 percent on 3rd downs this year, so we've done a tremendous job of staying on the field offensively. We had eight explosive plays, which is our minimum, but we didn't make our goal. That was two runs and six passes. Red zone: In seven attempts, we scored five touchdowns and had one field goal, and we missed a field goal. Passing: We were 22 of 29 attempts, 269 yards and a touchdown, 76 percent, which was very similar to what the Heisman Trophy candidate Geno Smith ended up with. Eight different players had plays of more than 40 yards this year, so we're getting the ball in different people's hands, and we are getting explosive plays, which we were concerned about two weeks ago. 16 different players have scored, 13 have scored touchdowns. So we're moving the ball around a lot, and people are going to ask why this guy didn't get it this week and why that guy didn't get it. That's not the way this offense is. It disperses the ball across the board. It does a good job with that. So we need to improve offensively. We did lose a fumble, and I think anyone who saw that lick is just happy that Marquise is okay; happy, number one, that he's alive; happy, number two, that he's not crippled because it was a vicious lick; and number three, could understand that fumble. It was just a tremendous lick, and he is fine and is ready to play this week for our fans that are worried about him. We were 1 of 3 on 4th downs; we were 3 of 3 at Oklahoma State, and we needed to do a better job. Some people will question why we went for a 4th and 13 at the end of the game. We were about the 38‑yard line or something, and the way they're scoring, the way they're moving the ball, if you punt and get them down at the 10, they can make up 25 yards, 20 yards very quickly. In games like that you try to make 1st downs and you try to score, you don't worry quite as much about backing them up because they're so explosive. We had two penalties on offense; we dropped two passes; and we had two fumble snaps. Obviously the last snap was a killer when we had what we thought was a great play called on 3rd down to score and didn't get that opportunity and then missed the field goal. We didn't run the ball like we wanted to early in the ballgame. We thought we could run it better than we did. The best offensive lineman performance was Donald Hawkins. The offensive most valuable player was David Ash. Defense, things that we did well, we slowed Geno Smith down on his downfield throws on 1st, 2nd, 3rd down. He was 14 of 30, and he was coming in with such a high completion percentage, we did a good job of getting him off his rhythm, and on 3rd downs they were leading the nation at 61 percent in 3rd down efficiency, we held them to 23 percent. On 3rd down he was 23 for 12, which is unbelievable to think we could have done that going into this ballgame. We had great pressure from our four‑man rush. We caused two fumbles and one of them became a touchdown. We had four sacks in 35 attempts. They had only given up four sacks in 181 attempts throughout the year. So we got great pass rush from our front four. We blocked a field goal. Defensive team is out on the field for that unit, and Alex Okafor got his long arm up there and blocked it. We played extremely hard. We didn't tackle great, but we tackled better than we did at Oklahoma State and maybe against a better offensive team because they had some guys that could really run. We handled sudden change well. After Marquise' fumble, we're down 21‑7 the game is about to get out of hand, the defense forces a three and out and blocks a punt that leads to score that gets us right back in the ballgame. Things we did poorly: We didn't get off the field. We got beat on critical situations. They're 5 for 5 on 3rd downs, three of those are passes, one of them was a short yardage, but even though the run on an early down near our bench that we've got guys all over him, and 13 makes the play. We've got to make those stops when we get in that position. They had five TDs and seven trips into the red zone. We made Oklahoma State kick field goals, we did not make West Virginia. We did a poor job stopping West Virginia on the last drive. We did a poor job offensively with the last series when we got a chance to score on the 12‑yard line and win the game or at least kick a field goal and tie the game, and we botched both. The last drive defensively we've still got a chance to go out there and stop them, and they rammed the ball down our throats and we didn't do a good job of stopping at all. Those are two series that really, really hurt us. There was some confusion with our defense on the 4th down play that we get the sack but we called time out from the boundary. They had an uncovered guy and an empty set, so if we had aligned properly, coaches wouldn't have had to call a time‑out to make sure, and it cost us a touchdown the next play. So we have got to make sure that we line up properly. We did have a hands to the face penalty on a 3rd down and 16 another time we get off the field, and you just don't get off the field. That would have been another punt for them that we made a mistake. The ball hawk awards: Alex Okafor