Matt Rhule discusses Baylor's win over Kansas Saturday afternoon

COACH RHULE: I, first of all, appreciate you guys all being here.

Really, really happy for our players. I was really proud of them. I thought they played a complete game with each other. Certainly wasn't perfect. A lot of things to correct. Sloppy at times. Too many penalties. Didn't have the finishing that we wanted.

But we knew coming in that Kansas was highly ranked on defense. We knew that they have a tremendous pass defense. We knew they were taking the ball away at a record rate. So for our offense to protect the football and not turn the ball over was obviously huge, extremely critical.

And, you know, defensively, for us to get the fourth quarter shutout, that was special to us. That means a lot to us. And, you know, coach looks at me, because we threw the ball at the end, let them have one more drive.

But I thought it was important that even our two defense had to go out there and play, and I thought they went out and they played. They made the plays down the stretch. A lot of those guys are going to play a lot of football for us, so it was really good to see them do that.

So I was proud of our players. I was really mostly proud of our older players. I was proud of our juniors and seniors.

And, you know, I thought this was the week where a lot of the parts of our team came together.

And you know I do my interview with you guys every Tuesday. And Smoke, I do a weekly radio show with him. And KBTX, I do a thing with them. Guys ask me a lot of questions, you know.

So I was going home on Thursday night, and I got a text from Nick Florence. Nick, as you all know, without

knowing a ton of back story, he's like one of the special people at Baylor.

People always tell these stories about how he went in for half the play and all these different things. And he was just, you know, he was saying, hey, I believe in what you guys are doing. If there's anything I can do.

So I asked Nick to come talk to the team last night, and I thought it was really one of the pivotal moments in trying to build a football program. And what we're trying to do, we're trying to build a football program. And any time there's change, like I left Temple and one of my best friends took over. He's trying to build a football program.

And even though we are completely aligned and we're so similar, he's building something different, you know. It's like you redo your house, and I change the colors. It's different. Same house, but things are different.

So we're trying to build a football program. We're trying to do it. And Nick got up, he told the story of the 2012 Baylor football team. And I thought it was so unbelievable that our players heard from a Baylor guy.

You thought about that team. You thought about Nick. And I thought about Coach Briles. Here I am, I'm a coach, I went to one program, to Temple, and I built a program there. We went 2-10. We went 6-6. Then we won ten games in ten games.

After three years there, you look at it and you sit there and say, hey, is it working? And you see if you can turn it or not.

So Nick was talking to us about Coach came in here, you went 4-8, you went 4-8, you went 7-6. Then they went 10-3. Went to a bowl game and RG3, Robert won the Heisman Trophy, and everyone in the country is looking there, saying, hey, what are they going to be like next year?

I think about Coach Briles. He's sitting there, he's thinking I've been here for whatever that is, four years or so, and I'm 25-25, but I just had this huge season. I've never met Coach, but I think about coaches, the pressure. You're sitting there saying, hey, I got to continue what I'm doing.

It's a pressure I feel. It's a pressure you guys ask me about. It's a pressure all coaches feel.

So Nick told us, told the team, game by game, about playing SMU and win but, you know, giving up 500 yards of offense. Then he talked about losing out here to Brian Bell and Sam Houston. They were losing by ten at halftime, and they came back and beat Sam Houston.

And he talked about playing ULM, not even a Power 5 team, a Group of Five team, and being down by, I think he said they won by five, and they were 3-0.

And then they went out and lost their first four Big 12 games. They were 3-4. And Nick and those guys who know Nick, what a special guy. He talked about throwing five picks at TCU. He talked about the pressure he felt and the pressure that they all felt, going to West Virginia and losing 70-63 and giving up all those yards and then losing 41-19 and the offense couldn't move the ball at TCU.

And he's sitting there, and he's taken over for Robert Griffin, and he's taken over for this program. They're 3- 4, then they're 4-5.

And I think about as a coaching staff, you're sitting there, you're saying, boy, we're, whatever, 28-29 or whatever it is. How you can start to look at yourself and say, is what I'm doing working.

And so Nick told the team about how all of a sudden, in the middle of that year, through all the adversity and people saying things, they just stopped worrying about is it the offense, is it the defense. They came together as a team.

As you guys know, they beat Kansas State and then beat Oklahoma State and then went to the bowl game. And it was that team that went 8-5. It was this team that led to the championships.

