WATCH: Matt Rhule Big 12 Media Day Press Conference
THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Coach Matt Rhule from Baylor. Coach, welcome and your thoughts on the upcoming season?
MATT RHULE: On behalf of the entire Baylor football team and Mack Rhoades it's an honor to be here. As always I want to make sure I thank the leadership, what a great time it is to be here and be a part of this conference, Commissioner Bowlsby, Ed Stewart, everything is always first class. I'm very appreciative.
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I'm excited to be here. I'm excited about the upcoming season. I think we were a team last year that was good at times, not necessarily consistent but showed some flashes and finished the season the right way. We are hoping that we can become a team that week-in and week-out knows what to expect. Proud of the five young men that I brought here today, four of the five are already college graduates, Marques Jones won the top engineering student award this year. He's accepted a Navy Scholarship. Clay Johnston, All-Big 12 caliber player, college graduate. Denzel Mims is finishing his degree right now. JaMycal Hasty graduated in three years. Sam Tecklenburg is a member of our graduate program.
As you hear me talk I think the one thing that you take away from it is I'm proud of what our team has done in the off-season, record-setting GPAs, 839 hours of community engagement, four guys just finished a mission trip in South Africa and we are doing that while our guys are taking over 33 different majors. I'm proud of what the guys are doing in the community and in the classroom and very hopeful that will carry over this season as we take a step from a seven-win team to a team that has a chance to be in contention for the Big 12 Championship game in December.
Q. Coach, last year your defense gave up 39 explosive plays that led to touchdowns and accounted for 38 percent of the total yards on defense that you guys gave up for the year. How excited are you for this crop of kids that are returning, a lot of experience on it and how are you positioning them to get better for a better defensive year this year?
MATT RHULE: For us to take the next step we have to get better on defense and that starts with not giving up so many big plays and also last year we were last in the conference at taking the ball away. We've got to become more of an impact defense taking the ball way and I think it starts with our players. There's a lot of guys that have played a lot of football and they were out there some of them playing before they were ready and now they're ready. We've been together for three years. We know what to expect and we know the league and whether it's James Lynch or Clay Johnston or Chris Miller or James Lockhart or Bravvion Roy, those guys are battle tested and now we have to go out and play at the elite level.
As coaches we have gone to a three-down structure as opposed to four-down as opposed to what we have already known and hoping we can get more speed on the field and we are as fast much a team as I've ever been around and we hope to get that speed to translate come fall.
Q. When you got to Baylor the roster was a mess, fans were clamoring for the return of Art Briles, couple years later. What is your message in regard to the state of the program and the culture for that matter at Baylor?
MATT RHULE: I think the young people in our program are doing things as well as any team in college football. Like I said, we were second in the bowl games. Clemson only had more college graduates than we did. To have ten guys in graduate school and to have guys doing the right things in the community, we're not perfect, but if you took a look into our program you would see a lot of people doing things the right way and striving to achieve at a high level. It hasn't been easy. As you said we had to sign a record amount of guys the first year. We've had to try to find every way to take advantage of the rules that are there. We had to play a lot of guys before they were ready.
But at the end of the day, I think the progress of is showing up on the field and showing up in the classroom and in the community and I hope that translates over to football because for us to be a great team, we were not very disciplined last year and that disciplined that we show off the field has to show up on the field. But we're making progress and it's fun to be able to come to the Media Day and talk about the future and the team and I think that's the best thing at Baylor is we are able to look forward.
Q. Matt, in the spring you were talking about even as impressive as the move from one win to seven wins was, taking the next step would be more difficult. What has to be in place for this team to take that next step in the conference?
MATT RHULE: I think, you know, you can go from one win to seven wins by just kind of eliminating the bad stuff, the bad decisions on the football field, the egregious errors, all those things. I think for us to take the next step a couple things have to happen. We have to become consistent. We were a team that got blown out against Oklahoma and came back and beat Kansas State. We got blown out at West Virginia and then they were able to beat Oklahoma State. We were reactionary and great teams are consistent every single time and great coaches talk about it and that's what's hard to do is to get our guys consistent day-in and day-out, but I think they know that's where they have to get to. To be honest, we have to be better up front. When we got there, there were six offensive linemen on the roster and we showed up. Two guys retired to get us down to 4. We played a 279-pound freshman at tackle the last five games, but he is 300 [pounds] now.
For us to be a team that's in contention and relevant in November we're going to have to play much better than we have on the offensive and defensive lines and I think we're ready for that and our guys understand that's the next step. We have a great quarterback, he can't be running for his life all the time, we have to I can ma sure he's comfortable if we want to play at a high level.
Q. Coach, when it comes to the pass rush, it's been inconsistent the last two years. Now you have James Lockhart coming in, other guys coming in. Where do you feel the state of the pass rush is right now and since you've arrived on campus schematically are there things you have adjusted to try to generate more of one?
