November 23, 2001
Texas A&M Notes
STATE OF TEXAS RECORD CROWD: Today's crowd of 87,555 ranks as a state of Texas record crowd for a football game, breaking the record of 87,206 set at the Texas A&M vs. Notre Dame game earlier this season at Kyle Field (Sept. 29, 2001). Kyle Field has hosted at least one state of Texas record crowd in each of the last three seasons (since the formation of the Bernard C. Richardson Zone) and hosted two in 2001.
Today's crowd raised Texas A&M's season home average attendence to a record-breaking 82,711 average (82,600 capacity) at six games at Kyle Field. It's the first time in school history that Kyle Field has averaged 80,000-plus crowds for an entire season and shatters the old mark of 77,579 set last season. Ten years ago, the Aggies averaged just 63,318 fans at six games at Kyle Field.
Since the completion of the Zone, Kyle Field has hosted nine 80,000-plus games, and the Aggies have compiled a 7-2 record in those games (only losses to top-ranked Oklahoma in 2000 and No. 5 Texas today.).
KIEL CONTINUES HOT STREAK: The Aggies' hottest defender down the stretch remained hot against Texas today. Junior safety Terrence Kiel piled up 11 and tallied his first sack of the season against the Longhorns. Over the past six games Kiel has averaged 11.0 tackles while taking over the team lead. He finished the regular season with team-high 95 stops.
CANDY MAN: Junior cornerback Sammy Davis posted seven tackles, including one for a loss, and had two pass breakups today. For the season, Davis had 72 tackles and 10 breakups. He has 23 breakups in his career and next season will be in striking range of the school record of 36 set by Derrick Frazier (1989-92). Davis'' nine career interceptions rank ninth in school annals. Texas receiver Roy Williams, who came into today with two-straight 100-yard receiving games, was blanketed by Davis most of the day and finished with eight catches for 56 yards, an average of 7.0 yards per catch (he came in averaging 12.9).
JOSEPH EMERGES: Redshirt freshman running back Keith Joseph, subbing for the injured Derek Farmer, had a career-high 23 carries for 71 yards against the Longhorns. The 71 yards were Joseph's second-highest effort of the season. Joseph gained a season-high 105 yards on 21 carries against Wyoming.
DEFENSE SHINES: The Wrecking Crew defense held Texas to just 21 points (including a blocked punt for a TD and a short TD drive late in the game after an interception), the second fewest points scored by the Longhorns this season (behind their 14-3 loss to Oklahoma)…The Longhorns had a season-low 138 passing yards today (ending Chris Simms' streak of five straight 200-yard passing games…Texas gained just 97 rushing yards, their second fewest of the season (Cedric Benson was held to just 79 yards, ending his streak of five straight 100-yard rushing games)…The Longhorns' 235 total offensive yards were their second fewest (225 vs. Oklahoma) of the year…Texas came into today's game converting 52.9 percent of their third downs, but converted just 4-of-17 (23.5 percent).
NOTABLES: Today's 12th Man Kickoff team representative was Eric Stanford, a junior from Waco's Robinson High School …Terrence Murphy caught four passes for 23 yards, giving him 36 receptions for 518 yards this season…his 36 catches is an A&M freshman record and his 518 yards finishes just one yard shy of the school freshman mark of 519 set by Brian Mitchell in 1991…Mitchell's two 100-yard receiving games (Colorado, Kansas State) also is the most by a freshman in school history…Mickey Jones' 37-yard punt return early in the third quarter that set up A&M's touchdown was the longest of his career.
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Texas Notes
TEAM NOTES
Texas secured its first 10-win season since 1995, which was the last time Texas won at Kyle Field.
Texas evened up the all-time series in College Station 21-21-2.
Today’s victory marked UT’s eighth straight road victory and 12th in its last 14 games.
Texas has blocked a kick in four games this season.
Texas has produced seven defensive/special teams scores in 2001, including four in the last three games.
The Texas defense has posted an interception in six straight games and eight of 11 games this season.
Texas is 28-1 when scoring first, 34-5 when leading at halftime and 33-0 when outrushing its opponent during the Mack Brown era.
The Texas defense has held its last eight opponents to less than 300 yards of total offense. Texas A&M gained 165 yards, marking UT’s ninth-best effort since the start of the 1990 season. It marked the fourth time Texas has held its opponent to less than 200 yards in 2001.
The Texas defense sacked A&M QB Mark Farris a season-high four times.
Texas has scored in a Big 12-record 250 straight games, the second-longest active streak in the nation (BYU: 335). UT also has scored in 136 straight road games and a Big 12-record 165 straight conference games.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
Senior LB D.D. Lewis tied the UT record with his 49th straight start today. He now shares the record with Dan Neil (1993-96).