And a lot of kids on our team, the Chris Platts, the Ira Lewises, the Greg Roberts, they came in on the heels of all those championships, and I think sometimes they feel so much pressure about I have to live up to, you know, what the guys before he did.

But it's all those guys on the 8-5 team that could have quit and made it so hard. But they fought. And the coaches fought, and the players fought, and they got that team from 3-4, and then from 4-5. They got them to, I guess, 7-5. I can't remember, 6-6 or 7-5 or whatever, and then went and beat UCLA in the bowl game.

And a team that, as Nick said, gave up the ball, 70-63, gave up 500 yards to some small schools. All of a sudden, now, beat UCLA 41-27 in a bowl game.

I tell you that long story to tell you how grateful I am to Nick Florence that he told that story. Because as you're sitting there talking to the players and they're trying to figure out and putting to much pressure on themselves, you know, he gave them a message that it's all about coming together as a team.

And when the defense is worth the offense and the offense is worth the defense and we all recognize that the team is bigger than one person, and the team is bigger than one player, the team is bigger than one side of the ball, the program, Baylor football program is bigger than any one player, any one person.

When he said that, I thought our kids sat up a little bit in their chair and took a little bit of pressure off them.

So I thought going into this game today, understanding that we are the type of team that is going to have to fight, scratch, and claw for everything that we want. And we got to take the pressure off and just go do that.

And if we fight, scratch, and claw and have fun together and run and jump and hug and smile and celebrate, and when our punter makes a 60-yard kick, to see guys running, I told the players, I said okay, I'll change a little bit.

I'm kind of like an old school, like don't smile guy. I said, all right, have fun. I'll even try to do a couple fun things, okay.

But be pros, but let's have some fun. And I thought we saw that today. And so, you know, those guys, those guys on the team that are juniors and seniors, seniors that have been through so much, I always ask our team, am I my brother's keeper? Am I being my brother's keeper?

I told them, I said, you know what? I always say that to you guys. I don't know if I've done that always for you. I mean, I think I have, but I want to tell you today that all I care about today is that you know I have your back.

So go play, and I want you to have each other's backs. And I appreciate Nick Florence for having our back and for reaching out to talk to us. I appreciate Mack Rhoades, and I appreciate Linda Livingstone because as you go to build it, when you build something, sometimes you have a week or you have a game or you have a stretch of time where it doesn't look exactly the way you want it to look, but being in that locker room just now was fun.

I'm proud of those guys. I thought we had a couple guys -- there will be all kinds of story lines. People will ask me about the quarterbacks and all that. I thought Charlie stepped up. I thought Jalan was a great teammate. Didn't get a chance to really play, but waited.

I thought Josh Fleeks was really one of the big stories of the game. We knew what he could do, but he practiced himself into the opportunity to play today. He had a tremendous week of practice. We put together a simpler plan for a young guy. He went out and made an unbelievable play on that touchdown and a lot of other great plays in between.

And in a game of a lot of plays, I thought at the end of the day, Grayland Arnold, the play he made on fourth down was so, so, so important. And here's a guy that is a competitor. He's tough. At a moment's notice, he went out there and returned punts for us. But for a guy who makes his living covering, when it was needed, he went out there and he made the physical play for us to go win.

So a lot to be corrected, but I am happy for our guys and happy we had four sacks for the first time since the Cactus Bowl. Happy to see B.J. and Greg get theirs. Greg's getting his because he's practicing as such a high level.

And we'll try to correct some things and see what we do moving forward, but proud of the guys to be 1-0 in the Big 12.

Q. (No microphone).

COACH RHULE: He just scored. He moved the ball the first drive, and he moved the ball the second drive. Just seemed like I said okay, let's give him one more series, see if he scores. He scored again. Just felt like hey, the ball's moving.

And so it's really not fair to Jalan. I hate it for him. Like I said, he got in. You saw the play he made. The throw he made to Jalen Hurd, not many people can make. But the ball was moving, and that's what we needed. We needed the ball to move.

And we knew they were going to play the different defense. They were going to play the 3-3 stack, try not to give us many big plays. He was keeping it alive with his feet. Called a lot of quarterback draws today to try to keep the running game alive. I thought that was the key factor early on was Charlie being able to make those plays.

Q. You talked a little bit, this kind of youth movement of Josh making the big play, Tyquan making another big play today. How good is that to see? Been talking about it for the last couple weeks now.
COACH RHULE: We have a lot of good young players. J.T. Woods and Christian Morgan played a ton. But they're learning from some really special older guys too. So, you know, it felt like, without watching the tape, it felt like they were double covered Mims a lot, couldn't get him going. Tyquan made that catch, it got called back. That was as tough a catch as you can make.

