TRANSCRIPT: Coach Rhule discusses the Texas Bowl announcement

Baylor Football Head Coach Matt Rhule
Bowl Game Announcement Press Conference 
Dec. 2, 2018 

Opening Statement 
“Appreciate everyone for being here. Thank you for moving this up for me so I can make my plane to go out and recruit. On behalf of all of Baylor Football we are excited to have the chance to go play in the Texas Bowl. It will be a tremendous opportunity for us to go in Houston and play in front of our family and friends. I know how excited our players are and really rumors have been flying around all day about who we were going to play but I found out when you all found out. I was finding out on Twitter and the players all day have been super excited. The older guys are excited to play one of their last games in Houston. We want to thank Academy and the Texas Bowl, and we also want to thank all of our family, friends and Baylor Nation who will travel to the game and support this team. I just found out we are playing Vanderbilt and obviously it is a chance to play against an SEC team.  I have had a chance to coach against Coach Mason. He is a tremendous coach. Kyle Shurmur is a tremendous quarterback and we were his first offer at Temple and we know it will be a great game.” 

On the chance to play in Houston at the Texas Bowl…
“I have been excited about the opportunity to play in a bowl game. I think I was out recruiting in Houston last week and as I drove around, and I think the totality of it hit me and the opportunity to play in Houston and go down and play in front of our fan family is great. All of our Baylor family can travel to Houston and enjoy the game with us. To play in front of the high school coaches and possible recruits is big. I did not realize that seventy percent of our roster is from Texas. I think it really hit me that this is huge for our players and play in a new place and the team as well as myself are fired up to spend Christmas in a hotel.”

The status of Jalen Hurd and Drew Galitz…
“Well Galitz tore his ACL, so he is done. I will say that was probably one of the most courageous things I have ever seen him do. Obviously, we didn’t know pregame that it was torn, but Drew told us that something wasn’t right. He said it didn’t feel like when he tore it before, but he would be unable to kick off. Jay [Sedwick] did a great job on kick off. Drew still went out and averaged 40 yards per punt. And then two days later we got the news and I was crushed, and I cannot imagine how Drew feels. I’m glad he was able to go out on a high note and get a win. The other guys I am not sure yet, we will just have to see how things go through the next few weeks.”

On what happened to Jalen Hurd…
“He just hurt his knee. He got banged up and I told him that he probably shouldn’t play because he has a big NFL future ahead of him. He hurt his knee, but he wouldn’t come out. He was going to play a lot of tailback, but he couldn’t. He went out there caught four balls and made some great blocks. It was one of the more selfless acts for this team. People ask me all the time about Jalen and his time at Tennessee. I don’t want anybody to ask me about him again. That guy goes out there and plays and leaves it all on the field. With the future he has he wanted to do everything he could to help us win. I am still waiting to see on how healthy he will be.”

On the effects of recruiting with a bowl game in Houston…
“I think the way we run things and when people come watch us practice, they usually leave feeling that we are a program that knows how to practice and knows how to prepare and that things are done right. We went from one win to going to a bowl game. People can see the way we are trending. I think that good for us to go down to Houston and be in the news and be a topic in the media. We are going to go down there and try to be elite in everything that we do. We want to represent Baylor the right way in everything that we do, and I think that can certainly help out with recruiting.”

On the point in the season when a bowl game felt in reach…
“I expected to go to one. I think beating Oklahoma State was a defining moment for the year that gave us three cracks down the stretch to get that sixth win. Oklahoma State was a pivotal point for this team. They just won the week before and beat Texas and for us to battle back the way our guys did was big. I felt that from that point we had multiple opportunities to earn the chance to get bowl eligible. I think it is a great lesson for our players. We will look back and some people will say it was Texas Tech but really it started with Abilene Christian. At the end of the year the wins all count the same. We had six wins we lost four times and we got beat twice. Oklahoma and West Virginia kicked the doors down on us. The other four losses we did some of the small things wrong but going forward we can learn from our mistakes but the Oklahoma State game was our pivotal moment of the year.

