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VALERO ALAMO BOWL: TEXAS v OREGON STATEDecember 26, 2012Mark BankerScott CrichtonMichael DoctorRyan MurphyJordan PoyerSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS MARK BANKER: I'd just like to say that it's a pleasure for us to be here. We've had a great time up until this moment, and just really happy to be here at the Alamo Bowl and look forward to our upcoming game on Saturday against Texas. Q. Talk about your time with coach Riley and your success in bowl games. MARK BANKER: Well, probably number one would be the preparation. Mike has come up with a good formula for all of us to follow, and I think the players would agree to that. We've used‑‑ every time we've been to a bowl game, just like a lot of teams do, we've used the early stages of the practice as a spring practice for the younger players in our program, and then little by little we work in to working against the opponent as well as against ourselves. Then it helps to not only prepare but to have a good team. We've been fortunate in the years that we've gone to bowl games that it's only fitting that we've had a good team and have had success in those games. I don't think it's any magic. Q. Jordan, any thoughts about this being the last time you're putting on a uniform and what it means when you walk out of the tunnel on game day? JORDAN POYER: Yeah, actually I've thought about it a lot, just the fact that it is my last game as a Beaver. Really trying to go out with a bang. I really enjoy my moments with these guys, I made a lot of friends throughout the years, and it's been fun. This team has‑‑ we're all brothers on the team, and I'm definitely going to miss them. But definitely it's been a lot of fun just going on this ride with them, and I want to get this program in the right direction as far as winning this game. So our preparation has been going really well and got two days left to practice and then game day. We all live for game day. Q. Can you talk about going from 3‑9 to 9‑3? Was there one moment during the season where you thought you had something good this year? JORDAN POYER: Well, last year as a team we felt we were a lot better than being 3‑9. The talent that we had on our team, we felt that it was unacceptable to be 3‑9. So basically after the last game of our season we all came together and said, you know what, we're not going to feel like this game, so we're just going to start this off‑season, and we really hit the off‑season hard. We came together as a team, came together as a unit and we bonded together. We did extra stuff day in and day out to get to where we're at today, and that's what's been the biggest turnaround. Q. I'm curious, of all the game film you've watched of Texas, who do they remind you the most of? MARK BANKER: Well, on the lighter side, the answer to that, I don't know if it's a team we played last year, but remind me of the U.S. Olympic track team in some cases. They have a lot of speed at their running back position, wide receiver position. But this year, oh, I don't know, probably a combination of maybe UCLA and Arizona in some respect, just from the standpoint of how they play the game and how they use their athletes, not necessarily per se the particular plays, but there's a lot of similarity there. Q. Mark, do you expect anything different from the Texas offense now that they have a new play caller? What's your approach to that? MARK BANKER: Yeah, I don't know. We just go with what we know of a team. Texas has a system in place utilizing their athletes that they have on the team. You know, the plays that they have, we go down in all the games that we've broken down on them, sometimes you want to make sure these guys keep their eyes open in film study and show the explosive plays on the film, and it's real easy to find the plays that they had a lot of success at. I don't anticipate per se the plays. Maybe the platform in which they deliver it in, they might change some things up. I think maybe in those special situations when it comes down to a 3rd‑and‑medium, maybe a 4th down, maybe how they start a series, there may be a preference. But we just go with what we know, and I'm sure there will be some in‑flight adjustments that we'll have to make. But it's tough to answer that question until the game gets started. Q. Michael, Texas doesn't have a whole lot of momentum coming into this game having lost two‑in‑a‑row and disappointed in their expectations. You guys haven't been to a bowl game lately. Do you feel like y'all's team will be more jacked up than maybe Texas because of that and maybe have more to prove? MICHAEL DOCTOR: We are going to be the underdog. Pretty sure Texas, they're amped up to get back to their winning ways, and we've just got to take it like any other game and just come out and play Beaver football. Q. Michael, you're familiar with the Texas‑Oklahoma rivalry. How would you compare the Oregon‑Oregon State rivalry to that? MICHAEL DOCTOR: I think it's pretty much the same. All in‑state rivalries, you hate the other team and all the teams just want to go out and get the win and have the bragging rights for the rest of the year. Q. Jordan, the rivalry between Oregon State and Oregon, does Texas seem like an Oregon type of program to you? Obviously nationally prominent where Oregon has been the last 10 years and obviously a whole lot of money. JORDAN POYER: Yeah, I