Postgame Quotes
August 30, 2008 | Football
Aug. 30, 2008
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Texas Tech Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Mike Leach
On how much improved the defense is over last year
"We were extremely spotty, I think that we played in spurts the whole night and a lot of the credit goes to Eastern Washington. The place where a ton of credit goes to them is a place in the game where we hit them in the mouth really hard... they never got flustered and they slugged away the entire game. This is one of the teams I have the most respect for. I don't think that we played what I consider well, what I consider three series in a row on either side of the ball. A lot of the penalties were incredibly disappointing. We could have focused better."
On reaching the performance level of the Gator Bowl
"The first three games in particular you learn a lot and discover a lot to work on. You got examples and things to improve on and I think this is a very valuable game for us."
On the first thing the team will work on next week
"The consistent overall focus; I think where we have bad effort we will focus on it and we won't hesitate to use that sand pit or replace them. As coaches, we have to get it out of them, me in particular. I think they'll respond and I'm optimistic because I'm still excited about this team but I just felt like we wouldn't have wasted as many plays as we did this game but we did and now we have to learn from it and go from there."
On hype contributing to the lack of team focus
"We're not mentally tough right now to eliminate them, maybe we will be next week, I don't know. We here at Texas Tech we need to entertain a far higher dose of respect for all the teams we play."
Inside Receiver Eric Morris
On if he was surprised tonight by Eastern Washington
"For sure. They are a good team. They played well, they executed well. Offensively, defensively, special teams. We weren't happy with execution on our part. We had some lulls at times which are unacceptable for us as a team. It is something we really need to look at as a team."
On if he was humbled this week
"I guess you could say that. It's something that will end up opening our eyes. We're not going to pat ourselves on the back and say at least this happened now; at least we got the win. That's not the kind of team we are, we are not going to get down on ourselves. We have high expectations; we don't look at rankings or anything. We have to find something within ourselves to show we know how to play each and every week."
Inside Receiver Detron Lewis
On what Mike Leach told the team after the game
"He preached about not respecting Eastern Washington like we did. They played hard tonight. He just preached about not respecting teams."
On if he saw any bright spots tonight
"There were some here and there. We had a good series and a bad series. It was back and forth."
On what caused all the penalties
"There was no concentration. Not focusing in."
On the confidence level for next week's game
"We just got to go in and execute, stay focused and go in and respect our opponent."
Linebacker Brian Duncan
On the defense overall
"Pretty good defense today. Not quite what we want just yet. We're still working on trying to get that chemistry down. We are under a new head of the defense (Ruffin McNeill) and we are still trying to evolve as a defense. I felt we did run to the ball a lot. We were a really active, swarming defense. As far as running around, we did do that and did some good stuff."
On whether 24 points was acceptable
"Not at all acceptable. As a defense, we are not proud of that. We are the type of D now that we cannot let any team score. We take it personal. First of all, we have to run for it, and I'm not trying to run for people scoring on us. At the same time, we take it personal, and we do not accept that at all."
Quarterback Graham Harrell
On whether he ever got into a rhythm
"Not really. We've still got a long ways to go. That was a pretty sloppy game, and offensively we were pretty sloppy. Like you said, we had lots of yards, but we should have scored more than we did, but we did score 50, so those are good things. We've got a long way to go and a lot of room to improve, so we are going to work on improving and trying to get better tomorrow and all week."
Safety Darcel McBath
On Eastern Washington's offense
"They do a lot of good things. Like everyone else said, they play hard. They executed a lot better than we did on our end. They just made plays when they needed to."
On the pass defense
"That's just them playing harder than us. They came out and had a great scheme, and they made a lot of big plays. We tried to stop them, but we couldn't and that's just a testament to them."
Eastern Washington Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Beau Baldwin
On team's efforts
"Yeah, I was really proud of the heart and the resilience our guys showed, like you say you go down to anyone let alone a team like Texas Tech 21-0 it's going to be hard to try and fight back. Our team, they fought back made a few plays, everyone just believed. That was the thing you know I'm not into moral victories but the way our guys left it on the field, I was very proud."
On the 2nd quarter
"I told these guys that we had basically won the second quarter 17-7, and there was no reason we could not come out and win the third quarter 17-7 or something like that and build on that momentum. We had the momentum in the second quarter and I just told them to do everything they can to keep that momentum. I knew they were going to come out, they are too well coached, too good a football team, too many good players, not to come out angry at half time it was going to be a tough fight no question but we kept fighting in that third quarter. Just a few plays here and there, it just slipped a way a little bit in the end."
On EWU's interception
"Our interception was probably the play that sparked us, no question. We needed a spark offensively and that put us in their territory down there. We needed a play like that to happen somewhere whether it was special teams, offense, or defense, and [Matt] Johnson did a great job with that. Sometimes in these games you just have to have a few more things go right early otherwise it becomes really tough when you're playing against a quality opponent."
On next week's game
"I feel very good about next week. Like I said I'm not into moral victories, I'm not into scheduling someone just to play them then wait for league, that's not our mind set. Our mindset was to come down here and win. We knew how tough that would be but it is still our mind set. That will be our goal and our mind set when we go to Colorado next week. We are going to have the mindset that we are going to practice hard all week and come out of there one and one. We believe that."
On playing up a level
"It's always going to be tougher playing up. The I-A teams are still going to win the majority of the games but I really believe there is becoming in every sport, not just football, just more and more parity. And more and more situations where teams from even a lesser conference in I-A can go against a SEC or Big 12 team and win. From I-AA playing up a level, I definitely think it has become a little closer than it used to be but, this game especially it wasn't just playing up a level, it was playing up a level against a team that I think is potentially a top 10 team in the country."
On shutting down Michael Crabtree
"Our biggest goal was to make them work for everything. We tried not to give them anything. You're never going to shut down an offense like Texas Tech, no one in the country can shut down Texas Tech's offense in my opinion. But you try and make them work for everything, make things tough. Hit the QB enough, don't give them a lot of yards after catch. That is one thing that impressed me more than anything about (Michael) Crabtree last year was how many yards after catch he got. Those were some of our goals and if you can do that sometimes you can frustrate a really high power offense, if they are just having to work hard for everything they do."
Quarterback Matt Nichols
On what kind of things pushed the team
"As many times as these games with another division, you get your team ready and have to know that they are a little bit faster, have more depth, and the playmakers that make a big difference. After we spotted them 21 points, the rest of that half we were winning 17 -7 so you see the talent that the I-AA level has. The I-AA division is catching up a bit. We feel like we have a national championship team on the I-AA level. We feel that no I-A team should take us lightly since we have that talent. Starting off and giving them a 21-point lead, coming out of the gate the drop pass turned into a pick. We just came up short and didn't make the one or two plays that we needed to make."
On keeping up with Texas Tech
"Everybody realizes that we can play with these guys. We feel that since everybody has a game under their belt we know the speed of the I-A game. After the first quarter, you catch up to the game speed that they have and after the second quarter, it felt like a Big Sky game. We went out and made some good plays but just didn't make enough."
Wide Receiver Tony Davis
On agreeing with Matt about going into the next Big 12 Conference game
"I had jitters but after the first drive I just realized it was just another game. The whole time we felt like we had something to prove and show that we can play with just about anyone."
On what is it like going in to play a top notch team
"We don't feel like it's any different than our conference. It's a good opportunity for us. We play to win and the whole time we had faith that we could pull it off."
On how big it was to prevent them from scoring
"With their fire power we didn't want the game to get out of hand so I wanted to get our offense going because I knew they could put up a lot of points."
