Oct. 28, 2009
Opening statement: The kids and coaches are really excited about the game in Stillwater this weekend. I thought that practice was very upbeat yesterday, and I really thought that it was the same type of intensity that we had for the OU practices and that is a game our kids get excited about.
I wondered about the slow starts, like a lot of our fans have, up in Stillwater over the last couple years. I think that their coaches just probably did a better job than I did of getting them ready to play. Mike [Gundy] and Les [Miles] got after us, and we stood around and they took control of the game, and thank goodness we were able to come back and hang in there and fight. It is our job this week to be ready to play. I do think that Oklahoma State has earned that respect. One of those games I remember they were 4-7, and our guys probably overlooked them, but they are very talented. They are very well coached. This is a national game with national implications, and it has our full attention and full respect. I see our guys being excited about the start of the game. Even up there in 2007, we did not play very well, and they jumped all over us, but we came back and hung in there. The 2007 team, though, was an up-and-down team. This team has played hard each week and we fully expect that on Saturday night.
Mike Gundy has done an outstanding job as a head coach, but he has also taken back over the play selection duties since Larry Fedora left. They do an outstanding job of being balanced. They can run the ball. They throw play-action deep. Their vertical passing game off play-action is very affective and is something that we will have to watch. They really do a great job each week of mixing in trick plays. Our defense has been working on the Oklahoma State trick plays for two weeks because we know that we are going to see them, and it is something that they do effectively.
People have asked about Dez Bryant and if that would change our game plan. It really would not. After Monday, we know that the NCAA usually looks at the cases Monday and Friday, and once it was not announced that he would play on Monday, we felt like he probably would not. We looked at the body of work with [OSU wide receiver] Hubert Anyiam. He will be every bit as successful in their offense as Dez Bryant. He’s big. He’s fast. He’s caught 19 balls over the past two weeks. He’s really good. In some way, Dez not practicing for four weeks and then jumping out there this weekend, the timing might be off much more than it would have been with Hubert, who has played for the four weeks.
For us, we have to stop the run, and we have to handle the deep throws. We need to handle the trick plays. We also need to make sure that we pressure the quarterback. Zac Robinson to me is one of the more underrated quarterbacks not only in the Big 12, but also in the country. He has done for Oklahoma State what Colt has done for us. He is a guy who takes care of the ball. He is a very effective runner. He is hard to sack. He has only been taken down four times this year. He is very competent leader, a very accurate passer, and he protects the ball. So you have to give him credit, and give him respect for the weekend.
We talked on Monday about [OSU defensive coordinator] Bill Young and their defensive staff. Bill is a guy that has been around a long time, and you are not going to throw something at him that he has not seen. He is very effective. He gets the guys in the right place. They have the right fundamentals. They line up right. We feel like their linebackers are great players. They can get pressure on the quarterback, and [OSU defensive back] Perrish Cox may be as good a defender and kickoff/punt return guy as there is in the country, so you cannot let him dictate the game. They have done a great job stopping the run. They are holding teams to 99 yards per game rushing. We have to stay balanced, and we also have to hit some deep throws. That is important to us this week.
For our run game, we have looked at it hard over the past two weeks since we changed it some going into the Oklahoma game. What we are telling our kids now is for us to have a successful run it needs to do one of three things – it has to have a four-yard gain, it has to get a first down, or it had to score a touchdown. That evaluation process is a more effective evaluation process than going by average per carry because you may come up with a lot of second-and-short, third-and-short, or goal line plays that may end up killing your average per carry. If it’s in a situation where you still score, it looks like you’re not successful when scoring was your actual goal. By going with a predictor that says you need four yards per carry, you need to score a touchdown, or you need to get a first down on each run, we were 61 percent successful against Oklahoma and improved that against Missouri. We were 25 successful plays out of 37 for 67 percent.
We also felt like coming out of Oklahoma in the first half it was obvious that we needed to do a better job of protecting Colt. He was on the ground with his runs and being hit 14 times in the first half at Oklahoma. Against Missouri, he had five quarterback runs in the first half and he had four hits, so he had a total of nine hits for the game at Missouri in three quarters where he was on the ground 14 times in the Oklahoma game, so we feel like that we’ve made some progress in that area and that will be key on Saturday night.
The other thing we always do this week is we have some fun with Halloween, we always wear Halloween masks for our meetings on Thursday, and I started to wear one in for you all today, but I thought that would be a little bit of a stretch, I didn’t know if you were emotionally ready for that, but this being Halloween, our kids always enjoy the week and we enjoy playing on the road. We enjoy big crowds, national TV, so it should be fun.
On the health of the team: I think we’re as healthy as we have been. I did forget somebody (on Monday), Calvin Howell will not play Saturday night either, he and Mason Walters. I should have said that Monday and I just forgot because he wasn’t on the depth chart. Other than that, everybody should play and I think for this time of the year we were not as healthy early in the year as we are now. I’m really excited about seeing Michael Huey get better and his ankle seems to be better and Chris Hall seems to be better and [Adam] Ulatoski has been banged up and he seems to be 100 percent now, so the offensive line is getting better, and D.J. [Monroe] is fine, so I really think we’re probably in as good of shape as we’ve been.