caused two fumbles, Jackson Jeffcoat, one fumble that he recovered for a touchdown; Chris Whaley with a fumble recovery; hard hit award went to Kenny Vaccaro; most valuable player on defense went to Alex Okafor, but I thought he and Jackson both showed tremendous quickness off of the corner. Some people said after the game, I said I was disappointed we didn't stop the run better, and that's true. Someone else said it seemed like Manny and Mack weren't on the same page with the same plan. We were. We had to stop Geno Smith, and that's what we wanted to do. What both of us wanted is when the numbers are such that you're trying to do a better job of stopping the pass and the run, it doesn't mean you can't stop the run. The numbers are equal, you can still stop the run for less yards than we gave them, especially on the last drive, so that was my point after the game. Special teams, things we did well: We only had one punt for 47 yards and we had a net 44. We're still very high in net punting. We had one punt blocked by Carrington Byndom. Offense got the ball at the 50‑yard line and led to a score. We blocked a field goal, as we said earlier, by the defense and there were three kickoff returns past the 45‑yard line, the great kickoff return by Marquise Goodwin. Things we did poorly: We missed a 41‑yard field goal that would have tied the game. Kickoff coverage was poor to start the game; they had a 41‑yard run, a 68‑yard return and after that they had four returns for nine yards total, but we tried to kick it away from them and they were going to get the ball in Austin's hand. He was either going to run to the other side and catch it or they were going to pitch it to him because he's such a dynamic kickoff and punt returner, but we held him to one punt return for three yards. Special teams player of the game was Marquise Goodwin for his run on the kickoff return. Big 12 is doing really well. We're the only league with eight teams with one loss or less. Big 12 has the top three offensive teams, total offensive teams in America. We have seven of the top 25 in scoring. We have five in the top five in scoring defense. The Big 12 has six of the top nine quarterbacks in passing efficiency. It's just unbelievable how well people in this league are throwing the ball. Total offense leaders, Oklahoma State is one, Baylor is two and West Virginia is three. We've played two of the top three offenses the last three weeks. Pass offense leaders: Baylor is one, West Virginia is two, Oklahoma State is three. We've played two of the top passing leaders the last two weeks, and we'll play a Heisman Trophy candidate again this week. Injury report: Alex De La Torre and Miles Onyegbule sprained ankles, and they're out for the game. They sprained them on the kickoff returns. Everyone else will be evaluated this week, and we will give you an update on Friday. OU played really well against Tech, beating them 40‑21. We know how hard it is to win out there. Landry Jones, we're facing another Heisman Trophy candidate this week at quarterback. He's 32 and 9 as a starter. He's tied with Steve Davis for most wins in school history for a quarterback. He's one of three players in the Big 12 and one of 23 in the NCAA history to throw 100 TD passes and then throw for more than 13,000 yards. OU has got a really good football team. It's always an exciting game. They're playing hard on defense. We'll have the torch light parade, I think it's at 8:30 on Wednesday night, and we'd like to have our largest crowd ever. Should be an exciting week again, and our guys have to get over the disappointing loss to West Virginia and get excited about playing OU. Questions? Q. What are the challenges defensively because of limitations in practice and hitting and depth and things like that? COACH BROWN: Yes, I thought as bad as it looks to give up 48 points and lose, I thought we did make some improvements this week because West Virginia‑‑ you know, West Virginia could be as good as anybody in the country. We don't know how‑‑ if they'll play week to week, we don't know how‑‑ will their defense hold up, is their kicking game good enough, but they could be as good as anybody when you look at what they did, and with their experience on offense, with nine seniors. Again, we were disappointed we gave up the rushing yards and we didn't stop three 4th down passes and the one 4th down run, the other one was a 4th and six inches or a 4th and 1 on a quarterback speak. But we had our opportunities. We had double coverage on some of the TD passes that they threw, and we've just got to make those plays that we didn't make on Saturday night and keep getting better. When you're as young as we are on defense, you've only got two seniors playing, you can get better and you can get better fast. I thought we made some improvements even though they‑‑ unless you're looking for improvements, you wouldn't say when you give up 48 points that you did, but I thought there were improvements on Saturday night. They didn't look as tired against the up‑tempo offense. We substituted a lot, the younger players are playing better. Some of the younger linebackers played a little bit better in