Postgame Quotes
October 06, 2007 | Football
Oct. 6, 2007
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Texas Tech Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Mike Leach
On overall team performance:
"I thought it was a good win because we had contributions on all sides of the ball. I thought offense, defense and special teams all played together. I think they're a big physical team, and their best games are ahead of them as you can see them emerging and improving. We just need to take this game, learn from it, and improve this next week."
"The exciting thing about this team is that everyone is going to polish up some one week to the next. I don't think we've reached our plateau, and we're going to continue to improve steadily, and we just need to make that process happen the best we can."
On Offensive play:
"I think there was a point there where we tried to make too much happen. I think we played good the first quarter. We went out there and got their points, but there were still portions of the game where we tried to make too much happen, and we just need to make routine plays and not worry about something special."
On defense:
"I think they played real well. I am not sure of the statistics, but if you work it up into three and a half quarters, I think it is pretty impressive."
"Brandon (Williams) and Rajon (Lewis) were around the ball all the time, and the same way with Darcell (McBath), partly because he scored and I was excited about that. Marlon Williams played real well. He was really excited and had a lot of enthusiasm with what he did, which I think is really important as Coach McNeill instills a high level of enthusiasm. The biggest thing is that all the numbers are nice, but the enthusiasm and everyone finding the ball is the most significant. There is none of this "almost" making plays."
On Michael Crabtree:
"He just needs to continue to improve as anybody who does good things needs to try and find ways to get better. There is no sense on putting a ceiling on potential because something good has happened. He does good, and a lot of it is enthusiasm for the game. He has a contagious enthusiasm for the game. I think that is gigantic and really what makes Michael Crabtree. He hasn't come close to playing a perfect game, but the thing is he goes full speed, expects and makes things happen."
On the blitz by ISU:
"I felt like they blitzed us more than other people, as they weren't a big blitz team coming into this game. They mixed up the front some, and to me it seems this is where most of their tricks came in."
On Eric Morris:
"I think he is doing a real good job on punt return, and he did a great job on that screen he had. There were a couple of times I felt we had a chance to get him some more touches, but at some point you pull the trigger and other stuff happens. If the looks aren't there you just try to sort it out and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't."
On playing A&M
"I think they're a good football team and a great program. We need to improve this week and just worry about playing the best we can play."
Defensive Coordinator Ruffin McNeill
On overall defensive performance:
"The biggest thing we talked about as a defense was being consistent and being mentally tough. I think that is a consistent element for a good football team, good defenses, and good football players. Mental toughness is important, and that means coming through on third downs and fighting through adverse situations. I think we had a pretty good three-quarters of a game, but the last two scores bothered me. We tried to get some guys a rest, but Iowa State came through and did a good job on their part."
On defensive line:
"Our four guys upfront have a lot of speed and explosiveness. We talked to them about two parts: one, our philosophy is great pass coverage, is great pass rush, period. Second, when we do blitz we want our secondary to know the ball is coming out hot, is coming out quick, and that depends on our front. I like the way those guys attack the line of scrimmage, the way they attack the play, and the way those guys attack the ball."
On Victor Hunter:
"You get better by getting reps. Since I've been coaching, I always look for guys that can make plays for us. Victor has been a guy that has been around, he is a very physical player. Coach Leach has nicknamed him the "angry ball of hate". I have a lot of confidence in Victor, and the only way for him to get better is for him to get reps."
On Darcell McBath:
"Darcell is a leader for us. He is a great athlete and I think he can take the responsibility we put upon him, and I like the way he is performing. Like I said last week, I can't control the other team, I can only control how we play. If we play swarming, very physical and aggressive, make and finish plays and cause turnovers. That's all we're thinking about during the game. That is what we emphasize with them, and Darcell has exemplified that in the last two weeks."
Junior Quarterback Graham Harrell
On first drive
"I'm really not sure. I really don't remember that drive. We just got ourselves in a hole and made it bigger and bigger. First time we haven't scored on our first drive all year, and that's really something we focus on and starting fast from the beginning. I think we have done a good job of it this year obviously. Today on the first play we got the sack, and it cost us, and then an incompletion, and we dug ourselves too big of a hole to get out of. I thought we did a good job of coming back from that and scoring on our next three drives. That's a drive we focus on and want to score on."
On whether game was a complete performance
"I thought the defense looked great from start to finish. I think that's the best job our defense has probably played since I've been here. That's one of the top performances for our defense, and if they keep playing like that, we're going to be a tough team to beat no doubt about it. Offensively, I thought at times we played well. We could have been a little more complete, but we made some plays and scored when we had to, which was big. I just wish we would have scored a couple of times when we didn't, but it was a pretty complete game as a team I thought."
