Monday Press Conference Quotes
Monday Sept. 22 Press Conference Quotes
Head Coach Bobby Petrino
On the Alabama game“After watching the video, it’s a lot of what I said after the game. Offensively we moved the ball, we had guys playing hard, we were utilizing our play action game and running the ball pretty well in the first half. Then we had the two turnovers that gave them fourteen points and obviously you can’t do that. “Defensively we didn’t fit the runs perfect all the time, and we missed a couple tackles at the line of scrimmage and had a couple of bad angles that gave them big plays. You’re not going to win any game when someone rushes the ball for over 300 yards against you; we really have to improve there. We’ve got a long way to go as a football team. We did though have better individual performances. We had guys that made strides in their game, but we haven’t been able to put that together as a team yet. 11 guys on the field play in and play out and that’s what we are struggling with right now. Even when you call few defensive passes and you have guys open you have one guy break down in protection. It seems to be a one guy hit one guy there, that’s when you are really not good enough right now. We’ve got a lot of work to do. “Michael Smith had a great game for us. Showed a tremendous amount of competitiveness, a tremendous amount of toughness, you couldn’t ask more out of him. He was really competing on every single play, he was out there. Whether he was carrying the ball or whether he was involved in protection, or running his route, I thought he really played well for us. We need to build on that.“Yesterday wasn’t a lot of fun, we watched the video together as an offense, the video together as a defense, we made sure we pointed everything out. But our guys will come back and we will practice hard tomorrow and these young guys will continue to improve.”
About players who played during the Alabama game“Definitely Michael (Smith) did, on the offensive front we were inconsistent, but (Jose) Valdez played well at times and he has been playing well the previous two games too. Defensively, our defensive fronts I thought made some big improvements, Adrian Davis played well. Jamar Love had a nice game. He played real physical and did a nice job on coverage, and a couple big plays on third downs, that got us off the field. We are just going to be continuing to build on these guys. “
On running backs“I think again it’s the comfort zone on pass protection. Those are the things that worry you, we have to do it, we’ve got to get them both involved, and we have expanded De’ Anthony’s (Curtis) package each week. He has been helping us in the passing game; we do need to get him more carries. I think Dennis (Johnson) showed that on his ability to return a kick off that he is going to break tackles and that he is very fast. He just needs to come to the practice field and be more consistent in practice. This past week hurt him a little bit because he was sick and missed a couple of days.”
On Texas preparation “We had a lot done, they’ve only played three games like we have so we took Rice and broke all that down and you add all that to your scouting report to all the percentages. One thing we wanted to make sure we do is utilize the two practices that we’ve already had so that we didn’t go and erase all the things that we’ve already worked. We erased some of it and added a little bit, but we want to make sure that we carry over from those two hard practices we already had. In fact, we actually went back and watched those practices.”
On Tyler Wilson“He will take more reps with the twos and get more work; we’ve got to work at bringing him along. He’s a young man that has very good instincts in the pocket, very good vision, can be accurate at throwing the ball, we need to bring him along and continue to improve.”
Casey Dick interceptions“Both of them he was kind of sitting on his back foot, and he would look one direction and then try and come all the way across the field. One of them he did not locate the receiver and didn’t know what the receiver was doing. Those are not good plays, there is something he’s got to get over, and understand what the mistake was, work at it and let it not happen again. We’ve got work to do to regain confidence. We’ve got to have a good week of practice, and regain his confidence. “
Running Back Michael Smith“It felt great to be integrated into the passing game a little bit more, however it wasn’t enough to get us going to put points on the board. I just think we need to start scoring more.“I thought that I’d be a little bit more drained than I am now. I feel fine, we conditioned on Sunday and I made sure I stayed in the front of the line, so I’m ok, ready to get back to practice tomorrow and get ready for Saturday.“The day after the game, everybody was still a little bummed out, but we watched the film, put it behind us and we know that if we want to go down there and compete this weekend then we have to be ready to go tomorrow.“When freshman come to a Division I program, a lot of them have come from winning programs, which is the reason why they’re here, so they’re not used to losing. I can see that with a few of our freshman. You just say ‘you lose sometimes, you win sometimes, but you have to keep on going.’ They see some of the older guys shake it off and get ready for the next game so they just kind of follow us through.”
Offensive Tackle Jose Valdez“We’ve come a long way since the spring. Coach Summers has stressed on us being consistent. It just shows that we’ve got to play together as a unit and be one; not just be individuals when it comes to playing in the game, protecting Casey and have his back whenever he needs us.“We watched film yesterday with Coach Summers and we looked at everything and saw what happened. Like I said before, we have to play together as a unit and be ready for anything. Like Coach Petrino said before, every team is going to throw something new at us. They’re not going to just sit back and let us throw the ball with no pressure.”
On not getting the score on the goal line stand“It was pretty deflating for us, because coach stresses smell the endzone during practice every day almost when we’re in the redzone. We all have to play as a unit and smell the endzone together and want to get in, not just be 4 and out, 3 and out, and then get stopped on 4th down.”
On Texas“Texas is very fast and physical, they don’t back down from anybody as we saw two weeks ago. They’re d-ends are very fast, not huge, but very fast. They get off the ball and want to get to the quarterback just like every other person.”
On Michael Smith“Michael Smith’s a hard runner. He’s got a big heart. He’s going to run as much as we let him run. If we make holes for him, he’s going to take them. He’s not going to back down, he’s going to make somebody miss and he’s going to try and run somebody over. He’s just going to keep on doing what he does, just like Darren and Felix would last year.”
Safety Dallas Washington“We need to start off as a defense by executing and tackling. That was one of our main weak points in the Alabama game, tackling, and we just don’t need to give up any big plays against Texas. On the loss“It’s still on everybody’s mind, it’s one of those things were you had one of those games, you just have to forget about it. You forget about it, but keep it in the back of your mind so that it doesn’t happen again.”
On stopping the run and tackling“A lot of it wasn’t athletic ability. It was more so effort. Tackling is really how bad you want to make the tackle, defensively you just have to want to make the tackle. That was one of the main reasons why all of those long runs were breaking through, because at times at safety and linebacker we weren’t fitting the right gaps, which created holes. In order to stop the run everyone has to be in the correct gap so those long runs won’t squirt through.”
On being from Texas and playing the University of Texas“Being from Texas, and getting the opportunity to play Texas is something that anyone from Texas going out of state would be honored and thrilled to go back home to the home state and play them. If you can’t get fired up for that then who can you get fired up against?”
