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TEXAS FARM BUREAU INSURANCE SHOOTOUT: TEXAS TECH vs BAYLORNovember 16, 2013Art BrilesAhmad DixonAaron JonesShock LinwoodK.J. MortonLevi NorwoodBryce PettyARLINGTON, TEXAS Baylor – 63 THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Bryce, the offense obviously got off to a little bit of a slow start. What did you do to adjust? BRYCE PETTY: Yeah, it kind of happened a couple times the last couple games. Was just frustrating because we like to start fast. I really think teams play us different than they do any other teams in the Big 12. We just have to make those adjustments. The guys, players, coaches, everybody involved, did a great job of finding those adjustments. Took us a second to get going. For us, we know it's coming. We have to settle down. I think a lot of it was a spark when Levi took that punt return. He had an incredible night. I'm extremely proud of him. Q. Bryce, tell me a little bit about you haven't faced a ton of adversity with your offense, how do you feel like you guys are starting to handle that after falling behind tonight and being able to bounce back? BRYCE PETTY: Definitely. I think tonight showed us a lot. We're a resilient team. I think there's a lot of talent involved. But we got a lot of guys that work hard. That's what you got to have. It's more than just talent. You got to have those guys that will push through a little adversity like you're talking about. This is a special team and I knew it from the get‑go. We like these games. We like being up at half, too. These are the ones that you dream about when you're a little kid, playing in the Big 12. It's these kind of games that you want to fight with your brothers and win together. Q. Shock, how much did last week help, having that kind of game last week, getting you rolling this week? SHOCK LINWOOD: It helped out tremendously. I believe that it gave me confidence for me to go out there and perform like I did when Glasco got hurt. It helped a lot. Q. Bryce, this offensive line continues to play well week in, week out. I know they're seen, but are they almost overlooked? BRYCE PETTY: I think so. Those guys do a great job week in and week out of what they do, what they accomplish. I've said it from the get‑go, we go as they go. They're a big, intricate part of our tempo, the momentum. Everything that we do is kind of set up off the run. When those guys get going, they get that tempo, that rhythm, it makes my job a lot easier. Then the offense just kind of flows. My hat is off to them. They did a great job tonight. Q. Bryce, you touched on it with Levi, with that punt return. He also had the two interceptions. How much of a spark was that? BRYCE PETTY: Definitely, it was a big spark. That's what you have to have. Special teams are what win you games. I thought special teams did a great job the entire time. That happened to come at a huge time for us, 20‑7, I believe. For that to happen when we didn't feel the offense was gelling as well as we wanted it to, that was big. That was big. Yeah, again, he played a heck of a game. Q. One part of your team gets overlooked is your defense. BRYCE PETTY: Yeah, I think our defense is undoubtedly the biggest change from last year's team to this year's team, from this year's team compared to all the rest. They've played great all year. You guys are just kind of figuring it out. But we've known it all along. That's something that they come to work every day. Last year really put a chip on their shoulders. So they came in committed and ready to go. Coach Bennett had those guys playing really well, with a lot of confidence. They keep us in games. They do a great job. Really proud of them. Q. Describe the confidence level you're playing with offensively right now. BRYCE PETTY: Lot of confidence. I think it's that day‑in and day‑out practice, practice, practice, game plan, prepare, coaches instilling a lot of confidence in us. We've always known since spring that this, again, was going to be a special team. It's just finally about putting it all together and putting it on the field. For me, I couldn't be happier. If y'all could see my face, I'm smiling the whole time because it is really a fun offense to play with, guys I love to be around. They just work hard, they come to work every day. They try to be better today than they were yesterday, keep it on going. The offense is playing with a lot of confidence. It's my job to keep that going and to play well. I really don't feel like I played that well tonight. That's going to be something that I focus on this week, for sure. Big game coming up next week, so... Q. Shock, about the offensive line, sometimes you kind of wait for it to open. Talk about what they're giving you up front. SHOCK LINWOOD: I believe they're giving me good holes to run through. Started out with the offensive line, how they do dictates what I do. When Richardson and Kelvin Palmer come off the ball real good, make the holes real wide, I hesitate a little bit, be patient with it, find my holes. Q. Bryce, just want to know about your ankle. Saw you limping a little bit. BRYCE PETTY: It's fine. Just kind of twisted it up. Actually, I should have thrown the ball. Yeah, that was my fault. Yeah, I just kind of twisted it against Oklahoma. I guess retwisted it. But no big deal. Be ready. