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BIG 12 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMEDecember 1, 2007Chase DanielGary PinkelMartin RuckerTony TempleLorenzo WilliamsSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS PETER IRWIN: Comments from Coach Pinkel. Your comments about the season. COACH GARY PINKEL: Oklahoma played exceptionally well. They're a great football team. They caused us obviously a lot of problems. In the red zones, we had three field goals and when they got in the red zone they scored every time. Disappointed we had some mental errors and penalties, things like that. You give them all the credit. They did all the things that it takes to win in a big game. And they deserve credit for that. PETER IRWIN: Questions. Q. First off, Chase Coffman didn't play at all. Is he going to need surgery before the Bowl game? COACH GARY PINKEL: No, I think he'll be okay. Some bone spurs in there. Probably do it afterwards. But we think he'll get back 100 percent. Q. The other thing is turnovers that hurt you in the last two years against Oklahoma, you only made one tonight. But your players seemed to think, wow, that was the gut shot? COACH GARY PINKEL: Well, but there's a lot of things you can do afterwards. You go out there and stop them, hold them to a field goal, that's the first thing you do. We just had a receiver that didn't look for the ball. He was wide open. Chase threw it to him, he made a mental error didn't see the ball. Did a great job, got it tipped. What you have to do, you have to go out and respond defensively and hold them to 3. Give them credit. They got scores every time they were in the red zone. And that certainly was difficult. I think we later on came back out, too. We had opportunities. First half our defense stops them. We get the ball, we drive it all the way down field and they do a great job defensively, they back us up out of field goal range. I thought that was really huge in that football game. Another time it was huge it was down to I think a two-score game and they had a penalty and 1st and 20 and they gained two yards and we had a personal foul. Gave them the 1st down. They went down and scored. So they did the things -- you have to do certain things in games like this to win, and I think you give them credit. They did it. Q. What's the mood in the locker room and, also, do you consider this season a success in spite of not having a chance to play for the National Championship now? COACH GARY PINKEL: I would like to think if you're 11-2 it's somewhat of a success. I think what happens is certainly we, our players are very disappointed. That's what they should be. They're competitors. We'll get over this and learn from it and be a better football team like we've done in the past, you learn from these things and hopefully next time we're in this type of game we play better. Q. Obviously, everybody kind of finds out how things shake out tomorrow. I know you're not generally into politicking at all, but you make your case, this is a team that deserves to be in a BCS Bowl game? COACH GARY PINKEL: I don't think that's -- what I say right now isn't going to make any difference anyway. I think we have a heck of a football team. It's only three and 11-1 teams in the nation going into the game after the regular season. So I think that it speaks volumes. And I think we have a really good football team and hopefully it will work out, whatever will work out the best. Q. Chase, turnovers hurt you guys against Oklahoma each of the last two years. Did you go into this game thinking you had to be perfect? After all, there was only one turnover but it was a big one? CHASE DANIEL: Yeah, we just had to limit our mistakes. That was our mind set. We were going to attack, still going to do stuff we felt comfortable with. And we did it for the most part. We just gotta turn -- you know, in the red zone we got to turn them into touchdowns. Set up for field goals, and it's great and stuff like that, but when they're scoring, we have to score as well. Q. Martin, were you expecting that pass? MARTIN RUCKER: No, I wasn't. But it's on me. When I got to the sidelines, Chase new it was coming early, the coach knew it was coming early, but seemed like I was the only person that didn't know the ball was coming when it did, and so that's my fault. Q. Any of you guys that want to answer. Is it too soon to look back and still look at the ride and think what a season this was for all you guys or can you do that already? MARTIN RUCKER: It's too soon. The season's not over yet. This game didn't turn out the way we wanted it to so we don't have -- definitely not tonight we don't have any reason to rejoice. LORENZO WILLIAMS: I feel the same way. It's definitely too soon to go back and say what a season we had because we definitely didn't accomplish our goal. So we'll take care of that next week, but right now it's not a fun time right now. Q. What's the status of Danario Alexander? COACH GARY PINKEL: He has a knee problem. I'm not sure if it's PCL. Possibly some other issues there. We're going to have to look at it, get an MRI. But serious enough that he could not play the second half. What his status would be for the Bowl game, right now I have no idea. We'll have to wait and find out the beginning of next week. Q. The first game you