On the offensive line getting better: I think there are two things that have helped the offensive line. We’re doing a better job by design and scheme in the running game; that takes some pressure off of the pass protection for them. When you run the ball as well as we have the last two weeks, you get fewer blitzes and your blitzes are more run blitzes and they’re not just free-wheeling all over the place blitzes. That’s why we want to keep the option in there, we want to keep zone-read, we want to keep enough things that they have to go back and go back over their responsibilities for every play in a blitz and that will slow down the number of blitzes, and we do think they’re healthier. There’s no doubt our offensive line’s been banged up all year and we haven’t said anything about it because it doesn’t matter, you’ve still got to play, but I do think they’re getting healthier and they’re playing with more confidence. They’ve also had the same backs in there for two straight weeks and that’s been unusual. When we said we would probably have running back by committee, we didn’t mean four, we meant two.
On Zac Robinson: Mike does a great job and Zac follows up Mike Gundy of calling a game where they stay on the field. You look up and they’re averaging about the same number of minutes per game that we are in time of possession, so they want to run the ball, they want to be very physical. I think they’re averaging 165 yards a game or something. They always do that and they’re going to have great play-action passes off of what they do and Mike’s going to have a quarterback that can run and all of those things Zac does very well. He’s smart, he’s been around a long time, he’s very good at his ball handling and he does take care of the ball. They don’t turn the ball over a lot.
On Curtis Brown: Curtis is a young man I’m really, really proud of. He’s doing well in school, he’s overcome so much more than the large majority of people out there that have been successful and he never talks about it. He never uses excuses. He’s had some tough things come up with his family situation, even since he’s been here, and the one thing the high school coaches told us when we took him is that he’s got a good heart, he’s going to try and do everything right and he’s done that, and I’m really, really proud of him. He was very effective at Gilmer High School before he came here, but the thing about him, he’s very unselfish. He doesn’t talk about wanting more playing time, he’s on every kick team that we ask him to be and you go back last year to the fake punt in the Oklahoma game, he’s the guy that misses the punter and catches him from behind to keep the fake punt from working, and then the other night blocking the punt right before the half. He doesn’t say much, he’s very quiet, he’s very unassuming, but he’s a very good football player.
On the secondary’s improvement: I think there are two things; the kids understand the defense better because they’ve been here with the same defense for the first time in a while two years in a row. We’re able to put more of that defense in because they’re more comfortable with it, and the experience of the secondary. The schemes that we play, you really need to be able to play man coverage or you can’t blitz and disguise like we do and this is as good a man coverage group as we’ve had since the 2005 group that all went to the NFL. When you can play man coverage and lock up and the quarterback has to hold the ball, then you’re going to get pressure on the quarterback. What we’ve told our front is that if they keep getting pressure on the quarterback and he has to throw it a little quick, then we can be good in man coverage, so it’s a combination of both. This time last year, our secondary was not near ready to do what we’re doing today.
On playing in Stillwater: When you look at it, it’s hard to play out in Lubbock at night, it’s a little cooler and fans are pumped. It’s harder to play at Kansas State at night, it’s harder to play at Stillwater at night, and I think fans get excited all day about the game and they’re pumped and it’s cool and your kids are in a smaller place then Austin and they sit all day in the hotel and if they’re not careful, things slip up on them in those settings. We’ve tried to look at it, but we’ve had a tough time some at Stillwater, we’ve had a tough time at Lubbock and we’ve had a tough time at Manhattan, usually at night, and that’s something that we’ve constantly addressed.
On using more defensive schemes this year: We’re using more this year, but Will [Muschamp] can be a more confident defensive caller right now because he knows they’re going to line up in the right places and do the right things. Last year, you have to be careful unless you know everybody’s going to do what they’re supposed to. It’s hard to do it and it’s not only the players, we also had three staff members that everything changed when a new guy comes in, so everybody was learning what to do. I do feel like right now that Will has tremendous amount of confidence in the other staff members on defense and that the guys will have confidence in what he’s doing and that they will follow through with it.
On Colt McCoy and the Heisman expectations: It’s great help [playing on national TV and] when you get eyeballs on him, it’s not just about stats. You go back when we have a receiver run an improper route at Oklahoma; I thought a Heisman moment was Colt making that tackle. Number one, how many quarterbacks would even go out there? How many would try to hit him and how many could athletically? But three of the last four games, Colt’s been above 80 percent with his completions and here he is at 7-0. We’ve won 20 out of the last 21 games, he’s four away from being the winningest quarterback in the history of college football, so I really think Colt’s right in the middle of that race and we just need to play well down the stretch. If you go back and study the Heisman, it’s really a team award. They want the team to win; they want the team to look good at the end of the year. I go back to Ricky [Williams’] Heisman; it changed about three or four times during the year. He was in, he was out, he was out, he was totally out, he was back in, and he won it. I mean it’s just one of those things because it’s a poll and it’s people that change their minds by the week, and he’s up this week and he’s down. He was down last week and I don’t think Colt’s worried about that, he just wants to continue to play well, but he’ll have a good stage Saturday night. We’ll have everybody again watching that likes college football watching the Longhorns.
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