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INSIGHT BOWL: MINNESOTA v KANSASDecember 31, 2008Dezmon BriscoeJames HoltMark ManginoKerry MeierTodd ReesingMike RiveraTEMPE, ARIZONA COACH MANGINO: All right. First of all, I want to take time to thank the Insight committee, again, for the great hospitality here. It has been awesome. Our players are just ranting and raving about the hospitality here. It has been first-class. You folks have really treated us very well, maybe better than we deserve. I would like to mention, Minnesota was a very good football team. I thought they were a hard-nosed team, played good fundamental football. Came to try to win the game. I mean, they did some things that we were not able to see on tape throughout 12 games and our players had to make adjustments, our coaches had to make adjustments on both sides of the ball. They had tremendous blitz pressure on defense versus our offense and our offense did a very good job. Our players adjusted well. Our offensive staff, I thought Ed Warinner called a really good game. He had a good field form. Our staff had a really good feel for the blitzes that were coming and how to deal with them. But they made plays. Give Minnesota credit. I want to say how proud I am of our players. I thought offense and defense collectively tonight played extremely well. The offense controlled the clock in the first half and got points up, and the defense made key stops even though they had bad field position at times. Our defense really played really outstanding, had a very courageous performance on defense. That goal line stand here at the near end was really impressive and really hurt Minnesota. Overall, very proud of these kids and all of our players. It has been a really tough year because of the conference we play in. Just a tough conference and we've played a lot of good football teams. But at the end of the day, we're proud to be part of the Big 12 conference and looking forward again to getting started and pursuing the games next season as soon as we get back from holiday break. I will take some questions. Q. Mark, could you just address the way that your linebackers seem to control the game in the second half and, also, Mike and James, if you could just talk about what it was like playing your final game at KU and what kind of legacy you think you guys have left. COACH MANGINO: Well, our linebackers -- let me answer it and then the players will respond. I thought they played really well. It was probably the best collective performance by all three in a game this season. I thought they ran the ball well. They played the pass-drops well. They played the gaps well, tackled well. We got pressure with Jimmy. Jimmy got three sacks coming off the edge and mixing it up with them. So they played -- they really played great. MIKE RIVERA: I can't tell you how thankful I am to be here at the Insight Bowl. It has been a great experience. I'm just glad our senior class and this KU football team could go out on an exclamation point and go into this next season with a lot of high hopes. I am looking forward to see what they can do. It has been a great experience here at KU and the university. I have loved being here. I am glad we got the last win of my career here. So it was great. JAMES HOLT: Yeah, like Mike said, I'm glad I'm here. KU legacy, we hope we leave, though, is for our new linebackers coming up and everybody that will be replacing the seniors, no matter how tough it gets, you will just grit your teeth and keep going. I think that's what our seniors were all about since we got here. We ran our butts off all the time. Starting January we have been doing winter workouts. I think that ultimately made us who we were and got us to where we were, just how hard we worked. Q. Kerry, what was better, receiving or passing for the touchdown today? KERRY MEIER: It didn't hurt throwing a touchdown pass. I guess it has been a while since I did one of them. I was as excited to get the chance to throw them around. If I had to say overall, I would probably say the touchdown throw. I have caught a couple this year and to get one thrown, it was a nice thing. Q. Coach, you talked about some things you didn't see on film all year from the Gophers. Can you talk about adjusting to defend offense snapping under center, something they didn't do all season? COACH MANGINO: Yeah, as I said, there is a number of things. They came out with some run schemes that were new. We had heard rumors that they might, but you still like to have some videotape to verify what they're doing and there wasn't. I thought our kids -- first of all, our coaches got the defense together, got them settled down after the first quarter and made the adjustments that were needed, that were needed at the time. And we did some things on defense to move our defense around a little bit to give them some trouble, trying to block guys on the move, which helped stop their run game. Forced them to throw the ball more. I have to tell you, I thought their quarterback threw the ball decent. Decker is a real good football player. He is a tough guy to defend. They did a bunch of things on both sides of the ball that were new. But the players and the staff, we kind of knew. We talked for a couple weeks here that we were