Freshman WR Tony Jeffery scored his second career touchdown when he returned Rod Babers’ blocked punt 23 yards in the first quarter. His first score came against Houston when he had a 17-yard touchdown reception. Texas has returned two blocked punts for touchdowns in 2001; the first was by sophomore S Phillip Geiggar against New Mexico State.
Junior CB Rod Babers blocked a punt for the second straight game. It was his second blocked kick of the season and the fifth for Texas as a team. Texas has blocked seven kicks overall this season.
Sophomore WR B.J. Johnson extended his streak of consecutive games with a catch to 23, a UT record to start a career and the third-longest in school history. Mike Adams holds the school record of 26, which he set from 1995-96.
Sophomore WR Roy Williams has caught a pass in 20 straight games. He had eight receptions today to move into sixth place on the UT career receptions list (102). He also moved into second place on UT’s single-season list with 62 receptions.
Freshman RB Cedric Benson broke the UT freshman record for touchdowns with his pair of fourth-quarter rushing scores. He has 12 touchdowns on the season (11 rush/1 rec), breaking the record of 10 set by Roy Williams in 2000.
Benson finished with 79 yards on 27 carries, giving him 974 yards on the season and putting him in second place on the UT single-season freshman list. Ricky Williams holds the UT record with 990 yards in 1995.
Junior QB Chris Simms passed for 138 yards, giving him 2,473 yards on the season and placing him second on the UT single-season chart. Major Applewhite holds the UT record with 3,357 yards in 1999.
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Texas A&M Quotes
RECEIVER MICKEY JONES: "The defense did their part, but the offense seemed to be looking around to see who was going to make some big plays. Sometimes on offense, we feel like we're not holding up our part. We feel like we owe our defense an apology. (On punt return to set up TD) I didn't know I was going to do punt returns today. All of a sudden, I made a big play and we got the momentum back. After the return, we thought we could do it."
LINEBACKER CHRISTIAN RODRIGUEZ: "If someone would have said that we could play this well on defense in this game, someone else might have said they were lying.
But Texas is our rival and there was a lot of emotion out there. Hats off to them. They won the game. We had an emphasis on stopping their running game and I think we did a good job of that. The game just got away from us in the end. They were able to seal the win so you have to give them credit. A lot of people are questioning our offense, but they are our brothers and we win or lose as a team. I don't think our offense needs to apologize to us. Maybe we need to apologize to our offense for letting Texas score 21 points on us."
QUARTERBACK MARK FARRIS: "They won. You've got to give them a lot of credit. We didn't play well enough to win which is always frustrating. Against UT, it's a little more frustrating. (On injuries) Every team has guys hurt so we're not going to make excuses. We're just trying to move the ball and we've got to go out there with what we've got. They are a good defense and a good team. You've got to give them credit. We just didn't play well enough."
PUNTER/KICKER CODY SCATES: (on injury) "I had all my weight on my left foot and it got hit by a helmet. They taped it and I came back out. On kickoffs I could tell because my stride was bigger. But I couldn't on punts. I just had to go. It didn't effect me to where I couldn't kick the ball."
CENTER SETH McKINNEY: "Keith (Joseph) stepped up and did a good job. We thought we could exploit the middle of their line and we did a good job. But we could have done a lot better. Texas did a good job. They were slanting a lot ond it was a difficult thing to handle. But for the most part, we did a good job."
LINEBACKER BRIAN GAMBLE: "Anytime you win the time of possession, the defense isn't on the field as much. This helps everyone catch a breath and especially helps the secondary. We did a good job on defense today. The effort was there. We played well but not well enough to win. They made the most of this game. This is the game everybody plays for. The atmosphere is electric and its louder out there. Just its size makes it one of the best rivalries in the country.
DEFENSIVE BACK JAY BROOKS: "We had to find a way to make a turnover. We didn't come out with the win but the first three quarters we did exceptionally well. I give credit to the defensive line for putting pressure on them. If the quarterback can't see the receivers, they can't pass. We just put pressure on them."
RUNNING BACK KEITH JOSEPH: "The key is to execute in practice. When you do that you can come out and do it in the real thing. Coaches saw that we could run to the inside and they just kept with that."
