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TICKETCITY CACTUS BOWL: WASHINGTON v OKLAHOMA STATEDecember 31, 2014Mike GundyTEMPE, ARIZONA THE MODERATOR: We'll have some opening remarks from Coach Gundy and then go to questions. COACH GUNDY: Again, I just want to thank TicketCity, obviously the Cactus Bowl, the volunteers in the Tempe area. We've had a great three or four days, accommodations. Everybody involved with the bowl, as always, has been terrific. For the families, children, support staff and everybody, it's been a great few days. Very enjoyable time. Looking forward to practice today and walk‑throughs tomorrow, then the game. It's a good football team we're playing. A well‑coached football team. I've said that a number of times. So it will be an interesting game for us. Could very well be the best pass‑rushing group our offense has faced with three defensive linemen, outside linebacker, defensive linemen, All‑Americans. We're looking forward to the game. If anybody has any questions at this time, and we also do selfies here (smiling). We'll do that either way. Q. When did you realize that offensively you might be all right the last couple games? COACH GUNDY: Rudolph has played pretty well. I said this after the Oklahoma game. He's made some mistakes that freshmen make. But the thing that he's given our team is some toughness. For whatever reason sometimes players light a spark with your team, and he's given us that. In fact, I know there's not ever a time we thought that it would change. We've protected better in the last two games than we did through that difficult middle‑of‑the‑season stretch. Des Roland has run the football a little better. That's contributed to some success. One of the key areas in this game is whether we can protect and give him a chance versus a team that's been really good at rushing the quarterback. Q. (No microphone.) COACH GUNDY: It's been unusual. Of course, we played on the road, neutral site, to open, then we were home for a month. Really, when you get into the meat of the season, which is October, November, we had two home games for the most part. It's kind of been an unusual season. But for him, he's really worked hard. He seems to be very focused. It's encouraging that he's showed some toughness and grit in playing on the road at really two tough places, two teams that traditionally have been difficult to beat at home. I'm sure the fans have told him what it's meant. He's been a hot, big hit on campus. He's really handled himself well. One of you guys asked me before the Oklahoma game, the week prior, would it be to his advantage that he didn't grow up in the state and doesn't know what all is involved. It very well could be. Sometimes young players just go out there and play. He certainly didn't have anything to lose. As I said, he made some mistakes. For the most part he competed and showed some toughness. That's really what we needed. I said this when we had the press conference at the stadium before we came out here, Daxx gave us a lot this year. He went through a tough stretch. We appreciate what he brought to the table. He took a lot of hits and continued to fight. One thing we'll never know is how could have Rudolph held up if he had gone through ‑ for lack of a better term ‑ beating. We'll never know. In moving forward, we're excited about where we're at. Receivers are getting adjusted to Mason somewhat. We need Des and Rennie to make some plays for us running the football. Q. (Question regarding Coach Petersen.) COACH GUNDY: You know, I don't want to put myself in a category with certain coaches. But there's a number of similarities between coach, myself, his staff, our staff, in kind of the way we've progressed over the last five, six years of his career and my career. I don't ever look at bowl records, but he's 5‑3, I'm 5‑3. He has won a Fiesta Bowl. I won a Fiesta Bowl. Their offense, defense, special teams, when you look at them and look at us, there's a lot of similarities in, We have to try to find a way to manufacture some yards, manufacture some points. I've watched him for a number of years because he's on at like 11:00 at night till 1:00 in the morning at home. They play those Wednesday and Thursday night games in the WAC, when he was in that conference. They would be on late at night or on a Thursday. I'm sure he's enjoyed seeing some of the things that we've done. I've seen some of the things that he does, which can be an issue for a team. It takes a lot of work to prepare for this team. Hopefully we've dotted our Is and crossed our Ts, because they do a lot of things from a scheme standpoint that give them a chance to win. Q. Was Texas the low point? After the game you said, I think we're getting better. Did you ever have any doubt you would turn it around? COACH GUNDY: Yes, this season, just because we were so young. We made the transition where we moved Zac Veatch from guard to tight end. He is a tight end. He's not an offensive lineman. In the situation we were presented this year, we had to move him at guard. We went through that stretch. Particularly at Texas, with those two inside players, they would just come off and grab Zac and throw him down, run in the backfield, hit Daxx. What it meant after that game, and I tried to be as honest as possible in the postgame, there was nothing we could do. It's like being 200 out from the green, you got to hit it up on the green to putt to tie it, all you have in your bag is a 7‑iron. Going to be hard. Shouldn't say that. A lot of guys can hit a 200‑yard 7‑iron, but not in this room (laughter). The point is, that's where it was tough for me because it's enjoyable to be in a situation where if you're scheming, drawing plays up, you're getting rag dolled a little bit, it's difficult to have success. We decided to make a move, put a freshman in at guard, put Veatch outside. That helped us some. Maybe should have done it earlier, but Zac has always given us such effort you think at times great effort is going to help you. When you play guys as good as they were, it was really difficult. Q. Then you go to Baylor. COACH GUNDY: Played a little better. Looked like an offense. Our guys played good. Mason made a few throws, scrambled, converted a couple first downs. That one was scary because there was 12 minutes to go in the first quarter and we were behind 14‑0. You start thinking, It's going to be difficult to dig out of this. Our guys from that point on actually played well enough to be a decent football team during the season. The open week that we had prior to Oklahoma helped us considerably. It gave us a chance to work the freshmen lineman, get Zac back at tight end, let a freshman quarterback get more reps. I joked with Hoover at Kansas State. He asked if bowl practice would help. I told him, It wouldn't matter. He didn't even fire back at me. Wasn't even any fun. Like he felt bad for me (smiling). We've had 12 practices now. You have to realize, 12 practices is essentially spring ball. In spring practice we get 15. You only really get 13 practices. We've already had 12 now, and they've been fairly heavy practices. We got another spring and hopefully it's helped our players improve in a lot of different areas. Q. Did you see that coming with Mason this season, he was starting to make a move? COACH GUNDY: You know, it's interesting. You hate to ever talk about a player, especially a guy that's only played two games. We like where he's at. He still makes mistakes, as I said. Most guys do at that point in their career. The word on the street was for whatever reason, in his last two or three years, he played better in games than he actually would in practice a lot of times. We hear that a lot in recruiting, that he's a gamer. That's not what you want to see. I want to see somebody do it in practice, then give them a chance to be a gamer. He's played fairly well in games. One of the things that made it difficult for us was we were very average up front this year and immature. When our twos were out there, it wasn't pretty. How can you tell if a quarterback can develop if he's behind a group of guys that can't protect him. He's running for his life. So that contributed. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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