Listen: Matt Rhule UTSA Press Conference & Transcript

Baylor head football coach Matt Rhule
Weekly Press Conference
Sept. 5, 2017

Opening Statement

“Alright well, first of all, thank you guys very much for coming and being here. Obviously, we’re disappointed after the game on Saturday. It’s not the way we wanted to start or thought it would start, but we’re back to the drawing board and continuing on with our process.

“I think the players have responded really well, and I’m pleased with all of their ability to take accountability and ownership. Coaches, myself, all of us have looked to see what we could have done better and we look forward to making some improvement between the first game and the second game. As we get ready for a really good UTSA team, Coach Wilson has done a really nice job there really in one year. They’re a tough, hard-nosed, physical program. They’ll challenge you. They won’t back down from you. Coming out of the last game, that’s the one thing that I think bothers all of us. Liberty was a team that challenged us, and I think a lot of us thought it was going to be easy, and that’s why I say it rests on me. We didn’t really respond to the physical challenge that they presented, and that was unfortunate, so we have to move forward, and we cannot allow that to happen again this week. They have great players, and they have really good schemes. They’re tough, they’re physical, and they play the game I like to watch it be played, so it’ll be a heck of a challenge, but I do think our team is ready to bounce back and respond, so I’m anxious to see them.

"We had a good practice today. We had a couple guys back. I know you guys are going to ask me about that. Obviously JaMycal’s [Hasty] out and Terence Williams is still out. Davion Hall practiced today. Rajah Preciado, Henry Black, Timarcus Davis, and Jameson Houston all practiced today, so obviously there’s a lot more bodies in the secondary which we hope will help us. KJ Smith is doubtful with this game. He’s got shin splints that are bothering him, and we don’t know if he’ll be able to play through the shin splints. If that’s the case, we’re going to have to continue to play with some of the younger d-linemen. But with that being said, our running back position is one where we’re going to have to rotate guys in. I thought [John] Lovett got in the game and did a nice job. The injuries are still there, but some of the young kids are getting in and stepping up, so we look at that as an opportunity to continue to build the team and move them forward as we head into the game. With that, I’ll see what questions you have.”

On how team was feeling after loss…

“I think there was a lot of hurt. I think there was a lot of disappointment. At the end of the day, you have to have success to have fun. It was just a very tight sideline. We were a little bit worried about that. We were talking about that as a coaching staff, getting the ball to guys that haven’t really played. We were afraid they were going to be tight and we wouldn’t have success early on, especially defensively, with a little bit of panic starting to set in. Football is not a game you can play panicked, and that’s really the biggest issue on defense right now. There are two issues on defense we have to deal with. Number one is the secondary and the bodies, but we’re starting to get those back. The other one is a mindset. When you’re used to playing great defense, you go out there and you attack the offense. When you’re not used to playing great defense, you go out there and kinda wait for something bad to happen. And with all those third downs that happened, I think it was 11 in a row and 15 of 24, you really couldn’t put it all on guy. So, I think we’re trying to move forward and be a little more aggressive. When you blitz, you gotta go blitz. When you’re playing man-to-man, you gotta get in his face and challenge him. These guys have NFL receivers, UTSA does, and we’re going to have to challenge them. That’s a mindset. We maybe take it for granted, but Grayland [Arnold] has that, Jameson [Houston] has that, and Harrison [Hand] got that as the game went on, and that was really exciting for me. Harrison, I know said “let me go cover Antonio Golden,” and so you’ll see a better Blake Lynch this week. You’ll see a better Jourdan Blake. I think there was that panic that was in the game, so I hope we will flip that as we go forward.”

On cause of secondary issues…

“I will say, everything that could’ve went wrong in that game went wrong. And that’s not to take any credit away from them. I thought Calvert was unreal, Buckshot, he played lights out. On one touchdown, the whole defense was playing one defense, and three guys are playing something else. The last touchdown, a guy comes out of coverage. And that makes it hard, then, on Phil, because they’re checking and they know what we’re in when we show a blitz, and we’re showing it really early because we’re just young and excited. He wants to go to another defense, but he’s afraid to, because every time we did, half the guys got it and half the guys didn’t. So that, as we told our defense, is what we’ve been talking about for a long time. We’ve got certain things that we do, everyone getting their eyes inside, everyone tapping their helmet when they hear the defensive call, and guys do it because we make them do it. Now, when we got out here, we said “Do you see why we need to do these things?” My mom, when I was younger, told me the difference between wisdom and experience is that with wisdom, you learn from the mistakes of others, but experience is learning from your own mistakes. So we learned from experience on Saturday. So now the kids out there today, they understand “Oh now I get why Phil [Snow] says tap the helmet” or “now I get when he says turn to the sideline.” Those things are all correctable. Some of the great throws that they made, you know what, we’re going to live to play those. We didn’t give up 70-yard touchdowns, we gave up big conversions, and that has to change as we move forward. This is a big play offense we’re facing in UTSA. Their play action game, their reverse game, they’re going to throw the ball down the field, and we’re going to have to make plays on the ball.”