going to get some surprises. We knew that. We just had to keep cool and calm and keep our poise and do what we had to do. Q. Mark, with so many talented quarterbacks in the Big 12 this year, do you think Todd was a little overlooked on the national stage? COACH MANGINO: Well, I will tell you this, here's how we deal with those kind of issues. I would like for our players to get all the attention they deserve on the national level. You know, Todd Reesing is a smart enough guy to know the only person he has to please are his teammates, and that's all he really cares about. I will put it to you like this: It is tough playing against him. Nobody sits and watches our videotape on offense or -- no defensive coordinator is rubbing their hands together and saying, I can't wait to play against their offense and Todd Reesing. There is nobody doing that. Q. Mark, what are reasonable expectations for your team next year? And then a followup, Mike Rivera, should next year's team be significantly better than this year's team? COACH MANGINO: I think you asked a good question, but, gee whiz, I'm really not thinking about that right now. I think you know by now having covered our ball club for a number of years, we always have high expectations. And next year will be no different. I think that we have a chance to be a very good football team next year. We have some things to shore up. We need some areas to improve in. We may even need some immediate help in recruiting at an area or two and we have to see how that plays out. But I can say with a great deal of confidence that, stay healthy and stay on track, we have a chance to be a very good football team next year. Mike, do you want to respond? MIKE RIVERA: Yeah, I think there is a lot of things to look forward to. A lot of younger guys this year got a lot of good experience, played in some big-time ball games against good teams and a lot of those guys are back. It is a good thing to see. They will be a great team next year and they will do the same thing I have done for the past five years and hit the off-season hard and get after it and work. Q. Could you guys that are returning next year just kind of talk about how you build on three Bowl games in four seasons and back-to-back Bowl years? DEZMON BRISCOE: Well, I have to say we have to approach the winter workout season with intense pressure. You just got to go in expecting, knowing we are hungry and we will not settle for eight wins. We want more than eight wins. This year we didn't achieve all our goals, and we want to achieve them all next year. KERRY MEIER: Just like Briscoe said, it is all about the off-season. I think that's where you win championships is in the off-season, guys sitting in and determining and developing an attitude over the off-season that it is a long haul to the season, and we use these two seasons to springboard us -- the future of the Jayhawks. And we're excited to see what happens next year and all that good stuff. TODD REESING: I completely concur with what they said. Q. Todd and Dezmon, you guys -- Todd, you have obviously really zeroed in on Dezmon and Kerry today. Did you have that in mind coming in? Just talk about the way you guys were able to hook up. After the first few series, you guys really were hooking up. TODD REESING: Here's what happened: Is they call a play and Briscoe gets hope. If I can throw it to him, then it works out. And it seemed to work out a whole lot of times. And the same thing to Kerry. So we just kept doing it you know? If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Things were going pretty well and we just kept with it. DEZMON BRISCOE: Yeah, basically what he said. Receivers, offense coordinators had good plays against our scheme and receivers found openings and he got me the ball and, like he said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Q. Dez, can you talk about -- the media guide said Terrell Owens is your favorite player. Do you see some of that in yourself and what do you like about his game? DEZMON BRISCOE: I like his game. He is built. The plays he can make when the ball is in his hand is what I like about him a lot. Q. You model yourself after him? DEZMON BRISCOE: Not as far as his off-field issues (laughter). I just -- just on-the-field mentality is what I look after. Q. James and Mike, could you talk about the goal line stand and what went into that and what your emotions were like when you got that done? JAMES HOLT: Well, first off, they tried to spread us out by going in motion. The crazy thing was we were actually supposed to take the tight ends -- I know me and Mike just kind of forgot about them and went up and hit the quarterback and drove them back. After you do something like that, they're on the 5-inch line. You do something like that, it gets your defense pumped. There is no way you will stop them. That was a big turnaround for us was being able to stop them on the goal line. MIKE RIVERA: I kept thinking about that's what we live for is our fourth downs, that big fourth-down stop, and we were all just trying to stop him. It was a huge stand. There was a couple inches there. We were fighting for anything we could. We just exploded into it. It was a great stop. End of FastScripts |
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