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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: OKLAHOMA VS TEXASDecember 1, 2018Lincoln RileyTre BrownKyler MurrayGrant CalcaterraTre NorwoodArlington, Texas Oklahoma - 39 Texas - 27 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Oklahoma team. Congratulations, Coach, on your win. If you would like to make a couple of opening comments? LINCOLN RILEY: Yeah, we're thrilled by the victory. I mean, it's been a challenging year, which they all are. None of the previous three here were easy by any stretch. This one certainly wasn't either, but to sit here now as the fourth time defending Big 12 champion, man, that sounds good. It took a lot from these guys here and the players and the coaches in that room. When the rest of the world didn't believe in them they believed in themselves and that's why we're sitting here with this trophy right down here. That's part of the program. That's the expectations of this program with the great players and coaches before us built and it's just in every fiber of this program. You can feel it. It's a great place to be. I want to congratulate Coach Herman and Texas. What a tremendous year they had. They did a phenomenal job. We had two really hard-fought games with them, including the one today. It's surreal right now. I think everybody expected that we would be here. This is where we felt like we would be at the end of the year, but when you've got to go through the ups and downs, you've got to believe in yourselves. Our players did it, our coaches did and another big year for the Big 12, extremely competitive week-in and week-out. I think our conference right now is doing nothing but continuing to get stronger, and I think you can see that across all the improvements these teams are all making and how good the games are every single week. This is great football. This was a great football game today and we got a great football team behind us here at OU. Q. Kyler, your offense has been carrying the defense a lot of the time. Today your defense came up huge. Defense performance all day, what did it do for you and what did the Tre Brown safety in the fourth quarter do for you guys? KYLER MURRAY: It's something we talked about last night at our meeting behind closed doors, but we felt like we played together on all sides of the ball. That's a good team up there in West Virginia, but I feel like we found ourselves. Defense came up big last week and this week. When we weren't scoring they got stops and that's how football is supposed to be played. I think it was a great team win today, tonight, this morning, yeah. Q. Lincoln, to carry on with that, every week, although defensive stats didn't always look good you said they always contributed. Tonight they did more, got the stops, safety and all that. Talk about the improvement from this game from the defensive side. LINCOLN RILEY: Like Kyler said, I thought we have taken big steps the last couple of weeks. Our defense has to play against what other people don't. Because people lineup against us and know that if they don't score 40, chance of winning that game aren't very high. So they see the best and the most aggressive of each and every offense every single week. There is no doubt there's been things we have needed to do better. We haven't run away from that but we've also felt a lot of confidence of the coaches and players in that room that they would step up when it mattered the most and we did where with two big defensive touchdowns last week or we wouldn't be sitting in Dallas this week, or in Arlington. Today, we continue to take steps. We're a young defense in that we've got a long of young players and we revamped at mid-season. I feel like we're improving faster than maybe you would expect this time of year because for defense in a lot of ways we're mid-season. They were awesome today. They were. You take away a couple of those third and longs, I know you can't, but we put them in a lot of tough situations, made big plays, turned the ball over. They played just like we know they can play. I'm so proud of our guys there and excited about what they're going to do in the next one because I think we're going to do absolutely nothing but get better. Q. Kyler and Lincoln, you lost Marquise along the way, the run game wasn't always operating as efficiently as it normally did. You had to grind this out offensively. Do you take pride in being able to do that on a day where it was a little more difficult than it typically is? KYLER MURRAY: I mean, as far as the run game goes, they're a good team, but how much did we rush for? LINCOLN RILEY: 129. KYLER MURRAY: We threw the ball well. If they're going to sack the box, we got guys on the outside we can throw the ball. I thought we played well when we needed to, as far as running the ball. That one drive where we wasted a lot of clock, it's not easy when everybody knows you're going to run the ball and we still did it. Hats off to the linemen and the guys in the backfield that ran the ball well. LINCOLN RILEY: We've been thin in some areas, no question about it, and had to have some guys step up and look what Grant Calcaterra did, Lee Morris did, Charleston Rambo did, made that huge throwback catch on the crossing route. Guys continued to make plays and that's the expectation here, no matter who we have, no matter who is playing for us, no matter who gets hurt. The expectations are the same. Our guys lived up to it and fed off our defensive energy and made plays when we needed to. Q. Lincoln and Kyler and Grant, share your perspective on that clinching touchdown, the throw and the catch and the call, of course? LINCOLN RILEY: We wanted to give ourselves some options. Texas had been pretty aggressive down there in that area. So we wanted to have an option for Kyler to get rid of the ball quickly if we had the match-up that we liked. We