On if there were lightbulb moments for the young kids…

“It certainly is coming out in the last couple days. I think one of the things you’re always worried about after is losses is if everyone is going to point fingers or if everyone is going to say “let’s learn from this.” No one likes to lose, and don’t sit here thinking like I’m sleeping well right now. I’m not sleeping well, and I’m furious, but I’m furious at myself. What I do know is that every obstacle has a chance to be an opportunity if you learn from it, and I do think they’re trying to learn from it. That’s the positive. Now, the negative is, we shouldn’t have had to do that. You know what I’m saying? We’ve got a long way to go, but at least we know where we are. That’s the one thing, is that we lost to Liberty when we didn’t think we were going to lose to Liberty. I expect to win every game I play, but at least now we know where we are. So, as we go out to play UTSA, I don’t want to play them on coverages and if we’re not good enough, we’re not good enough, but we can’t beat ourselves. We can’t have to call timeout because we have 12 guys on the field for a field goal. That’s coaching, and that’s going to get corrected. We gotta get the players to buy in to the things they can change, and then eventually, the lights will go on for everybody on defense. Offensively, we were explosive, but we weren’t efficient enough for me. But we were explosive. One guy, instead of running a slant and crossing a guy’s face, he quits on the play and they pick it off and run it back for a touchdown. I’m not calling the kid out, but I tell you to go across his face. And I think some of those kids are saying “okay coach I see why I have to do that.” Anu took some heat on some plays, but we had guys running the wrong routes on third down, thinking “I need to get to the sticks” instead of just running the route. So Anu is trying to adjust when they’re not where they’re supposed to be. So, all that panic that set in during the game, we just need to calm down and go play. They know how to play, so I think you’ll see a much better football team this week.”

On importance of pass rush in regards to secondary…

“The only way you can stop the modern passing game is by getting people in the face of the quarterback. I think we had one sack and one batted ball. One was just a sack by BJ Thompson, that was just a bust on their end, but we didn’t get the pass rush we needed. I think we blitzed over 50 percent of the time, but we couldn’t get through on the blitz as well. That’s obviously been a point of emphasis this week. You face good quarterbacks, and you’re never going to stop them by coverage. It’s just impossible with the rules now. You’ve got to get to the quarterback, and we weren’t able to do it on Saturday. They didn’t have any sacks, but they were able to hit our quarterback and affect our quarterback, so that’s where we lost the game to me. It was up front on both sides of the ball, in terms of the protection game.”

On Chance Waz suspension…

“Yeah, that’s the rule they passed last year where they can go back and replay it. It’s not a defenseless runner, so it wasn’t like he hit a defenseless quarterback, but the ruling was that he hit him with the crown of his helmet. And when you go back and look at it on tape, he did hit him with the crown of his helmet. You could probably find something close to that on a lot of plays, but that’s player safety, and that’s the rule. We don’t teach that, so that’s another example of just doing what you’re trained to do and not getting in the game and trying to do anything different. I know Chance certainly wasn’t trying to hurt him. He was just trying to play fast and reacting, but the call was correct, and I think targeting will change the game in a very positive way in terms of safety, so it is what it is. You don’t like it when your guy gets taken off the team, but the rules are the rules. He’ll miss the first half of this game.”

