• Roster
• |
• Schedule/Results
• |
• Stats
• |
• News
• |
• Archives

Sept. 25, 2010

Recap |  Box Score |  Notes |  Photo Gallery 

TEXAS COACHES

Head Coach Mack Brown
Opening statement: Congratulations to UCLA. I thought it was a really good team. In the first half, it should have been a lot worse than it was. The [Texas] defense played their guts out [in the first half]. We had the fumbled punt. We probably lost 50 yards field position on that punt. We didn’t make a fourth and three in the first half. It gave us poor field position. We had two more fumbles and an interception. It should have been out of hand at halftime. I thought the defense was out on the field too long. They got beaten down in the second half, which was our plan against UCLA.

UCLA did a great job. Rick Neuheisel has got it turned. I think you’ll see they’ll have a good year. They have an impressive group of players. They ran their offense very efficiently, especially in the second half. I told the kids some of them played great. It’s always that way. It’s a team sport with a lot of numbers. When you say the whole team played bad as a coach, you’re wrong. For those that played great, I told them congratulations. For those that didn’t, they need to figure out how to do better.

This one is embarrassing for me. As a head coach, I’m responsible for everyone in this program – from the trainers, to the managers, to the walk-ons, to the kids, to the coaches - everybody. It was not fair to Texas fans. It was not fair to the players. I’ve got to do a better job. You can’t have that many mistakes when you’re doing my job. I thought this was very similar to Kansas State [in 2007] when we just looked awful.

On their rule for punt returns: You don’t touch it past the 10 [yard line].

On RB D.J. Monroe: He made pretty bad judgment on the last kick return, probably because he’s tired. We’ve got to get him in shape. But he made the most yards we’ve had rushing in a while. I thought he did a good job. We’ll have to see what he did on his fumble. He hasn’t played much. That’s the trouble with trying to make a transition after the third game of the season. I thought that somebody slanted and hit him at the point of attack. It probably wasn’t his fault. We’ll have to see on film. I thought he did a really good job.

On if the team was ready to play: I really think they were ready to play. They just played poorly. You can be ready to play and have fumbles. I don’t think they weren’t ready to play. Pregame was great. Watching their eyes in pregame was great. I thought we played real hard in the first half. I thought they were ready. I just think we played poorly.We said at halftime we were lucky to be down 13-3. We’ve come back and won these so many times. Those first drives in the second half are so key. We didn’t score going in before the half. That hurt us. We let them drive right down the field [to start the third quarter]. We missed two assignments on the zone read. They just walked right in and scored. That was very disappointing. I think it was a total team effort. That comes back to me.

On the team overall: It’s very disappointing – the whole thing. It’s hard to point out what’s worse when it’s all bad. Some kids played well. As a team we played very poorly top to bottom. The defense played well in the first half. The offense didn’t play well throughout the game. The kicking game was inconsistent. We still can’t return kickoffs. We messed up our punt returns three times. We didn’t cover a kickoff. The second half we came back and score and they return [it] to the 50 [yard line]. They score in three plays. We didn’t play good as a team at all to give ourselves a chance.

On the offensive line: We thought they played too long last week. We’ve got to get some of those younger guys ready. We were planning on playing Tray Allen and Luke Poehlmann. Now that they’re not available, we’ve got to get somebody else ready. I don’t know how many plays they played. We tried to get them in there early today.

On having trouble making first downs: On the first fourth down play the offense thought they had the right call. Obviously it didn’t work. We don’t gain anything on fourth and three. The second one, the receiver is supposed to get past the chains and he didn’t. He cut it short and he was short.

On the outcome of the game: It’s disappointing and it’s stunning. In fact, I’m shocked. I’m disappointed and shocked.

On bouncing back for Oklahoma: I told them to get with a family member. Get with some of your friends. Think about what you did right. If you played well, congratulations to you. If you didn’t, you’ve got to figure it out or we’ve got to look for somebody else. I’ve got to go home and try to put some sense into this.

On the team’s leadership: I thought they tried. I really did. It was discouraging. The offense didn’t give the defense enough hope. Then the defense got their heads down. I saw guys fighting and competing. Even when we had the 12 [players] on the field, I still thought we’d win the game. It seemed like we just kept messing up. That’s what was so disappointing. I thought the kids tried. I don’t think this is about them. I think it’s about us. They play like they’re coached.

