Transcript: Matt Rhule's weekly press conference

Opening statement …
“Obviously, disappointed about the game on Saturday. It’s a football game that we thought we had a chance to win. A lot of respect for Duke, their ability to overcome adversity. We hope that when they got back that they found their homes and family and friends all safe. We certainly understand what it’s like to go through something like that. Again, a lot of respect and credit to them.

I think as a team right now, at least for me, I know I’m not proud of how we played. I’m certainly always proud of our players, I’m proud of our team, I’m not proud of the way we played. And I said after the game, that starts with me. Things that we’ve shown we can do and we do at a high level, we were not able to do on Saturday. I thought our guys did a good job of getting to the half and regrouping; coaches made good adjustments. I thought we were a more improved team in the second half.

But, you look at the stat sheet, we outstated them, we outgained them, we out-third downed them. But really at the end of the day, as you guys all know, we beat ourselves. 14 points off of turnovers, we lost 7 points in the kicking game with two missed field goals and a missed PAT. And we’re just not a team right now that can spot them 21 points. We’ll get back to work. I see a team that wants to win, that tries hard, that practices hard, that is trying to learn how to win. But I don’t know that we necessarily yet have the confidence and trust in ourselves that when adversity hits that we can just go back and say hey let’s fight right through this. There’s no shortcut to that, there’s no shortcut to confidence. You have to process your way there. You have to go through games like we just went through, overcome it, fight back, hang together, push forward. So, that’s what we’ll do. We started yesterday. Yesterday was the guys’ day off, but a lot of guys were walking around the office and they’re hurting and they’re upset and they’re disappointed. But, we have another game this week. So, we’ll hopefully learn from our mistakes and take on a Kansas team that’s 2-1.

As I’ll tell the team later, we went through non-conference play, we wanted to be 3-0, we ended up being 2-1. There’s a lot of other good teams in the Big 12 that are 2-1. There are only three undefeated teams. And we’ll look forward to getting started in conference play and hope that we can learn from what happened on Saturday.”

On Kansas forcing turnovers …
“The story of Kansas right now is really their defense and how dominant they’ve been. They’re only giving up 15 points a game. They’re 25th in the country in defense, second in the conference. They’re first in the conference in passing defense. And they’re taking the ball away. They’re plus-12 in turnover margin, far leading the rest of the country. You take Saturday’s game for us, if we don’t turn the football over, that’s a much closer game. So, we are not yet forcing turnovers. My hope is we’ll get there this week. We’ll need to. And we’ll need to protect the football. Part of that comes from running the ball. We have to find a way to run the ball better. And that falls on me. That’s my area of what I should be able to get done. And we have to get it done this week versus this defense. They give you a ton of different looks. They changed their defense from last year. They’ve gone to more of a three-down package, and their kids are fast and athletic and they’ll be ready and excited to play.”

On the team’s identity…
“A good, young football team that is sort of finding their way. We started four seniors on offense, we started four seniors on defense, two of those guys are transfers. So, they haven’t been with us for very long. So, I think we’re just a team that’s finding who we are and what we are. But, it’s a team I believe in. And it’s a team that’s getting there. We have explosive playmakers on the outside. What we haven’t been able to do is find the run game to go along with that. If we can combine the run game with those playmakers outside, then I think we would have something pretty special on offense. And then defensively, we haven’t stopped the run at the level we want to yet. But, a lot of that was on the offense this past game and probably being on the field a little bit too much. We’re searching for an identity. You are what you put on tape. We’re a team that has shown flashes, but we’re not consistent yet. And that’s all part of where we are. And we are where we are. We don’t get to say I want to be here, I want to be there. We are where we are. And hopefully we’ll continue, especially as we get players back. Playing that game without Denzel Mims, playing that game without BJ Thompson, those are two of our better players, and hopefully they’ll be back this week. And that can certainly help us be a little more dynamic on both sides of the ball.”

On struggles in the run game…
“Yeah, I’m concerned about it. we have to get better. There’re times where we run the ball, and we’re getting eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 yards, just getting downhill on people. What’s really affecting us is people are moving and twisting and creating plays in the backfield. We were not always able to overcome some of those tackles for loss. We got started off, we ran the quarterback zone read, Charlie pulled the ball. It’s second-and-two on the 12-yard line, the ball goes back with a hold and we weren’t able to overcome it. So, there’s flashes of the run game. It will all come together at some point. We would like that point to be now. Don’t mistake this for what I want. I want us to run the football. You can see it and you can see it improving, it’s just not yet where we need to be.”