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you. Coach Briles opening comments. COACH BRILES: We knew it was going to be a dogfight. We have a lot of respect for Texas Tech, what they've done over the years, and this year. Four weeks ago they were a top‑10 team. The thing I was impressed about, this is what I told our players, it looks impressive if you're ahead of a team 14 at half. When you're down 14‑0, down 20‑7, you withstand that surge, against a good team, come back and finish the way we finished as a team, to me that's impressive. That shows you have a tough football team, a tough‑minded football team that's mature and believes what's happening inside the locker room. From that standpoint, I'm extremely proud of our players. I thought we were good in all three phases of the game. We made plays when he had had to make plays. Turnovers on defense, special teams touchdown, big plays offensively when we had to hit them. Got out of here with a good win. That's the way I saw it. As I glance, I see my great friend Bob out there. Bob, thanks for coming tonight. Appreciate your support always. Bob knows about it. He's been through a lot of good ones and tough ones. He knows what it's all about. THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Like you said, y'all have not been in that kind of situation. Based on you knowing the team, did you have a good feel? It's 20‑7. You had no worry you were going to bounce back? COACH BRILES: We have been in it. We were down 7‑0 to Buffalo, Kansas State down third quarter, tough road place. We had been in that situation, but not with that much of a burst. What you got to realize, it's a 60‑minute game. We're going to eventually do some things on the offensive side of the ball and we're going to get some things fixed defensively, it's going to settle down. Like I said, the impressive part is we took a couple shots, and then we dodged a bunch, next thing you knew it was a fight and we were actually in it. That was the part that I think is impressive. As you get deeper on in, you're going to have more games that could very easily fall that way. Q. Coach, you came into this game short three guys that started last week. Tevin and Glasco. Can you talk a little bit about the guys that filled in. COACH BRILES: I like how calmly you mentioned their names. To us they're not guys. I mean, they're dynamic teammates that have really done a great job for us. I would not have liked to have gone into K State without those people and jumped out of there with a win. I think with them not being there, I think we are growing as a football team from an offensive standpoint. The thing that's helping us is we're playing really good defense which allows us to figure out how to use the people that are going to have to try to compensate for those guys not being there. They've done a great job for us for a number of years. They're great football players. Hopefully we'll get them back here in a week or two, three or four, whatever. Yeah, I'm really proud of the way that Shock stepped up, Devin Shafin stepped up. The receivers, Norwood had a great game. A.G. was really good again. Really close to having an off‑the‑charts game. The whole thing to me falls on Bryce Petty and our offensive line. I think our offensive line is a dominant factor. I think Bryce Petty is playing as well as anybody in America right now. Q. Down 20‑7, how much did that punt return help change things? COACH BRILES: It helped. It's always a momentum builder. Getting a punt return, any special teams for a touchdown is like getting a pick‑six or a fumble pickup for a touchdown because it's a quick turnaround, quick change. Yeah, made a huge difference. All of a sudden it's a 20‑14 ballgame. From that standpoint, it was big. Second time Levi has done that this year. He's dynamic with the ball in his hand and he's really good in open space. That was huge. I think we had some good blocks. Like I said, it sparked us a little bit. Q. How important was it to create turnovers and win that battle in this game with their offense being able to come back at you as often as it could? And the status of Bryce Hager? Left in the second quarter. Didn't come back. COACH BRILES: It was huge getting the turnovers. We converted some of them. We didn't convert I know of one. I thought our guys played really sharp. I thought K.J.'s interception was miraculous. That's a tough for a DB to do on a corner blitz to make that catch. I think we turned that into 7 points. Two guys back behind strips on the quarterback. Those are big plays. It's showing that they're playing with an experience factor of knowing what to do and how to attack the situation they're in. I think that shows a lot of maturity on that side of the ball. Anytime you get turnovers, you get a chance to get back in it. I don't know what the turnover ratio was, probably 3‑1, 4‑1. We had one down deep that they got 7 off of. Hager's situation, he's been gimped a little bit for the last two or three weeks, actually did not work out the week of the Kansas game and just one day the Oklahoma game. So he's been hampered a little bit. I think he aggravated himself a little bit tonight. We'll have to wait and see. Q. You talked a little bit about the defense, the way they bounced back. They came out and hit you in the mouth early. What turned it around for the defense? COACH BRILES: I think just keep playing. We got good guys on the field. Those guys are good players. They're tough football players that are experienced. They've seen a lot, done a lot, lived through a lot. That's not a panic situation. If my memory serves me correct, there's two fourth‑down conversions, there's pass interference involved in there, there's a one‑handed catch in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown. We were getting hit with some really, you know, not normal situations. Like I