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CHICK-FIL-A PEACH BOWL: HOUSTON VS FLORIDA STATE

December 29, 2015

Atlanta, Georgia

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Houston offensive coordinator Major Applewhite, quarterback Greg Ward, Jr., and wide receiver Demarcus Ayers. Coach, I'll ask you to kick us off and maybe just say a few words about how the bowl week experience has been for the coaching staff so far and maybe how it compares to other trips you've had and how preparations are going.

COACH APPLEWHITE: Absolutely. The guys have had a great time here thus far. Atlanta has been extremely hospitable, Chick-fil-A and the Peach Bowl have been hospitable in everything that they've done. The guys had a great time. I've been fortunate, lucky, blessed, all those things to have gone to some great bowl games -- Rose bowls, Cotton bowls, holiday bowls, Alamo bowls. This is a first-rate bowl, first-class in the way they handle it. Everything's been great for our guys. It's been a long year, it's been a hard year. These guys had their off week after the second week of the season. So they've been grinding, and then they've been grinding the last three or four weeks in preparation for this game and ready to go against this opponent.

THE MODERATOR: Greg, what's been the highlight of the bowl week for you so far?

GREG WARD, JR.: This is my first time ever being in Atlanta. The whole team has been excited about the events and practice has been going very well. We've been practicing very hard all week.

And we're really getting closer and we're just getting excited.

DEMARCUS AYERS: The same thing here, this is my first time really getting experiencing Atlanta, just seeing the Hall of Fame room and getting to see that for the first time in my life, seeing all those helmets from the different universities and seeing all those rich traditions from college football history, it was amazing. Some of them I've never seen my entire life and look forward to going back there in a couple of years from now, hopefully be in that room with some --

THE MODERATOR: Are we going to see you in there one day?

DEMARCUS AYERS: Hopefully. I hope so.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Major, you're getting back your running backs or your backfield healthy with Farrow and Jackson, and I believe Ben Dew will also play. What does that do for your offense that for the first time in a long time you're able to put a healthy product back on the field?
COACH APPLEWHITE: Well, Ben hasn't played in three months. It's still -- the jury is still out in terms of how healthy he is -- he's not played in a football game. But it helps in terms of depth, honestly just from a practice standpoint. When you're that depleted at the offensive line position, those guys don't get a break.

When you're down to seven, eight, offensive linemen there's no second group to roll in there. To have a backup to be able to at least practice, at least gets the first-team guard off the field so it's help from that standpoint.

Kenneth is a guy who is just a tremendous competitor. He works his tail off each and every day. He's a great team guy, great teammate. Again, he hasn't played in a few weeks.

To say he's 100 percent is a lie. But he's a guy who is going to fight through things and he's going to tough through things because he cares about his teammates and he loves the game and he knows this is the last chance he gets to put on the pads here at Houston.

So I think it will help us. I think it's great from just the standpoint of having two seniors who have played in a lot of football games regardless of whether they haven't played in the last month or two, great to have two guys with experience to be back in that huddle on that sideline.

Q. What do you guys -- obviously the goal is to win, but what are you hoping to get out of this experience besides just a win?
DEMARCUS AYERS: Just playing against a great opponent in Florida State, with their great tradition, going into next year it creates a lot of momentum for us. We've got a lot of guys coming back and things like that. So they create a lot of momentum going into next season and seeing where we are as a team and how we face up against -- as you would all say, the big Power 5 conferences -- is a great thing to see, and we want to see where we're at. I think we match up really well with those guys.

GREG WARD, JR.: Just like Demarcus was saying, seeing where the team's mindset is and how we're going to attack this team and just like he was saying just leading over to next year, obviously this is a big game. But this will also set the tone for us next year.

Q. How important is it to leave this legacy, like this game being a platform for the future of the University of Houston for years?
DEMARCUS AYERS: This will be our first 13-win season I believe. So what we've done, we've already laid the foundation for years to come with Coach Herman and his staff, just to come here and win 12 games has been an amazing thing for us. It's something that we've never seen, and for me personally it's, I don't want it to end. I wish we could play three or four more games this season because it's been that great, the relationships we've built with these coaches just in 12 months. The sky's the limit for this program and just to see -- you don't want to see, you don't want it to end. It's special when we embrace every moment we have with these guys.

GREG WARD, JR.: It's going to be a lot of motivation during the offseason for us to work harder. And to face another big opponent in Oklahoma and we just have to come ready and be ready, just go out there and compete, that's all it is.