But I think what you see a lot of young guys that the moment's not too big. You see a bunch of older guys leading them along the way. So when you're on a team and you have guys like Greg Roberts, you have guys like Ira Lewis, Kedric Vaughns out there mentoring young guys, then the young guys get better quick.

A guy like Jalen Hurd, he got banged up in his hip. The NFL guys all come in, hey, he wouldn't play tailback anymore. He said, coach, whatever you need. Put him at tailback. Ten yards, twelve yards, you know, whatever we needed.

We have it's a special group of older guys. So they're teaching the young guys. And why I said it's so special for juniors and seniors to go win that game today. Just to win a Big 12 game at home, win our second game at home, because they're the ones that are leading the way, and they're the ones (no microphone).

Q. Talk about the defense a little bit and what you saw today that was a little different.

COACH RHULE: Yeah, I think it started this week in practice. You could tell they had a different look, like they were starting to click.

And it's not like they're doing anything different. Its just they're just getting more and more confident in doing it. I think the biggest thing here is we got pressure on the quarterback.

We made some negative. The defensive line really good today. We didn't give up very many good plays. We gave up the long catch down the sideline. We rallied. Gave up the long run. That kid's a special, special player. He knew we're going to have to make some plays on them.

I thought they rallied, and they hustled, and they had an edge, and they flew around. We're still not creating turnovers. They threw one to us, we didn't catch it. When that happens, it will be another big step, I think.

I just thought we had a lot of guys that went out there and competed. I think the pressure on the quarterback helped. Hopefully try to make them one dimensional. They ended having to throw pretty much at the end.

Q. Matt, did you like what you got from the running game?
COACH RHULE: Yeah, we moved Michael (no microphone) nice play. They could have scored. But it was better. It was still not where it needs to be, but it's getting better. Losing X is not something we want, but we're just trying to get a little bit better each week.

And we knew defensively, statistically, they were up there, and it was going to be an unusual defense, and there would be some things we'd have to do to get the ball.

I think we, halftime, we had 250 yards. Second half, we probably didn't make the plays we needed to make. Really, lot of it was penalties. I think they were 0 for 7 on third down in the second half. They were looking at third and 15, third and 16.

So the official came over early on and said your guys' hands are all outside. A lot of holding calls today. I told the guys, just keep playing. What am I going to do.

So I'm anxious to watch the tape, but I thought all those guys stepped up and tried to play hard.

Q. Matt, you mentioned that each game is a different game. So in terms of quarterback platoon, whatever you want to call it, rotation, do you sort of judge it week to week?

COACH RHULE: Yeah. I think if we'd have gone out there today and, after three drives, been o-fer, I probably would put Jalan back in. Let's let it happen.

But there was a rhythm to it. Like I said, we were up, scored on the first three of four drives, whatever it was. We had a chance there, a chance with the ball on the goal line we thought maybe we had. That would have been 21. So I just had so much confidence in Jalan McClendon. It's really a unique situation.

I mean, literally, I have every -- I'm not talking like scouts. I have like directors, NFL directors, say look at him because he's got everything. But Charlie's a special guy too.

So we have two special guys. So when you have a chance to play them, we're going to play them both. We get a game, we're off to a big lead and we're rolling, (no microphone). This week, see how it goes.

Q. Matt, if Nick Florence had not called or texted you or you had not asked him to talk to the team, did you have a different message to them? What was the message going to be if he had not talked

COACH RHULE: Well, so my message has been similar in terms of it's all about when we will -- I thought last week, I said guys, you know, I showed the scene from The Replacements. You know that movie, The Replacements, where he talks about being in quicksand, how you can't get out.

I said that's all last week was. The first half of the game -- I hate to have to talk about last week after this week. But last week, in the first half, it was 7-0 with eight minutes left in the second quarter. It was 14-0 with four minutes left in the second quarter. Didn't have to become 24-0.

But there's a pall over our sideline. It's quiet. And I showed the stats. In the first half, we had 39 plays, you know. We average 2.9 yards per play. We had no points. And we got 148 yards.

In the second half, we had 35 plays. We didn't make a magical halftime. Just go play football. Caught the ball, played a little bit better. So now we have 252 yards and 27 points. I said, so if we had just done what we did in the second half in the first half, we'd have finished with 500 yards and, you know, 54 points, and felt really about where we were.