called a play that gave us a few different options. Kyler was decisive. We did a good job picking up the blitz, which I thought we were pretty good on the majority of the day. We gave him time and we made a competitive play. In those situations when somebody outblitzes you, that's what you got to do. It's going to be competitive, and Kyler was decisive, made a great throw. Grant, great catch. Didn't love the spike there, Scrappy. But the catch, that catch will live on in Oklahoma history forever, what a play. KYLER MURRAY: Yeah, it's a route I've thrown a million times. I can't tell you how many times I've thrown that route since I got to this school. Something we work on every day, one-on-one's, routes on air and with this guy, I trust him, I thrust anybody in the receiving room we got. They all outblitzed us, and I was taking my chance when I saw the match-up and Grant made a great catch. GRANT CALCATERRA: There is not much I can say about it. It's something we do every Tuesday, one-on-one's, inside fade and all I had to do was make the play. The play call was there. It was up to me to make the competitive play. Q. Tre, what were you thinking when you realized you had a clear shot toward Sam Ehlinger? TRE BROWN: Everything went like, I don't know, I just see lights. Especially when I saw him do play-action pass, I was like, wow, I can't believe he just faked the ball, I got a green light and I took my shot and delivered. Q. Kyler, do you think you did everything you could or did enough to win over enough Heisman votes? KYLER MURRAY: I mean, I don't know. I just try to go out and play my game. Was worried about this game and this game only, all of that stuff will take care of itself. It was a great game today and I'm just glad we won. Q. For Tre and Tre, you watch the West Virginia game, you come up with a couple of big defensive plays and everybody has been asking you when you're going to build on some momentum defensively. Can you talk about what that meant for you guys both to make such big plays down the stretch and what this means for the defense moving forward? TRE NORWOOD: It comes with us playing as a whole. Our team played great tonight as a whole. I don't think he had any opportunities to get clean throws off and it's something we try to harp on each and every week to keep pressing forward and keep getting better as a group and coming out and playing our games. Those plays are going to come. I feel like we were in the right place at the right time and took advantage of those opportunities. TRE BROWN: Yeah, looking back at the West Virginia game, seeing what we could do and bodying that the sky is the limit for the defense, we started clicking and coming into this game, defense held it down, did a real good job helping out the offense, you know, when the offense was needing our help and we came through and did our job. Everybody was just doing their job and you see what happens. There's good results when you are doing your job and the defense comes through. Q. Lincoln, could you update Marquise Brown's situation and you started out working Marquise a lot and then CeeDee Lamb got hot. Just the thought process in that you have so many weapons and they helped you out today. LINCOLN RILEY: Marquise wasn't able to come back. I don't know anything further. It's a lower body injury, so we'll see how he does. Marquise was hot early, had a couple of things dialed up to him, we were close on a couple more and didn't quite make the play which was the story the first quarter for us, offensively. I wouldn't say there was anything more we tried to do, it was just the throw of the offense. Kyler did a great job getting through his positions and some of the balls were finding their way to CeeDee. He made some tremendous plays and I thought he was outstanding, other than the fumble on the sidelines, he was outstanding. We've got two good weapons out there. They've produced all year for us. That's been a big key to how explosive we've been. Q. Tre Brown, on your blitz, that resulted in the safety. Was that the first time you had blitzed today? Was that is a called blitz or an automatic check when you saw that Sam was doing play action? TRE BROWN: Yes, ma'am. It was the first time I blitzed today, and I felt like the coaches did a really good job knowing what was going on. They made a great call and sent me at the right time and I got home and made it happen. Q. Both Tre's, obviously you heard about Breckyn Hager and everything he said. Was that something that might have been talked about inside? Kind of feel vindicated you all stepping up today? TRE BROWN: No, we just control what we can control. We're not worried about the outside noise at all. Everything we do it in the locker room with our teammates and they're going to do what they're going to do and we're going to handle ourselves well and do what we do. TRE NORWOOD: Like Tre said, we don't worry about the outside noise, about what other people have to say. We know we have to come in each and every day and prepare ourselves and leading up to the game I felt like we did that very well this week. LINCOLN RILEY: Well done, boys. Q. For Grant and Kyler, several drives in this game you guys are nowhere without Nick Basquine at one point, Lee Morris on another drive, without Myles Tease on a couple of others. Charleston may have had just the one catch, but you can't do it without it. I mean, we are used to Marquise and CeeDee constantly, and Grant, but just, what does that say about you guys and whatever? Speak to it. KYLER MURRAY: I said it all year, we've got a great receiving room. Everybody sees the flash of Marquise and CeeDee, but they're not the only guys in that room. We all know what we have. These guys go to work every day and come to practice every day and work hard, work on their craft and you saw when the time came, we needed everybody today, and they stepped up. GRANT