said, the thing that's impressive to me is, you know, they came out with a lot of energy. We had a lot of energy. They just made some plays early. I thought our guys did a great job of just being tough. I think we are a tough football team, without question. Q. Can you discuss your team's ability to put teams away, fourth‑down stops. COACH BRILES: That fourth‑down stop was huge. We've fortunately been doing that the last three or four weeks. We've had a bunch of fourth‑down stops this year. That was a big turnaround. I think it was a 15‑point game at the time maybe. We go down and make it a 22‑point spread. That was a 14‑point swing in our favor. Anytime you can do that, you have to capitalize when you have chances. We felt like, you know, when we have the football, we want 7 points. We missed a spot early in the fourth, about 13 minutes left, that's just really my fault. I mean, we rushed the situation. We shouldn't have. We weren't lined up properly and it cost us. We can't do that in those situations and we won't do it again. Q. The vote of confidence that the Board of Regents gave you last week, how do you use that moving forward in building this program and what it means to you? COACH BRILES: It means the world, first of all. You are what others perceive you to be. If you're telling your dog that he's not very smart, then he's not going to be very smart. If you tell him he's smart, you love him, like him, appreciate him, he's happy to see you when you come home. It shows us as a staff, and it was a staff deal, it's not just me, it just shows us that we have a slight deal of appreciation. Appreciation's hard to get in this business. It's a hard thing to get. It's something that you always, if you can ever get to the point to where it can be a mutual appreciation, then you've got a chance to sustain it a little bit. I'm just humbled and honored to be able to represent one of the finest universities in the United States of America in Baylor. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. We'll continue with questions for the players. Q. Levi, obviously you guys needed somebody to step up. Did you feel like it would be you? On the punt return, how did that open up? LEVI NORWOOD: I mean, I didn't feel like it was going to be me. I felt I was ready if it needed to be, just like every week with Tevin there, Tevin not there, somebody needs to step up. All of us are ready. On the punt return, there wasn't much there to start. I think there were one or two guys in my face. Was able to make them miss. Everyone else was blocked. Pat Levels had an awesome block. Ran for about 15 yards, that got me in the end zone. Q. Aaron, can you talk about the record you set for the most points in the NCAA? AARON JONES: Obviously it's a great honor to put my name in the NCAA record books. But really it's a credit to the offense, especially this year the defense and special teams. Levi has run a couple back, we got a kick return, 29 million pick‑sixes at the start of the season. It's a team effort. I'm just glad to be part of a team like this. Q. Ahmad, the defense early on got hit in the mouth, down 20‑7. Talk about the resilience of the defense to stay in it. AHMAD DIXON: It's football. You're not going to come out here every week, week in and week out, and shut a team out. All the guys on the sideline just letting each other know, we've been here before, we've been in worse situations than this. We've been down 21‑3 going into halftime. We've been in worse situations. We knew we could fight back and get back into the game. Q. Levi, you talked a little bit about the punt return. How exhilarating is it whenever you are able to return a punt for a touchdown? LEVI NORWOOD: It feels good. It's something that doesn't happen very often. The first one I ran back a couple weeks ago was really amazing. It was a huge relief to finally have that happen. This one just added to it. It feels really good. Q. K.J., talk about that corner blitz. Looked like it hit you in the gut or something. That was a call from Coach Bennett. Talk about that. K.J. MORTON: You know, I came on a stunt. As I was coming, I saw the quarterback's eyes get big. I thought he was going to take a sack. When I seen him cock back for a pass, I just jumped. I grabbed it and brought it down for a pick. Q. Levi, with you being able to step up, you had the touchdowns and the punt return, you had the injury with Tevin, also with the runningbacks with injuries, talk about you guys having people filling in those roles when you have a guy down. LEVI NORWOOD: For the receivers, really we wanted to all step up and be able to do something special for Tevin. He's been here for four years. Being a player of his size, he's had to work really hard to get where he's at. He's done that and even more than that. It was really all of us just wanting to do something special for him, have a big game for him. Q. Ahmad, you've been around. You came in when the program was down. Now I think from what I understand it might be College Game Day next week, 7:00 ABC. You're 9‑0, Stanford got beat. What does all this mean to you right now? AHMAD DIXON: Just a blessing. Coach Briles and his staff gave me an opportunity to come in, help this team out, get to where we are now. It's just a blessing. We fought our butts off to get to where we are. We had a couple guys go down like y'all said before, a couple guys stepped up. It's fun to be a part of this team. I'm enjoying it. Looking forward to get out to Oklahoma State. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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