So my point was how do you get out of quicksand? The guys like you stop moving. I said the easiest way to get out is reach your hand out. You ask your brother to help pull you out. So that's been the biggest thing that I've been trying to teach each other is like, we'll be a great team when we are feeding off each other. When we are, "I've got you."

So as Nick told the story, it was almost like the players were looking at me like, he put this guy up to this. Because he started saying how they, in 2012, went from being like if they could just one stop to, when they got one stop, started saying hey, great job. Now the defense starts.

Then he talked about back-to-back pick sixes. And just the difference once they started celebrating with each other. I wasn't there, so I'm not commenting on what happened. I'm just saying that's what he said.

So he just gave reality to what I'm saying. And the cool thing was he gave reality to it in a Baylor way. Those guys those players looked up to, he explained it.

So often, when you build a program, the players that come in after you're winning don't know what it took to get there, right. And that's true anywhere.

Like I was a football player at Penn State. I used to walk down the hall. There was nothing you could do at Penn State for the first time. Like you walked in the building, you walked by 27 Academic All-Americans, you walked by All-Americans, you walked by Heisman Trophy winners.

But you're also walking by the people that built the program. So you had this responsibility to uphold it, but you didn't know what the struggle was like.

So what I wanted our guys to understand is you are the guys doing the struggling. Like Fleeks is going to be sitting up here some day talking to 14 freshmen saying, you guys don't understand Blake Blackmar, and you guys don't understand about Chris Platt.

He'll be telling those stories. So I want them to know how special they were. But the messages would be same. The messages are the same all the time. Just have each other's back. And when you start playing and being that kind of a team, every week will be a new week, and every week will be a battle. It's not going to be easy, and we don't want it to be easy. But if we play together, we at least have a chance.

Q. Matt, what you've been doing with Jalen Hurd the last couple weeks in the backfield, splitting up, is there a goal to just try and get him more touches, like X amount of touches a game? Is that why you're putting him in the backfield a little bit more? How do you see that?

COACH RHULE: Well, we'd like to get him a certain amount of balls a game. Part of that is when you throw the ball, you call routes to somebody, they have to be open and the quarterback has to see it. So there's a lot of things to it.

When you hand the ball to somebody, it's just way easier to give it to them. I think that hip is really bothering him, so that's why we put Fleeks in in the second quarter, and Fleeks was lights out. Jalen, in the second half, got loosened up and thought he had a chance to go play.

So I think we'll continue to try to use him in both, playing a little bit of slot, playing a little bit of tailback here and there. He's just the second all-time leading rusher at Tennessee. So you put the ball in his hand, he'll do special things.

So we'll try to continue to find ways to get him the ball. But I also think, you know, when he gets a little bit banged up, there's no use running him ragged.

Q. Do you think you wouldn't need to use him more, like when you go to Norman next week, and then you've got Kansas State with the Big 12 season unfolding, or is it just too early to tell?

COACH RHULE: I think he's a great player. Any time we give him the ball, it'll be great. But at the same time, you've got to be healthy, they have to be clicking.

So I thought today, he went down, Fleeks got in there and made the plays. We felt good about him. So, you know, I just don't think the move is to make him purely a tailback, because he's a long-time -- he'll play receiver for a long time in the NFL.

Yeah, we'd like getting him the ball more, getting Platt the ball more, get Mims the ball more. It's hard to spread it all around. Solely dictated by the defenses.

Q. (No microphone) from your vantage point, is that a play bust on your side?

COACH RHULE: Well, I think most plays are usually a combination of both, and they ran the ball, they ran it to an unblocked defender who missed tackle.

And, you know, heck of an effort by Jameson Houston to get it out of bounds and not let it become a touchdown. But that was just a missed tackle, maybe a misalignment. I'll have to see the film.

But the thing about what they do that's so hard, they spread you so far out that it always comes down to one guy having to make the tackle. So we made a lot of them today. He made one. We told him, guys, he's going to bust them. He might bust a bunch of them. Run them down, get the ball down. Let's live to fight another play.

Q. (No microphone) had 14 carries, I think he had two negative yards.

COACH RHULE: Yeah, he had 14 for 103. He lost 14 as well. So he had 89 total. So on the other 13 carries, he had 17 yards.

Q. (No microphone).

COACH RHULE: Yeah, proud of the defense. I think the biggest thing with defense is they played with energy, and I thought they got vertical, got up the field. When our defense works, we create negatives. And he was there creating some negatives. They made some big plays, but our guys rallied to fight back.