On the run game starting with the offensive line…
“It starts up front with the offensive line. We have to call more runs. So, we have to give our backs more chances. But, it’s a lot of things. When you run the ball on second down, there’s a good chance you’re probably going to be in third down, and you have to execute on third down. I don’t think you guys hear me make many excuses. We had a hard time on third down on a couple plays where we felt like we were grabbed and tackled, at receiver. Later in the game, our guys got a little more violent on the perimeter. And I think you saw our passing game in the second half really step up. Tyqyuan [Thornton] and some of those guys emerged and made some plays. We have to give the offensive line more chances, and we have to run the ball more. At the same time, when we do, we have to be excellent on third down. Which, at the end of the day, we were 7-of-15, so we were almost 50 percent on third down, which is pretty good.”

On having consistency on the offensive line…
“You’d like to be able to play the same five. But, that’s not where we are right now. We’ve got guys that are banged-up, guys that are coming back, working their way in. Guys that got tired in the heat as went with some tempo at times. We went into the game with like six d-linemen. So, we were down on the d-line, so we tried to slow it down a little bit for them. That continuity, you’d like to have it, but we’re just not in that time and space yet. So, we kind of rotated some guys at left tackle, some guys at left guard. And hopefully this week, everyone is healthier this week than they were last week. So hopefully we can maybe settle in a little more this week.”

On zoning in on a featured running back…
“Neither one got enough chances to play at the level we want. We had some drops, even in the passing game, to our receivers. But, I have a lot of confidence in them. Lovett had that first fumble. I brought him in yesterday and made sure he knew, I’d go to war with John Lovett 100 times out of 100. JaMycal [Hasty], we all know what he can do. And [Trestan] Ebner is a guy that can be dynamic. We just have to give them a few more chances, get the ball in their hands a little bit more, maybe a little simpler in terms of just getting the ball downfield. Give them a chance to really go be explosive and give them a chance to get into a rhythm.”

On if it is tough to have JaMycal Hasty out for the first half of the Kansas game…
“It just is what it is. It will be a good opportunity for Lovett, it will be a good opportunity for Ebner. We’ll probably play Sqwirl (Craig Williams) a little bit this week, and have JaMycal ready for the second half.”

On drills for the wide receivers to work on the drops…
“We have guys, I mean Jalen Hurd stays after practice and probably catches 300 balls on the JUGGS. He’s a maniac. I think for a lot of Saturday, and I think in general, we just have to keep going. We just have to keep pushing. So, we do the drills, we catch, we have JUGGS. At some point all the players just have to make a decision like, “Am I going to become THE guy?’ And we have players that I know can do that. That confidence, that trust, that comes from the time you put in and the preparation you put in. So, we do the drills, we do all that stuff. We dropped a lot of balls in practice. I’m going to be completely honest with you. There were a couple times where I stopped practice and brought everyone up and said, ‘Hey guys, this is sloppy.’ Before every accident there’s a warning. We’re honest with our players. We don’t live in pollyana land. We told them all week, ‘Hey, these plays are going to be there, and we’re going to have to make these plays. We’re going to have to catch these balls.’ And I really believe what happens in practice happens in the game. On the first second-and-8, we sprinted out, we threw a deep ball to Platt, he was open and we just couldn’t get it there. We did the same thing Friday morning, it was incomplete. So, what does that mean? That means we keep getting them to go back to practice.”

On controlling what we can control…
“You see, what happens when you lose, is everyone wants to start looking around at all this stuff. And what it takes is it takes people to say, ‘No, no, no. Let’s control what we can control.’ And the thing we can control is our practice effort and what we do in practice and how much we’re putting into it. Because if you start to make those plays in practice, it becomes routine and you make them in the games.”

On the young guys gaining confidence...
"When Tyquan is a sophomore and then when he’s a junior and then a senior, he’ll have so much confidence. He’ll play at this level, because he’s doing it now. Seeing Fleeks out there. So, how do you get freshmen and sophomores and juniors, or guys who haven’t played a ton, to play with a ton of confidence? They have to do it in practice. We sometimes still battle in our brains, is practice punishment? Like, why are we practicing, Coach? Why are we practicing so hard? Well, we’re doing it so that we can play well. That’s it. That’s the only reason why we practice is to play well. And Alabama’s going to go out practice today and Michigan is going to go out and practice today and Kansas is going to go out and practice today, and so are we. And if you don’t want to drop the ball in games, then catch it in practice. And if you drop one in practice, then go get on the JUGGS and catch another 100. Because at the end of the day . . . you are responsible for what you do. You’re responsible for how you play, you’re responsible for your grades. How do you get better grades? You study. How do you catch balls? You catch 1,000 balls for the one you get in the game. So, why do we have games like this? Sometimes, it’s to reinforce that message. As I said, our players are going to have a decision to make. Are they going to come back and get back to work, or are they going to start to look around? The guys I saw yesterday, the guys I know, they’re going to come back and get to work. In the loss, it wasn’t what we wanted, but you do some guys make huge steps from Week 2 to Week 3. So, try to take another step this week and see if we can go 1-0 against Kansas.”