On if he draws on big losses like this…

“My former players like my quarterback Phillip [Walker] who just made the Colts practice squad, I’m proud of him, texted me after the game saying, “remember a loss isn’t a loss it’s a blessing.” Those kids, after winning the championship, when we went to dinner, don’t talk about winning the championship, they talk about losing to Fordham, and it was just a bunch of freshmen out there. So, I don’t like this process. I didn’t wanna come in here and start over and play all the young kids because I respect Taylor Young. I respect Anu [Solomon]. I respect [Jordan] Feuerbacher. I respect all the older guys, so I wanna play with those guys and give them a chance to go out and compete. So, I didn’t want to do what I did at Temple. At Temple, I just started playing all the young guys. The old guys didn’t want to listen to me, but Feuerbacher listens, you know? So, I want to play with those older guys. Mo Porter listens, you know? But I do think we were able to learn from the lessons of losing to Fordham. We were able to learn from the lessons of losing to Idaho. And those kids learned that this is how you win, and that it’s hard to win. How do you win? You win by everybody doing their job and playing really hard. We’ll get a defensive mindset soon of attacking. And offensively, I thought the offense scored 45 points when we could’ve scored 70. I think they understand that they have to score one more. Those are the lessons I think we’re going to take from this. I told the offensive staff it wasn’t good enough. Sometimes the offensive staff can say “well we scored 45, it’s the defenses fault,” but we didn’t win, and we’re trying to build a team. I’ve been through this process before, and at Temple, I could always hear Coach Paterno’s voice talking about his first year, and he just kept playing more and more freshmen. And we just have to play freshmen right now, not because we don’t want to play with the older guys, but because of the injuries, and because of the lack of depth. The great news, to me, is when we put the freshmen out there, they played. BJ Thompson got in there and rushed the quarterback. [John] Lovett got in there and looked like somebody. Ryan Miller at center went out there and played the whole game at center and played well. Those 10 freshmen, we’re going to play probably 5 more true freshmen this week, and they’re going to go play. Someday we’re going to be looking back at them and saying, “hey remember what we learned from this loss,” I hope.

On importance of leadership in moving on…

“I think it’s this mentality of bad things are going to happen to you. Just because we lost doesn’t mean we get to not practice hard this week. Just because we lost doesn’t mean we get to show up late or skip class or sleep in. Those kids that went to the shelter on Sunday, they’re winners. And Bear Bryant said it a long time ago: “find the winners and put them on the field.” And my son was sad. My son was sitting there, and he went to the shelter. He volunteered. So we have winners. There’s a bunch of older guys, even talking about the junior class. Guys like Ira Lewis and Micheal Johnson, who’s a sophomore. Those guys are pushing. And [Taion] Sells. No one feels worse about that game, probably, than Taion Sells, because he should’ve been out there playing for us. And if he’s out there, we probably don’t give up one or two of those touchdowns and we probably win the football game. He’s taking responsibility for that and that’s why he’s good with me. Mo Porter should’ve been out there in the first half, you know? But a stupid decision affected him which hurts him. So as long as guys are saying “what could I have done differently?” then you always have a chance. And that’s the mindset that I hope we have as a team.”

On Anu Solomon’s performance…

“I thought Anu [Solomon] was really good. You guys don’t have the benefit of seeing the tape, but on two of the touchdowns, he took a hit that no one should have to take. And he knew it was coming, because someone busted our protection, but he stood in there in threw it. As I said, the first third down of the game, we got Tony [Nicholson] running a free down the field, and it’s just a run through the catch, and Tony panics a little bit and jumps up to catch it and drops it. He hits [Denzel] Mims on a deep ball down the left sideline that he bobbles, and that’s a touchdown. So, he has two more touchdowns out there. The pick six is not on the quarterback. When you’re playing quarterback, your job is to not throw it to the underneath coverage and it’s the receiver’s job to be in between the ball and the deep coverage, and so our receiver ran the route and stopped. And I’m not calling out the receivers, but as I said to them in there, everyone is going to talk about Anu, and he needed like two or three more guys to go out and make plays for him, and he throws for 400 yards. I thought he did a good job with his feet. We weren’t real clean in the pocket protecting him. He missed one big third down throw. But I thought he did a good job and now I need him to take another step. I challenged Zach [Smith] this week to go fight to play. I want guys to compete to go play. If we can continue to get 75-100 yards out of Anu rushing, then we’ll continue to score 40, 45, or 50 points a game, and as the defense gets better, hopefully we can put that all together.”

On how game plan changes with Anu Solomon’s rushing ability…

“I think you can say to yourself, let’s run him in crucial times, and I think a lot of those runs were sort of off-schedule. Third downs where he just takes off, and I think that brings an added element to people as they come to rush. With our offensive line, and some of those young guys, if they have to deal with a quarterback that can get outside the pocket, I know for us, we’re way more fundamentally sound when we have a guy that can run and we’re way more aggressive when we have a guy that can’t run. I think Anu brings that. I think watching Zach [Smith] in practice today, he’s starting to move and he’s starting to run as that ankle is healing. You see him running around and making plays with his feet. So those are added elements for us, that if we can get them, if we can get 50 yards rushing from our receivers, and 100 yards rushing from our quarterback, it takes a lot of pressure off our running backs in the ground game.”