Q. Coach, you guys had 13 penalties for about 140 yards. Can you comment on kind of what you thought on some of those fouls and also how the defense responded, stepped up after the penalties key stop or a sack or something like that.

COACH RHULE: You know, I thought the holds bothered me. As I said, the official said early on, hey, you know, the hands are outside. You're getting a lot of holding calls. So I told him, I coach offensive line. I don't want the hands to be outside. I'm with you.

So we tried to get our hands inside, get our guys just to finish. So I have to see them to comment. I think Tuesday I'll probably give you a better answer.

They were devastating at times. Some of the other ones would be hard for me to say. I thought the personal fouls hurt us at times on defense.

After last week, we didn't play as hard and as effort- filled as we wanted. So I felt that way today. I think we didn't play as clean as we wanted. So just keep trying to work to get that perfect combination where we're playing really, really hard. But at the same time, also, precise.

And I probably watch and can answer you better on Tuesday in terms of exactly why did we do this and why did we do that.

And a couple of those ones where some young guys, I think sometimes the young players get in there and panic a little bit and start grabbing and holding on.

We just need to continue to work on our confidence so they can really come off the ball and get their hands inside and trust that they know what they're doing.

Q. How much did the defense (no microphone). They score there, it's a ball game.

COACH RHULE: Yeah. I thought it wasn't just -- it was also the way it happened. I thought there were several hits today, big-time hits, where our team was like yeah, you know.

And like a punter. He punted that one ball and the whole team went nuts. So there were a lot of plays like that where they started to get what I was just -- started to feed off each other.

But Grayland's play was the play of the day. It just wasn't the fact that he made the stop. It was the way he did it. Just the physicality that he showed.

And I'm so proud of Grayland for -- not that he stopped him, but just the effort that he gave and the physicality he tried to show. Because when you play like that, eventually you figure it out. You eventually find a way to win the game.

And it's all we wanted was to go play like that. We didn't play like that last week. We played like that today. We'll try to do it again next week.

Q. Matt, the first half today was pretty much pretty opposite of the first half last week. (No microphone).

COACH RHULE: Well, when you guys walk through our building, you see the sign, "don't beat ourselves." That was really the story last week was why are we in

quicksand? Feels like we're sinking. Why?

It's nothing that they're doing. It's what we're doing. So if you have the ability, if you're the cause of getting yourself in it, you can get yourself out of it so easy, by taking a breath and just doing what you do.

So I thought our guys had that mentality. I think the biggest thing that we looked at was the second quarter has been our worst quarter this year. We're really good -- we're giving up 35 yards in the first quarter and I think the defense has given up ten points in the fourth quarter.

The second quarter, we've given up 39 points. And so that -- I showed it to them, and I said -- no one could believe it. I said, what are we going to do? Let's practice.

So today, fourth quarter, fourth quarter, fourth quarter. There's a second quarter. Let's finish the half. I thought that was really cool, to see the guys try to go finish the half.

But, yeah, I mean, we emphasize things all the time. It's just sometimes it's unfortunate in life, but it's true. Sometimes you have to go through adversity to learn the lesson. Even hearing the lesson the whole time, sometimes you have to go through last week to say, oh, let's lock in on this one.

I thought everyone did a better job this week. I thought our practice on Tuesday was really, really, really competitive. And I thought you saw a lot of the things that showed up in practice in the game.

Q. The drops as well, which have been a bugaboo, but Fleeks, Thornton, I mean, all your wide receivers seemed to be really sturdy catching the football today.

COACH RHULE: Yeah, they did. They made a ton of plays, big-time plays. Tyquan, with the touchdown he started to drop but made the big-time catch. On the other play that Tyquan caught that was called back for a hold, but that was an unbelievable catch. He got knocked out -- I shouldn't say knocked out, but knocked hard.

So he's quietly developing into a pretty good player. But, yeah, I think those guys know they can make plays. They wanted to go make plays today. And they did.

Q. With the way the offense was moving in the first half, what do you see is the biggest difference between the first and the second half today?

COACH RHULE: Penalties. Like I said, if we don't have penalties, we probably get up and run even more. I think there's a little time there at the end of the third, beginning of the fourth, where we're maybe a little more conservative. Knowing that we had the game in control on defense, so maybe trying to run a little bit more of the clock.

