|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 28, 2013Bob StoopsOKLAHOMA – 35 COACH STOOPS: First, I'd like to compliment Coach Kelly and his staff, the Notre Dame football team, a really hard‑played, tough football game. You know, again, compliments to them.  I think they do an incredible job in every part of their football team. So we knew we'd have to play well to have a chance to operate here and win. Fortunately, we did. I'm really pleased and excited about the way we played. First, offensively, no turnovers. I thought our offensive line was super because they're a great defensive front and great defensive team. But I thought our guys really blocked well. I don't know if we had a sack, or if we did, not many. I guess we had one for five yards. Protected the ball well, Blake Bell was again, great. Threw the ball very well. Receivers got open, running backs in line. We ran the football well. So it was what you want. Offensively, used the clock. Defensively, we came up with a huge first quarter forcing the turnovers. They're going to make their plays and they did. They popped the one run and then they had two other drives, but I thought we had a lot of good series where there were three‑and‑outs, and in particular down on the end. A year ago I thought we lost the game in the last half of the fourth quarter, and we were determined not to let that happen this time because it was still a two‑possession game. We came up with stops defensively. Just good, overall play. Anyway, it was a good, well‑played game and just gives us a little bit of a springboard to start the Big 12 season again since we only had one game in the Big 12. Q. Can you talk about Blake, not just the way he threw, but seeing his decision making was excellent. Didn't even come close to an interception. Can you talk about the fieldsmanship he showed? COACH STOOPS: He did. He was really sharp. He put the ball where it needed to be, finding the right guys, going through his reads. And give credit to the line to give them the opportunity to find those guys, so I thought he played great. Q. The play, the touchdown to Sterling Shepard, that came out of what used to be known as a big power formation. Can you talk about the deception factor there and how it worked to your advantage? COACH STOOPS: I think you're always, anybody that, just as they did, they'd lineup in two tight ends and big formations. When we do, we may have them in the back field, but we've got big blockers in are there, the ideal. They hit us on one play action pass, the touchdown to the tight end. Same thing we're trying to do. When you can run the football in those sets, people have to start trickling down from the secondary to stop the run. Generally, you can find some space to make big plays. Fortunately, we caught one, meaning we found one and hit it. Q. You hit the field wide side for a lot of short passes and run after the catch. Is that something you saw early on paper? Or did you just want to get it to your play makers? COACH STOOPS: Those are long handoffs. All those plays we're throwing it out. They're called runs. They're not designed as passes, they're called runs. And the way they're defending it, they're weak out there to stop the run. That's the game you play. Sometimes you get them right. Blake threw those with good precision. I'm really proud of our receivers and how they blocked out there to get those seven, eight. Those are long handoffs. To us, those are run yardage. Q. Can you talk about the dream‑like start with the two turnovers in the first 2:45 and you are up 2‑0 and boom, boom, can you expand on those situations and what you saw? COACH STOOPS: I don't know about a dream‑like start, but a good start. I was proud of our guys. We came out aggressive. Mike called a blitz right there in the early part the first third down and we caught him with it, and Eric Striker is fast. Got to the quarterback. Knocked it right to Corey. So we started fast. Aaron Colvin deflected the one to Frank Shannon with tight coverage, so they came out aggressive and ready to play. Q. Can you talk about overall your toughness, where you think you are from a toughness standpoint and also Bell turning and scrambling for yardage and just making some plays with his legs? COACH STOOPS: Yeah, Blake can make those kind of plays. I don't want to say he's like Roethlisberger, but you're not going to drag him down if you just have his shirt. He can get away from some things and make some positive yards off of some scrambles. I love that he bought time to find Lacoltan Bester in the end zone. He was going to run, and then saw it break open and threw it to him late in the play. Toughness‑wise, I feel like we can play physical football. I don't believe that was how we lost a year ago. We lost on a deep pass in the fourth quarter in a turnover, and in some instances that they made some key plays in the game a year ago. You know, so in the end, they're still a tough football team even though they're on the wrong side of it. And they're going to have a good year. I'm sure they will. Q. They went to your house last year and upset you guys. How important was it to come here and return the favor? COACH STOOPS: I'm not much on revenge. To me, all you're talking about is revenge you're not giving the other team enough respect for coming in and beating you. That's something you say how could they beat us? You know why they beat us a year ago? They beat about everybody until the last game. So we respected that. There wasn't any talk of revenge. It was about what are some of the things we did wrong a year ago that we can be better at and how can we finish the game better? We talked all week about playing a great fourth quarter and I felt like we did. We won it 8‑7. We didn't win it by a big number, but we win it in a two‑possession game and defense went out toward the end and cut him off. Then offense, loved it. Runs the last five minutes of the game out or more. Might have been near six minutes, and they run the clock out to finish it. Q. To come in here, 80,000 fans and have your team respond really well, how important was that to see that early in the game too? COACH STOOPS: The fans we didn't feel‑‑ I don't say it a lot, but I didn't feel that was an issue.  