Texas Longhorns College Football Pregame Quote, 12/30/2024

Q. There were a lot of guys that are still here that have become major parts, what do you attribute that development to for those guys?

PETE KWIATOWSKI: The belief, trust. You know, when we first got here, you’re trying to gain the trust of these guys. We’re all new, right. They are new to us. We are trying to get their trust. They are trying to get our trust. And that’s a huge part of it. And so once you start having success, right, that breeds confidence, right. It shows them that, oh, these guys do know what they are talking about, right.

And so yeah, that’s the No. 1 thing.

Q. Sark was mentioning because you were acquaintances didn’t know each other super well before you got here. How did that come about? What was Justin’s sense for connecting you guys and how did you hit it off?

PETE KWIATOWSKI: I’m not sure how it all went down from Sark’s point of view. But yeah, he was the one common relationship that we both had. So Sark had asked him questions about my demeanor and my coaching style, and all the stuff that you’re trying to get into to get to know somebody that you don’t know and vice versa for me.

Q. What was the first year like, the learning experience working with him, not knowing him what was that like?

PETE KWIATOWSKI: Everybody has got their style, and everybody’s got — what’s the word I’m looking for — I always use this word — style, personality. You’re trying to be able to — we like to use the term read the coverage, right. So the demeanor; when is it okay to have a good time, have some fun, joke around. When is it time to not say anything. Listen to the message, right. So that feeling-out process. Just human nature, trying to read people, you know. Because not everything gets communicated in relationships. Some guys have different ways of communicating.

And so that was probably the biggest thing because you’re not — you’re thrown into a new environment with — I mean, it was the same thing with these guys. I never worked with Blake. The only guy I worked with was Joe. I knew Banks a little bit from when we were in the Big Sky together. But everybody else, I didn’t know from Adam. So you’re just trying to figure everybody out.

Q. How much has that part helped? I know you had a couple changes this year but for the most part —

PETE KWIATOWSKI: The continuity is huge. When we got our first year, I think they had three or four different coordinators, right. The position coaches had changed a lot. So when you have consistency like that, we had it at Boise State with Coach Pederson. We had it at Washington with Coach Pederson. That consistency matters, a lot. It really matters for the players because coaches, we’ve been through it. We’re in that profession. So we know how to navigate it.

When they are always getting a new leader in their room, now they have got to learn what those guys and how they coach and the communication between the coaches from a schematic and technical standpoint, there’s a lot that can get lost in translation. But when you have that consistency and you’re working together for a long time, then it just flows. It flows so much better. Because now if I forget something, one of these guys is bringing it up, right. Or if they forget something, right, somebody else is bringing it up. So there’s a lot of that going on, as you are preparing, right.

Q. What made you end up deciding to make this move and take this chance?

PETE KWIATOWSKI: I was with Coach Peterson for 14 years. He retired. I was there one more year. It was just timing, you know. I had been at Washington, that was seven seasons. And then, you have the opportunity to come to Texas and you’re growing up, watching Texas Tech, A&M, I don’t know if it was Thanksgiving or the day after Thanksgiving, but that was one of those classic games. I was an Earl Campbell fan growing up, all that fan — when I was younger, Texas, it’s pretty cool, right.

So you get that opportunity. And recruiting, being in the profession. You can recruit Washington, but it’s a lot harder than Texas just because of location.

And then going against him, knowing what kind of offense he has, it’s always fun to be a defensive coordinator for a team that you know the offense is going to be pretty good. So there’s a lot of factors that go into it.

Q. What was it like going against him? What was it made him do what he does well?

PETE KWIATOWSKI: First of all, the shifts and motions pose a problem. But just he is running plays — not just running plays. He’s running plays to set up other things to find those opportunities to put the red dot and take those shots. It’s challenging because you know, you’ve got to stop the run. To stop the run, you’ve got to commit more people to the box. When you do that, your DB has to be able to hold, so that cat-and-mouse game that you’re playing as a play-caller, it makes you better.

You’ve got to still — we do what we do. We tweak it, obviously, week-in, week-out. But yeah, whatever I call, the guys know they have got to execute, right, and so there might be calls where the corner has got to hold up one-on-one, right. It’s the nature of the call.