On if team depth is at a point where a player could get benched for dropping the ball…
“We probably aren’t necessarily 100% their yet. I also don’t want to turn somethings into bigger things. Like big plays can be contagious and so can drops. We are going to play the guys that we see get the job done in practice. For example, Chris Platt and his level on unselfishness, Mims practiced on Friday and we thought he was going to be able to go but he couldn’t. Platt stepped up and said he could play Mims spot. He is a pros pro. He is a winner and exactly what I want this program to be like. So, if Chris Platt drops a ball I’m not going to bench him because I know what he puts into this game. It’s just trying to get everyone to understand everyone needs to work like Platt. We aren’t where we would like to be in terms of that, but we have a lot of good players at receiver and you all will start to see a bunch of the younger guys have a bigger role as they get more confident.”

On if he thought he would still been rotating QB’s three weeks into the season…
"This week we are going to look at both guys. If we played today I wouldn’t do anything different. I feel good about both guys and I don’t think there were a ton of mistakes by either one. Jalan [McClendon] and Charlie [Brewer] are both completing sixty percent of passes. Both guys are getting us in position to be successful. I really want to give guys the opportunity to be successful. Now through three weeks we will look and see who gives us the best chance going forward and who is going to practice at a high level.”

On if anything definitive stood out between the first and second half…
“We didn’t beat ourselves as much. We had a little bit of energy. We really don’t have that guy yet that rallies everyone up. Right now, that’s on us the coaches. Greg Roberts and Verkedric Vaughns were trying to get everyone amped up during the half, talking to the guys. Something we are still learning is that to be great you must be able to fight through adversity. Great teams find a way to make things happen. We had a bad play which turns into a bad series and then a bad quarter.  At the end of the game, even with how poorly we played, we still had a chance to win the game.”

On how the quarterback position is being evaluated…
“I do it all from numbers. Charlie [Brewer] has played 138 snaps and completed 60 percent of his passes and he has led us to eight touchdowns, four field goals, and seven punts. Jalan [McClendon] has played 78 total snaps and has led us to 6 touchdowns and is converting third downs at 58%. Those are good numbers for both. To try and make the decision off a gut feeling is hard when both guys are producing. I wish both guys could take back their picks, but when you play quarterback that’s just what happens. Both guys made good plays and both guys have some plays they wish they could take back.”

On the leadership from Blake Blackmar and Patrick Lawrence…
“They lead by example. Blake and Pat lead by example, they are very fine offensive linemen. They both have developed at a high level. When the NFL guys come in I always tell them, “these guys are going to play for a long time because they are strong, athletic, they can play, and they are also very smart. They work hard and they both care a great deal. They truly lead by example and this week I’m looking forward to them asserting some of their leadership. They are guys that people listen too.”

On what you seen from Charlie and Jalan on the sideline…
“They are both leaders. The great teams I have been on, the great leaders have been the defensive guy that plays so hard and violent that everyone follows. Both our QB’s lead by example and lead with their work ethic and both of them thought they could bring us back and they each made great plays to Tyquan Thornton knowing that Tyquan was going to go and make a big play.”

On getting guys back on the defensive line...

"We get BJ Thompson back, we haven't seen him play yet this year. That should be a big thing for us. He's practiced his tail off, waiting for his opportunity to come back and play. We have some guys playing at a really high level. I thought Ira [Lewis] played a really good game. James Lynch and Greg Roberts had a ton of tackles. Adding BJ into that mix hopefully will generate some more pass rush because the number one way to create turnovers is to get to the quarterback. We didn't have any sacks this last game so getting to the quarterback is a challenge."

On if it’s harder to learn how to win or learn how to lose...