Q. Major, when you look back at your decision to join this program, obviously you had a year off and kind of reestablished yourself, took some time off, got away -- what was the thought process to join this program, link up with Tom Herman and kind of in a good sense restart your career with the Cougars?
COACH APPLEWHITE: First of all, they were going to cut the water off if you don't start working again. So that was one of the reasons to go to Houston was to get a paycheck. The second thing is, Houston's always traditionally won games. I remember that, growing up in Baton Rouge and going to Tiger Stadium watching Craig (sic) Clements and Antowain Smith take LSU down to the wire in '96. I remember watching those guys put up 95 points against SMU one year, open the newspaper as a kid, just seeing the winning tradition here. So I knew about it.

And I remember being a player at Texas, and we had Houston on our schedule a couple times, and it was one of those situations where the coaches are hollering, screaming at you all week, like you better get your mind right; you're not playing a Big 12 opponent, but get your mind right. You get out there, look up in the second quarter and it's a dogfight. You know there's a great program there. There's great tradition.

Coach Yeoman and others have won games there. And Coach Briles is someone recently. But you knew there was a great tradition before those two guys got there. So then that coupled with the fact that there's six, seven million people in the surrounding area, a lot of great football players.

If you draw a line straight from Houston up to Dallas and hang a right and go all the way through East Texas, there's plenty of great football players in that area and the Houston area to field a competitive football team.

So all those things were there regardless of who the coach was. And so that excited me from that standpoint from a program standpoint. And then you get a chance to work with someone that you know, someone that you respect, and then there's people he brings in on the staff that you know as well. So it was a comfortable situation and it was -- and Houston is a great town. It's one of the best cities in this country. So it was a no-brainer for my wife and my daughter and I. It was a great family move.

Q. Demarcus, you used the air quotes when referring to Florida State being one of the Power 5 conferences. Is that something that you're tired of hearing about when people look at you and your schedule?
DEMARCUS AYERS: Somewhat, because I feel like we match up well with any team in the country. We have just as good talent as anyone in the country. That's one of the goals we're working towards is getting into those Power 5s. That's why we're bringing in coaches like Coach Herman and Coach Applewhite and bringing in players like Greg and myself, to put ourselves in the position to win games every year so we can be in the Power 5 conference. I love playing against a Power 5 school.

We get to see what type of team we have and what kind of players we have compared to everyone else in the country.

Q. Coach or players, can you talk a little bit about the Florida State defense? They're the only defense in the country that has allowed more than 25 points in a single game this year. Could you just talk about the task you guys have at hand?
COACH APPLEWHITE: They're a great defense. I mean, they've got exceptional talent across the board. They play great inside. They've got great defensive players.

Coach Haggins has been doing it for three decades over there, finding defensive linemen that can push it upfield. And the linebackers are experienced. The senior players, on the edges. Jalen, those guys play well in man coverage. They play with good eyes. The young freshman at safety, James, No. 3, he plays with great feel for the game.

Unless you look at the roster, you wouldn't see "freshman" next to his name because he seems to have great feel for the football game. And they're a great defense, and that's what great defenses do.

And Coach Kelly has done a phenomenal job of putting those guys into positions to make plays, but at the same time all these guys are competitors. Every team has competitors on it. And these guys are competitors and they're fighters. That's one thing I love about our football team. Doesn't matter whether we're going into Louisville or whether a highly ranked Memphis team or whoever it is, an SEC team, Vanderbilt is coming into our house, it doesn't matter, these guys fight.

That's one of the biggest compliments I think you can have as a coach, not so much your scheme because that's just written on paper, but how your guys fight, how they believe in themselves. And so I'm looking forward to our guys competing.

Q. Greg, could you pretend that Major is not sitting next to you so you can say whatever you want, but what's his offensive reign like, in terms of preparing for games, in games, his ability to challenge you and get the absolute best out of you talent-wise, leading this offense?
GREG WARD: I'm going to go back to spring and two-a-days. Those days were tough. And he had his foot on me the whole spring in two-a-days. We worked so hard together. He challenged me in the film room and on the field to just see things without him even telling me. And I just appreciate everything he's done for me.

Q. What about you, Demarcus, concerning Major and what he brings to the offense?
DEMARCUS AYERS: First off, I think one thing that's unique about Coach Applewhite, he has a great relationship with his players. He's a player's coach. He puts us in situations to be comfortable.

