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BELL HELICOPTER ARMED FORCES BOWL: AIR FORCE v HOUSTON

December 31, 2009

Kevin Sumlin

FORT WORTH, TEXAS

Air Force Â– 47
Houston - 20

THE MODERATOR: Coach, just make an opening comment and we'll open it up for questions.
COACH SUMLIN: That's a really good Air Force team we played. I think it's evident by, you know, the No. 1 pass defense in the country.
Obviously we were a little off. But they had a lot to do with that, too. As I told Troy after the game, you know, a well-coached team, well-prepared. You know, without reviewing it, they played very, very well and took advantage of the opportunities they had and created some opportunities on their own.
You know, we turn the ball over like that, you can't ever expect to win any game.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Coach, can you speak to the tempo and turnovers.
COACH SUMLIN: The tempo in their favor came from the turnovers, so... That's what happens. Like I said, you look back at all of our losses this year, it's been directly turnover related, inability to get off the field on third down.
There were some critical third downs defensively that we didn't get any stops, had a chance to get off the field, turned the ball over.
You add those two things up in any college football game right now, any football game, and it's a recipe for non-success, I'll put it that way.

Q. (Question regarding Keenum's performance today.)
COACH SUMLIN: I don't know. Like I said, we had some tip balls early. I mean, they're good. They created the breaks. The tip balls, they're hustling, got to the ball, made plays.
We threw the first ones up, hit our hands first, they got it. The next two were tip balls at or around the line of scrimmage that they got. You get those balls by playing hard.
That's a credit to them. They created their own breaks. You know, the ones later on in the game, he's just running around, trying to do something, get back in the game.
I'm not going to make any kind of generalization based on the overall numbers in the last two games for him. He's a damn good player, has been, and will continue to be for us.

Q. How much did the layoff affect Keenum? Was he sharp today?
COACH SUMLIN: No, he wasn't sharp today. We weren't sharp today at all. I think that's pretty obvious, you know.
The layoff may have hurt him. I don't know. We had a longer layoff last year that didn't hurt him that much, so... You know, every time something like this happens, you're always looking for a reason why.
As a coach, first of all, I've got to do a better job based on the results today. It starts with me. And, number two, you know, you're always as a coach going back and you're going to analyze the positives and negatives of the year and positives and negatives, mostly what went wrong with your losses.
We'll go back and look at that. I don't know that we did a whole lot of things differently than last year, and the results are a whole helluva lot different this year than they were last year.

Q. You said earlier you were a little bit off today. Do you know why?
COACH SUMLIN: No. I just answered that, okay? Next.

Q. Talk about your MVP, Marcus, his job on the defense. Had to make the drive to make those tackles.
COACH SUMLIN: Yeah, but it takes more than one or two guys. Any time you play a game like this, it's a team effort. Obviously, when you're playing defense against an option type attack, it forces everybody to have responsibilities. One guy has never made a team offensively or defensively.
You know, to win games like this, all games, it's team efforts. But, you know, Tyron has been a really good player for us all year. Continued to play well here today, made some big catches, big return. Obviously Marcus is one of the leading tacklers in the country.
We expected it out of them. We've got to get some help from other people, too. When you play in those type of settings, as I told the team, you know, it takes a lot more than a couple people to win games. We had some guys looked to me like they were waiting around for somebody else to do something instead of doing it themselves.
You know, when that happens, you get the results you got today. And, like I said, don't get me wrong, we were outplayed today by Air Force. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

Q. Were you surprised at how effective Air Force was at the passing game?
COACH SUMLIN: Yeah.

Q. Were you out of position, especially on the long balls?
COACH SUMLIN: I don't know. We had guys there; didn't make plays. Wasn't like they were wide open, right?

Q. Could you speak about the seniors. You've been here two years. This obviously isn't the best way for them to go out.
COACH SUMLIN: You know, I told the seniors, I apologized to them for the way this ended up. They're still a part of a 10-win team. We have 15 of those guys, five of which we put on scholarship since we've been here. They're walk-on guys.
You know, we're still a very, very young team. But obviously to win 10 games, you know, it has a lot to do with your senior leadership and what happened with them. So we're appreciative of what they've done, brought to our team. A lot of those guys are special teams guys, they're not starters.
That's a tough role for those guys to see younger guys play and still be in a leadership role. I appreciate everything they've done, you know. I've visited with those guys this week and told them individually how much we appreciate what they've done, what they've accomplished since they've been at the University of Houston.
You know, I wish things had turned out differently for them today. But, you know, that doesn't take away from everything they accomplished this year.

End of FastScripts

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