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TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 21, 2013Dennis FranchioneTEXAS STATE – 7 COACH FRANCHIONE: You know, I thought our defense gave us a chance with the way they played for a long time, then they gave up a few plays there in the second half that let them convert some 3rd downs. You know, that hurt, but really, you've got the ball 1st and goal at the 1 yard line, you don't score twice, you can't beat teams like this. You can't pull the upset. We touched enough balls. We got a couple turnovers. We touched more that we could have got more turnovers, and that opening drive we got one that would have helped a little bit. Three turnovers on offense, you can't do that and beat teams like this, especially the way we did them. You know, I put us a little behind the 8‑ball, fake punt and a couple things, but we were trying to win and make something happen and create a little something there, and it just didn't work out. Q. What was the strongest point of your defense tonight? COACH FRANCHIONE: Well, you know, it's hard to just point out one area. I think for the most part we made them work for their points. We were in pretty good position most of the time. There in the third quarter the scramble by the quarterback when he broke the pocket and he threw a couple over our head that I think we tried to undercut and misjudged probably that he could throw it over our head like he did turned into big gains for them. That hurt us a little bit there. We didn't probably get as much pressure with the front as we would have liked to have, but I thought we still fit on the run game pretty much most of the night. We played good enough to win on that side of the ball if we could have played better on offense. Q. What do you take away from this game for your team? COACH FRANCHIONE: Well, I think when we look at the film there will be some things that we can say we did pretty good and we can build on. I mean, I feel like we could have won the football game tonight. You know, that might be a little bit of a stretch for some people to say that, but when you have 1st and goal at 1 twice and don't score when you fumble inside the 10 and give them a touchdown, maybe the fake punt doesn't happen if the score is tighter. We had circumstances and things working for us to have a chance to win the game, we just couldn't get it done. We'll take things out of this game. You know, we just weren't good enough to beat a top 25 team at home and make the mistakes that we made. Q. Late in the fourth quarter, down 16, two‑possession game, you're in the ballgame. Did you feel like this year was your best game out of the three against Tech? COACH FRANCHIONE: Yeah, probably. You know, I didn't‑‑ I think of it more in a‑‑ you mentioned late in the third quarter there. I think of it more in the big picture of having the ball at the 1 and the turnover backed up and things like that when I think about it. But yeah, I think we could have won this game. Q. Once again, the red zone defense, No.1 in the nation coming into this game. I don't think you guys are going to fall too far after today, but the red zone offense, you've mentioned it twice, 1st and goal at the 1. What could have been the difference there? Was Tech doing something on defense or was it something the offense was not doing themselves? COACH FRANCHIONE: Well, I don't want to take anything away from Tech's performance, but we've got to block better and execute better. You know, I've talked about growing pains, but we still ought to be able to get it in from the 1 yard line. Come on. We've got to get off the ball and we've got to execute our blocks and we've got to finish them. You ought to be able to score from the 1 yard line in. The pass that was underthrown, that's unfortunate that that happened. It must have been an okay call because the guy was open from what I heard from the press box. We underthrew it, but just didn't execute it well enough. Protection I don't think was too bad. When you look back at it you say, well, I wish I would have just ran it again instead of throwing, but I guess he was open. Q. Were you at all surprised by what you saw from Tech's defense tonight? COACH FRANCHIONE: No, no. I think we went into the game having a lot of respect for their defense. I think their defense is fast. I like the speed of their defense and the way they're playing. You know, for a group of kids who have had five coordinators in five years‑‑ I think that's correct, isn't it? I think the coaches on defense and the players have done a heck of a job to adjust and do what they've done in a short amount of time. Q. Was your decision to leave Tyler in there for as long as he was when he was turning the ball over as he was just to let him kind of see if he could bring the guys out of it, dig himself out of that hole, or was it the fact that you wanted to‑‑ that was the option at that moment? What was the reasoning at that time? COACH FRANCHIONE: I just felt like he was the best‑‑ our best chance to win in this game. You know, that's really the only thing I cared about. Q. It's tough to hold Texas Tech to two touchdowns on any night, and you talked on Tuesday about trying to see where you matched up with TTU's good defense. As a whole do you feel like the defense answered the bell like you would have expected them to tonight? COACH FRANCHIONE: Yeah, pretty good. We gave up a few plays there in the second half that I wish we hadn't have given up, but when you take‑‑ you put it in perspective with what we did, we held up well enough. We just didn't do well enough offensively. If we can continue to play like that on defense, get a little better on offense, we'll have chance to win some games. Q. What do you need to do as a staff to get this team ready to play on offense better than it has the last couple weeks? You guys did play all right against Prairie View, but it took until the fourth quarter against Southern Miss and tonight never happened. What do you need to do to catch up on the offensive side of the ball when the defense is looking so good at this moment? COACH FRANCHIONE: Well, I'm not sure. Sitting here without watching the tape, that's not an easy short answer to give you. I mean, I don't think there's any position that probably hasn't got to play better. I'm disappointed because I thought this offense would have a chance to be as good as last year's, and it hasn't shown that yet. We've got some youth and inexperience on that side of the ball, and it shows at times. We've got to get more consistent play at quarterback, probably at every position, though. I shouldn't sound like I'm picking on that position. I think all of them are very inconsistent. You know, offensive football, if you don't go 10 out of 11 or 11 out of 11, doing a fairly decent job of execution, you're not going to move the football on a consistent basis. That certainly epitomizes us right now. We're somewhere between 7 and 9, I think, most of the time, and so that shows. We've just got to go back to work as a coaching staff and find what we can do the best and work toward that and figure out what we can do to do it now. I think we may look back and say we played one of the best defensive teams tonight we'll probably play this year. Q. Your defense only allowed Tech to score 13 points in the first half. What were your thoughts going into halftime? COACH FRANCHIONE: Well, I was really happy with the defense and disgusted with what happened offensively. We should have been ahead at halftime. Realistically it should have been 14‑13 at halftime. You know, it wasn't. That was disappointing. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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