NOKIA SUGAR BOWL: OKLAHOMA v LOUISIANA STATE

January 4, 2004

Bob Stoops

Derrick Strait

Jason White

COACH STOOPS: First, I want to compliment Coach Saban and their team, their staff, congratulate them on a great and well-played game and their Championship. I tell you, it was great competing with them. We had an excellent, excellent game out there and hard-fought to the end, the way the guys completed. And again, I appreciate and admire the way their players played, and I also could not be more proud of the way our players competed to the end of the game, kept giving ourselves chances and opportunities to win. In the end, we were not quite good enough to get it done and LSU made the plays in the end that made the difference to win. But again, very -- could not be more proud of the guys I'm in the locker room with, of the guys I've fought on the field with all day. And you know sometimes it just, you know, it doesn't work out and another team plays better, another coach coaches better than me and all of us and that's what happens. Again, it's not easy to get here and I appreciate the fight in my team and that's what matters to me most.

JASON WHITE: We played a great team tonight in LSU. They made the plays as coach said and we didn't. We came in prepared and we didn't execute tonight. We got beat.

DERRICK STRAIT: That's pretty much the same as what Coach and Jason said.

COACH STOOPS: You know, in the end, you look at our execution, I think some key factors were the number of penalties. I don't have recall us having 11 penalties in a game. That was a major factor. You know, a couple of penalties took two turnovers away from us on defense. Several penalties on offense put us in the hole, backed us up and, you know, you can't win like that. In the first half, I felt our tackling in the secondary primarily, we missed several tackles. In position right there to make some good run stops and you miss a tackle and we gave up a few big plays early, that in the end, we were not able to end up overcoming. And then offensive execution, at times we needed to be a little bit better there to pick up, you know, again to have an opportunity to score a few more points.

JASON WHITE: They are a great defense. They didn't blitz as much as we planned on. So they have got great athletes all over the field and they executed well tonight. They outexecuted us and we didn't execute through most of the night. You've got to give them their credit.

JASON WHITE: Yeah, as I dropped back, I didn't even see him drop out the defensive end drop out in coverage. I didn't even see him drop out and I thought I had a wide receiver wide open, so I threw it.

COACH STOOPS: That's right. You know, I'm not going to sit here and second guess my coaches for making play calls. You know, sure -- you know what, that's right. I'm not going to sit here and act like just because our guys didn't make plays -- we probably should have made some better decisions as coaches, too. You're right. In the end, we probably should have -- you know, somewhere in those -- at that time, first or second down, still we were picking up five and six, and maybe they were a little tired on that drive and should have stuck with it.

JASON WHITE: It was definitely tipped. It was 4th down and it was time to give somebody a shot to catch it. It was kind of the last, desperation play on that drive. It was tipped by somebody and Mark Clayton almost caught it.

JASON WHITE: Dampens it quite a bit. You know, you win 12 games, and that's extremely hard to do nowadays in college football, and you don't have anything to show for it. It's disappointing.

COACH STOOPS: I'm always going to compliment people we play. Those defenses we played are very good and have executed well. In the end, you know, Jason is not out there alone. The players around him, we protect him, give him opportunities. Players need to catch everything when they have opportunities. We had some dropped balls. It's a team deal. Coaches have to call the right plays and give them opportunities. So, you know, a lot of times you focus on one guy, but there's always a lot of hands to help. But defense but the defenses we've played have been awfully good, too.

COACH STOOPS: Well, I felt, let's face it, as poorly as we played, missed tackles, a million penalties, giving up turnovers after penalties; it's 14-7 and we've got a game. So, yeah, that's what I said. Listen, here, we're not going to panic. This is nothing. I don't know that we can play any more poorly and it's 14-7. Then we come back and really, a good part of that first half, we played pretty good defensively. Then the second half, we really played well. I look at the forced eight punts, just like they forced eight punts on us. Same number of turnovers; we didn't get a touchdown with it. Third down conversions are about the same. So, I mean a lot of it, just calm down -- if we tackle better, quit getting some offensively getting penalties where we get ourselves backed up, we've got a chance to be executing here and be in the game. And sure enough, we started to there and had our opportunities and just didn't convert. Then they made the plays.

DERRICK STRAIT: I would not say we lost our swagger. I would say guys were not making the plays that we normally make. Pretty much we was in the right positions, Coach was calling the right calls, like Coach Stoops said earlier, pretty much we missed tackles and things like that. We was in the right position. So you have to put it on us because we missed tackles and things like that. They had us in the right positions.

COACH STOOPS: Derrick is sensational. Again, I have no more -- I don't have a greater appreciation and respect for any player I've ever coached than Derrick with his toughness, his competitiveness and the way he fights through an entire game. And again, tonight, he's banged up with a leg and he's out there and he doesn't even think about it. There's not a better competitor to ever go into a game with than him.

COACH STOOPS: Sure. Mark is a guy that our guys are going to look to to make a lot of sensational plays throughout the year. I know Jason is comfortable with him and we do design some plays to try and work him open. But, you know, Coach Long will probably speak to that more. But in the end, you know, Mark is a big-time player for us, definitely.

COACH STOOPS: Yes, I'd probably say that's fair to say. I think Kansas State probably this year, the way they played in that game -- although, I guess we had a lot more yardage, moving the football a little bit more there. We just stalled out a few times. Yes, overall I would probably say that.

DERRICK STRAIT: Man, really can't explain it. You just have to be a part of our team and things like that because all of us have a pride in wearing the jerseys and things like that. We know there's a lot of tradition that comes with it. Coach Stoops, when he first came in, he helped us as far as believing in winning traditions and things like that. So we just kind of built on that and it's been rolling ever since.

JASON WHITE: I would just -- we just weren't making plays and we were getting behind the sticks all night. We would get third and five and jump off-sides. That's 3rd and 15. So, you know, we were getting behind the sticks all night. Can't do much about it when you hurt yourself like that.

COACH STOOPS: We pick up a first down on the third-yard line going in and we had, what, a motion or a shift and they call it back and never did overcome it. You know, we had a 2nd and one; we go, procedure gets us 2nd and six, don't back it up. So, that's right. They are hard to overcome against a great defense when you keep backing yourself up with penalties.