Transcript: Coach Rhule press conference following the TCU loss
Baylor Football Head Coach Matt Rhule
Weekly Press Conference
November 19, 2018
Opening Statement
“Appreciate you guys being here for the last regular season press conference. Appreciate everything you guys have done all year and I mean that sincerely. Obviously, disappointed about Saturday. Really a case and a day of missed opportunities, chances to win the football game. Credit to TCU, they made the plays and we didn’t. Our seniors were tremendously disappointed, I know our young guys were disappointed that they couldn’t send those guys off with a win. Anytime you have three turnovers, I think the football statistics say you have a seven percent chance to win. Credit to our defense that they hung in there, gave us a chance to have the ball at the end of the game with a chance to go and tie the game up. The last three games we’ve played at McLane we’ve had the ball at the end with a chance to go win it. We were able to do it twice, we weren’t able to do it on Saturday. I know our guys are disappointed, they’ll come over today, but at the end of the day, we have one more opportunity this week to go play football together. One more opportunity to go try to be bowl eligible. I look at it like a playoff game. Oklahoma will play West Virginia on Friday for a chance to go to the Big 12 Championship game. Texas will play Kansas for that right. Ohio State will play Michigan. We, not to the same extent, we have a chance to play a meaningful football game in November. Last year, the games in November were for pride, they were for the future, but this year we have a chance to play a meaningful game. And we’ve had two chances now to go win it, and we’ve played against good teams, but we’ve really beaten ourselves. It’s time for us to take the next step and go play against a really good Texas Tech team who’s in the same situation. Go play playoff football. Win or go home, is what it says on my phone. It’ll be good for our seniors to have a chance to have this opportunity, go out in a showcase-type event. And it’ll be really good for our young players because as we continue to grow and develop, we hope that the program is one in which every November we’re playing games that matter. So, they better get used to it, and get used to it now. Have a good week of practice, let the guys go home a little bit on Thanksgiving for a day, come back and head up and look to take on Texas Tech.”
On communicating to the team that they still have another game and the season is not over…
“I think there’s two components to it. I think our players are a pretty close football team. We have five days to be a team. You wake up on Sunday and you’re either handing your cleats in or you’re trying to figure out what time meetings are on Monday. I think hopefully they want to make the most of these last days together. They’ve come a long way, but there’s still so much further to go. Also, it’s an opportunity. You have a chance to go play a game at AT&T Stadium and play against Texas Tech and extend your season, go to a bowl game. It didn’t end the way they wanted it to last week but maybe that’s just prepared us for this week. I don’t know why things happen the way they do, but we went to play Texas Tech last year, we turned the ball over in the redzone, we couldn’t convert on 4th-and-goal, we gave up a kickoff return for a touchdown, we gave up a defensive touchdown. A lot of the same things that happened on Saturday in terms of beating ourselves, happened last year so we’ll see how much we’ve grown. We’ll see what kind of job the coaches have done in terms of teaching them about what it takes to win these big games. Seniors get one more big game and hopefully they can win that and we can go out and play one more game together after that.”
On the Texas Tech offense…
“Tempo. They’re going to go fast, at least that’s what it looks like they did against us early last year. They have three quarterbacks, when Jett [Duffey] is out there, he’s a dual threat. He can move, tremendous screen game. Last year they really hurt us on the perimeter. Big, physical offensive line, they’ll run some power football and get the ball downhill. As great a quarterback coach and passing game guru as Coach Kingsbury is, they always run the football and are physical. They’ll threaten you in a multitude of ways. Quarterbacks call the game at the line of scrimmage so whatever you’re in, they’re going to try to take advantage of it. They have elite skill. It’ll be a challenge for us, in every regard.”
On preparing for multiple quarterbacks…
“I think really at the end of the day when we watch them, we don’t know who’s going to play quarterback but we know they’re all, when you play against a Kliff Kingsbury team, you know they’re all going to be good quarterbacks. For us, it’s trying to stop [wide receiver T.J.] Vasher and [wide receiver Antoine] Wesley. Wesley is one of the premiere wideouts in the country. Those challenges will be the same no matter who the quarterback is. The quarterback run game might add a little bit when Duffey is out there. We’ll focus mainly on ourselves. We’ll try to take away, at least concentrate on some of their core concepts. Again, the screen game really, really hurt us last year. We’ll just try to concentrate on us and see who plays quarterback for them.”
On jumpstarting the offense…
“We scored 14 points two weeks ago, we scored nine points this past week. You can point to a myriad of things. I think it’s a combination of we cannot continue to turn the ball over and have penalties. Those things just ruin any semblance of continuity. I think we have to run the football better. We had some runs early on the drives where we kind of got the ball moving running the football, we didn’t put those away. And we have to be significantly better on third down than we were last week and that really comes down to protecting Charlie [Brewer]. He got hit, banged, and battered last week. You can pinpoint any one thing. It was not a very good performance last week offensively. It has to improve to have a chance this Saturday.”
On going up against big receivers…
“They’re the type of players, I don’t think you’re ever going to take them away. Because they’re in four-wide so much, you try to take this guy away but there’s another one over here. I think our corners have gotten better as the year has gone on. Getting Harrison Hand back the last two weeks has helped. Raleigh Texada has really stepped up. Derrek Thomas has been playing, Kalon Barnes, so I think our guys throughout the course of the year, Kalon Barnes was playing wide receiver in preseason camp, he didn’t come here to be a DB and he volunteered just to help us. I think as our guys are getting better, week in and week out, this will pose a tremendous challenge to us. I don’t think you can take any one of them away, I just think it’s a matter of us trying to eliminate the big plays, rally up and break on the plays in front of us. Defensively, we played better last week, we just haven’t caused any turnovers. We’re last in the country right now in terms of causing turnovers. To be able to be not getting turnovers and still win a couple games is difficult. If we can create some turnovers, Texas Tech like us last week had three turnovers against Kansas State, we had three turnovers against TCU, we both lost. The game really comes down to that most of the time. We would like to see our defense take the next step and tip a ball, knock a ball out and see what happens.”
