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UNIVERSITY OF TULSA MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 30, 2013Bill BlankenshipNORTH TEXAS – 42 COACH BLANKENSHIP: Early on gave us a chance to get in it and then they just wore down as time went on. Really, publically, say thank you to an incredible bunch of guys that played their last game. Words don't do it justice, but our program is incredibly blessed with the legacy of the guys that were in here playing their last game. If you think about these players being a part of a win at NotreDame, three Bowls, Conference Championship, Liberty Bowl Championship, I'm telling you, those guys were all big parts of it. Again, I just say thank you. Q. With today's performance, was it that much more of a downer? COACH BLANKENSHIP: Yeah, gosh, just no way did they deserve to go out like that. I mean, we just could not‑‑ I don't know, and it was just really not a very good performance whatsoever. Q. When you look at the season as a whole, is it fair to say that quarterback play affected every aspect? COACH BLANKENSHIP: No, I don't think it's fair to say that. I think that's easy for you to say. We did not get consistent play, the play we needed. But again, you know, people don't want hard answers. They want easy answers. The easy answers are that it's the quarterback. The hard answer is we had trouble at receiver. We had trouble in protection. We had all kinds of issue that is went along as we went. Generally speaking, we protected well most of the year, but we had‑‑ we're playing with some guys that were not our best players at receiver and when you do that, you have a hard time separating and getting open and that makes it even worse for the quarterback. Our quarterback didn't play as well as we needed him to throughout most of the year, and ultimately, all of that stuff falls on me. Q. Heading into the game, we asked you about the emotions. Did you feel like the team came out where it needed to be emotionally? COACH BLANKENSHIP: Gosh, I thought so when we left the hotel. I thought so when we left the locker room. But we didn't look like we did. And in my career years of coaching, it's one of those things, and I probably told you this before. When I try to guess, you know, where we are emotionally, it's about 50/50. You know, I know that they cared. I know they wanted to, but we didn't execute like we were at a high emotional level. I mean, early on, we dropped a few passes. We fit, missed some assignments on defense that created big plays. You know, we had a breakdown in our kicking game, which was something that, honestly, I mean, we put a lot of effort into this week. Q. Going into 2014 now, what has to change in your opinion? COACH BLANKENSHIP: Well, shoot, there's a lot that needs to change. We need to know how to finish drives and finish everything we're doing. Defensively, we're growing. Nowhere near are we as physical as we need to be. We had virtually no offense today, I mean. Against ‑‑ they are a good defense. And again, I don't want to not take ‑‑ give credit to North Texas; that's a very good defense. We knew it coming in. But we just had no answers. We've got to be able to do a better job of throwing and catching the ball to make our run game be able to be sufficient. Q. You talked before, but now that the season is finally over, just talk about Trey and Shawn, their legacy. COACH BLANKENSHIP: They are the kind of guys‑‑ that's a pretty big statement. Those guys, I don't think, come along very often. And they, if you think about Shaun as certainly a low‑profile recruit at the time, you know, we had high hopes for him, but I think he has far exceeded everything we had hoped for; maybe not what he had hoped for, but what we had hoped for. Trey Watts, literally, a legit walk‑on guy that we just hoped could get in the program and see what he could do, and red‑shirts and a year later, he's starting in the opening game at East Carolina; and four years later, whatever he's done at this point with his numbers. Q. Does that make it satisfying for you as a coach? COACH BLANKENSHIP: It's very satisfying for me to celebrate with those guys. It's very disappointing, because they are such legacy guys that this is not the kind of season they should have to go out on. Q. What were your emotions like when you went out and saw Jake and Trey and everyone getting emotional after playing their last game out there? COACH BLANKENSHIP: Well, I can't put that in words. Unless you've actually been there, you don't‑‑ it's easy to think you know what those guys feel. But, man, there's a lot of work goes into getting an opportunity to Division I level. There's a lot of work to get to play and then to go through it. You know, Stetson and Jake both were playing hurt. You can probably go down‑‑ J.J. played hurt. You know, if people had any idea what Shawn was dealing with medically, they'd even be more amazed. But the guys are warriors. They just don't give up. Q. Now that your season is at an end, hasn't Cole Way dealt with something all year long? COACH BLANKENSHIP: Yeah, I think Cole had‑‑ I don't know what all he's dealt with. He had a knee that he had to have operated on at the beginning or going into this season, and I think he's had some other issues. But again, guys, I mean, the stinking medical chart is two and a half pages long. But I've said it before, they don't give us any bonus points because guys are hurt. So we can't dwell on that. Q. What did you tell them in the locker room? COACH BLANKENSHIP: I told the seniors that‑‑ how bad I felt, that this was the season they went out on. But yet, if I had to do‑‑ if I had to go through this adversity with anybody, I mean, I would choose those guys. Q. Starting with Bowling Green, going all the way back, that game got a way from you because of a lot of different issues and that seemed to be kind of what happened with the whole season. COACH BLANKENSHIP: I think you're exactly right. I