October 10, 2000
Head Coach R.C. Slocum
Did you see anything in the game Saturday which concerns you?
"Well, one thing that's obvious is we have to snap the ball better. If we snap the ball last week, a whole bunch of the questions you ask today, you don't even ask. You have to go through and look at everything as a coach, win or lose. You have to see where we are, and what we need to improve. You have to look at the big picture. Inexplicably, we had difficulty snapping the ball. If we do that, we win the game. I was concerned about our goal line offense. If we had won the game, I'd still be here saying we need to be more consistent on offense. We didn't do well on our goal line offense in the last game. We've got to improve there. Defensively, we know we've got youth in the secondary. We have to keep working those guys and get more consistency in the overall play of our defense. I thought we competed hard to the very end of the ball game. We just didn't get it done."
Your deep snappers have been pretty consistent. Talk about their performance Saturday. Were there any factors that may have contributed to the bad snaps?
"They've been very consistent. We've been so good, it's a big problem now that we've had a couple of bad snaps. In 12 years, we had not had one bad punt because of the snap. We've only had one other punt blocked in 12 years. That is a phenomenal record. There are very few teams who can say that. I've seen it on opposing teams, but I've never seen one of our guys snap the ball over the guy's head. I don't think the wet grass was a problem. They (Chance Pearce and Don Muhlbach) didn't make any excuses about it, they just said they didn't get it done. All last season, that was not a problem. (Pearce) has done an amazing job for us. He played as a true freshman last year. I've got a lot of confidence in him. We'll go back to work this week, and we'll give some added attention to it. We can't do a whole lot more than what we've been doing. You don't change somebody's style. You just write it off and say it was a bad day. I think they're both very good. I have a lot of confidence in both of them. I'm not going to make it bigger than it is."
Do you think Terence (Kitchens) is struggling now?
"No. I just think he missed the other day. He missed the one right before the half, but it was a long hurry-up field goal into the wind. He missed it two or three feet. You want him to make every one of them, but being realistic, I don't know of any that do make every one."
It seemed like Colorado came in inspired and were pushing A&M around a little bit in the first half. Was it hard for A&M to get up for the first half.?
"Well, I saw the part of them pushing us around a little bit. I thought it was more because they were a big, physical offensive line, and I was concerned about that to start with. On a day like that in particular, I think their plan with the new quarterback was to play it pretty close to the vest. They planned to run a lot of bootlegs, and to run right at us behind their big line. I thought they had a good plan. Since the Notre Dame game, we have not played a team that did that. As the game went on, we got a little better at slowing them down. We had played three straight teams that spread us out all over the field and line up to pass the whole time."
What all goes into getting up for Baylor this week?
"You try to do everything you can. It's a conference game, and it's a school that's close to us. Our players know a lot of their players. Over the years, those games have been competitive. We've never had any difficulty getting up for these games. Some have been bigger margins than others, but there's no doubt Baylor will be fired up for us. I think Baylor is an improved team. They always have a lot of athletes. The biggest challenge for us is to put the loss behind us. That's always a concern when you have a disappointing loss like that."
Apparently, Baylor will start a freshman at quarterback.
"He seems like he's a little more mobile than the other quarterbacks. He's got real good mobility, and he's a good thrower. He's played well for them."
Talk about the quick snap play your team ran on Saturday. Was it the officiating or do you take a new approach to that play?
"Well, I can't comment on officiating. I'll say our center does a great job of doing that. When he snaps it, the reason we do what we do is to clear it up for the officials. We let the center come off, but everybody else sits there and the quarterback takes a knee. That's been criticized, but you don't want your quarterback taking off running with nobody blocking. That would be the stupidest thing you could do. We've been very successful doing that. You have to have some mechanism to slow the defense down and keep them from jumping off on your snap count. We tell our center that if we get a guy who is clearly in the neutral zone, you snap the ball. He's been very good at doing that. You hope that an official looking straight down the line can see it. I'll just say I'm pleased with the way our player executed that play. It's unfortunate it turned out like it did."
It seemed like there were a lot of missed tackles and that might be the focus this week. Does it seem like there are more missed tackles collegiately and professionally?
"There might be a couple of things. One, with the time restrictions that you have on your practices now, you're always pressed for time so you don't have as much time to spend on fundamentals. We do spend time on it, but not as much as in previous years. Another factor is that you have big, strong backs now. The players have all gotten bigger and stronger. That may be a factor. Another thing is that the game is so spread out. With the old offenses, everybody was in such a confined area. Today, you get a whole lot of one-on-one situations. The biggest reason is the spreading out of the offenses. You have to make more open field tackles now. You also see more guys trying to block the guy down instead of wrapping up. We do it. The pros do it. There's more intention of a guy going in taking a shot and trying to punish the guy. There's a point in the game where you need to just get the guy down, and not try to have the hit of the week. We'll emphasize tackling and wrapping up this week."
Talk about the job (Mark) Farris has done this year.
"I think Farris has been good. He's one guy I think has been a bright spot on our football team. He's been steady and consistent in his performance. He's competing 60-plus percent of his passes. I think he's thrown two interceptions this year, which is really good. He's made some big plays and some great throws. He had a couple of big throws the other day, like the long pass to (Robert) Ferguson. He's been an excellent player. That was a question mark going into the season, and realistically that has been a plus for us. I think it (maturity) has given the offensive guys some confidence. I think he has played in such a way that our offensive players look to him and have a lot of confidence that he can get things done. I think we've had more demonstrations this year of just taking the ball and going down the field with it than we've had in a long time. He has given us the capability of doing that."
Is he (Farris) a little more advanced, despite the number of snaps he's gotten?
"As fast as that stuff happens, there has to be a mind that can see, pick and handle information in a hurry. Some guy may have the arm and the mobility, but just can't get it done. That really separates the real good ones from the good ones - a guy that can handle a lot of information in a short period of time. He's pretty far along right now, for a young quarterback. It appears he will have the ability to do some good things in that area."
It's a little ironic that you guys are throwing the ball more this year and Chris Taylor was really set up for his senior season, but Robert Ferguson has emerged and Bethel Johnson has had some big games. Talk about how he has handled the situation of not getting as many opportunities?
"I think he's handled it well. He's been a team player. A year or two ago, he was the leader of the pack, and he was the most consistent guy we had. That position had been upgraded with the addition of Robert. Bethel has been a young guy who has been developing and getting better. Now there's more people to spread around. It's a credit to him as a person. He's been a quality individual since he's been in our program. We've not had any of those types of problems with anybody this year."