Junior Inside Receiver Eric Morris
On Michael Crabtree
"This is my fourth year here and we've gone through some pretty good receivers, (Joel) Filani, (Jarrett) Hicks, Nehemiah (Glover) my first year year, and Trey Haverty. Crabtree just has a knack for making plays. He's probably not the fastest guy on our team, but he just has that knack. He has great body control. I think that's (body control) what separates him from other people. He always knows where people are on the field and has great vision. I think one thing is that he's a good basketball player, so he knows how to read people in space and knows how to get open. I think that's the biggest intangible to have, greatest for a receiver just knowing how to get open, and obviously he does a great job of it.
On punt return
"We've been working hard on that, trying to get guys willing to be nasty kind of and hold their blocks for a while, and we've been close all year of getting it. They're doing a good job, the guys up front. I'm really just catching the ball and running with it. They all blocked well and held their blocks well. I think that sparks our offense, and we scored on that drive. That's always big. I think special teams was huge for us today. All sides of the ball, we had a good kick return, a good punt and that sparks our offense. Then, our kickoff coverage was excellent.
Junior safety Darcel McBath
On the first touchdown and Blythe's catch
"From my angle, it looked like we had good coverage from the cornerback, but he made a good play. That's pretty much it. He made a good play on the play. He made a play on the ball. He's an All-Big 12 receiver, so he's going to get his, too. We're definitely mad about that, but he made a good play.
On the fumble
"Victor (Hunter) did a great job of getting the ball out, and I thought I saw it come out. Then, I thought he rolled on it, and it squirted out again. All I saw was the ball and green in front of me, so ya'll know the rest."
Iowa State Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Gene Chizik
On tonight's game:
"I thought we just got outplayed in every phase of the game that you can name. I think our offensive line got outplayed, I think we got outcoached, I think that we got out-everythinged. We couldn't protect the quarterback, we couldn't protect the ball, we couldn't run the ball, we couldn't stop them on defense and that starts with coaching."
On Texas Tech's defense holding Iowa State's offense down tonight:
"I think I've got to give Texas Tech's defense a lot of credit, first. I thought they played really, really well; I think that they've been playing really sound defense the last two weeks. I feel like we just couldn't get anything going, I feel like they out-physicaled us, I thought they outplayed us. I'll start again and say I think we got outcoached. This isn't all players, this is coaching and we didn't deliver, we didn't execute well and that comes back to me. That starts with me at the top and I thought we were a very below-average football team and improved in nothing tonight, zero."
On the mistakes his team made tonight:
"Every week, every game it's the same thing. We put a new guy in and we still get turnovers. Tonight the center snapped the ball over the guy's head for third time this year, we hadn't had that happen in the last two or three weeks and here it goes again. Offense tonight from beginning to end I thought was a comedy of errors, the only thing that was positive about our offense tonight is they kept fighting down to the end and that's it."
On whether or not he was surprised by the performance of the Texas Tech defense:
"We knew they were good, this is the Big 12. This is Big 12 football, we knew they were going to be good and we knew they had good players. Coach [Ruffin] McNeill, their defensive coordinator, we know him well, he's done well, he has a great scheme and, again, we got outcoached and outplayed and that starts with me."
On his team's poor field position in the first quarter:
"The wind was blowing big time in the first quarter and the field position swing was not good for us. We were playing out of a hole a lot, we went three-and-out on the first series, and a field position game with them is not a good one to play if you're in a hole, and we were for about the whole first quarter."
On where his offense struggled tonight:
"We just felt like we could run the football tonight, which we couldn't and we didn't. We didn't run the football, we couldn't run the football and we couldn't make first downs. We couldn't stay on the field and we put our defense in a bind all night long and you can't do that with this [Texas Tech's] offense. "
On Iowa State wide receiver Todd Blythe breaking the school receiving record:
"Todd's a pleasure to have on our football team because he's a battler, he's a fighter, he loves the game, and I'm proud that he's on our football team. I think that he had a good night tonight and that was one positive that he kept fighting and battling. During a night where there weren't many positives, I would say that he was one."
On Texas Tech's Michael Crabtree:
"I think he's a great player and he's got a great career ahead of him. You just look at his numbers right now before he even got into our game and you know that."
On how his defense prepared to defend Tech's receivers:
"We were just trying to keep everything in front of us. We knew they were going to get their catches, and we knew they'd throw it 40, 50, 60, 70 times or however many times they had the ball. We were just trying to keep everything in front of us and tackle. I thought we were poor at tackling tonight on the screens. I think the screens gutted us three or four times with poor tackling. We were as below-average on defense as we were on offense, let's put it that way. "
On if he thought his team had a chance after recovering a fumble in the second quarter:
"When you play offense and defense like we did tonight, then you have no chance. If we play offense and defense like we did tonight, then we'll have no chance in any game the rest of the year. I was hoping we would have a chance early in the game, but looking back on it now, we didn't play well enough to have a chance all night."
On where his team will go from here:
"We're going to look at the film, see who produced and who didn't produce, and go from there and make some decisions on Monday, and get ready for Texas."