They're not playing. In the end, it's what are we doing right, how are we handling the situations and operating between the lines? That's all we talk about. I thought we handled everything really well. Offensively we didn't have hardly any procedures or line of scrimmage issues, so communication issues, whatsoever. Q. Your defenses have always been good about taking advantage of opportunities. You made several things happen that you pointed out in the first quarter. Defensive secondary had the hands on the football a lot. How much did that play a part because they could never get things going in the passing play outside of that one play? COACH STOOPS: Yeah, they came right out like they did the week before against Michigan State throwing the fade on Sanchez. He couldn't have played better. He went up, knocked it away. A young guy that's playing better and better, and then Aaron Colvin with tight coverage gets the deflection. Those guys are covering really well, playing great, we did. We had a hard time throwing the football for the most part, and I was proud of our guys the way they handled it. Q. The first touchdown, did you have a flash back moment to Roy Williams and Teddy Layman 13 years ago at the Cotton Bowl the way that happened?  Did you think about it? And yourself, a Catholic kid from not too far away coming in here ‑‑ COACH STOOPS: An Irish Catholic kid. I've got six kids in the family, you know we're Irish, right? Q. Do you take some personal satisfaction from today? COACH STOOPS: I don't take anything personally. To me, I didn't play today. My players played, and got a bunch of coaches all coaching, so we all take pride in it together. I've got a lot of family here, so I can't deny with all the family here there is not a place you come to every year. Got to admit we were here in '99 and that's still a little bit of a sore spot that we were up 16 and lost. We were pretty determined not to let that happen again. Fortunately, it ended up the right way for us. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH STOOPS: I didn't have any flashbacks of Teddy Layman and Roy Williams making that play because that ended the game. This is in the first quarter, first series. So we knew we had a long journey still ahead of us, and a lot of football plays to be played. So they were quite different that way. Q. You see a lot of defensive guys from time to time go in the locker room and get fluid. You don't see a lot of quarterbacks do that. When you guys came out and you were looking for a little momentum switch there, but to do it with his arm after he had been in there cramping? COACH STOOPS: Yeah, he really responded. Coach Heupel was so mad like, really, you're cramming? He said he's never had a cramp. So obviously, it's something we have to be more aware of moving on down the road here. Otherwise we could have gassed him up at halftime. For whatever reason, we didn't. He didn't tell anyone and we didn't know it was an issue or we would have. We do that, you know. When guys are starting to have those feelings at halftime, we'll load them up here and there. Not a bunch, but when the ones who need it, and we didn't do it. That was an error on our part. Q. Could you talk about the communication you were getting? Were you getting reports back when he was in there? I know Trevor was warming back up? COACH STOOPS: No, we were realizing it, and when he went down, we could tell that's what it was. So we started our operation trying to get it straightened out. I'm proud of Trevor. He came in and had some big plays and did well. Q. What did you learn about the potential of your team for this season after a performance like this? COACH STOOPS: We've got a chance to continue to be really good. But we're a work in progress. It's only our fourth game. We've got a lot of young guys playing, in particular for sure on defense. But they're getting better and better the more we play. Blake Bell, obviously, has shown. That was a question mark coming into the year. He's shown the ability to really play at home really well and play on the road really well. That is encouraging as we go down in the conference play here for the rest of the year. Q. That was the first time Notre Dame had shown that complementary quarterback look. It looked like you guys handled it pretty well. Could you just talk about that? COACH STOOPS: Yeah, you come in, and he was able to run some in the zone read, but fortunately we see it every day with Trevor Knight and Blake Bell. We go against each other. Like last week, we go against each other almost every day. So we're pretty used to it. Even though we didn't prepare for it for them, we're used to seeing it, how we go about defending it. Q. Last year, Atkinson wasn't able to make the trip to Oklahoma. Just your impressions of him today? COACH STOOPS: Really good, powerful guy, fast. Hit that crease. Really a good football player. Q. You made a whole lot of older Oklahoma ans happy today. Exorcising a lot of ghosts. Now that the game is over, can you speak to whether you've gained some satisfaction at least? COACH STOOPS: The question posed to me earlier in the week was do I have to carry that burden into the game and my team? And I said absolutely not. We weren't a part of all of those. I don't want my players having to avenge anything. That isn't what we do. Now that it's happened this way, I'm pleased. I'm sure I'm glad for the older Oklahomans that have been through all those games and Notre Dame had beaten us, that we get some level of satisfaction winning this one. Who knows when we'll play again. So they can live it up and say we got you last until we go again. Anyway, I'm not naive to the fact that I understand and I respect that, and I respect all our old players and guys that have been in those games. I'm sure they're pleased with it. I'm pleased with them. But I'm never carrying the burden of somebody else's woes coming into a game or want my players ever having to deal with it. 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
|