On the five extra freshmen playing this week…

“I mean playing, not starting, I’m sorry. I’m just going to put them in the game. Timarcus Davis is up. He’s healthy. [Rob] Saulin didn’t get in the game last week. Gavin Holmes didn’t get in the game last week. They should’ve played. We’re talking about a couple other ones too. So, we’re going to watch practice and see who’s going in, but a lot of those guys are ready now. You think about Dru Dixon, he’s a non-scholarship player, he just walked on. He’s a true freshman. They kicked the ball to him in a crucial situation. He runs over two guys. He looks like Mike Alstott. He’s out to the 40, and they get a penalty, and now we’re at the plus 50, so we’re going to play him. We’re going to put trust in him, and in every player on the special teams, but he’s going to go out there and he’s going to play this week. Timarcus had offseason surgery, so we’ve been waiting on him to be cleared, and the doctors cleared him, and he looks like he’s ready to go. So, we’re going to put those kids in.”

On defensive tackle rotation with KJ Smith out…

“We’ll probably play with Micheal Johnson and Ira Lewis, Brayvion Roy, who I thought was a real bright spot in the game. Brayvion, who was 340, is now down to 319, really moving. Brayvion, Tyrone Hunt, Greg Roberts will be the five. And then James Lynch is a true freshman. I brought him up and practiced him with the varsity some today to see what he can do. I think we have six guys in the rotation. As Deonte [Williams] and BJ Thompson got in there and played well at defensive end, some pressure was taken off where we could take Greg and put him inside. Now these guys are going to run power and counter and run the ball right down your throat, so some of our d-tackles will probably play d-end this week like Greg, just to give us a little more girth, but we’ll rotate those six guys.”

On if UTSA style of defense has been brought up to team…

“Yeah, I think the challenge is really up front for us this week. There are challenges everywhere, because they’ve got a good front and a good secondary, but every scout that comes here drives to San Antonio to see Marcus Davenport. He’s not just a draftable guy, but a highly draftable guy. The issue to me is going to be if we can control the line of scrimmage up front in the run game and in the protection game. Their inside players are physical and violent. They rotate from a 4-down to a 3-down look, so we’re going to have to make all these adjustments as they sort of stem the front. We have to play well up front to have a chance to win this football game.”

On if John Lovett will carry the load this week…

“Yeah, [John] Lovett will go in as the starting tailback, and [Trestan] Ebner and [Dru] Dixon are right behind him, and Wyatt Schrepfer and Obim Okeke are there to help us as well. But this is Lovett’s time to go play. I was proud of Lovett. He got in the game and makes a tackle on the opening kickoff. He’s playing on the punt team. He’s not too good to do all that stuff. And then he gets a chance to carry the football and he’s ready. I think the one thing you see is that you have the big play potential. I think we had five huge plays, but we were also able to put Lovett in the “I” as a downhill running back. He’s able to go and have that long run. And Terence [Williams] is close too, as he’s sort of chomping at the bit to play, but this is Lovett’s time, and Ebner and Dixon are going to get their opportunity as well.”

On Blake Lynch’s improvement at corner in week two…

“I think he’s going to be way better. He did a lot of good things, too. He was right there in position with a great receiver, but just wasn’t quite able to make the play on the ball a couple times. The last touchdown, the ball literally grazes off his finger. He’s in cover three, so he’s not playing a guy man-to-man, so he’s trying to play both guys, and so he doesn’t have to get this much better, he has to get that much better. We’re closer than it looks. The kids just have to relax. They’re going to be fine, they just have to relax. The coaches have to relax, they’re going to be fine. No one likes this feeling. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to have a since of urgency, but we don’t have to make wholesale changes, we just have to get everyone that much better. And that’s in the pass rush, instead of getting near the guy; we gotta hit him this week. When BJ [Thompson] came and knocked the ball out on one play and Taylor [Young] came and dove for it, we just gotta be that much closer and catch it this week. Those things will happen soon.”

On if team will be improved this week from last week…

“I think we’ll be night and day from where we are right now. I think we’ll be night and day. I hope this week, Mr. [Dave] Campbell, with the addition of guys in the secondary; I hope that we are significantly better this week. You can take your special teams; we have guys down, so you have guys that are backups by two or three spots because we just don’t have enough bodies to have everybody run down on the kickoff. So now, hopefully, our special teams will get better as we get guys back, and we can make some improvements.”