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AT&T COTTON BOWL CLASSIC: OKLAHOMA v TEXAS A&MJanuary 4, 2013Ty DarlingtonGabe IkardBob StoopsARLINGTON, TEXAS Texas A&M – 41 THE MODERATOR: Coach, your thoughts about tonight's game. COACH STOOPS: You give Texas A&M all the credit for playing a great, great football game, and in particular the second half. They played outstanding. Johnny Manziel is everything he was billed to be, expected him to be. But, again, Coach Sumlin and his staff totally outplayed us, out coached us the whole second half. It's a team effort. When you lose like that in the second half, the offense goes. We hadn't had a punt the entire first half. We come out and go three‑and‑out, three‑and‑out, three‑and‑out, giving them all the field opportunities. You can't keep giving them opportunities. Where in the first half, we played together as a team, limited them, used the clock, scored. That's how you have to play 'em. In the second half it totally broke down offensively and defensively. Defense couldn't get off the field. We had guys plenty of times in position to make a play. Couldn't make a play. That's just where we are. They totally outplayed us in every way. I don't have one bit of a problem, any of those excuses, we didn't come in ready to play. There's none of that. I didn't have a problem this week with a player being late, being anything. We came in, played a heck of a first half. We were ready to play. They just totally out did us in the second half. Again, compliments to them and we got to make some improvements there in the off‑season. THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach. Q. Could you expound on Manziel. He had 516 yards total offense. Was he better than you thought or did your team perhaps make him look better than he is? COACH STOOPS: I think it's both. You got to give our team at times miss a bunch. But he makes everybody miss 'em. He was what you've seen on tape the whole year. You know, then you could see how with a month of preparation, they're adding wrinkles with the option and different plays with him, so that you play him in a one safety high, I'll say it the right way, you're out of luck. Then you play him with a two safety look, you're out of luck another way. It's difficult with what they're doing with him to handle it. Q. It looked like in the first half, you were willing to basically play pass defense, cover their guys. Did you change in the second half? COACH STOOPS: No, we didn't change. We continued to play the same defense. We didn't feel we needed to change that much. We were doing some decent things. The obvious ones, when you got a guy running up the boundary, they throw the fade right over the top of them, they could have done that in the first half, too. We just covered better or played a little bit better in the first half. Q. What was it in the third quarter specifically? Landry had set records, 23 of 30 in the first half with 20 first downs, then you come out with those three three‑and‑outs? Was it something that they did defensively, an adjust? COACH STOOPS: I wouldn't say this. We talked about that. They were running the same defenses we had seen in the first half. They executed them and outplayed us. They executed them in the second half better than we executed our offense. No, they didn't come out and all of a sudden have some new defense. I'm sure they didn't feel they needed to either. We only had 13 points. They come out and played the same way and we didn't execute very well. Q. Can you talk about having to settle for field goals twice when you got in the red zone. COACH STOOPS: You know, the frustrating one was when we were close, the early one. The other one, you got to give them credit, you're not always going to score a touchdown. That one, again, they kind of outplayed us up in there, didn't allow us to score. How much that would have helped, who knows. Still only gives you a few more points at half. Q. It's difficult to cover seven or eight, nine seconds. Were you disappointed with how little pass‑rush you got on Manziel, especially in the second half? COACH STOOPS: Yeah, but you see that a lot of the year with him. Guys that do get some pressure, when it's a four‑man rush, he takes off and runs because they got five guys blocking four. You're trying to get pressure and come underneath on an outside rush, then he aborts it and either waits and throws it downfield or takes off and runs for 40. Again, it's tough. Q. Silver lining that they've gone to the SEC, you don't have to play them again. COACH STOOPS: It's fair the way today went. Q. I hate to go back to Manziel. We keep talking about him. Is he as good a college quarterback as you ever played against? COACH STOOPS: Absolutely. Because of not only throwing the football, what he does with his feet is just incredibly difficult to handle. Even when guys are in position, he is so quick and strong running, he's just hard to get to. Q. Could you talk about Landry falls short of his fourth bowl win. COACH STOOPS: He's been an incredibly positive influence on the football team in every way, on the field, off the field, great worker. Close with everybody. We'll miss him. He's been a great, great player. He threw a lot of great balls out there tonight. But we've got some young guys. We just got to move forward with them. But Landry did really all he could the way he's worked for this program. Q. When Johnny did get to the second level, did you feel it was a situation he