On the players reaction to the Texas Bowl…

 “They’re not here, so I don’t know, but they’ve been texting and been on me all day. I think they think I have more information than I do. We’ve been recruiting all day and my son is like ‘You have to know’ and I said ‘Son, I swear I don’t.’ It was cool just to see how excited they are to play, to stay in Texas and go to Houston, that’s all I hear about, all the time from the Houston guys is H-Town and ‘The H.’ They love their city. And I think that’s really cool that we’re going to go back and play in their hometowns and how awesome it is for their families and their parents. I think that’s a big part of this for a lot of our guys. They’ve been through a lot and they have a chance to play at home in front of their family and friends. I know they’re excited about that.”

On how important this is for the seniors…

 “I think it’s so important for our seniors really for a couple reasons. I’d like to finish with a winning season, a winning record, a chance to get to seven wins. Going plus-five in wins this year tied us with Florida and Syracuse for most in the country, so I’d like to go plus-six. The thing that I’m most proud about with this team is how they’ve been a team. We had like 16 or 17, maybe 18 of our players at my house last night, watching the Alabama game. It was kind of cool for me to see how old guys, young guys, guys of different races, different positions, different places all hanging out. That’s a credit to our seniors. They’ve been so good about involving everyone on the team. For them to have one more chance to go out and play as a team I think is just really, really important. And then I don’t know that anyone can ever really understand all that they have been through. I can’t. And I’ve just been on the front lines of it for about two years now. I can’t understand everything that they’ve been through. To come out where it’s a positive story and all the tweets today are happy, all the guys are fired up and excited, they did that. And they earned it. They did that through hard work. If you learn a lesson coming out of our program, it’s that hard work isn’t punishment. If you want something in life you have to earn it. For me, it’s just like a step. We got to 6-6, we got to a bowl game. For them, it’s an accomplishment. I’m just proud of our seniors. Tyquan Thornton is never going to know what it’s like to not go to a bowl game, he better not. This better be the standard. That was done by those seniors.”

On leadership from the junior class…

“We practiced Friday and Saturday. Friday was just the really young guys, a lot of the juniors and the Clay Johnston’s, the guys with a thousand reps, they didn’t practice at all. I had those older guys coach. Yesterday it was just the seniors not practicing, but all the other guys. You can see guys understanding that there’s a certain way to do things and now there’s our way. You can see those guys demanding that and holding each other accountable. I like our junior class. Sam Tecklenburg up front on the offensive line, he’s been a leader but now, last couple days it’s been his team. Clay Johnston, it’s been his team, and Jordan Williams and Blake Lynch and many more. I think you’ve definitely seen that. Now that we have a bowl opponent, we’ll rein it back in. This is about this team and going 1-0 against Vanderbilt and ending this season the right way. But I’ve been really pleased with that junior class and the things that they’ve done.”

On if he cared about who the opponent would be…

 “No, I thought it was really important, cool for us to play an SEC team. That’s a premiere conference. I thought it’d be really important for us to go get a Power 5 win. To have a chance to do that is important. I was excited about that. Walking here, leaving my office I still didn’t know who we were playing. I was going to give you guys a bunch of coach speak. The respect I have for Vanderbilt, Coach Mason, they had to win their last two games to get bowl eligible. They went out and earned this, they’re going to be excited to play. We’re playing one of the best quarterbacks in the country. They know how to play defense. I think all those things will be really good for our team. We need to go out and defend a really good quarterback, we need to see if we can play better up front versus a really good SEC defensive line. I was excited about those matchups, but at the end of the day, the issue is always us. I can’t control who we play. I wanted to make sure that our guys were in this moment. I think the matchup for us is a good one, in terms of it’s going to make us have to develop in some areas that have not been our strength. If you don’t play well on the offensive line, if you’re not good up front you’re going to have a hard time versus any Coach Mason team.”

On balancing developing younger guys and getting ready for another game…

 “These Friday, Saturday practices during recruiting are more about development. But then once we get through this weekend coming up, then it will become bowl week. We’ll do a bowl prep, then give them a couple days, then do another bowl prep. We’ll do two weeks to get ready for the game. Right now, guys have a lot of things they have to handle. They have to handle finals. We have to finish well academically. We have to continue to do the right things off the field, we can’t have any distractions. They have to stay in shape. Those are the things I’m asking them to do, we’re not practicing during the week. Coaches are recruiting, we’re all over the country right now. But on the weekends, we need to focus on developing and then after this next weekend, we’ll get more into a bowl prep and that’ll be that last week, the 15th.”