On his feelings about the game: It’s the hardest thing in the world when you do not play well as a team. It’s an awful feeling for a coach. You feel like you let your kids down. You feel like you let your fans down. You let everybody down. It’s just awful. We’re paid to do it well. We didn’t do it well today. It won’t be as well when you go back and look at it. There will be a lot of kids who played well. A lot of kids will get better.

On changing the offense when the team got down: When we got down 20-3, you have to start changing who you were. You try to throw it every time to get back in the game. Go no-huddle. Our game plan was to stay on the field like we did at Tech and make them play late. It worked early. We didn’t score points. They ended up keeping us on the field. It totally backfired. You can’t have that many turnovers and win a game against anybody. You just can’t. We had four last week. We had five this week. When you start talking about two fourth down situations - those were turnovers. They missed a field goal. Two of the turnovers were way down there. We gave ourselves absolutely no chance to win.

Offensive coordinator Greg Davis 
On RB D.J. Monroe: D.J. did some nice things in there, and we are going to continue to look and see how we can get him the ball in various ways. Today it was at running back more than at wide receiver, and we will just continue to evaluate that. 

On turnovers: It is part of football. Obviously anytime you have negative plays—turnovers, penalties—they are all going to hurt. 

On whether turnovers were the main catalyst for the loss: Obviously turnovers are a part, but we have to be sure that we are asking our guys to do things that they can do.

Defensive coordinator Will Muschamp
On his impressions of the defense in the second half:  I’m disappointed. We’ve got to tackle better, [and] we’ve got to play responsibility football on this team. You look at some situations [during the game] when we missed some tackles and didn’t clean up things as well, and some other situations where we did not do our jobs. [UCLA] came out on the first drive of the second half, and they did a nice job. We didn’t tackle very well.  Two situations we didn’t take the right guy. So that goes back to coaching. We’ve got to do a better job.  

On the loss: I am worried about winning and losing, and we lost the game. That is gut-wrenching enough. 

TEXAS PLAYERS

DE Sam Acho
On whether UCLA did anything that surprised the defense: No, for the most part, it was on us. We missed a couple of assignments. In the first half, we played sound football—had a couple of busted assignments, but nothing new.

On how they will bounce back after this loss: Just like after a win, there is a 24 hour rule. We look at the tape, get better, go back to work, and next week we have to play OU and get a big victory there. 

DB Blake Gideon
On today’s performance: We definitely didn’t play to our standard. I think all of us played hard, so it was a matter of execution really on both sides of the ball. I can speak especially for the defense. We are embarrassed that we didn’t hold up to our standard and show everyone how we’ve been preparing all week.

On if the defense got tired: No. We practice hard and we condition hard at practice, so I really don’t think that was an issue. Four games into the season – if that is an issue - those guys probably need to do something else.

On UCLA scoring on the first drive after halftime: I just know a lot of individual assignment stuff was wrong which we will clear up. And simple tackling - from myself and some other guys - are all stuff we need to improve on and stuff that we will fix.

On what did not work in the third quarter: We came in after halftime with some adjustments. We felt like we had a pretty good hold of what they were doing in the first half. But when we came out for the second half, we weren’t able to capitalize on some of the things we were seeing. Like I said, I think we all played hard, so that wasn’t the issue. It was just a matter of execution.

QB Garrett Gilbert
On today’s game:  We lost and that’s all that matters. Sometimes you can learn more from a loss than from a win. So we’ve got to go back and look at the film and move on, because we’ve got another big one coming up.

On what he learned from the game: As a quarterback, [I just have] to be better with the ball and not put our defense in positions like that in the first half.

On what happened with the interception: As simply as I can put it, I just didn’t get it over the linebacker’s head. I saw him. I had Mike Davis open behind him, and I just didn’t make a good throw.  

On the offense:  We did feel like we were moving the ball. We had put together a couple of first downs. We had put together a little bit, and we’d get an explosive play here and there, and then we just shoot ourselves in the foot. It’s got to be corrected.

WR Marquise Goodwin
On expecting this outcome after beating Texas Tech: We just had a few turnovers. The turnovers kind of hurt us, but I thought we were going to bounce back and we just couldn’t execute out there and couldn’t get it done. I really don’t know what it was. We just [have] to come in next week and get it done.

On the offense becoming more consistent: We just have to keep working on that. Consistency - coach preaches to us all the time on being consistent. We have to be more consistent. The defense did great for us tonight, and they kept holding them up and we just have to do better as an offensive unit and execute better.

