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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 10, 2012Charlie WeisKANSAS – 34 COACH WEIS: All right, fire away. Q. You knew you were going to run the ball, and you still ran it for 390 yards against a really good defense. What's that say? COACH WEIS: Well, we're going against a defense that knows that the way your team will set up right now at the post, you have to run the ball to have a chance to be successful. I think it probably says a lot about a lot of people. Obviously, you can start with James and Tony. Michael had some yards in there too, but they weren't on fourth down, and you've got to think that the offensive line (Indiscernible). You have to think that the offensive line did a heck of a job, because you don't get numbers like that without a lot of people being in line. Q. Talk about what this game does for your offense? You said it a lot coming into the season. But obviously today? COACH WEIS: If you remember back on Tuesday when I was talking about Texas Tech, I talked about how strong they are up the middle. So if you don't have somebody going to the edge with speed, it's just another play. It's just a cutback type of situation. Now all of a sudden you have somebody with some speed going to the edge, every time it gets there, you have a chance for something big to happen. Q. (Indiscernible) a lot up the middle. Was that by design? COACH WEIS: Well, what happened was they started off more spread giving you inside run. Then we went three, 3 and outs after that because they started loading up and the safety down the side. So it caused me to adjust really the rest of the game being mainly an outside running game because of how they were playing the defense. Q. What would you say about your defense, held to a couple of field goals again? COACH WEIS: I thought a critical drive for the psyche of our team happened to be in the third quarter where it was a four‑point game, and they're down in the red zone and we held them to a field goal to keep it as a seven‑point game.  Now the game had not really gotten away from us. When we did get down more than one score and Tommy had that long run to get us in position to score. I think the rest of the game came down to just making sure to minimize their point production to give us a chance to tie. Q. The same defensive back of yours who played the man instead of the ball in the back of the end zone seemed to get picked out a lot today. You took him out at one point. Was that a potential shakeup in the lineup right there? COACH WEIS: For me to make a comment about that ‑‑ it would be very premature for me to make a comment at this time. Q. You would think dominating the run game so easily like that would have led to an easy win. Where does the blame fall for the loss? COACH WEIS: I think that you have to look at it‑‑ I look at it a little bit differently than you do. We rush for close to 400, but we only threw for about 30 yards. So now when you're fairly one dimensional, and you're not getting a lot of production out of your press game. You have to do that just to be competitive. Okay. Well, with that being said, I don't think that in a game like this, I think it's more kind of a thing like if I would have done this, if I would have done that. As a play caller, you can go through a game and said I wish I would have done this on that play or that on that play. I always avoid the throwing‑under‑the‑bus mentality. I think that question kind of sets me up to throwing somebody under the bus, so I'm going to pass on that one, if you don't mind. Q. How much was a factor in the second overtime‑‑ because Tech knew you were going to try to run the ball to score the second touchdown and not try to throw it on first down or second down to get a little closer. COACH WEIS: Well, we did that‑‑ well, through the first two plays we were at about 3rd and 5. Now you run the ball to try to pick up the first down. At that point we ended up losing four yards on the play, and now you call a timeout because now it's 4th and 9, and you have no alternative. So versus their coverage, we thought we had a pretty good play set‑up, but it broke when the protection broke down. Kind of had to heave one up. In addition, we had two guys in motion on the play. So even if we had scored a touchdown on that play, we'd have had to score another one right after that because there would have been two men in motion and 4th and 14 if we would have run that play. Q. (Indiscernible), playing a ranked opponent at home against away? COACH WEIS: As I said, it's a little different this week because this was about going on the road with guys that really, really care. It's important to them. I think that I'll take that group of guys that played today and give us a chance whenever we're playing. I thought‑‑ look, am I disappointed we lost? You betcha. Are they disappointed? You betcha. But at the end of the day, our team played like a legitimate team trying to gut it out through a complete four quarters. Q. Can you talk about the contributions James and Tony made in the running game? COACH WEIS: Well, I