Postgame Quotes
October 27, 2007 | Football
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Texas Tech Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Mike Leach
On repeating last year's performance in losing to Missouri and Colorado
"I don't think the specific teams are the issue. Obviously, I think we can play better than we did today. I don't think we got a lot of breaks, but we didn't make any breaks. I thought that we needed to turn it loose more in the first half, and I thought we played real well in the second half, once you get past the turnovers. We turned it over too many times to be successful.
The biggest positive I saw this game, unlike last game when our own demeanor didn't allow us to stay in it and have an opportunity to win. We allowed our own frustrations to distract us and completely unravel us. This game here we overcame that and we were pretty level-headed, and demeanor wise we gave ourselves a chance to win this one, but we turned it over too many times and made too many mistakes to give us a great chance because they are too good of a team to make a bunch of mistakes with. The first half we gave up too many big plays and gave up too many plays on offense. In the second half we turned it over too many times, I thought we out-played them the second have minus the turnovers. When you slice it that thin, it's going to be hard to win. There were some plays that weren't really our fault that hurt us and probably shouldn't have."
On Graham Harrell's interceptions
"The simple answer is he just needs to go through his reads. Be patient and go through his reads. Sometimes when the guy has success, the temptation to not stay within yourself is too big. Great players do simple things, it's just they do them more often than average players. And Graham [Harrell] is a great player, and he just needs to focus on simple things."
On Aaron Crawford starting the game
"The thing that is important to us is we want guys who play hard and who are motivated. Also, obviously, the ability to make plays factors in there too. Quite frankly, our evaluation puts him ahead of the others."
On team's mental integrity
"There is a lot riding on this besides next week. We've got a lot of young guys that can overcome this adversity and learn to grow together and build on it for a long time to come in the future. It is very important that we get over it and go out there and play well. Just continue to develop your skills and work them together. That is the most important thing. Anytime spent dueling on the past instead of developing your skills is a waste, and we cannot afford to waste any time."
On Shannon Woods not seeing more playing time
"The biggest thing is we feel that Aaron [Crawford] has been playing really well at practice. He is very explosive and driven, like when he blocks somebody and moves them. When he runs the ball he is assertive and he makes a decision and reacts quick. We just think Aaron is practicing better and right now he is ahead of the pack and if he keeps going you'll probably see more of him."
On amount of running plays in the game
"I'm not entirely satisfied, and I felt we should have run more. The other thing is we found ourselves in holes enough times that it wasn't necessarily the best way to go about it. As far as runs go, shuttle passes, screens, and things of that nature, we'll essentially amount to that and do our best."
Interim Defensive Coordinator Ruffin McNeill
On overall defensive performance
"It was good in spots. On the first two scores I thought we were in the right spot, we just didn't make and finish plays. After the first two drives, I thought we held up pretty good, and at halftime we felt good about where we were. Then we came out and held them to a field goal. I thought the last score to make it 31 put us in a bad predicament. It didn't give our offense a chance. The things we got to work on are making sure we finish plays."
On Tech's offensive turnovers
"I feel like it is our job to get the ball back, and I think our kids feel like that too. We really emphasize being a team, and it's all of us. I thought the kids played hard, where last week we had some setbacks and didn't respond as well. When we had adversities today, we responded better. Coach [Mike Leach] had talked about on Sunday about responding to adverse situations, and I thought today we did respond better. I just wish we could have held them to that last touchdown, it would have given the offense a better opportunity."
On Kellen Tillman
"He had a good week of practice, and he went through the sessions with me. At that time he had been playing pretty physical this week in practice. Down in that goal line area, I thought [Brian] Duncan got a little knicked so I put Kellen [Tillman] in to get a little more physical play. He had done everything we had asked him to do this week as far as meeting me in sessions and in practice, and I just felt I needed a physical guy right there at that time."
On stopping the run by Colorado
"The one time we blitzed them when he came out with that touchdown, an all-out blitz, and there was a seam in the crease and he found it. The next time we didn't slide over like we needed to fit properly. The quarterback came out in a couple of runs, and I think we held him in check. I think we just got to in and get back to the drawing board and stay with the fundamentals and get back to basics. We'll be fine and get ready to bounce back next week against Baylor."
On lack of turnovers produced by the defense
"I was very disappointed. We had worked on it all week and I had emphasized to them about getting turnovers, and it was disappointing for them not to get any. We cause a couple of fumbles to come out, but we didn't come up with them. We had talked about and worked all week on finishing plays and about not almost finishing plays. Last week against Missouri we almost made some plays, and today we didn't come up with the turnovers to help the offense. That's our job."
Junior Inside Receiver Eric Morris
On whether the early kickoff impacted the team
"I really don't. We got up at six o'clock, and it's routine for us. I think we started a little slow, but we just have to get that in our minds as football players, we can't focus or worry about what time the game starts. We have to focus on what our goal is, which is to win every week."
On the turnovers
"Obviously, turnovers always hurt on offense. It's a bad thing and can hurt your defense and put your defense in bad field position. We did that a couple of times. It can swing momentum every time it happens. They got momentum off of it. I think our defense did a good job at the end in taking control. When we put them in bad positions, they kind of stepped up and made some plays for us. It was exciting to see that, but have to collectively play together as a team."