Penalties were the biggest issue in the second half, at least now. When I go back and watch it, I might feel differently.

I think the biggest thing, that fumble right before the half, we stopped them, we got the ball on the punt return, and we were going to catch the ball and go two minutes and try to score. That fumble, I went in at halftime, I said the only thing that's going to get us beat here, turn the football over. That's what Kansas lives off of.

So I think that maybe that's the biggest thing, I'd say, was penalties in the second half. It was just time after time after time a couple times. So we have to improve that.

It's always fun to win and find things that you have to improve, right. So hopefully, we'll have the same authenticity with which we look at ourselves on Monday. Hopefully, we'll have the same that we had last week.

Last week was meaningful for a lot of guys and hard to overcome. If we have the same -- we can have a different feeling but the same attention to detail Monday, then we can make hopefully major improvements and have to figure out some injury things with Xavier going down and (no microphone), his leg at the end was bothering him pretty good so we'll have to make some steps in terms of who is going to play, if they know what they're doing.

Q. What is Xavier's injury?

COACH RHULE: They were trying to figure out if it was a broken ankle or it was an ankle sprain. So I don't know. It sounded like when I left they hope it's an ankle sprain, but usually those things are re-MRI tomorrow or whatever. So I hate to say something and have it be wrong.

But I would say sounded like he thought -- he diagnosed himself to be an ankle sprain. So we'll see if he's right or not.

Q. (No microphone).

COACH RHULE: Sometimes those high ankle sprains, they spread apart when they look at them. We'll see what it is.

One thing I know about X, he's a tough, tough, tough

young man, and he'll find a way to get back to us as soon as he can.

Q. Coach, did you decide you just wanted to force the rushing game this year because you had trouble the last couple weeks?

COACH RHULE: Was I going to try to force it?

Q. Yeah, did you say we're just going to keep doing it until it works?

COACH RHULE: I don't know if I had that approach. I think we just tried to run the football and I think we had like nine or 12 tailback carries at halftime. So yeah, just tried to call what we saw. Once we had the lead, also be smart enough to know, okay, let's not turn the ball over and throw them a free one.

So I thought in the second half, a couple of those runs popped ep. Michael had a nice run. So nothing bigger than that. You know, the me inside, the real me that comes out once in a while would probably have been in a 22-personnel herd running about 15 more times.

And there will be a time where I'll do that.

But I just thought our team, in the fourth quarter, needed to play. And I thought Jason Moore, playing left guard, needed more reps of playing. And other guys needed more reps of playing. So we tried to play a little more, as opposed to maybe four-minuting the game out and giving guys opportunities to develop.

So those guys, I don't know who's going to be left guard next week, if it's Christian if he's healthy, if it's Xavier, if it's Jason Moore. I want to see them on tape. So I'm not sure about anything else other than that.

Q. So Matt, do you look at your quarterback situation as still a rotation or how do you see it now, after today?

COACH RHULE: Just what I said earlier. Just I think today, I have confidence in both guys. I think be ready to play both. But today, Charlie was hot. I think if he went out there next week, and one of the quarterbacks is hot, I'll play him. If they're struggling, I'll go to the other guy, knowing that each guy brings different gifts and skills to the table.

But just kind of like the tailbacks, you know, whichever one's hot, they get to finish the game out. Kind of same thing with the quarterbacks.

But it's a Saturday. We just finished this game so it's hard for me to process it. I haven't even watched the tape yet. I'll go home tonight and watch the film.

I'll probably watch the films and make a hundred notes. Tomorrow, I'll watch it again and Monday. So I'll probably have a better answer for you on Tuesday. I think right now, it would be probably be ready to play both and see who's hot.

Q. Talked about trying to tell the players and Nick Florence telling the players, take some of the pressure off of themselves. Just to play and have fun, make plays. Did you sense that in the post- game locker room, that these guys had taken some of the pressure off themselves?

COACH RHULE: I sensed it in the pregame locker room. That was the biggest thing. I think in the pregame locker room, as I said, it was the first time I walked in there and I felt like I was looking at a complete football team. And I was honest and emotional with them. I was before the game. And so I was happy to see them be successful at the end.

I saw a completely different sideline. Completely, completely, completely different sideline. Completely different tenor. And just keep trying to build it. We don't ever want to be over the top. Want the guys to have fun.

And you have to make yourself have fun, even when you're not having fun sometimes. So there's a lot to have fun with today. But we hopefully will continue to improve.

Thank you, guys.