HEAD COACH R.C. SLOCUM: "This was a great game. Both teams played hard. Our defense especially played hard. We felt we had to run some and establish that part of our game. We needed to have a lot of time of possession to get our defense some rest. We're disappointed that we didn't hit those big plays. We've been good defensively all year and we didn't change anything. We didn't talk much about Benson and holding him to this or that. We talked about being balanced on offense. The game was up for grabs in the fourth quarter. We knew we had to keep it a low scoring game to win against Texas. To make the score 14-7, they did what they had to do. If you had told me they would have one offensive touchdown -- until the garbage touchdown at the end -- late in the game, I would have settled for that because I would have known we would be in the game and have a chance to win it. We were in position to get the win but we didn't do it. The offense has to get points and the defense has to keep the opposition in range. I'm still a believer in a balanced offense, but we have just got to make those big plays and we have not done that past few games. It's frustrating. I would have loved to have run up and down the field on them, but it's my experience in big ball games that good defenses control good offenses. There is not any other offense in the country that I respect more than the University of Texas. They have a high profile quarterback, a top-notch running back, the best three receivers in college football and a bunch of 300-pound guys blocked for them. But I don't think you can deny that there were times today when the struggled. I'm disappointed, but I'm charting the plays and I'm seeing the same pattern for our offense and their offense. You need to take stock of what you are seeing. We were struggling out there but there were reasons for that and one of those was the Texas defense. Thomas Carriger gave us a great effort for a guy who didn't intend to play tight end in college. I think we've still got to develop our running game a little better and be able to break on some of those plays. (On special teams) We tried to put pressure on their punter and they put pressure on us. But I don't think either team had more success than the other with the exception of that one blocked punt. (On bowl opportunities) I'm pleased we are going to a bowl. I look around the country and I see a lot of big-time programs that aren't going anywhere. It's been a weird year in terms of injuries but this group of guys has been a credit to this program."
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Texas Quotes
HEAD COACH MACK BROWN:
On Texas' performance today... "That was a great college football game. Give A&M credit; they played great. Their defense played as good as they have all year. Our defense played the same as theirs. We played really good against a good opponent. Offensively we didn't panic. We didn't turn the ball over. We knew we had the wind in the fourth quarter. It was a field position game and we knew that would be important in the fourth quarter. A critical play for them was the holding penalty on the punt in the third quarter. They had us pinned inside our five, but it was called back."
On today's victory... "Coming in we knew our defense was going to play well. Playing a rival on the road is always a critical game for us. We needed to win a tough game. I liked the way we won today better than the way we won against Kansas. I feel better about this one."
On Texas A&M... "They play hard here, they play tough here and they play with a lot of confidence here. They are a good football team. Their losses are all to good teams. They played their hearts out today."
On Tony Jeffery's blocked-punt return... "Obviously that was a big play for us. I was happy we were able to get that early because once you block a punt, it's harder for the other team to cover because they're worried about protection. Eventually that led to a good punt return for us."
CEDRIC BENSON, FR., RB
On the crowd noise... "The crowd noise was definitely a factor. We couldn't make our checks at the line. That made it a little difficult on us in the first half."
On the team's performance... "This was just two good teams going at it today. I knew I just had to relax in the second half. I was trying to make good things happen. Every drive we had in the second half got longer as the game went on. It never got easier, but I did have a few more places to run in the second half. This is the type of game where whoever is toughest the longest wins."
CHRIS SIMMS, JR., QB
On today's victory... "This is such a tough place to play. They gave us some opportunities to make some big plays. The crowd makes it hard to check off at the line of scrimmage and it's hard to do a lot of things here. This is the kind of game where you just have to grind it out, make no mistakes, keep playing the game and hopefully pull it out in the end. I thought we were the better team and as long as we stayed in there I knew we would win in the end."
CORY REDDING, JR., DE
On the importance of today's victory... "This is such a great win. First of all I want to give credit to Texas A&M. They really played their hearts out and fought to the end. I also have to give credit to our team because we hung in there and we fought. This win puts us at 10-1 and that's what we wanted. Our team did a tremendous job on both sides of the ball. We were playing for the pride of the state of Texas and we wanted to represent the state well with the whole nation watching. We knew that with everyone watching and our bowl situation riding on this game that we would have to play our hearts out and that's what we did."
ROD BABERS, JR., CB
On pulling out the victory... "We are a mature team and we have been through a lot of things. In some games this season, the defense didn't play so well and the offense had to pick us up. We didn't worry about the offense today. We knew that if we took care of our deal and didn't let A&M score that we would win the game. We knew that the offense would come through sooner or later and it did."
TONY JEFFERY, FR., WR
On returning the blocked punt for a touchdown... "Our coaches always believe in going for the big plays on special teams. Hearing that thump when the ball is blocked is a big momentum changer. Even when we have a return formation set up, we are trying to come after it. We work in practice every day about staying off the punter, but also putting as much pressure as possible on him. My main focus was to catch the ball cleanly after it was blocked. I knew that it would be smooth sailing to the end zone from there. It meant a lot to me to come through with such a big play. I worked all last year on special teams in practice while I redshirted. It is just a payoff for all my hard work. It's an unbelievable feeling."