Texas Longhorns College Football Pregame Quote, 10/14/2019

The sun came up, which is always a good thing, for everybody in this room included. Our guys were eager to get back to work yesterday. Good energy at practice yesterday. Obviously, there’s a lot of things that we can learn from that game and need to improve on. Got a lot of guys dedicated and committed to doing that.

Our biggest goal – we have completely turned the page as a team, and our sole focus, as it should be, is to do everything within our power to beat Kansas.

Injury update, Chris Brown, his forearm fracture is going to need surgery. He will be out about six weeks. Collin Johnson is continuing to be evaluated, has not been diagnosed with a concussion. He will lift today and see how that goes. Jeffrey McCulloch did dislocate his shoulder. He will be out for the Kansas game, probably a couple weeks. I don’t believe it to be season-ending. Juwan Mitchell did sprain his elbow, pretty significant sprain, got an MRI on that. As of now, though, we don’t think that that will limit him too severely as the week progresses.

Questions?

Coach, after watching film, were the missed tackles as glaring as it kind of seemed, as you watched the game, to give up a lot of big plays? With that said, I know it sounds trite, but do you do anything extra moving forward?

The answer is, yes, they were glaring. Really good athletes. We’ve got good athletes too that need to be able to tackle better, and we’ve got to teach them how to do that. Even though we weren’t in pads yesterday, did spend a good 10, 15 minutes working ‚Äì there’s still drills you can do in tackling in terms of angles and leverage and all of that. And we’ll tackle live in practice tomorrow.

Again, so banged up defensively, it was not a great decision on my part, in retrospect, to limit the tackling these last few weeks in practice, and it showed. We’re going to have to find a way to keep our guys healthy but also get some quality reps because we need to improve in that area.

Tom, six games in, you know what the defensive numbers are, but my question is what is fixable, and what just is what it is at this point?

Everything’s fixable. I think the biggest thing, we knew ‚Äì we had to play more one-high defense against their offense based on them being able to attack the middle of the field when you’re in a two-high shell with a lot of their pop passes, misdirection pop passes, seams, all of that. When you do that, you’ve got to contain the quarterback, and we did not do a good job of that. We knew that that was an area of concern going in.

But that is fixable, 100 percent fixable. It’s just a continued reinforcement of the details.

I guess I was thinking more big picture, not just this one game, but six games left, you said you could still get to the Big 12 championship game. What in your mind are you and Todd talking about? We’ve got to change X, Y, or Z.

I don’t know if change is the right word. Get better, improve, develop ‚Äì those are all words that come to mind. I think there is a ‚Äì you know, with all the young guys playing, that we’ve got to simplify moving forward. Not that we haven’t been trying to these last few weeks, we have. We only had four or five open-field first and second down calls on defense, a couple base zone coverages and a couple blitzes.

We’ve got to let our guys play fast. We’ve got to let them play fearless, afraid ‚Äì unafraid to make mistakes. That’s probably the biggest thing. We’ve got to be able to get those guys playing fast and not thinking, and the only way to do that is if they’re 100 percent sure in everything that they’re doing. If that means limiting what we call, then so be it, but we’ve got to play fast and play aggressive.

You mentioned Saturday you knew what the what was, you’ve got to figure out the why. I don’t know if it’s more than the missed tackling. Was there anything else that you feel like the team needs to address, like fundamentals of tackling and the special teams decisions that hurt your field position?

The decision-making, certainly special teams. There’s not a guy back there that we would rather have than Devin Duvernay, in terms of his trust level. I think he would admittedly say he got caught up in the moment and was trying to make a play. I think the fact that he was so close on the first or second one that we got out to the 35-yard line or something, kind of gave him some confidence. But, obviously, when you field the balls where he fielded them, you’re not giving your return team a chance.

We’ve got to make better decisions. The best way to learn is by doing, and I think he certainly understands ‚Äì not that he didn’t understand before, but I think the magnitude of those decisions certainly have changed his mindset, so to speak. I think that’s the biggest ‚Äì and to answer your question, the why, obviously, with him, it’s trying to make a play. Trying to do more than your job because of the perceived importance of that game, especially for a senior. So we’ve got to control those emotions better and not let those emotions affect our decision-making.

Was there a bigger why answer for that?

I don’t think so. I think ‚Äì again, I think defensively we didn’t play as aggressive as we could have, some uncertainty at some positions in some key spots. Then I think there was a bit of a frustration that set in offensively which caused some adverse effects. I was actually proud of we went in ‚Äì what did we have, 3 points and 86 yards of offense in the first half and scored 24 points in the second half. Although it certainly didn’t look like a well-oiled machine, at least we found a way to get the ball in the end zone three times.

How did their defending of your opening script, including kind of limiting the perimeter screen, affect how you called the rest of the game? What else did they do to limit you all to 3 points and less than 100 yards in the first half?

