BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: OKLAHOMA v COLORADO

December 4, 2004

Gary Barnett

James Garee

Joel Klatt

Terrence Wheatley

COACH BARNETT: Well, I think there is no question our team is embarrassed by our performance. We were inept at best. We played a very, very good football team, and we were just not prepared to play that team today. We sort of survived this year by being the best team on the field for three hours, and by far we weren't even close today. They played the game the way it's supposed to be played, thought that they just took it right at us, and especially with the defense. We really struggled with the pressures. Not much to say, other than give them a great deal of credit and accept the responsibility for poor performance on our part and get a mismatch like we did today. I know we are young, but we are not using that as an excuse and won't use it as an excuse. We played poorly today in a venue that we needed to play great. We just weren't able to do it.

COACH BARNETT: You guys are too kind.

TERRENCE WHEATLEY: Definitely, White, each one was on. He caused every slip or a second too slow with the catch. Peterson, I have never seen a guy that big, that strong, that fast. He just had a great day, both of them did. We just didn't play well. It's on us.

COACH BARNETT: The tremendous job mixing up their looks, played extremely fast as a defense. We didn't do anything, we didn't block well, flow well, didn't run well, didn't do any of the fundamentals the way they are supposed to be done, especially at a venue like this. This is not the way that we wanted to come out and play, obviously, but give a lot of credit to them.

JOEL KLATT: Like Coach said, they are a tremendous football team and I am sure they are going to do some damage here on the 4th.

TERRENCE WHEATLEY: It's a tremendous challenge. His routes are unbelievable. He will block you. He is just a play-maker. Today he made some big plays and there is nothing much you can do but kind of hope for a little help. He made big plays today.

COACH BARNETT: No, nothing a lot new. They brought a little different, one blitz that we hadn't seen before. We sort of figured that we would see some -- a lot of pressure, especially in light of their Texas game, but we just didn't block it. We several times missed guys completely as they came through, we had the ball knocked down three or four times. We really wanted a foursome on 8, 9, 10-play drives, and that's what we did, and they were able to stay in and execute that long. We weren't able to give our defense any rest at all. That was really, really a tough day on our defense.

COACH BARNETT: I don't think there is any question about it, but we hadn't played all the others, but we sure played a good one today, complete team. Playing them last year and playing them twice the year before, to me, they are much more complete team than I have ever seen.

COACH BARNETT: Well, Jason was able to really sit back and just about do whatever he wanted to do. I was really impressed with both he and Peterson and their offensive line. I thought they really did a nice job. Like I said, he has a complete package there to work with, but he was very, very accurate, seemed to run the show, do everything he wanted to do. They are really good.

COACH BARNETT: We have to go look at the highlights. That won't be very easy.