On the goals of bowl practices… 

“To try players at new positions and to get guys reps. At the end of the day, if we can get 15 practices getting ready for this Bowl Game, it’s like another spring practice. A lot of people wonder what is that and it is just confidence for the guys. If I’m Bralen Taylor and I redshirted the whole year, a couple plays here, a couple plays there with the redshirt rule, if I can get 15 games now and I can get 15 more practices in the spring, by the time next season comes around I am a lot further along than I would have been. I got after the young guys on Friday. There are recruits sitting around and you would think that I would be shaking hands, but no, I want them to know even though you are not playing, I want you to understand that they need to feel the pressure and I want them to produce and perform and I was proud they responded and they did. You want to get to the point where there is one standard, whether you go out to be the middle linebacker at Baylor, whether you’re the fourth team guy going with the ones or you’re Clay Johnston. When you go out to be the quarterback, when you go out to be the left tackle, there is one standard we want you to play. Having the older players watch the young players, they are putting that pressure on them. For guys who have been on the scout team all year, now they are having those opportunities to not only build their abilities, but to build their confidence. That is what we are trying to get done right now. We are also moving some guys around right now at new positions making sure that guys have the best chance to be an NFL player. Sometimes you may be really good at your position, but at another position you might be even better, so we try to utilize that as well.”

On Blake Lynch’s interception during the Tech game…

“We went into that game knowing Coach Kingsbury’s Offense and what they are going to be doing over and over again. We worked and stressed into Blake and he almost had one and then he almost had another one and I remember Phil [Snow] was on the sidelines saying, “you’re going to pick one off.” For it to finally happen is awesome. It was also timely, and I knew for him that, I think it was one of you guys on twitter, someone had his stat line with carries, tackles, receptions and now interceptions. He has had a lot of things in his time here and I think he has settled in. He is one of those guys who is seeing the progress and it was a great culminating moment for him with all the work because it looks like just a pick, but there are hours and hours of work that he has put into to get to that point and now when that happens, you hope that he is thirsty for it and that he wants to work for it because he knows he can do this. That’s what is so good about the Bowl Game, he has one more chance to take another step. The step isn’t about winning the game, the step is over the next however many weeks we are able to take a step as a team and then go win the game, and if we can do that, we will be much better off next year.”

On the punting situation…

“You know Connor Martin did it all last year, so he should be ready, and Issac Power you know, we recruited him for a reason. In fact, when Drew [Galitz] got hurt in pregame, I said someone call Issac, maybe he is at the game, but it turned out he was in Colorado, so he wasn’t at the game obviously. This will be an opportunity for Issac over the next few weeks to see if he can be the starting punter this game and hopefully it will give him some momentum into the next season. I thought one of the things for Connor last year was when he was kicking off, punting and kicking or when he was just punting and kicking, his only kick wasn’t always just a field goal. He was able to get out there and get a punt, kind of keep himself in the game so if we need Connor to do it, he can do it. I though Jay [Sedwick] did a really good job in the Dome as well.

On Oklahoma making the College Football Playoff…

“I was fired up for Oklahoma that they were able to make it into the final four. It’s not seen enough yet, to play every team in your conference ever year is so hard, like you get to know each other so well, so you don’t ever have the best team roll of your schedule. You look at the Big 10 where some teams have the best year and some teams don’t even have to play them that year. You look at some of the championship games that were played, taking the SEC out of it, were really good teams versus unranked teams, versus 7-5 teams and in our league, you have to play everybody and then you have to have a rematch and play the second-best team. It’s really, really hard and Oklahoma did it. I have so much respect for the way Kyler Murray plays the game, that for him not to have a chance to go out and play against Alabama would have been a travesty as a football fan. I want to see Kyler Murray in the college football playoff as a fan and that is how much respect I have for them. This is a really hard thing that we do in our conference and a lot of other conferences will play four non-conference games, we play three. We play each other, and a lot of teams end up cannibalizing each other and you end up with a lot of 6-6 teams, so I am glad the payoff was there that Oklahoma got in and that they got the benefit of the doubt. I think they should, but based on what they did last year, they were a play away from beating Georgia and playing in the final game, so they earned the right to be there. I am also excited to see the rest of the teams in the conference go out and play against these other conferences. Being in the Big 12 for two years now I know how good the teams are and recognize how good the offenses are, so I am excited to see our league go out and play other leagues and see what the record is at the end.”