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VALERO ALAMO BOWL: WASHINGTON v BAYLORDecember 29, 2011Art BrilesElliot CoffeyTerrance GanawayRobert Griffin IIIKendall WrightSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS BAYLOR – 67 Q.  Terrance, do you want to talk about the way to close out your career, what a performance you had tonight, just break it down for me. TERRANCE GANAWAY: If you don't mind, I would like to close out our career as a team. It's all about Baylor. Offensive line played really well, Robert, all the receivers, took a lot of pressure off me. So just going out there and fighting for a win, that's what we all did, and luckily I was able to put my stitch on the end of the season. Q. Coach Briles, have you ever‑‑ COACH BRILES: I'd call it a big piece of yarn. I'm not sure it's a stitch, but I appreciate your humility there, Ganaway. Q. Coach Briles, have you ever seen such a game with that many touchdowns and that kind of scoring? COACH BRILES: No, I really haven't. I think a bunch of us in this room could say they haven't, also. That was crazy. It really was, it was crazy. And I don't think it was so much that‑‑ I don't think you look at it and say, well, the defenses aren't playing well. I think it was just the ebb and flow of the game. You get in games like that, and that's just the way it goes, and you just keep fighting. If you get one little stop or one little break or a turnover, then it can help you win the football game. That's kind of what helped us there toward the end. We got a turnover, they missed a field goal, and we capitalized just like they capitalized on turning over on us in the first half. Real clean football game on both sides of the ball. Q. Terrance, you talked about it, but the offensive line, talk about them, and how key was that up front for them to win that battle up front? TERRANCE GANAWAY: It's been key all year. They've been winning a lot of battles. That's why we're a 10 and 3 team. Not many teams are like that now. When you have a great offensive line and great players around you, you move the ball easily. Q. Terrance, what was it like just kind of running out there? It looked like there were holes through that middle for everybody really. What was it like just running the routes? TERRANCE GANAWAY: Offensive line. It goes like to offensive line. Those guys played their tail off the whole season, and they fought hard tonight. Q. Elliot, with the way the offenses were scoring so much, how did you guys keep your head up on the sideline? ELLIOT COFFEY: When you have an offense as potent as we do, it's always hard on you to let them score, but at the same time it's regrouping, and it helps us really keep pushing to see them do as well as they do, so that really kept our spirits up. They always had something positive to say whether things were going right or wrong, and it really just helped push us through and helped us get the win at the end. Q. For Robert, at any level have you ever been a part of this, I'm talking flag football, this kind of offensive output? ROBERT GRIFFIN III: No, I haven't. We walked into walk‑through a few days ago, and the scoreboard said 72‑72, and we're thinking, oh, no way. Pretty close. I'm just glad we won the game, and defense stepped up big there at the end when we needed them to. Q. For Elliot and Coach Briles, Elliot, that yard down 18, talk about the way you were able to turn it around and get some defensive stops there late. ELLIOT COFFEY: I mean, I similar situation as earlier. Had to really sit down, assess the situation, understand what it was we were doing wrong, realizing that it's one or two people slipping up, and if we can get everything together, I've been saying this all season, that the defense works as a machine, and if one part of it is messed up, it trickles downhill and hurts all of us. So we had to make sure that the later it got, especially in the clutch time like 4th down we needed to make a play, we understood that that's what we had to do and we did it. COACH BRILES: Yeah, really you don't look at it like you're down 18, you just look at it and say, now, if we score we'll be up by one or two. What's this chart say in this part of the football game? Because you've got to score, and we were just thinking, okay, we keep scoring touchdowns, we've got a chance to win the football game. That was kind of our mindset on the sideline. And it just worked out that way. Like Robert mentioned, had some big stops there toward the end defensively, and that's‑‑ really in a game like that, you make one or two stops, you've got a good opportunity to win. Q. Robert, can you talk about obviously the pace of the game? Back and forth, back and forth, seesaw, the whole thing. Y'all go down 18 and then y'all steadily move the ball down the field. Talk about the comeback. ROBERT