Yeah, that was a quick adjustment. If they’re going to spend a one-high defense on the bubble screen stuff, then you’ve got to go play backside, which is why you saw us try to go to the X receiver a little bit more after the first couple series. It was a good plan by them, but we certainly have adjustments.

What else did they do? They played better than us. I don’t have a good answer. They flew to the football. They were very sure tacklers. We didn’t make very many people miss in space. They did a decent job up front of spilling the ball in the run game to the unblocked guy. When you live in the RPO game, you’re going to deal with safeties and nickels that are unblocked, and if the ball gets handed off, then at times they’re going to be the unblocked defender, and they’re going to be in space. They did a great job of tackling in space.

Coach, I have two questions, and both are kind of sack related. From the defensive side of the ball, second game that you guys haven’t been able to get to the quarterback or at least get him down. As far as that goes, what’s your concern level about that? The second one, obviously, is denied sacks. What were they doing that was kind of so effective that made it hard to adjust to that?

I mean, we got to the quarterback quite a bit. We forced a red zone interception. I think the other interception that he threw was under pressure as well. We got our hands on him quite a bit. Slippery dude back there, and he’s a great player. So we got to him. We didn’t get him down. I don’t know that the concern level is DEFCON 5 just yet. Obviously, we’ve got to do a better job when we are back there of getting those kind of guys down, but that’s a tall order when you’re talking about that caliber of an athlete.

Then I don’t know that it was a whole lot that they did. There was nothing that they did that we didn’t prepare for. I think the speed of it, especially in third down, they lined up in bear, covered both the center ‚Äì both guards and the center. Ran a lot of twist game. We had seen that on film, didn’t execute well. I thought the offensive staff did a great job of adjusting our third down protections at halftime to account for that.

Then, again, there’s a lot of things that go into sacks. We had mixed blitzers. We had receivers that ran routes at improper depths. We had the quarterback hang on to the ball too long. Then also, we’ve got a quarterback that can scramble and is usually pretty good at getting himself out of trouble with his feet. They brought him down for minus one, minus two at times when he tried to scramble. Should he have thrown that away? I don’t know, but he’s usually pretty good at getting away from some of that stuff.

Tom, two questions. Number one, what, if anything, did you learn about you and your coaching staff this weekend? Number two, when you talked to the team yesterday, what did you see in their eyes? Is your leadership in the right mental space moving forward?

Oh, absolutely, yeah. We had a leadership meeting last night. The guys are in a great place. The thing about this rivalry game is we play it in the middle of the season, unlike a lot of rivalry games that are played at the end of the year. So you’d better be able to bounce back if it doesn’t go your way and put it behind you. Learn from it certainly. Use mistakes as feedback. As I said in the post-game press conference, it’s never a failure if you learn from your mistakes and you improve. So I really like the way they came out and practiced yesterday.

What did I learn about myself and our staff? I felt like we could make some adjustments, some needed adjustments. I think I learned that our kids play really, really hard for their coaches, which is really important. I learned that there’s no finger pointing when adversity hits. Our guys come together. They rally. They give great effort for their coaches. That was encouraging to see.

Tom, what was the most frustrating or disappointing thing to come out of that game, and what was the biggest positive?

I would say the frustrating part was how we played offensively. We had been able to carry our young defense for most of the season by playing really sound, explosive at times, offense, and we didn’t. So that was discouraging. The execution level on that side of the ball. Then I think the positive was our red-zone defense continues to play well. We got two turnovers and did not turn the ball over, which is why we were in that game, certainly. Our third down offense continues to be pretty good.

So I would say just overall discouraged on the way we played offense as a whole and then the tackling on defense, but encouraged by our red-zone defense and the ability to take the ball away and then our third down conversions.

It looked like there was a heated exchange between Keaontay and Sam on television in the third quarter, and after that, Roschon kind of got the bulk of the work and did a lot with it. Was there anything –

That’s news to me. I didn’t ‚Äì there’s plenty of exchanges that happen between players. I don’t ‚Äì if it got to the level of, quote, heated, I probably would know about it. So I don’t think there’s any issue there.

And Roschon on film, anything stand out in a different way from what he’s been doing?

Not in a different way. He plays fearless. He plays tough. He plays aggressive. He’s got to clean some things up from a protection standpoint, but really liked the progress that he’s made in whatever it is, two months of playing that position.

Tom, you talked about middle of the season rivalry, and now you’ve got to turn around and come back home, Kansas team, week off. You’ve done everything well that you talked about ‚Äì

We actually play a game this week?

You do. Sounds like the LSU conference on Monday, no looking ahead. Everything you’ve done wrong against OU, you’ve done well at some point. Does that make it ‚Äì I don’t want to say it makes it easier, but does that give you more confidence moving forward that you can get things fixed?

Yeah, I don’t ‚Äì there is zero sense of panic. There is zero sense of woe is me. There is zero sense of our issues are unfixable. That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but the things we did do poorly, we have shown at times to be able to do well. We’ve got to coach our guys to play with a level of consistency, especially against top five opponents that ‚Äì to play at their maximum ability level the things that you have seen that we have done so well. We’ve got to play with that kind of consistency against really, really good people.