there than they did against Oklahoma State, and we're seeing a lot of fast guys, so that's not going to stop here for a while. But I do think we're making progress on defense. Q. How has your philosophy changed, if it has, on using young players since you've started here? COACH BROWN: Oh, I think there's a lot said because we didn't use one player one year in an Oklahoma game, so that builds a reputation for a lifetime. We didn't play Cedric Benson about 27 years ago, and that lives as a fantasy world for people that we've never played a freshman. We've played more freshmen the last two years than anybody in college football, and the fact‑‑ we thought that when the NCAA started allowing freshmen to come in in January and then even more so in June, it gave you a better chance to get them ready to play. And now we're playing a lot. I was really pleased with Malcolm Brown the other night. Malcolm Brown and Mykkele Thompson made a lot of progress the another night. Mykkele had his hand on a couple balls that we'd have liked to have intercepted that might have been a game changer, but he's playing better over the last couple of weeks. But Malcolm Brown looked like he belonged. He stepped out and made great plays. You're seeing the same with Johnathan Gray. I mean, he made a super run, leading rusher in the ballgame. So a lot of freshmen are getting to play more, and we're hoping some of those freshman receivers can step up and rest some of our guys. They played more the other night, and we're trying to get them in the game, too. Old guys on this team are sophomores. I think last year we played more freshmen than anybody with 18; this year we're tied with two other teams, that's Auburn and Ohio State who are playing 15. Q. You're tough on yourself after a loss. Do you still feel that guilt or do you ease up on yourself? COACH BROWN: No, I don't feel guilt. I feel disappointed. The fans gave it their best. I feel disappointed for them that we didn't produce. Our coaches get over there at 6:00, 6:30 in the morning, they stay until 10:00 at night. They busted their tail and they fought their guts out, so I feel bad for them. And mostly the players. We had a chance‑‑ we had an opportunity the other night to take a huge step and be probably a top‑five football team this morning, and it was down to five minutes and 42 seconds where we could have won the ballgame, and we've won those in our past. So I get really down and sick after games. I told the players last night, I expect you to have a 24‑hour window that you take it win or lose and move forward, and I've got to do the same thing. And I told them, I get down because of them. I'm okay in my life. I've done enough. But I want them to win, and as hard as they're working right now and the way this team deserves to win, I was really disappointed for them. Q. Obviously West Virginia was the best defense you've faced this year. Can you talk about the challenges in the upcoming game? COACH BROWN: Yes, it should be a great match‑up, where last year we laid an egg in the OU game because they played much better than we did. There were a lot of turnovers, and we were out of the game before we even got in it, and I thought the guys kept trying and kept fighting. But we're both coming into this with a loss. I think in my estimation we could see a conference champion with one or maybe two losses this year the way this league is because there's so much parity in the league. So this game is really important, not just that it's the OU game but that it matters in your league play and league championship play. And I'm pleased with our offense. We obviously needed to score from a 12‑yard line, and that was the, quote, big problem the other night. David is really managing the game well, and he's handling pressure well. The last snap, it got down closer. He usually lets it get down pretty close, and that's what a young guy does, and he and the center got off communication, the ball was snapped a little bit before he wanted it to. I mean, those are things that happen with young teams. You've got to get rid of that. You can't have that in a critical situation. We made the critical play at Oklahoma State, we didn't make the critical play the other night. Q. The biggest challenge in facing a defense like this, is it not turning the ball over? COACH BROWN: Yes, this game is so emotional, and both teams will play like it is the most important game of the year, whether it is or not in anybody's minds because of the buildup and the history of this game and the two schools and the way the fans feel about this and the nature of the State Fair. They came to the schools, and one of the reasons is they came for this game. The hype in this game you have to handle, especially a younger team. Secondly, you have to handle the momentum change in this game; for whatever reason, it goes back and forth, and it's crazy, and it's always been that way. And the other thing, usually the team that wins handles the ball the best. When we've lost and when we've lost badly, it's been because we've turned the ball over, and last year was no different. Q. Are you getting to the point with David where you can start