He don't ask us to do anything we're not capable of doing. If anything, he pushes us to be better at the things we're not so good at and continue to build on the things we are good at.

So just him bringing out the best in his best players and pushing his best players in practice to be the best players every day, in scaling everyone around them to make them better -- I mean rallying everyone around them to make them better.

Q. As you guys take a step away from football today, getting to go to the children's hospital and everything, what do you guys as players get out of that experience?
DEMARCUS AYERS: When you look up on Saturdays, you see us in uniform and us doing chants and getting really excited about playing, but behind closed doors there's a lot more that goes into it. And just to see smiles on kids' faces and sign those autographs and give them your gloves and your headbands and hug their families and take pictures with them, that's the most special thing about this game to me.

When I look up on Sundays and watch those NFL guys visit those hospitals and give back to their community and going and passing out turkeys on Thanksgiving Day and being around those families, I think that's the most special thing that you could possibly have within this game.

GREG WARD, JR.: It just makes you appreciate life more and what God has blessed you with, seeing kids like that and seeing a smile on their face. Whenever us players step in and just talk to them, shake their hands and things like that, I'm just overjoyed at seeing children look up to us.

Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by running back Kenneth Farrow, offensive tackle Alex Cooper and tight end Tyler McCloskey. Guys, let's start with an opening statement, talk about how bowl week experience has gone for you so far, maybe what your favorite event has been and then we'll start taking some questions.

KENNETH FARROW: It's been awesome. Chick-fil-A has done an awesome job with everything they've done. Extremely thankful to be here, and I think everybody had a lot of fun last night at the go-karts, racing those things around, everybody had a good time on track, I saw a couple of wipeouts but it went pretty good.

TYLER MCCLOSKEY: Great time as well. This is my first time visiting Atlanta, city is great. Chick-fil-A and Peach Bowl has done a great job welcoming us to the city.

It doesn't hurt that I love Chick-fil-A and any chance we get to have a Chick-fil-A sandwich is an added bonus. My favorite event was definitely the go-karts, like Kenneth said, there was some wipeouts, but it was fun to compete against each other.

ALEX COOPER: Just feeling really blessed to be here. This program is a real players-first type of deal. They've been treating us amazing. My favorite event was actually the hall of fame. It was cool to see all that history and tailgate and all that stuff. It's been wonderful and I'm so blessed and happy to be here.

THE MODERATOR: When Florida State was here they were talking a lot about this being their opportunity for their 50th win for their seniors, and that being the first time in college football history that that's happened. Is that something that you guys are aware about? Do you talk about it? Is that any sort of motivation to maybe prevent that type of history being made against you; what do you guys think about it.

KENNETH FARROW: That's great for them. But I don't think we're too worried about that. We know we've got another chance, another opportunity to go out and play a football game and I think that's how we've approached every game this year, taking it week-to-week and going out there and playing a full 60 minutes and seeing what happens at the end.

THE MODERATOR: Tyler, any extra motivation for you?

TYLER MCCLOSKEY: 50 wins would be an incredible accomplishment for them, but for me, not really. The game's going to be about us. It's going to be about what we need to do to win. Yes, they have great players, but it's going to be about us executing our game plan and playing hard for each other.

ALEX COOPER: I don't think it's any extra motivation. You never want to go in the record books on the losing side, and we'll try our best to keep them from celebrating that.

Q. FSU is the only team in the country that's not allowed a team to score more than 25 points in a game. The only loss you guys had you were only able to score 17 points. How important will it be for you to come out and strike early and fast so you guys can stay in this game?
KENNETH FARROW: It's going to be huge. Like you said, they have one of the best defenses in the nation, and they play great. They play fast, and they're a physical team.

So to give our defense kind of a little bit of a break and try to get them off the field and keep possessions going and things like that is going to be huge for us.

I think it's a big week for us. We've got a lot of people back that we've been missing. So it's going to be huge for us to get started, to get rolling early and get our rhythm going.

TYLER MCCLOSKEY: It's always big to score points in a football game because that's what you're trying to do, but for about half of that UConn game we didn't have Kenneth in the backfield, and he's one of the best running backs in the nation. And it really makes my job easy blocking whenever he can run over a guy that I miss. So it's very important to score points. And it's very important to strike early and let Florida State know that we came to play.