GRIFFIN III: I mean, it was a great game to watch I'm sure, so the people at home were tuning in I'm pretty sure. But you don't think about that during the game, and I looked up at one time and it said we had 718 total yards. That's unbelievable. To come back the way we did, down 42‑24, just speaks to the character of this team. It's been that way all year. This isn't our first rodeo, like the old saying says, and we've done it time and time again and the team stepped up big once again. Q. Robert, I think you've been asked already three or four times already, how does this win affect the speed of your decision of coming back or going pro? ROBERT GRIFFIN III: I want Baylor Nation to enjoy this. It's not about me. Obviously I have a decision to make, I guess, within two and a half weeks of the deadline, but we're going to enjoy tonight. We'll enjoy tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day and then whenever I have to make that decision, I will. Q. Coach, can you first of all, just talk about what it's like to have the add‑on four years into your career at Baylor, ten wins, a Bowl victory now. How has this process been for you overall? COACH BRILES: When you surround yourself with good people that care and love each other and believe the same thing, you've got a chance to have success, and that's really as witnessed by these gentlemen on the panel up here and our players in that locker room. I mean, that's what we have. When you've got people all pulling the same direction, you've got a chance to get there, and fortunately we've been able to get there, and this is just a tremendous win. It really is, because we had a lot of things working for us going into the game. But on the flipside, a lot of that works against you, also. Washington had a lot of ammunition coming in, and we did a great job of surrounding ourselves and taking care of our fort, so to speak, and getting the win. Q. Coach, talk about Keith Price's play for Washington and how difficult he was to cover tonight. COACH BRILES: I thought he was ‑‑ just really had a great night, really, really just kind of stepped out and played extremely well with a lot of confidence and made some‑‑ threw the ball extremely well, had some good scrambles. He's a good football player, and the games they got in trouble in this year, he was injured, and he got healthy and got right, and he played awfully well tonight. Q. Can you talk about the adjustments that you made at halftime on the offensive side of the ball, and was it a case of taking kind of what the defense was showing you? COACH BRILES: You know, we really didn't‑‑ the only thing we kind of talked about was slowing down a little bit and running the football. I've got a bad personality trait that is‑‑ doesn't have a lot of patience to it, and so I've got to watch‑‑ we've got a couple sayings. I won't say what they are, but we'd like to try to score every snap, so sometimes you can't do that. Sometimes you've got to slow down, work it a little bit, and grind it out. So we knew with Robert, with Terrance, if we wanted to run the football, felt like we had to run the football, needed to, that we could, and that happened. Even when they came out and scored on the opening drive we still stuck to what we needed to do at halftime, and it paid off for us. Q. This team's toughness, particularly on defense, the fact that you guys didn't give up and you got that stop there at the end, could you talk about how important that was to make that play there? ELLIOT COFFEY: Yeah, I mean, the offense had done so much, it really does come down to the team concept. You've got to back up your boys, and they've been looking out for us all night, and it really came down to crunch time and we had to make a play to win the game, and that's what we did. At the end of the day, the numbers are what they are, but we got the win. COACH BRILES: We've got the leading receiver in America down here. He doesn't get up here and talk very often. It's actually his first time, I think, up on the podium, so don't let him slip away without giving some insight because he has done a tremendous job for Baylor University the past four years as all these men have. Q. Kendall, for you and Robert, for the running game to do what it did, talk about, you guys have kind of led most of those nine wins, but for the running game to do what it did today, how much does that say about this team, I guess? KENDALL WRIGHT: We've just got a lot of weapons everywhere. G'way, Salubi stepped up. Nobody knew he was going to do that, and he stepped up and had a big game. G'way also had a big game. Nobody knew he was that big and could run that fast. Nobody knew he could move like that. I'm glad for him, and they had a great game. ROBERT GRIFFIN III: Well, there in the second half, I found myself worried more about