to ask him to do more and not just manage the game but actually make more and more winning plays, so to speak? COACH BROWN: Yeah, but I think‑‑ he scored 45 points. I mean, he's second in the country in passing efficiency, and 3rd downs we're second in the country. He's doing well. I'm excited about him. We're asking him to win the games now, and he's doing what we're asking. Made a great play with his feet. Q. Is it good to have huge back‑to‑back games? COACH BROWN: You're talking about Oklahoma State and West Virginia? Or are you talking about Oklahoma and Baylor? I don't know what you're talking about. I think it's great for the fans. It's great for college football. This league has gotten hard. I mean, you'd better play good every week. I mean, like I said, you look up, and the best quarterbacks in the country are in this league, best offenses in the country are in this league. There's some really good defenses struggling in this league. It's a fun time for the fans, and coaches are having to coach hard. We'll come back next week. You're going to say, is Baylor a big game? Are they good on offense? Q. You look at this stretch and you've played the top three offenses in the country in four games, and it's not Oklahoma. COACH BROWN: Yeah, I think so. You start looking at everybody in this league has improved, and you add TCU and you add West Virginia, it just made it even better. There's just so much speed. The poor punters aren't going to letter. We punt once the other night, they punt once the other night. It's amazing. I looked, I think we've been able to return four punts this year, and they've kicked some poor punts, but it's‑‑ and the fact that the NCAA moved the kicker back is affecting more games now with kickoff return than it did last year. There were a lot more balls kicked out. I think OU has kicked 13 of their 28 out, and I think we've kicked 11 of our 40 out. So there's a lot more kickoff returns than anybody ever thought, and we're seeing more squibs and sky kicks. It was interesting, as much criticism as we got for a sky kick, West Virginia had three of them. I wonder if their people are critical of them. Probably not. Q. In '09 when Bradford was still (inaudible) how has he changed since then? COACH BROWN: Just matured. I thought he was very much like David when he first started. He was unsure in that ballgame, and David was last year some, and Case because this was the first time they had been in that ballgame. This is a hard game for a young quarterback. I mean, usually when they get in it, Colt handled it well, Sam Bradford handled it well, most young quarterbacks have not, and thank goodness David has been through it once. Landry just keeps getting better and better and better each game, and his stats are unbelievable. Here we are two weeks in a row playing against a Heisman candidate. Q. In 15 years of this game have you learned any big picture things about this series? COACH BROWN: I think the thing that you learn, and Bill Little said that when we got here, it usually goes in cycles because the fans of the losing team are so hard on the kids and the coaches that they get a little bit uptight, then you've got to figure out how to win it again, get it back, and then the ballgame is the same way. It's just a game that goes back and forth because whether we like it or not, it's one that is really, really important to the fans, and therefore it's important to the coaches and the players because they've‑‑ they live with this game. Most of the recruits on both teams have been to this game and watched this game very closely since they were freshmen in high school, sophomores in high school, so they've all been to this game, and it's just something that I think builds up in their mind that it's a huge game. I'll never forget Bo Scaife as a freshman standing out there before the game hyperventilating. I said, are you okay? He said, yeah, I'm hyperventilating; I've never been this excited in my life. And I thought, I'm not sure that's good. Q. Did you realize any of that stuff back in '84 about how big this game was? COACH BROWN: No, because I wasn't from here. I thought the Tennessee‑Alabama game was probably bigger than‑‑ at that time it was the Oklahoma‑Texas game for me, but then I remember asking Coach Switzer before the year, what do you have to do to keep your job here, and what do you have to do to make everybody happy, and he said you've got to beat Texas. I said, what about Oklahoma State, they're in your league. Texas isn't even in your league. He said, doesn't matter, Coach, you've got to beat Texas to make it work. And I think they still call school off on Monday after they win. So it's that big at that school. And I remember in '84 Texas was No.1, Oklahoma was No.2, and it was a tie ballgame. We went for two and missed, and then they had the Stansbury interception in the end zone that was called incomplete, and I think Todd Dodge was the quarterback and Jeff Ward kicked the field goal to tie the game at the end of the game. At that time you didn't have a playoff. It was raining so hard and I was so mad at the Cottom Bowl because the turf stunk and you couldn't even stand