MATT RHULE: I think the thing about the Big 12 when you look at it, it's not much of a drop back passing league. A lot of teams rely on RPOs but really play-action and match protection. So to me the key to be able to be a dominant pass rush team in terms of sacks is you have to get the lead. One of the top statistics in football is first of half scoring differential, the team that is winning at halftime usually wins. So we have never been in control of a game. Even last year the games that we won it came down to the final minutes, there was never a time when I was relaxing on the sidelines. It was all the way down to the end. We have to get control of the games. We have to get a lead. We have to stop the run and make teams one-dimensional so we can turn it up. It's a function of all of that. You mentioned some great players, James Lynch, Bravvion Roy, James Lockhart, those guys are ready to play well. But it's going to take the whole team if we want to get the numbers up to 40, and 40 is where we have to be in my mind to have a great defense.
Q. Matt, Charlie had a really good year last year, Charlie Brewer. How do you expect him to build off that coming into this year?
MATT RHULE: I thought at the end of last year Charlie really settled into playing quarterback and not feeling like he had to do everything himself. I put Charlie in hard positions last year, making him rotate early in the year and that wasn't easy on him. But I thought it really helped him develop where he wasn't worried anymore about anything else other than when I get in here is how I'm going to play. Once that light bulb went off for him I thought he was a really good quarterback and at the end of the year when we were able to run the ball and protect him I thought he was an excellent quarterback. I like his focus right now, he was invited to something, you know, this month to go away for a week and he turned it down because he wanted to stay on campus and throw with his receivers and worry about his class schedule and all that.
I think Charlie is a natural quarterback. The game comes easy to him. He's accurate. He loves to play, loves to compete. What I'm excited about is his commitment to learning the game at a higher level, understanding the run checks, the pass checks, the protections, making himself a pro quarterback as a junior and I've seen great work from him and that to me tells me he's ready to go be a great player this year.
Q. I saw a survey actually in Dave Campbell's that said you were the second most trusted coach by Texas high school coaches in the state of Texas that is. How have you built those relationships with Texas high school coaches in terms of recruiting?
MATT RHULE: That's an honor that people would say that. I appreciate that, anyone that voted for me. I think, you know, from the day that I came here, you know, I'm a guy that, I took the subway to school. What are we talking about? First of all, I hired three Texas high school football coaches and they are great friends of mine and great coaches, but I think it gave me an idea how, hey, this is how to operate within the take the state. So what we try to do is if we offer someone a scholarship we try to call the coach first. If we go to recruit we try to recruit all the schools we can get to not just the ones with big-time prospects. We try to build relationships because at the end of the day the high school coaches in the state of Texas they love two things, football and working with young people, and that's what I love and that's what Joey McGuire loves and Phil Snow loves and we try to speak at any clinic that we can go to. We have an open door policy that high school coaches in the state of Texas can walk into our offices on a Friday before we play the University of Oklahoma and they can sit there. We want people to be around and I think the biggest thing is when we have made mistakes and we have made mistakes in dealing with coaches and I've picked up the phone and said, hey, I made a mistake there. If you can say, hey, I did this wrong, then you have a chance to have real relationships. But I appreciate the people that said that, but we're not perfect. We're trying to do a great job of communicating and at the end of the day one of my goals is to make sure I'm doing my part to make the game of football in the state of Texas as strong as it can ever be that's at the high school level, Division III, Division II and FCS and FBS and hopefully we're all doing that together.
Q. Charlie [Brewer] was sacked 39 times last season, the most in the Big 12, I know you and Shawn Bell have done reshuffling this year. What's the depth like up front and how many guys do you think it takes for an offensive line to be good from start to finish?
MATT RHULE: We finished last in the conference in allowed sacks two years in a row and part of that is because we have been behind and one thing I never want my team to do is feel like we quit. We got down to Oklahoma last year and there was a part of me that he wanted to run the ball and keep the score close so you had a victory, moral victory, but we were just going to keep playing. Part of that is we haven't been ready up front to play at the level that we want to play at and I think we're at the point where we have seven to eight guys that we think can play for us at a high level. That to me is the number, you want three tackles, three guards and two centers and if you have eight guys then you have a chance to be whole. I think we're they're. Sam Tecklenburg is 310 pounds now. He played his first year at 280 as a converted. Connor Galvin is 300 pounds now and we have a bunch of guys that put in their time and hopefully we can go out there and get that number way down. We're probably always going to have a few more sacks than we should because of the way that Charlie plays, and when I was in the NFL I did a study and Aaron Rogers had a bunch of sacks, but it was because he was going to get out of the pocket and scorch you. So he would take a sack. I tell Charlie to slide and he slides right into the guy. When I tell him to get out-of-bounds, he stops. He is going to play that way and that's what makes him beloved by his teammates.