On QB Garrett Gilbert’s play: I think Garrett is doing great. I think he’s a good leader and he’s doing the best that he can just like everybody else. We just [have] to execute and get the little things corrected and we’ll be fine.

On expectations being too high: Of course not. This is The University of Texas and expectations are always high. We just have to fill those expectations and get the little things corrected. This one loss is not going to bring us down.

OT Kyle Hix
On the sack where QB Garret Gilbert fumbled: It was a communication deal. It was with the snap count. We had a certain count on, and we had only five seconds left to snap the ball and I was expecting [it to be snapped]. And we only had like five seconds left so we had to snap it and I was expecting something else.

On feeling like everything is going wrong: I thought we played hard throughout the entire game, but everything that could go wrong seemed like it did today.

On the offense not scoring more points: I think we’re stopping ourselves a lot of the time. We came out and were moving the ball, but we have to cut out turnovers and mistakes that kill us. We have to eliminate those by next week.

On what coach Brown told the team after the game: Just to come back to work tomorrow. We’ve got [Oklahoma] next week, and we have a lot of improvement to make for that game, but we’re not going to let this beat us twice. We’re going to put this behind us for tomorrow and come out on Monday and get ready for Oklahoma.

On preparing for the next week: It’s a long season. It’s just one game at a time. We have to put this one behind us and go back to work next week and get ready for Oklahoma.

On what positives you take from the game: We have to watch film tomorrow, put this one behind us and get ready for OU. OU’s a great game every year, and I know they’re a great team and we have a lot of improvement to do before next week if we want to go where we want to go.

OG Michael Huey
On his feelings following the loss: Stunned. Upset. But we aren’t going to let it get to us.  We can’t let it beat us again next week when we play OU.

On the play of the offensive line: We were kind of inconsistent. The coaches did a great job preparing us for this game. They held up to every expectation we had and exceeded it.

DE Eddie Jones
On his feelings following the loss: We lost on our home turf, which is one thing that we never want to do but did today. We dropped the ball, and we don’t want to let this one bite us twice. So we go back to the drawing board tomorrow and just get better for next week. Every week on offense and defense we just have to go out and fight. It’s a loss. You can’t say anything else about it. We have a 24-hour rule. We settle it in and know that we lost and go back to work tomorrow and get ready for Oklahoma. 

On UCLA’s success running the ball: We just didn’t play some gaps that we had to play on defense. We gave them big gains in yardage. We need to stay contained. Fit in our gaps. There were some things we didn’t do.

RB D.J. Monroe
On his fumble: Probably my elbow wasn’t high enough. The ball just ended up on the ground. Things happen and we’ll have to go back and write things down and hopefully we have better success next week.

On his role throughout the game: Coach [Applewhite] said, “You stand behind me and when I call your name you go in.”  On the first possession he called my name and said “D.J., you’re in”. And I went in and did what I had to do.

On his feelings following the loss: We feel like we let our team down. We were totally ready for this game, and we just shot ourselves in the foot. It was just a shock to the team because we were so excited and pumped all day about the game. And then we go on the field, and I don’t know what it was today.  Things happen and we just need to finish the game next week.

On his preferred position on the team:  I’ve played running back all my life, so I feel more comfortable there. But I’ll play wherever the team wants me to play.  

DT Kheeston Randall
On the locker room after the game: It was quiet. That’s not usually how we like it in the locker room after the games. God lets everything happen for a reason, and you [have] to take the highs with the lows and this is a low. So you just got to bounce back.

On how the game changed in the second half: Honestly, I don’t really know what happened. We’ve got to give those guys credit. They played a great game against us, and it’s just back to the drawing board for us.

On UCLA RB Johnathan Franklin: We missed a lot of tackles, but you [have] to give him credit. He was playing hard, [and] running hard. So we’ve got a lot of work to do.

On preparing for Oklahoma: We’ve got two good practices and then we [have] a walk through on Thursday. But it’s just the small things. It’s just the things we did, we need to fix, versus the plays they made. There are a lot of things that we can do as a team to get better in those few days, so I’m not really worried about it.

RB Fozzy Whittaker
On the offensive mistakes: It’s one of [those] things that is an annoying, nagging problem that we’re having. It is penalties, [and] mental mistakes that we are committing on our own. It is nothing that the defense is doing. It is just those things that we have to fix throughout the week so we can get it perfect when we play Saturday. Today was just a lack of focus.