mean, Texas, when you think of Texas, you think of football, historic program. You know, me growing up in Oregon, I always grew up watching the Civil War, so I can kind of relate to the hatred between the teams, the fans outside the program. But as far as seeing Texas as a rivalry game, I don't know, Texas, like I say, you see Texas, you think football. We know they're a really good football team and they're probably going to be the best team that we've played all season, so we're definitely going to have to be on our top game. Q. Why do you think they'll be the best team? You've played some good teams in Stanford and Oregon. JORDAN POYER: Well, as far as every team is going to be at their best at the end of the season, and so Texas, they want to be back on track. Like you said, they lost the last two games and they're hungry for a win. So just like us, we're hungry for a win, too, so we're going to give them our best and they're going to give us their best. It's going to be two good football teams playing on Saturday. Q. Scott, I guess I'll ask you, the story of the off‑season in the Pac‑12 was kind of all the overturns, several new programs getting coaches and most of those programs were predicted to finish higher than you guys. Can you talk about what your consistency and the coaching staff and your players has done to make you as successful as you were this year? SCOTT CRICHTON: I think it was just like the intensity in our players that was just‑‑ we had a mindset that we just wanted to win. Obviously last season we didn't do so good, and we all knew we were better than that. So we just decided to work even harder to get where we're at right now. Q. Jordan, another big story in the off‑season for you guys was the death of your teammate Fred Thompson. At the Alamo Dome they made a locker for him, the equipment staff did. What was your reaction when you saw that? JORDAN POYER: We bring Fred everywhere we go. He's in our hearts, he's in our prayers all the time. I'm sure Murph can speak a lot more about him. That's his best friend, his homey growing up. We bring him everywhere we go, he's always in our hearts everywhere we play, and we play for him and we play through him. Q. If he were here what would his advice be to you guys? RYAN MURPHY: Yeah, I think his advice would be just like let's compete, let the best man win, let's go. He'll be amped up for us and for himself, as well. As Jordan said, we play with him, we play through him, and we're ready to go. Q. Jordan, were you surprised to see a locker for him? It's like he's still here, wherever you guys go, you travel to Texas and he's still with you. Are you surprised at how prevalent his memory is amongst all you guys? JORDAN POYER: Not at all. I kind of expected him to be there with us. His locker is in the locker room. We still break out break squad every practice. He's just with us all the time. Like I say, we play through him and we play with him, and we know he's up there watching down on us. Q. Ryan, what's it like playing in Oregon's shadow with what they've accomplished the last 10 years? RYAN MURPHY: Me, you know, I'm from California, so I look at it as just another game. I know it's a big rivalry, and I mean, I wouldn't say we're in their shadow. Obviously we want to be the best team in the state, as well as the Pac‑12. But I feel like a lot of our teammates just go at it as another game, just another team out there trying to beat us. I mean, as far as being in their shadow, me personally, I don't look at it as that. Q. What's the upside for Oregon State? Why hasn't the program been more prominent over the years, and what do you think it's lacking to get to that next level? RYAN MURPHY: Well, just by what we accomplished in the off‑season, in the off‑season players said we're just going to take it step by step, lift by lift, day by day, practice by practice. This year we've been taking it game by game. You know, the sky's the limit for us as a program. Q. When you looked at David Ash on film, how much attention did you pay to the Oklahoma and Kansas and TCU games where he did not perform well and what did you see in those games? MARK BANKER: Really didn't pay much attention at all to whether he had success or not to be honest with you. Why he did or didn't, I think really quarterbacking comes down to‑‑ I think you're speaking specifically about the passing game, I think it just comes down to decisions, you know, that a quarterback has to make and envision. I see him at times checking the ball down maybe when he should hang in there a little bit more and throw the ball downfield. But you know, I have never really gotten too much into evaluating what someone did or didn't do because I always expect them when we get into a game and play that person, as soon as you make that judgment or cast that judgment or let alone pass it on to guys like this, they light it up. So I expect whoever starts, I know that Ash is going to start for them, but whoever plays for them will probably be improved. He's a scholarship football player, and the coaches on the other side of the ball will coach him up, and they've had some time now not only to spend time with them but they're sitting there staring at us on film, too, and watching our pluses and minuses. Maybe, in fact, he does sort some of those things out. So we're not going to worry too much about what he can do or can't do. I know one thing, the