think it's very much a theme of the year. You know, you can go through, a very youthful defense; a fairly impotent offense, for what we have been used to; turnovers, you know, mistakes. What we're describing are how you wind up with three wins. I mean, that's why those things are not acceptable. Q. I mean, there's a limit to endurance, whether it's teams or people or whatever‑‑ do you feel like today maybe they were tired, psychologically, physically or however you want to term it? Maybe they had reached their limit? COACH BLANKENSHIP: Well, I didn't think that, but I thought there came a point in the game where, again, physically, we were just having‑‑ North Texas was imposing their will on us, and I think that was it, yeah. I mean, I think that‑‑ at that point, at some point, you know, there was just nothing to hang your hopes on, and you know, you just easily let it get away. Q. So you just go into the spring, you're not that far off from the start of spring, with a totally clean slate at quarterback and start from scratch and see what you've got? COACH BLANKENSHIP: No, I think we can legitimately say that when you have the kind of season we had, you know, it's a clean slate across the board. There's a lot of guys that played by virtue of people being injured. There are a lot of guys that got a lot of playing time that will benefit them, but ultimately, this is a competition and we're going to always compete to see who is the best at those positions. Yeah, it will be a clean slate there. Honestly, it will be a clean slate, because this was not an acceptable outcome. Q. Could you hear expressions on the sideline of determinations to get Trey a hundred yards? COACH BLANKENSHIP: I didn't hear anything different. I don't know, what did he wind up with? I just knew he wanted‑‑ it was not about the stats. We went into the game, our offensive line was determined to try to get him whatever it took to get him over the top for a career. What I thought you saw at the end was we had a conversation with the seniors and said, look, we are kind of‑‑ look, at this point, let's leave it up to you. If you want to fin on the field or you want us to go ahead and take you out. Literally there wasn't any kind of psychological ploy. It was, I have great respect for those players, and how do you want to end it, and they wanted to finish on the field. And I think that was important for all of them. Q. Is this the kind of a situation where you need to start making progression tomorrow; do you need to take a break from all of this to clear your mind? Because you've never really been through something like this as a coach. Do you need a break or do you need to get going tomorrow morning? COACH BLANKENSHIP: What you have to do, first of all; we've got to keep recruiting, because ultimately the answers are in recruiting. And then we have to evaluate everything we've been a part of, and as I've mentioned to those of you that's been an ongoing process. But we are going to look at it all and do what's best for our program and do what's best for the players we have. But unfortunately, recruiting doesn't slow down. Tomorrow, I believe, is December 1, and the contact period begins. So we'll be hitting the road tomorrow afternoon and, you know, we've got to go‑‑ we've got players identified. We've got to go try to battle for them. Q. Is there one positive of not getting the ball the correct time, is it a more complete focus on recruiting? COACH BLANKENSHIP: You know, one of the things that we've tried to look at is‑‑ I don't know that there's a whole lot of positives to be honest with you with not playing in a Bowl. I would always trade any of the hard negatives for any potential positive of not playing. But what we've tried to do is we're trying to study some programs that have been in similar situations; you know, Missouri, Houston. There's several out there that if you look just a year ago, they didn't make a Bowl game and then they flip it around and they are playing really well. So we are trying to visit with those folks that we have contacts with and try to figure out how to take advantage of the time we have. Q. There's always the pressure of being a head coach of a Division I football program, but with the season that happens, do you feel any particular pressure now to get it done? COACH BLANKENSHIP: Yeah. But not really any more than‑‑ I just‑‑ I think that, again, we probably have a hard time expressing how much pressure you have internally to begin with. You know, anything outside pales in comparison to the expectations I have of myself and so how does that all weigh into it? I can tell you this, 3‑9 is totally unacceptable. You know, I think we have got some‑‑ you know, you can certainly find excuses, but why. I mean, that's just not what we're about. Q. Is that what fortifies your intensity to get it fixed, knowing that in sports, it may take you years to build something, but it can just go away overnight. COACH BLANKENSHIP: Success is a fragile thing in programs and you have to be careful about that. And so that's certainly one of the things that we would like to believe and we're going to find out the spring and next fall. But we like to believe that we've built a base here. We were able to redshirt the bulk of two‑‑ our first two classes. We didn't get to redshirt as many this year. We're going to be better from a physical standpoint. But again, we've got big shoes to fill. I mean, the guys you all mentioned earlier, those are big‑time players, and so do we have those in our program that will step in and become those players? Fortunately most of the guys we talked about were not those kind of players as freshmen. Some of them were not that kind of player as a sophomore but they became that. So hopefully we have got those guys here and we're going out and recruiting the other ones we don't have. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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