On bringing the morale up for OU: Just saying the words OU around here gets everybody fired up. It’s a big rivalry game. It will be on national television. We’ll be going in there pumped up after this loss. We’ll have a chance to redeem ourselves.

DB Aaron Williams
On stopping UCLA’s run game: It’s disappointing if we don’t stop the pass. It’s disappointing if we don’t stop the run. The loss is disappointing, period. We came into the game as the top rush defense in the country, but things didn’t go our way. We fought hard. We had a good game plan. It just didn’t go our way today.

On if UCLA did things they weren’t expecting: I think the fact is that we hurt ourselves. We had a lot of mistakes today that we can’t make, and with a good team like UCLA, you make little mistakes like that, [and] they’ll score. They really didn’t do anything surprising. They just came here and ran the ball hard.

On if this game will have an affect on playing OU next week: We’re going to get over this game. UCLA will be behind us by tomorrow. 

UCLA COACHES

UCLA Head Coach Rick Neuheisel 
Opening statement: As I always do in post game I want to congratulate the opponent. It certainly was not Texas’ day, but I can’t say enough nice things about Mack Brown. I have been able to be on trips with him, and there is not a more first-class human being and a guy who runs a program with such integrity. So hats off to him. It is a huge thrill for our program to come in and play in this environment and play the way we did, and to go in there and feel like now we are maybe getting closer to being a program where we can be counted on and get back to our roots as a top program in the country. Don’t mistake my words that we are in that category yet, but there is reason to believe it can happen when you go and play the way we played today. Hats off to our defense - that really set the tone in the first half with the turnovers. And hats off to our offense – they really came off and controlled the ball in the second half with two long scoring drives and a clock-eating drive. I am just thrilled for those kids in there. 

On where the win ranks in his career: It’s up there. Winning in [a] great environment in college football especially when you are a college football fan like I am. To go to this great field and stadium and play like we did, it is great just like it was a year ago against Tennessee. 

On the development of the offense: We’re getting there. Kevin [Prince], you can feel him start to really get it, and again, you can’t ever figure out what it costs us and him by him missing training camp. All those reps and chances and pictures that you get to store in your memory bank are gone. We had to go through some growing pains, and that is the way I am choosing to look at it. I am sure there are still more in store for us. We still have to figure out how adapt the passing game. It was a thing of beauty - that drive when we kept the clock and kept moving and hit a couple third down passes, and that is what a good football team can do. I am very pleased but still mindful that there is still a lot to do to be the kind of offense that we want to be. 

On UCLA’s defense: The first game of the year against Kansas State we played a great first half of defense but frankly, we ran out of gas. It was hot. [In] the first game, we had a lot of young players and they had a great back and they got away from us. Second game of the year we played pretty darn good defense again against Stanford, and Stanford is a darn good football team. But it is 13-0 end of the third and both the drives at the end of the first half and first drive of second half, and we are within scoring range and we are not good enough to make those plays. So we as a football team have to continue to work on making those drives touchdown drives, and that is where you go from average to good, then good to great, and that is what we have to do. We all have to get better at that and to do that twice against a team like Texas is progress. 

UCLA PLAYERS

S Tony Dye
On the field position battle: What a lot of people don’t notice is the coverage team. The two gunners did a great job of getting pressure on them. They forced the fumble and were down to the other side of the field so quick all day.  

On UCLA’s progression over the last couple of years: We came in really young, and we didn’t have a lot of leadership going around the team so we just put it on ourselves and grew up really fast. It really paid off. 

RB Johnathan Franklin
On today’s game: Our game started on Tuesday at practice. We worked hard and we came out, executed and earned a win. We felt all week that we could win this game. We had the mindset that we could move these guys and that we could win, so it was no surprise.  

On his expectations coming into today: We knew we were going to run the ball. When we got the game plan on Tuesday, we knew we were going to pound the ball. Regardless of who we are playing - it didn’t matter that it was the Texas Longhorns - it was about us today.  

On his performance today: I did average. I fumbled the ball and had one touchdown. You always want to have more, but I need to get better. I’m definitely not satisfied. I need to get watch some film and get better.  

LB Patrick Larimore
On facing the No. 1 rush defense in the country: I think they might have mentioned it earlier this year but coming into the game I really didn’t think about it. We just went out there and looked at them as the same kind of team that we have been playing against. It wasn’t about them, it was about us. We went out there and we did our thing.