Q. Guys, Demarcus Ayers earlier said he doesn't want the season to end he wants two, three, four, five more games. Could you talk about that the special ride you guys have been on?
ALEX COOPER: It's been fun. Our coaches do a great job of making it a real family atmosphere. We have family Fridays where we play games before the game and it's a lot about as much as we focus to kind of relax, too. But our game days are amazing. We get to the top right before the game and we try to strike and go 100 miles per hour. It's just fun to be in that environment. And Coach Herman always has us competing in everything we do. It will be hard to be done with our games and not being able to compete against somebody. But it's been such a great ride.

TYLER MCCLOSKEY: I still feel like we just reported for camp and it's August and we're doing two-a-days, so absolutely I would love to have five, six, seven more games with these seniors. Like Coop said, it's a family atmosphere. We play for each other. It's never about the name on the back. It's about what can I sacrifice so Farrow can score this touchdown. What can I sacrifice so that Demarcus can make the play. So it's all about the guys around us and absolutely five, six, seven more games would be great.

KENNETH FARROW: Yeah, it's huge. Me and Coop, fifth-year seniors, and we came in and saw guys like Case Keenum and Patrick Edwards and those guys win a bunch of games. And I think that's something, being in the position we're in right now, it doesn't happen a lot, and it's something that doesn't come around too often.

So to be able to go out there, like I said, just have another opportunity to get out there on the football field and win another game and see all the guys on the team celebrating to kind of relive that championship moment one more time for these guys, because you don't know how many opportunities you're going to get at a chance like this.

So just go out there, take advantage, and really just leave it all out there for the guys on the team is what we look to go do.

Q. Mainly for Alex and Kenneth: As seniors, how important would it be for you guys to capture this Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl win, and would it be for you guys a statement win, and would you feel that Houston is now back where they were in their glory days?
ALEX COOPER: It's huge. Like Kenneth said, like every moment, we cherish every moment. Our days are really numbered, wearing our Houston uniform. So to go out with a win would be amazing. We always talk about leaving a legacy. As greatest the season was, another win would be the cherry on top.

So we would love to hoist that trophy and to bring Houston back to where it was, even to a higher plateau, that would be amazing to put our name on that.

KENNETH FARROW: Definitely, like I said, seniors that's been here, been through a lot of ups and downs, a lot of coaching changes, to finally go into this year with a coach like Herman and him bringing the things that he's brought to us, just the work ethic, the accountability, it's really showed throughout the season and the success that we had and to go out and, like he said, win this game would definitely top it off, and really kind of set these younger guys up going forward, and that's something we talked about a lot.

We wanted nothing more but to be in this position as seniors but also to set these guys up going forward for the next couple of years, get them rolling.

Q. The goal is obviously to get to this point or beyond, but with a new coach and not knowing what to expect, was there a moment early on or during the season where you thought that this was possible or it wasn't just a goal, that it could actually become a reality?
KENNETH FARROW: You know, having been here the last couple of years, like I said, going through some of the ups and downs, I don't know how many games we walked off the field with the last second, last play of the game just coming up just a play short. We knew we had the capability to be in this position when Coach Herman came in, and right away we kind of got that feeling that this guy, he knows what he's doing and he's going to be the guy that can really lead us to take that next step and get us over that little hump that we kept falling short on.

So I think this was everybody's expectation to be in an atmosphere in a game like this, and it's been great. And like I said, we want to go out there and take advantage of the opportunity we have.

TYLER MCCLOSKEY: I remember back, last December, it was whenever Coach Herman was still with Ohio State, it was the first time he had addressed us as a team and he talked about how hard we were going to work and how much of a family atmosphere it was going to be and how much we were going to love each other and it was going to be the hardest offseason in college football history.

And we were leaving that meeting, and I was actually talking to Coop in the locker room, we were talking about, like Farrow said, how many games did we lose on the last play by a touchdown, and how many games were decided by two or three plays.

I remember talking to Coop about: Man, we're going to work this hard and work that much harder, with the players that we had, like Farrow said, this was definitely expected. This is where we wanted to be and anything less would have been a disappointment.

ALEX COOPER: Comes down to training. I truly believe we're the best-trained team in America. Coach is driving it into us every day. When you're that well trained, when you get into those moments of uncertainty, you look at each other and you're like: We're going to do this, doesn't matter how much we're down, what the odds are, we're going to come out with a win. It's such a great feeling to have something like that. You look at your brothers and they're ready to win. And it just makes you want to go that much harder.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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