On the success and importance of blocking kicks…
“To me blocking punts for us has always been about the player. You find a guy who can do it who is not going to turn his head and not hit the punter and they earn that opportunity. Christian Morgan is just a natural and BJ [Thompson] got involved this past week. He is competitive, and he found a way to block two kicks. We don’t over scheme it, we just put guys in there who we know are going to go and make a play on the ball. On the PAT and field goal, I think it is just the mind set of we do it live on Tuesdays against each other. A lot of people don’t want to do that, but it is sort of who we are. We tell our guys, when they go up against a PAT after some scores a touchdown against you, you are going to be frustrated but you have to play the next snap. If you ever watch our PAT/field goal team, they never look back to see if the ball went through or not. They walk right off the field kind of symbolically which shows it doesn’t matter if the ball went in or not, it shows that they gave effort on that play. I think that has always been big with the players too. Greg [Roberts] has blocked a bunch and then Bravvion [Roy] got in the mix and now BJ. Great players make great plays on defense and that translates over to special teams. Those blocks have become a part of who we are, and we now lead the Big 12 which was one of our goals and hopefully we can find a way to get one this week”.
On what the offensive line needs to do better this week…
“I think we have to not have the penalties, so we don’t have the first and twenties and long second downs. I think we have been pretty good in third and five or less but being in third and seven or longer you just have to give up the down or drop back and throw it. We knew going in that TCU likes to rush the passer. I made the statement on Saturday, that it was going to be battle and that statement kind of took off. We have a bunch of guys scratching and clawing. We just have to help them out. We have true freshman on the left side and some of the sacks they blitzed us, and the backs didn’t pick up the blocks. Maybe the quarterback misses the hot, so it’s not any one thing. If it were just one thing, we could correct it. It is just a little bit here and a little bit there. That is the difference between winning and losing. We just have to keep making steps. I think the offensive line will have to limit what we do this week. Especially on a short week where guys are going to go home for thanksgiving and then come back and we hope they can come back and play faster. The three-four defensives have been tough for us all year and this Texas Tech defense is another tough one”.
On what Derrek Thomas has brought to the cornerback position…
“Derrek’s competitiveness and size have helped us a lot. He matches up well with some of the bigger receivers in the league. Losing Grayland [Arnold] and Harrison [Hand] made things tough. Having DT there allowed us to get Kalon [Barnes] over the hump because he didn’t come here to play corner. Raleigh Texada has been a big help for us this year along with Jameson Houston. I have known DT for a long time. I recruited him out of high school at Temple and he has all of the physical gifts and this has been a good year for him”.
Thoughts on the last time playing this series in AT&T Stadium…
“I think it’s fun to have a neutral site game and have something different. I’m sure our players enjoy playing in the Cowboys stadium. Anything to celebrate college football and bring some extra to it is fun. You guys know I am a traditionalist. I think it is fun to go and play there. Of course, last year I wish we would have played much better and hopefully we can end out this series with a win”.
On his blocking potential was discovered after the dunk contest in the spring…
“Yeah, it’s funny he hasn’t blocked really any this year because on PAT/field goal he just isn’t that big. When you block one you start to get a feel for it and then you want to try and block them all and I was happy to see him get two blocks. He is an incredibly explosive athlete and he could probably play receiver for us. He is playing at 224 pounds and I would love to get him up to 235 pounds. He will be a real difference maker for our team in the coming years”.
On JaMycal Hasty status…
“Hasty was medically available. He technically could have played, but we are never going to make our guys play if they aren’t at 100 percent. We don’t want to put a guy out there if he doesn’t feel good. Chris Miller and Hasty we hope they are available this weekend. John Lovett and Trestan Eber played well on Saturday in Hasty’s absence”.
On if Craig “Sqwirl” Williams will play this week…
“I think he is done for this year. He will start up his year next year”.
On four teams at five wins fighting to become bowl eligible…
“I think it shows how competitive this league is. After this week there could be a lot of six-win teams. I when you play every team every year with only three non-conference games you will see less seven and four teams and more six and five teams. As we have gone through the year Oklahoma and West Virginia gave us fits, but all the other teams have had close to the same talent level and that makes sense for the number of teams fighting to become bowl eligible. There are a lot of great coaches and players in this league and the records show it”.
On the “What’s Next” philosophy…
“I want the guys to take advantage of the opportunity this weekend. What one guy sees as excitement the person calls pressure. All of this is tremendous opportunity. This game is the most important game because it is the next one on our schedule. At the end of the year, if we win this game it will mean no more than the other five wins if we are able to make it to a bowl game. If we end up losing this loss wouldn’t mean any more than the Duke loss. We have to move on from Saturday because we have one more opportunity this week. If we don’t do our job on Saturday, there is no more “What’s Next” because the season is over. I want these guys to recognize that it’s just another game. Last year we went into TCU and played for pride and we are now going to fight for another win to get to a bowl game and extend this season. We just need to go play football and see if we can come out on the winning side and go play in a bowl game”.