think that James, first of all, James is such a tough runner. What did he run it, 30 times how many times did he carry? Okay. So he carried it 30 times. And his yards, a lot of his yards were hard yards. They were hard yards. So you have your choice. Do you soften up the defense by pounding it inside or do you try to get speed on the edge by putting both of those guys out there at the same time? They give you an opportunity to do both at the same levels simultaneously, which that gave us a chance to win a game. Q. How about the drive where you had to have the field goal to tie it? I mean, in that situation, what are the challenges? Because obviously, you guys run the ball and you did it on that drive. COACH WEIS: I was worried a little bit about the clock. I was worrying a little bit about the clock. And we had just had two timeouts left, so we got the fourth down. We were playing to win the game. Then Michael runs down and keeps the ball and almost takes it to the house. With my luck, he would have taken it to the house too quickly, you know? Because as it was, they came down the field and almost had a chance to win right there. But I think that we just did a nice job of making sure that the worst thing that was going to happen was they were going to have the ball in the middle of the field for a field goal at the time. And that's how it turned out right there. So when you play in overtime against a good football team, it's anybody's game. It's no longer about who is at home or who is on the road. It's who makes that one more play. Q. Did you consider going forward on fourth down instead of kicking the field goal to tie the game? COACH WEIS: No. I tell you what I was doing. I was going for two if we scored there, though. We were already at the play end, so if we score, we knew it was going to be ended. I know we don't have a date or anything. My wife's home in Indiana. So if we scored right there, we were going for two. I told the defensive coaches this is going to be it either way. Because if we score, we're going to try to end this right now. Q. (Indiscernible) in the first half did you consider that at all? COACH WEIS: No, when you score first‑‑ see, it's different when they go first. When you score first, you want to make sure‑‑ what you don't want to do is not kick the extra point and then have them score a touchdown. All they have to do is kick an extra point and you lose. It's different when they score first. Now you know that you run for two and you make it, you win. You miss it, you lose. That's what we were doing. By scoring first the first time that was not an option. Q. Coach, would you have an opportunity to score in the second overtime? COACH WEIS: That's what I just said. They knew that going in. They knew that going in. If we score, we're going for two. Q. After the Texas game so close there, what is the locker room like? You said that one might have been the hardest these guys took it? COACH WEIS: Well, the locker room is as disappointed as it's ever been. The difference is I've had a conversation with the coaches about let's not wait until tomorrow to start picking these players up. Usually you let them sulk for 24 hours, not today. I told the coaches that before we even get on the bus, I want to make sure these guys know it's time to go. We were extremely motivated in this game. And I think we'll be even more motivated for next Saturday. Q. You talked a lot about learning how to win. Can you really know how to win until you go out and do it? Do you need just one to break the flood gates open? COACH WEIS: There is a big difference in this one because it's not that the woe‑is‑me came down. Well, because you're used to losing. Well, you're playing into overtime, now it's just who makes one more play? So that never comes into play in a game like this. Every play is important in that situation. So with several games that statement is very, very true. In an overtime game you usually don't have time for that mentality to even enter. You have to turn a corner. This was about just trying to win this one and whether it was regulation or in overtime. Q. You talked a lot about the third quarter and adding to your list of goals, wanting to keep a game close for a half but then come out and do something about it. Why did the third quarter go so well for you guys? COACH WEIS: Well, it depends on your perspective, okay? Because my goal against the wind was to shorten the game, which we did, okay? We were going against the wind, okay, a fairly inexperienced field goal kicker on top of it. But what we were trying to do is get the game into the fourth quarter. Get the game into the fourth quarter where now you have more options available to you. Which, that's what we did. Now it came in the red zone stop by the defense for that to impact them. But we were trying to get into it. Obviously, you want to score every time you get the ball. I wanted to make sure we got into the fourth quarter when we were going against the wind because the wind was significant. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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