offensive line does a great job in protection. People don't get to whoever the quarterback is back there. They've had ample time to throw the ball. Our biggest concern is that we‑‑ when the ball is going to be thrown we have good coverage and we have good pressure on the quarterback. Q. And if you had to name the Texas offensive identity, what jumps out at you about what they're trying to do? MARK BANKER: The first thing which ends up being a concern for us in looking at what we need to accomplish, they're a team that can get to the perimeter with their run game, whether it's with what we call a sweep or even their stretch game. Off‑tackle plays whether they have pullers or not, you have to definitely leverage their run game, what we term as their fly sweep with 26, 27 or 84 off‑the‑zone look in the backfield and then hand it to them, get to the edge again. Getting to the edge, utilizing that speed they have as well as their bubble game. And then again, very deep at the running back position with a good offensive line. I mean, they can downhill run at you, so they present a pretty good challenge, and this isn't coach speak, it's, like you said, what you see on film. You know, and then in the passing game, they've got threats in 1 and 8. I don't mean to be so impersonal, but again, depth, I don't really care what the names are. I know what the numbers are and what they do by position. They can get downfield in those early downs, come off the play action and hit you down the middle of the field in the seam post with 1 or get‑‑ throw the out game and things of that nature. But that's probably the things that come to my mind the most, leveraging that running game with their speed outside and then making sure you're still sound on the downhill run inside and then be sound against their play action pass game on the other downs. Q. What would this mean to the Oregon State program, having had a tremendous run in Bowl games? What would this program to the mean? MARK BANKER: One thing would be the obvious, it would be a 10‑win season. I believe in some of the local media, local, I'm talking Oregon media, I believe this is our third‑‑ would be only our third season that we've won 10 games or more. And it will be twice that Mike Riley has done it, which would mean more to me than anything as opposed to who we beat or who we play against. Q. Jordan, being from Oregon you've had the luxury of a lot of family members watching you play but you know you also have family members in San Antonio. I wonder what that's like. JORDAN POYER: It definitely is. These family members out here, they've been itching to watch me play for a long time now. We played TCU out here two years ago, I believe, there was a lot of family that came to that game, and now that I'm at where I'm at, it's going to be exciting to see my dad's side of the family all out there. He said there will probably be like 20 people, 30 people at the game that have bought tickets, going to be able to see a lot of people that I haven't seen before. So definitely a lot of motivation for me. I'm excited about the opportunity to play in front of them, and I'm sure they're excited, too. Q. You talked about the fly sweep for players. It's a play you run quite often with Wheaton and Cooks on the outside. Do you feel like going up against that in practice has prepared you well to face Texas' version of it? MARK BANKER: Well, it helps as opposed to never seeing it, but what's curious about the play is more of the perimeter. It's how you set the perimeter, and our offense varies it from time to time so it gives you some challenges, especially with what type of coverage you're in at that time. And Texas does it really‑‑ when you talk about scheme, kind of an interesting way. They always have an extra person. They have two blockers and the ball carrier, so you always have to have three people in order to actually make the play, not suppose you might make the play. So it helps having seen it, and we know how to spell fly, which is good, and then having had to work with that with our team has helped, yes. RYAN MURPHY: Like coach said, it helps once we see our offense run it. Again, they do have an extra guy, and I mean, we see it on film, so you know, it's easier for us to practice against it seeing how they run it and then how the scout team has to portray what Texas does. Q. Scott, just wanted to ask you for your scouting report on the Texas offensive line and can you compare that unit to another one that you've seen this year? SCOTT CRICHTON: Talking about the offensive line? Oh, man, they're really athletic, so it's tough to get around them. They're strong, too. They're big, and they're kind of like Stanford's offensive line. But it's a good group, and it's going to be a tough game against them. Q. Everyone has talked about the Oregon State started its ties in Texas with the Rodgers brothers. When you were in high school did you pay attention to that? MICHAEL DOCTOR: Yeah, Danny Langsdorf came down and recruited me, him and Keith Heyward when he was out at the time. Once I got the recognition who that actually was, I started paying more attention to them. To see two Texas guys that go there in the early days, really creating the offense, just really made the decision to go to Oregon State that much better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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