was faster than you guys in the secondary? COACH STOOPS: Again, what do you see all year? It's hard if you got an angle on him, he stops, goes the other way. If you don't, he out runs you. Our guys, I don't know, if we had a track meet who would win. I know all the changes of direction, what he does, is tough to deal with in the open field. Q. Two years in a row 10‑3. Do you feel this year is better? COACH STOOPS: Obviously it is. They're not to even be compared. This game is disappointing in every way for me, for us. But the rest of the season was pretty positive, and another Big 12 championship. Q. Talk about your offense. Seemed like you had a hard time getting the ball downfield throwing the ball today. COACH STOOPS: Well, they were sitting off pretty good. We had an awful lot of yards underneath. In the end, at times when we did, if we felt there were some opportunities, when we did go for a chunk or two, we got pressured. Landry had to abort it. They did a good job on us downfield. Q. Late in the year you had to win several games in virtual shootouts, finally kind of caught up to you today. How would you evaluate how the defense played today and going into 2013? COACH STOOPS: I don't think there's any question. The second half of the year poorly in most ways. We've got to make improvements in all areas, run defense, pass defense, pressures, whatever we're doing. But again, some of it, too, our players have got to make some improvements. We had guys in position a punch of times today to make plays, and they didn't make them. The schemes and that kind of stuff only goes so far. Bottom line, it comes down to when you get opportunities to execute, you got to execute. THE MODERATOR: We're going to let coach go and we'll continue with the student‑athletes. Q. Gabe, can you talk about the offense, starting off the second half? What changed? Wasn't working for you guys? GABE IKARD: They went to a three‑man front on us. Couldn't run the ball well enough. Basically the same thing Notre Dame did against us. Didn't execute well when they went to that three‑man front in the run game. You get into predictable passing situations, they drop eight, there's not many places to go with the football, for Landry to find guys. Offensive line didn't play well enough, didn't run the ball well enough in the second half. When you get three three‑and‑outs in a row against that team on offense, you're going to fall behind pretty quickly. Q. Gabe, can you talk about what Landry has meant to this program. He had big goals of Heisman, national championship. Just talk about his decision to come back and what it meant to this team. GABE IKARD: Just the kind of guy Landry is. One of the most unselfish people I know. Has great character. Is always looking out for other people. He came back to try to lead us to a national championship. But we dropped some games against some really good teams. Feel just disappointed that he's going out this way, getting beat like that. But just I wish him the best of luck. He's going to be a great NFL quarterback. I hope him coming back doesn't affect his financial situation, his draft status, stuff like that. But overall just feel a great friend and a great guy. Q. That same disappointment that you expressed there for Landry, is it the same feeling about the way the offense played overall tonight? GABE IKARD: No. First half, they didn't stop us. We kind of missed out on the goal line set with Blake's package. Kicked a field goal, threw a nice pass. First half, I thought we were rolling, moving the ball well, using our tempo well. The third quarter killed us. Three three‑and‑outs when you haven't punted in the first half, when you're giving the ball to No. 2 on the other team, you got to put up points. But, yeah, that third quarter really got us behind. Q. Could you comment on the season. It's 10‑3. Coach Stoops said he thought it was much better this year than last year. Can you address that question comparing the two and moving forward how you feel about the program. TY DARLINGTON: I wasn't here last year. I'm a true freshman (laughter). I can't really compare the two. Going forward, I know we know what we have to do going forward. If anything, this will be a huge motivation through the off‑season, cause us to work harder through the off‑season, and to come back next year as good as we possibly can be. GABE IKARD: This year was a lot more fun, I thought, playing all those lost games, giving you people heart attacks, it was a good time. Just disappointing it had to end like this. You know, losing to K State and Notre Dame, two great teams, then all those close games, yeah, it was a little different than last year. Last year we didn't get torched in the bowl game. Q. Gabe, feeling the hole of Landry, how difficult that can be moving forward. GABE IKARD: Obviously Landry is one of the more underappreciated talents we've had around here, just setting all kinds of records. All he got was criticism about us losing games, when normally it wasn't even much of his fault. It will be interesting to see how winter and spring goes. I know Blake is going in with probably the No.1 guy. But I'm sure Coach Heupel will have all those guys motivated, convince them it's a quarterback battle. We'll see how that goes, just see who earns the job in spring. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, we'll let you go. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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