CALCATERRA: Yeah, I mean, I'm just going off that, we're really deep at the wide out position. I think that's something that gets overshadowed sometimes. We have guys everywhere. Like I said before, it's a matter of who is in the right spot at the right time. If you do your job you will make plays. It's just your job to make those plays when they come. Q. Coach, you've done the College Football Playoff thing before and you know what's ahead of you. Do you think you guys are playing good enough defense right now to win a national championship? LINCOLN RILEY: Yes, yes, I do. Q. Based on what? LINCOLN RILEY: Based on we've beat everybody on our schedule. You've got to win by win point in these games last time I checked. I feel like we can score points on people and I feel like we can stop people and kind of like in the previous question a few minutes ago, I feel like we're gaining traction defensively are. I feel like we have our highest performances in the last couple of weeks in huge games against dynamic offenses, and I don't think we've played our best yet this year and I think we're going to get there. I absolutely feel like it. I know how close we were to it last year, to being right there in the last one, and I have every bit as much confidence in this team, this offense, this defense and special teams as I did sitting on this stage last year at this time. I know we can. I have zero doubt. Q. Lincoln and Kyler, there's quite a few conference championships still going on this afternoon. How is the excitement of winning this maybe shadowed by the fact that you don't know if it's enough to make the playoff? LINCOLN RILEY: It's two separate things for us. It's goal number one for us was winning the Big 12 Championship for the fourth straight time, and we did that. No matter what happens for the rest of the day, no matter what they tell us tomorrow, there is another banner going up in our indoor, and another ring going on these guys' finger and another championship trophy going back to Norman, Oklahoma, and you can't take that away from us. I'm proud as hell of that. I think we have a playoff-worthy team and there are other factors we can't control. We've done all we can. We're 12-1 and one of the best teams in the country, and it's going to fall how it does and we will be excited for the next challenge, regardless of where it is. Q. Kyler and Lincoln, they started rushing three and dropping eight in the second quarter, and you picked 'em apart. How excited were you to see that? How clear was it to see the field? KYLER MURRAY: Yeah, I think, you know, the first game it was -- I don't want to say we weren't prepared, but it was just something different that they didn't really do. They weren't familiar with. We prepared this time. You play a lot of teams, a lot of teams started run willing the bring 3 drop 8 against us because at some point you've got to stop the throw. Like I said, we were more prepared this time coming around and the more you play against something, the more comfortable you get with it and I think as an offense, no panic when you see it. We kinda know where to attack it and on that drive we moved down the field, we needed to, it was crucial drive for us and put the ball in the end zone. Q. Lincoln, you're probably going to be going back to the Heisman ceremony next Saturday. Did you want to make a case for Kyler and why you think he should win it? LINCOLN RILEY: I know how these things go. This will be the third straight one we've been at. Most coaches, players, you don't every get to go to one of those in our life. I appreciate what it stands for. I know that one, you have to be a great player and you have to be a great player on a great team and Kyler is a great player on a great football team here and I know that would be the first thing he would say. I don't want to compare it to anybody else, because this guy has done a lot of special things. He's done things in college football that have never happened before, but I think the biggest thing for me is he had to do it in big moments. He had to do it with all the talk about Baker and replacing him and there is no chance you're going to be this good and he's had to continually make big plays in big games throughout the entire year and he's done that. He's been the most dynamic player in the country. The things he does, moving, the things he does throwing the football, how good he is mentally, I mean, you saw it today. You saw it today. There's a lot of other great ones out there. I get this, but our guy right here is pretty special. Q. Lincoln, you said you have confidence in the team -- LINCOLN RILEY: Don't let that get to your head. KYLER MURRAY: I won't. Q. You said you have confidence this team can win a national championship. You have to get to the playoff first, 12-1, won the Big 12 title, beat the only team you've lost this this year have you done never in your opinion to get into the playoff? LINCOLN RILEY: My opinion doesn't matter and I'm not on the Committee. We've given it everything we have. We have left everything that we've got out there this season. We got a great resume. Again, kind of like the Heisman question, I get there are other great teams out there, but I feel very confident that this team can go forward and continue to win and I think our best ball is ahead of us. Being able to do what this team has done is really remarkable. It really is. We've got some great players behind us. I think a lot of people don't want to play. We'll let the committee do their job. They've got a lot of good things to look at from this team today, I'm sure they were tuned in and watching this and if they did they saw one of the best teams in the country. THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, guys, and good luck at the next level. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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