up and you were running sideways. We were trying to run sweeps and options the first half and we couldn't, and we were an option team, so we had to run north and south the second half to have a chance to win the game. And some things were different than I remembered. The biggest impression I had for the passion for both schools was that our bus at that time rode right down the middle of the State Fair, and fans were shaking the bus. I mean, it was scary. Coach Switzer kind of looked at me and said, now you see. You get it now. You understand that. At that time there were bonuses for the Texas win at Oklahoma. So there was‑‑ I understood at an early age what the game meant. Q. There was interference there at the end too, right? COACH BROWN: Now it wasn't. Then it was. I'm glad we won now. I was mad at that time. Q. When you make a change on‑‑ COACH BROWN: Coach Switzer thought it was interference, Coach Akers did not. I think that's the way it is. But you can't talk about that. The Big Eight would be mad at me, and it's gone. I don't know who gets after you on that one. Q. When you make a move on the depth chart it's probably a bigger deal for us because you're going to have to have Adrian Phillips make plays. What's the message to him and maybe to Mykkele, as well, this week? COACH BROWN: Yeah, I think it's much bigger to you than it is to us. We thought about not even having one because everybody makes such a huge deal out of it because after a loss they want heads chopped off, some of them do. That's just part of the deal. Adrian played better the other night than he did the week before. He missed spring practice. He's coming off of a shoulder operation. We're still going to need him in nickel and dime. He and Josh are still going to play. But we've said all along we're going to play the guy that plays the best in the ballgame, and Mykkele made more plays in the ballgame this week and had a chance to make a couple more. Mykkele was more physical than he's been. So we felt like that across the board that's a move that we need to make. We don't know about Malcolm for this week so Jonathan and Joe are listed as co‑starters at tailback. They'll be checking Malcolm today. We should know more tomorrow. Some people said, why did you release it so fast last week. They were putting it in a cast, so he wasn't going to have the cast off ‑‑ walking boot cast, which they do a lot, and if a guy is going to be out, we've told you he's going to be out. Didn't mean it was any worse than we would have thought. But these two have sore ankles, they're not going to play this week. They're in boots, so we felt like that. Jordan Hicks, those other guys, Fera came out well, so we think he will be better today than he was Saturday night, we think, because he made some progress and got more confidence. He hadn't been able to kick all year, so it put him in a tough spot on Saturday night. And we'll evaluate Jordan Hicks, but he's much closer now, so we'll get to do that. And Brandon Moore we feel like will be fine. Q. Your defenses have made such a great effort to make other teams one‑dimensional over the years. Is it frustrating to give up the kind of rushing yards? COACH BROWN: Yeah, I've got them. I've checked them all. I've seen them. Go back over them; I missed them. Yeah, it is, and what we've been able to do, you've got to stop something, and if you had asked me last week, and you did, can you stop Geno Smith, I'd say no, but we're sure going to try. So the defense never gets credit for what they stopped. What was disappointing to the defense and therefore to me, and that's players and coaches, is we put people in positions to stop their passes, and we were very successful at doing that except for three 4th downs and in the red zone. And if you're going to commit those numbers, you're going to have to give up something. Now, where it is different, we didn't want to give up that many long runs, and I will give Dana credit. He's got a Heisman Trophy quarterback. In their history sometimes they're not very patient with the run. They will throw it. So he stayed more patient on Saturday night than I've seen them do in the past, and I'm sure part of that was because we had trouble on the run against Oklahoma State. But more against West Virginia, we had a plan to try to disrupt Geno Smith and try to take him out of the passing game and give‑‑ you don't give runs, but take lesser players to stop the run. If we had dominated the run and he'd have thrown for 805 yards like he did last week, you all would have said, you knew he was going to pass it; why in the world did you put two on each guy. And the trouble Saturday night, we had some people double‑covered that they completed the ball, and that cannot happen. I mean, I thought the plan Saturday night was what we needed on defense, but we've got to play better. When we're double‑teaming somebody he shouldn't catch the ball, and the guy threw some darts and made it. And when we've got lesser numbers inside, it doesn't mean it can be a 20‑yard gain every time they hand it off. We have to have some people make some tackles, too. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|