Freshman Wide Receiver Michael Crabtree
On the interceptions
"There were three people on me, and it was just a misunderstanding between me and Graham (Harrell). Stuff happens, so you just try to go to the next play. I guess you could say we failed."
On whether Colorado defended him tougher than anyone else
"Not at all. I think we just didn't capitalize. We have to put that behind us and go to the next game."
On whether the game ruined the records
"I'm not worried about the records. I am just worried about the win, so if we don't win, it feels like we didn't do anything. We just got to put it behind us and go to the next one."
Senior Cornerback Chris Parker
On Colorado's offense
"We knew they would try to come out and run the ball on us. They threw a couple of new plays on us at the beginning. We have to adjust to it. I thought we did a good job adjusting to it in the second half, but we just ran out of time."
Sophomore Linebacker Marlon Williams
On the defense playing after turnovers
"When the defense gets on the field, our goal is to get a three-and-out. If offense unfortunately throws a turnover, it's adamant that we get a three-and-out to get them back out there. If you look at it in that respect, I think we could have done a little better on that side."
Colorado Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Dan Hawkins
On the play of running back Hugh Charles
"He did a nice job, he really did. He really ran tough; I wish we would've got him a little more room down the stretch there when we needed to make some drives, but none of that was really his problem."
On the defense his team used against Texas Tech today
"We just wanted to kind of mix it up. Ron [Collins, defensive coordinator] did a few different things then he did last year. It's interesting because I think if you look at what Missouri did last week was kind of exactly what we did last year. I thought Ron did a nice job of throwing in a few wrinkles and keeping them off balance a little bit."
On the performance of cornerback Terrence Wheatley in today's game
"Well that was huge; anytime you get three turnovers [it's big], and they got him on the one touchdown pass, but he's a really good player and he and Jordon [Dizon] both came up huge today. Anybody that watches tape knows that he's pretty good. We've kind of been on him a little bit because his expectations are high, and ours are as well, so we kind of challenge him a little bit and he definitely answered."
On whether he had planned on seeing more of Tech running back Shannon Woods
"Yeah, but it's interesting because when you're scheming up a team, it's not so much that you scheme up necessarily one guy in a sense. That's part of the equation, but once the game gets going, you're playing your defense regardless of who's in there."
On Colorado's efficiency on its opening drives
"I think Mark [Helfrich, offensive coordinator] and those guys have done a great job all year long and we've been a pretty efficient club coming out of the tunnel. We were only able to get three on the first drive of the second half, but I just think that Mark and Jeff [Grimes] and the other offensive coordinators do a good job of figuring out what teams are doing and what's the best way to move the chains on them."
On whether he thought his team was comfortably ahead after taking a 24-6 lead in the third quarter
"Against these guys, you never feel like that, you really don't. I tend to think that way anyway, because I've seen too many games flip-flop. It was a good momentum builder but clearly not the end of the game by any means."
On whether controlling the ball and the clock was part of his team's defensive game plan
"I think that sometimes time of possession is really overrated. It's great when you can drive 80 yards and take up a lot of time and score, but it's not so good if you go 40 yards and you eat up a bunch of clock and do nothing with it. They're going to answer in a hurry, so you've got to be able to put scores on the board."
On how his team responded to the early start for the second time this season
"I'm just so used to doing it all the time; we've had some really late games and some early games. I think we've just really tried to get our guys to be indigenous to the circumstances and try to develop sort of a mentality that it doesn't matter what the weather is, or the time of day, or where it is, you've got to show up and be ready to go."
On the nine-yard reception by his son, quarterback Cody Hawkins
"That was impressive; that was a pretty good catch. I was telling Scott [McKnight] when he was throwing it, I said, `Just look at his old man, he's got limited athletic ability, so give him a shot,' He made a great catch, and it was a good throw by Scotty too."
Running back Hugh Charles
On the preparation of the game
"He [Coach Hawkins] got really pumped up last week. We are a team that we have to show, we can't talk about it, we got to show the world who we are and what we can do." I believe Coach Hawkins has grasped onto that and that is why he was kind of quiet this week.
On being an underdog
"Definitely, we are always underdogs, and every week we are underdogs. We don't take it personal at all and we prepare the same every week and the coaches motivate us to stay focused because we are a young team."
On Tech's Defense
They had a basic 4-3 defense and we have run on a defense like that before. Tech has a pretty good defense and just got a new defensive coordinator and I felt they got confused on a couple of things but they will pick it up.
Defensive tackle George Hypolite
Pressure on Graham Harrell
"As a defense we did a really good job, a lot of time as a defensive tackle its hard to bring the quarterback to the ground because even if you beat the guy there is still two guys in front of you and the quarterback can always scramble out. Our ends and linebackers when they got contained, did a good job of coming up and getting into his face and if I flushed him they finished the play"
Strategy against Tech
"Definitely, Missouri laid a framework if you can get pressure and put guys in his face and when he throws the ball he is a little sporadic. But when he sets his face and can sit back in the backfield and gets time he will pick you apart. "
On if they had the right defense to stop Tech
"Every defense is different. The way we play defense we are very gap sound, we stop the run first and foremost. Try to apply pressure to aide the defensive backs because we put our DB's in a lot of man coverage, we don't play a lot of zone. Defenses are different around the country, guys plays 3-4 and run different styles of 4-3's, and maybe a defense that plays like us, but also you have to have the right personnel. The coaches did a good job of putting the right players and personnel on the field."