carrying out my fake than throwing a pass. Ganaway was doing a great job, him and Salubi. I did get a nice little block in there from Salubi in the first half, but when me and Kendall, when they called on me and Kendall to make a play, we did it, and it was a big gain down the left sideline. You've got to take what they're giving you, and in the first half we tried a lot of things and we put 21 points on the board in the first quarter, stalled in the second, and then we had to get back to bread and butter, run the football, and they were determined to make sure I wasn't going to get up the middle, so Salubi and Ganaway did a great job of running on the edges, Tevin with that long run that he had, it was amazing. I'm proud of the offensive line for stepping up so big. If they're going to take something away from you, you've got to go with the other thing. Q. Talk about, I guess it seemed like when y'all were struggling a little bit awful, did y'all two decide to hook up a little bit, kind of stretched the defense a little bit and allowed the running game to open up. Talk about your connection and it seemed y'all just knew to go to each other a little bit. KENDALL WRIGHT: I guess we've been hooking up for four years, and we've been doing it so long, it's mandatory, I guess. But I'm here to make a play when Coach Briles on Robert needs me, and when they call me I'm going to be ready at all times. That was my last time doing it, but I went out with a bang. ROBERT GRIFFIN III: There's two types of defenses. That's ones that bleed fast and then there's other ones that bleed slow. In the first half we were trying to make sure we bled them fast, throwing the ball, and we were successful at it. But in the second half they totally went to soft coverage, and you have to run the ball when teams are doing that to you. Q. Robert, did you wear any special socks today that you were able to put up 67 points, and did you let Terrance borrow a pair by any means? ROBERT GRIFFIN III: No. Ganaway is good. He doesn't need socks. He doesn't even wear socks on game day. But I didn't have an opportunity to go out and go to the mall and look through the sock selection before this game, so I just decided we were going to finish the season with what I started with, and that was Cookie Monster socks. Obviously we were pretty hungry tonight, got 67 points, and I'm pretty sure everybody is going to hit it hard tonight, and by that I mean dinner, of course.  (Laughter.) They'll be hungry. This is Baylor, people. (Laughter.) Q. Coach Sarkisian talked about that 4th down coverage. He said that was the first time you guys had pulled that out, the double coverage on the receiver. Can you talk about that decision to switch up on the most important play of the game and that coverage? COACH BRILES: Well, the good thing is it was about 4th and about 8 and a half so you know at that point in the game they've got to throw the football, so it allows ‑‑ actually we were going to call a time‑out and they called one right before us on the 4th down. Phil actually wanted a time‑out to look at it and see what they were going to do, and they beat us to the time out fortunately, but I mean, it was a good adjustment defensively and came at a critical time. But the great thing about being on the defensive side of the ball is getting people in predictable situations, and that's what you try to stay away from on offense. You don't want 3rd and longs because people are pretty much going to throw the football. That was the thing that helped us there. A 4th and 2 would have been a little tougher situation for us. But great adjustment defensively. Q. Robert, I know you're obviously looking at the stats. When you see the numbers, 777 and almost 1,400 combined yards, talk about seeing that kind of output. ROBERT GRIFFIN III: I mean, it's great. We've got three lucky numbers there, 777, so like I said, it's unbelievable to quote myself, unbelievably believable, but that's how we play. Nobody wins games 67‑56 down 42‑24 but Baylor University. I'm proud to be a part of this. Q. Kendall, this game is going to end your collegiate career obviously. What are some of the things you're going to remember most when you look back on your career at Baylor? KENDALL WRIGHT: Everything. I came here to help change the program with these guys, and I feel like we done that. It was just good playing with these guys, I'm going to miss them, so I plan on training here and being around them. When the time comes, whatever Griff do, that's when I get emotional, so I'm not emotional right now until he makes his decision because a smart GM would draft him and me. (Laughter.) Draft me this year and draft Griff next year. I'm hoping he stays. (Laughter.) FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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