Texas Tech University Athletics
Press Conference Quotes, Oklahoma State Game
October 13, 2003 | Football
Oct. 13, 2003
Texas Tech Press Conference (Oklahoma State Game) Quot]es
Defensive Coordinator Lyle Setencich
On how he plans to stop the balanced offense of OSU (with Bell and Woods):
On whether he feels that the team is closer to putting together a full game:
On eye progression:
Quarterback BJ Symons
On what the discussion was between Coach Leach and BJ during halftime:
On whether a half like that can be learned from and can be a positive:
On whether defensively he thinks OSU is going to give Tech a bunch of different looks:
On the game against OSU this weekend and if he thinks it will be a shootout:
Head Coach Mike Leach
On the amount of running done this past weekend and BJ checking the defense:
On Carlos Francis, and the fact that the team has so many receivers, whether that hurts his chances for top individual recognition:
On what he expects from OSU, defensively:
On whether he thinks BJ was trying to force some things in the first half:
On the approach and preparation this week for OSU:
"I felt better about the fourth quarter. They had a couple of opportunities to score in the fourth quarter and we did some things in the red zone that we tried to do against A&M and a couple snaps we got, a couple we didn't. Iowa State had a few reps late in the game and we changed some things up and executed correctly, we lined up correctly, we were in the right place and even though they weren't spectacular plays, they were in the right place."
"A really good defensive football player is like a really good quarterback. There is no difference between the linebacker position and the quarterback position in eye progression. A quarterback has to have a progression in which once the ball goes up, there is some key that tells him where to throw the ball. As he looks at this progression, if that first progression is not available to him, he must transfer his eyes. If his eyes don't transfer, he's not a good quarterback. Sometimes they transfer all the way across the field with some kids who are very good, BJ does that. It's very difficult to teach, and there's no difference between that and a linebacker. If their eyes go in the right place, they'll run in the right place, if their eyes don't go in the right place, they won't look right."
"We talked a little bit about what they were doing defensively, but mainly the discussion was that he was happy with the way we were moving the ball, but we had to take care of it. I had four turnovers in the first half. Basically Coach Leach told me he though I was playing great but was a little out of control and said that I needed to relax, continue doing what I was doing and needed to have a little bit more control with it. I guess I did a pretty good job in the second half of calming down. We talked last week about the routine play and basically that's what we did in the second half and things worked out."
"Definitely as far as being a positive. Everyone was talking about four turnovers, two picks, two fumbles and it was a pretty bad half turnovers wise, but I didn't really feel like that. I felt like I was playing well and that we just had a couple of unfortunate mistakes. One thing is, I could have hung my head and gotten frustrated, nervous, or distracted by the way things were going, but I think I did a good job, and that we did a good job as a team overcoming the adversity we had. I put it behind me and played the next play like Coach Leach says. I was a little discouraged with the fumbles and interceptions, but I feel like I did a good job putting that behind me and approaching the second half like I would any other game. "
"I'm not really sure because I haven't been able to check out the film yet. I'm sure, like I said last week, that they are going to try to mix things up. Iowa State came with a little bit more blitz than A&M did. Basically we have to be prepared for any defense we face. We want to be successful against any defense, man, zone, or whether they are dropping everyone back or blitzing. I think we have done a good job of that up to this point. I expect to see some new things. Teams always want to try to do something different that maybe we're not expecting or haven't seen to try to keep up off balance. I just feel comfortable to this point with everything that we have seen from game to game and I feel like we have seen everything that we could see. We just have to be prepared for everything they do."
"I don't know, I'm not very concerned with their offense and what they do. My main concern is getting our team in the end zone. I can't worry about a shootout, I do have a lot of confidence in our defense, but if you ask me if I think this will be a shootout, I would say no. Our defense has gotten better from week to week, they are continuing to get better and they made huge strides in the past couple of weeks. We have a lot of confidence in those guys and then we have a lot of confidence in ourselves. I don't really know what to expect. You can't go into these games expecting the game to go a certain way because if it doesn't, you can lose focus and get frustrated with what's going on. So you can't go into a game expecting it to go a certain way, we just know that every time we take the field we expect to score and that's what my main focus is this week."
"We've seen it from other people, but with Iowa State, we felt like we could run the ball and BJ did a great job getting us in the runs. In hindsight, we should have run it more the first quarter. I think by the second half, we did a really good job running the football. I think the biggest thing is totally run related or pass related, sometimes its just types of passes. I think any defense is going to have a flaw or two in it and you try to attack those flaws so hopefully you put the guy on the other side in a position where he has to change his defense and if you can get him to change his defense, then you have a chance to break their rhythm and if you can do that it will help you be successful on offence."
"I think it impacts it. I also think it goes both ways too. Some teams that are throwing their balls to just one guy, and that guy is going to get more recognition and be allowed to distinguish himself. But there are also a lot of teams that aren't going to throw enough balls for anyone to distinguish themselves. I think the best of it is that he really gets to show a lot of dimension in his game and do a lot of good things, but by the same token we are going to split the balls over several people."
"In the past OSU has been a team that mixed them. They disguised what they were doing and showed a mixed variety of defense. They worked to keep us off-balanced by mixing a variety of defenses."
"I think he played pretty darn good. I think there are a couple of things BJ did fantastic. First of all, having a frustrating first half and recovering and coming back the way he did. I have never coached anyone that had the ability to dismiss it and come back at the level that he did, because it takes a lot of guys a while to overcome their mistakes, and it didn't take him long at all. So I thought that was really impressive and he's mentally tough that way. The other thing is if you throw for 400 plus yards, everyone would like to do that, and I think it says a lot about his performance and this teams performance that he had an off game because he didn't break 500. I think he played well and was impressed in particularly with the second half."
"They have always had pretty good focus with regards to OSU and I expect them to this time. Same as any other week, pay attention to detail, try to find things to improve, work with a sense of urgency. Coaches and players alike hold each other accountable for improvement, have a good week in practice, and go out and expect to be successful on Saturday. Its fairly routine, except for the one thing I don't think you can ever allow yourself to sleep on, and that is there has to be a level of accountability and you have to look for specific things to improve on as you move through the week."