guys sounded like you thought you let one slip away against Oklahoma. How do you feel coming out of this one? LORENZO WILLIAMS: They outplayed us today. They came in. Didn't make very many mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes. They were really physical with us. We were physical with them. At times we weren't. They definitely played well enough to win today. Q. Chase, you and Curtis went toe to toe in the third quarter after the sack. Do you feel it changed the game, the momentum? Because seemed like after that they woke up, so to speak? CHASE DANIEL: I don't think so. Two competitors going at it are going to do it. But for the most part we just didn't play up to our potential. We didn't play like we wanted to. We practiced pretty well all week, expected to play well and don't know why we didn't. But mistakes are magnified in games like this. Q. Chase, obviously you have a couple of bad memories here in San Antonio. Can you just talk about disappointment? CHASE DANIEL: It's very disappointing when you practice as well as you do the whole week and go into this game expecting to compete and expecting to win a Big 12 Championship. Of course it hurts. But we've had a great season, and this one hurt for a while. We had some time off. We had some time away from football, get our head straight, get back for Bowl practice and get better as a football player. Q. Chase, this is the first game of the season you didn't throw a touchdown. Were you seeing different looks out there? What was the defense doing tonight? CHASE DANIEL: I mean, they did exactly what we thought they would. But for the most part we just didn't execute on offense. We had our scoring chances down the red zones. But we settled for field goals. Against a great team like Oklahoma, you can't do that. So for us that's a main thing that we need to get fixed for the Bowl game is trying to get touchdowns instead of field goals and sometimes it doesn't work for you. Q. Coach, can you just talk about the big plays that your secondary let up? COACH GARY PINKEL: Yeah, they made some great catches, number one. Number two, we had some guys out of position. We had some guys that made some errors that didn't get back in the deep pass or deep middle. Just talking about some mental errors that we had. Those are disappointing. And you just can't -- in games like this, there's no way you can do it. Q. I don't know if you answered this question. How good were you feeling after the two-point conversion going into halftime? COACH GARY PINKEL: I felt pretty good at halftime. Got some momentum back. We were playing heck of a football team and I thought our whole football team felt very positive. Went in, but, you know, again, like I said, we came out, our defense stops them. We drive and then we go backwards and get knocked out of field goal range. I thought that was huge on their part. Then we had some other opportunities. You just -- then we got into a three-score game. They ran the football and did a good job of that. You have to give them credit. Q. Chase or Tony, Coach mentioned a couple times that Maclin got you guys to the 25, then three straight plays you're going backwards. Is that the series you kind of look at is one that really hurt? TONY TEMPLE: It's always disappointing when you don't get an opportunity to score when you get that close in the red zone. Yeah, it was very disappointing. We had momentum going in we just couldn't execute. But that's on us and we have to get the job done. CHASE DANIEL: They made plays when we didn't, and that's the bottom line. Inside the red zone, it's usually lights off for us. We're one of the top teams in the nation in scoring touchdowns in the red zone. And they stepped up at the time they needed to. Q. Chase, looked like one of the plays you had crossed the goal line for a touchdown but it was not ruled a touchdown and, Gary, any thoughts about maybe trying to get an instant replay slow things down before the actual next play developed? COACH GARY PINKEL: What happened, I got the word from the press box that the ball was -- his body, but the ball didn't go across, that's what I was told from the press box. So I didn't replay it for that reason. Q. Chase, were you in? CHASE DANIEL: I thought I was at the beginning. And laying on the ground, people were saying, Touchdown, touchdown. I saw the line judge almost raise his hands up then they were talking about it for a good while and asking, Was he in, was he in? And we weren't in, and that was obviously a big point in the game. Q. Martin, you came back for your senior year, you go through this great season you get this close, what's the emotion you have right now? MARTIN RUCKER: Just disappointment right now. It's not just for me but for everybody in the locker room. We fought and battled so hard all season long, all game long in this game. And the drive where we got down to the 25 and had the three negative plays, that wasn't in our favor. And then we come out the next time, have a miscue and an interception return, five-yard line something like that you can't do that in any football game let alone the Big 12 against a team like Oklahoma. And it's just too bad it worked out that way. PETER IRWIN: Gentlemen, thank you very much and best of luck. End of FastScripts |
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