"I think it's hard to learn how to win, that's why not many people do it. I told my son the other day there's one team in college football that went undefeated [last year]. It just goes to show that how dominant some teams are, very few teams, [going undefeated] doesn't happen very much. Teaching guys how to win, the first thing you have to do is eliminate the things that cause you to lose. Don't beat ourselves. I saw Robert Griffin tweeting at halftime that guys are beating ourselves, go in and regroup. He said it perfectly. If you eliminate the things that cause you to lose, penalties, turnovers, mistakes, lethargic play, if you eliminate those things and play with your hair on fire and you don't beat yourself and you overcome mistakes, that's the first step in learning how to win. The second step is putting people away. The next step is overcoming. What I like about our team is they didn't quit, they fought back and they tried to make it a game."

On learning from the loss...

"I think anything that happens in life, it happens for a reason and it's your job to learn from it. We want our team to learn from it. I'm not happy with the way we played, but I believe in our team very much and I like our football team. They're as disappointed as anyone, they want to win. We'll go back and grind it out. Hopefully we don't lose another game this season, but if we do, we'll go back and learn from that as well. I try to make sure we learn from the wins as well, that's a key. The mistakes are there when you win, you just notice them more when you lose. Let's do everything a little bit better this week and hopefully we beat a good Kansas team."

On good or acceptable penalties versus unacceptable penalties...

"Us lining up offsides, those are penalties we can't make, those pre-snap penalties. Those are silly penalties. Those are things we can control. Guys going out, playing aggressive, I'm not going to worry about those ones. We only had six penalties. I'm used to having eight or nine with an aggressive team. We just have to eliminate the silly ones, any sort of false start or lining up. You'd like to not beat yourself, but I thought our guys played hard."

On Kansas running back Pooka Williams...

"He's dynamic, back-to-back 100-yard games. They are a fast football team. They've done a good job recruiting. Coach Beaty has had to rebuild that roster. They do a good job of spreading you out and finding a way to run the football. Anytime you have a back that gets back-to-back 100-yard games, especially one against a Big 10 team, that's saying something."

On the young team's morale during the game...

"I thought there were people behind our bench cheering and screaming for us, giving us energy. The crowd is always an advantage. That's why people like to play at home. You'd like it to be so loud the team can't even hear the calls. You'd like it to be so hard that the other team's offense struggles. You'd like your team to feed off that energy. All that stuff is on the outside. We have to control what we can control which is how we play and what we do. We have great fans, a lot of people stayed and cheered us on until the very end. And we got booed, someone asked me about that after the game, it's part of playing ball. You learn from it. I just hate it for our players in that I don't want our players to start to doubt themselves. Our players are doing a great job. They have come a long way. You guys kind of see bits and pieces of it but if you're on the inside and you know where we were when we first walked in here to now, I can't tell you how good of a job I think our coaching staff is doing, how good of a job our players are doing. That's not good enough for everybody and I certainly understand that. I'm a results-oriented guy. I want to win. But we've got kids playing before it's their time. I'm proud of them and I will sit there and try to take every bullet for them and fight for them. I hope fans come out and support them and love our players and are grateful for our players. I hope they see the young guys, Tyquan [Thornton] and [Josh] Fleeks and Christian [Morgan], all these true freshmen out there playing and making plays and they say 'Wow, this team is going to be something else. This is going to be a force at some point.' Why not enjoy it along the way? Our team has to learn that when we go to Oklahoma and go to Iowa State, we're not going to have a crowd, so let's learn to play on our own. I would just say this one last thing - if you've been on the sideline with us at away games, then you would cheer for us at home. I won't even let my son on the field at most away games because of the things that are said to us. I love this football team. They are grinding away. And they played a bad game on Saturday, and I coached a bad game on Saturday. We're not going to point any fingers. We're going to come back and work and get better and better and better and better. This year will be fun. We'll fight our way through it and we'll fight our way through this week against a good Kansas team. These guys that go out there and put on the BU, not to give some long, impassioned speech, just know this from me, they've overcome more people, more stuff, they're fighting for Baylor. So, if you come to the games, great, if you're not a fan I understand that too. But there are some great stories, there are some great young men out there playing. I know what our coaching staff has done in 2 years and what our players have done in 2 years, they're doing some things I would have never expected them to do. They're doing them and I'm proud to be their coach. We'll go out there on Saturday and we'll fight our tails off. Win, lose or draw we'll come back and we'll try to get better next week and go from there. That's the never-ending process of trying to build a great football team."

On Kansas...

"I've gotten to know Coach Beaty quite a bit. I think he's a class act and what he's done there, taking over a program with all the roster issues and turnover they've had. Even losing that first ballgame this year to Nicholls State, the way he's kept that team together. What they did against Rutgers on Saturday, they've done a great job. He's doing it the right way, rebuilding that program. It will be a heck of a test on Saturday."