Q. Coach, which players have made you think the biggest strides between the end of last season and now?
MATT RHULE: Wow, that's a great question. I would say Connor Galvin because he's gotten up to 300-some pounds, I would say Kalon Barnes. I read all the college football magazines and people talk about the fastest people. This is a kid that practiced a full scrimmage on a Saturday morning, took every rep, tackled people, went out, took his pads off, walk over to the track facility and ran 10.2. He's a special, special person. So Kalon at corner has really developed where he has a chance to maybe be a big-time player.
I think it's really just kind of our entire team and the way that they look. Guys like Rob Saulin and Chidi Ogbonnaya, they were playing at 250 pounds, they're now 290, 300. I think when we walk out on to the field this year we're going to look like a big-time, elite-looking football team and that's a credit to Jeremy Scott and our strength and nutrition staff and all those people that work with our players day-in, day-out.
Q. Matt, more on Charlie. He carried the ball 133 times last year. Do you remember, can you estimate how many times of those were called runs and how many times were him just trying to make something happen? Would you like to keep those carries the same or cut those down?
MATT RHULE: I would like to cut 'em down slightly. I would never want to have Charlie not be Charlie and right behind him is Gerry Bohanon, I can't wait for everybody to see Gerry play. He's the same type of player. A lot of those with Charlie, depending on what defenses we saw, we saw some that were three-man rush Charlie, and if they cover he will take off and that's a valuable part. We ran a lot of quarterback draw with him last year, and he had some explosive plays in that, we ran a lot of quarterback sneaks last year. We made a commitment to we were going to be a great sneak team and he had a bunch of those. At the end of the day he probably had to run too many times in our protection game, but we always want Charlie to use his legs. That's what makes him special. We don't run a lot of quarterback-designed runs other than the quarterback draw.
Q. Coach, your second year at Temple, you went 6-6, the third year you went 10-4, second year at Baylor you went 7-6. What's your level of confidence in putting together a 9 or 10-win season and competing for the title?
MATT RHULE: That's what I would like to do. That's the expectation for me, but it's way easier said than done. What happened at Temple is we went 6-6 and we didn't play a bowl game. I had a senior player, Kenny Harper, got up and said I hope you learn not to take things for granted. We had such a hungry football team because they didn't have a chance to go to a bowl game. I look at my team and judge them depending on how hard they're working. This is the hardest, most industrious groups I've been around. They work. I know the teams that are here. They're working, too. So I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that we can take those steps. I'm putting that on myself, like, I expect myself to do the job that I'm hired to do and that's to get us to be a bowl team every year and have us be a team in November that's fighting to play in the championship game and we weren't that last year and that's the next step. A lot of things have to happen in order to make that happen, but we're going to fight like heck to make it happen.
Q. Coach, you talked about Marques Jones being an engineering student. How have you seen him develop from a walk-on to a guy that can help you on the field?
MATT RHULE: Marques Jones is a guy that should go play pro football. He's 6-1, he's got great hands. He is as reliable of a person that I have ever been around. The only bad thing about coaching him is you can't say anything wrong, because he will say, “Coach, that's not what you said two weeks ago.†He's an elite caliber student and player and I think the thing that's going to make Marques a great player is to think about himself as a great player. Whether or not you are a walk-on, that's how you got to college. You are 22 years old now. Who are you now? He is an elite student. He won the award for the best engineering student. Then he took a two-year scholarship with the United States Navy to conduct research, and he wants to work for Tesla someday. I want him to change the world and I also want him to think of himself as a great football player. He's a fun guy to be around and he represents our program the right way and he's not on social media so I don't have to follow him. Everybody about him is easy. I love coaching him day-in and day-out.
Q. Matt, Matt Campbell talked about the importance of multiplicity with offenses. Obviously you lost Jalen Hurd last year. How important was he to your offense and how do you go about replacing a guy like that?
MATT RHULE: The first thing about Jalen was he was the hardest working guy that I've ever been around in practice. So his effect on the team, that you are what you repeatedly doing. So are you doing enough? But you're right, he could play inside receiver, outside receiver. He could go be our tailback. When he was in the game you didn't know what personnel group we were in, and I think he can do that. He never played running back until he got to Baylor. He gives us versatility. Josh Fleeks is one of our best young players and he's a guy that was a high school running back and tailback. So we have done some of that with him. Gerry Bohanon is going to be a great quarterback that can also do some other things. So that's fun as a coach when you have guys that have not only the talent to do it, but you have to spend extra time working at those skills and learning the game. Jalen did that, but I think we have a lot of players who were willing to do that right now and in an innovative league if you go out there and just be vanilla, you're going to get embarrassed by the coaches in this league. So we have tried to add those wrinkles in, so I think in year three we will really be versatile in what we are doing.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much and good luck in the season.
MATT RHULE: Thank you guys, very much.