I know, since you’ve been here, you’ve tried to instill the next man up and no excuses mentality, but when you’ve gone through what you have with this defense, what’s the reality of being able to do that with so many young guys anyway? And as many injuries as you’ve had, how difficult is it to push those things when guys know guys are out every week, four or five guys every week.

Again, I never know which answer, as coaches get asked questions like that, do we expect to say, you know what, we throw our hands up, and I don’t know if we’re even going to field the defense this week. I don’t know if we can find 11 guys. No, we’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out this week with different guys on the field. Guys that are in our program for a reason because we feel like we recruited them because they have that ability level and we’ve got ‚Äì now, we’re on ‚Äì the urgency level to ramp up some of these guys’ development is certainly there and round the clock at this point.

There’s no other option, right? There really is not. So we’re going to get the guys, the 11 best guys on the field that we can, and we’re going to coach them to the best of our abilities, and we’re going to protect their weakness, exploit their strengths, and, again, we’ve got to put 11 out there. The 11 that go out there are going to be the best 11 that Texas has right now.

Two quick ones. Do you still expect Jalen and Caden to be out this week?

Yes.

And is Marqez Bimage going to step in for Malcolm? What does Malcolm’s loss, albeit temporary, mean for this team?

He’s been very productive, very disruptive, great leader. It will have an effect. I would be lying to you if it didn’t. We haven’t decided who would fill that role. I think it would be either Marqez or T’Vondre I think, would be the two biggest candidates.

Two for me also real quick. Sam, obviously, has been battling a rib injury, like a minor one, and he dinged up his shoulder a little bit against West Virginia. Is he a little bit more hurt maybe than he’s letting on and maybe playing through some pain? And the second one is any possibility we see Jordan Whittington this week?

No and no.

Coach, you talk a lot about getting the program to take the next step. What kinds of things can you learn from a loss like this that can help you guys take that next step?

Resiliency. There were plenty of times in that game where there could have been a lot of finger pointing, a lot of, hey, guys, this might not be our day kind of attitude. I know that certainly has and could happen to a lot of teams, and this one didn’t. They kept fighting. It’s a close group of guys. They love each other. They love their coaches.

I think that’s probably the biggest take away of the confidence level we can get there and get there in fairly short order because we’ve got a lot of guys that are committed and compelled to fight through adversity, to learn from mistakes, and to ‚Äì Kevin Washington, our director of player development, had a great kind of visual. If you’re driving down I-35 and you’re heading south and all of a sudden you realize you need to be heading north, it’s not just okay to just realize it. You’ve got to do something about it, and doing something about it is getting off the off-ramp, making the U-turn, and start heading north.

So I think we’re to the point where a lot of teaching has gone on in those meeting rooms. We finally ‚Äì not finally, but we are realizing at the player level the things that we need to improve on, and I got the sense yesterday that that story or visual kind of resonated with our guys. They’re ready to get off the off-ramp. We realize what’s going on. Now let’s do the things necessary, which is get off the off-ramp, make the U-turn, and head the other direction. Because realizing and understanding is not just enough. You’ve got to take then those next steps in changing the things that need to be changed, and I think our guys are excited to get back to work to go do that.

Should Roschon Johnson be your starting tailback?

I don’t know. I’ll know after this week of practice.

Is it because you don’t want to promote him over Keaontay? The guy is clearly delivering for you.

So is Keaontay. Keaontay rushed for 120-something yards against Oklahoma State too. We’re not going to throw the baby out with the bath water.

And just help me understand. Head coach is always supposed to remain on an even keel, and I know that. I know everyone makes fun of me for asking pound the table questions, but what’s your level of anger right now about how you guys were physically outmatched on Saturday. That’s not how you all play. What’s your level of pissed-offness right now?

None, other than myself. It was. You’re right. It was the first time that I can remember that we got out-physicaled on both sides of the ball. That’s not us. I’m obviously disappointed in everything ‚Äì in the way that the game unfolded and the way that we played. But the only anger ‚Äì I’m not going to get angry at the kids. I’m not going to get ‚Äì you know, coach the coaches, and the coaches will coach the kids.

If there’s anybody to be angry at, it’s me for, obviously, I didn’t do enough to get our guys to play at the level that they’re capable of playing.

Joseph Ossai is all over the field, not only making plays, but also in his presnap alignment. He seems to be in a bunch of different spots. What’s his role on this defense, and how do you think that he’s done in that role that has him doing so many different things?

He’s a really smart player. Love his intensity, effort level, leadership. I’m glad he’s on our team. I think he’s done a great job. It’s definitely a tall order. He did have a few assignment errors that we need to clean up. You’re not going to find a guy that plays harder on defense and is more suited to do multiple things like he is. So really, really proud of him and his development and where he’s come to just be a true sophomore at this point in his career. Excited about the future with him too.

All right. Beat Kansas!