October 07, 2002
Selected audio clips, along with quotes from Head Coach R.C. Slocum, from Monday's weekly media luncheon at Cain Hall.
Have you ever seen a more dramatic change, in terms of one phase of your game turning 180 and another phase swinging 180 the other way in one week?
"I would not have thought we would have scored 47 points and lost the game. I've never experienced that in my coaching career. There are games like that but I've just never been around them. A lot of my background has been around defense so I've never been around the 54-49-type games. (Texas Tech) had had one a couple of weeks ago that was 51-48. I've never been around those type of games."
Defense has always been your "insurance policy". Can you tell us what happened on defense last week?
"A number of things happened. First of all, we had a very good quarterback who got the hot hand on us. A couple of receivers made some good catches. We had some coverage breakdowns. We let them have some big plays. Add up two or three of those against a good football team and they will score a lot of points. We gave up a punt return for a touchdown which we haven't done very often. That added to it. If you just take the punt return away, then you'd say we gave up some points but we matched them."
Many people thought this defense was one of the best A&M has ever had. Does last week's performance change that?
"We didn't play like that. That was not a great defensive performance. I would say, based on our standards, that was a very average, below average performance based on what our expectations and what my expectations of our defense are."
It looked like the defense got tired...
"We played a lot on the field and stayed out there. Part of that was our fault. We let them make some first downs. We let them stay on the field too long sometimes."
What about the amount of pressure you wanted to bring late in the game?
"We didn't get the pressure on him that we hoped. We did get six sacks on him so you can't say we didn't get pressure on him. But, particularly late in the game, we weren't able to pressure him as much as we would have liked. There were several times when we had some pressures but formations caused us at times to get out of things we had called. We didn't get the pressure on him, but it's misleading to play someone like that. I would say, from the tapes I've seen, we got more pressure on him than anyone else who's played him."
Since you don't play another offense like this, do you just look at last week as an aberration and move on?
"That is what we have to try to do, but Baylor will throw it around this week. It's not the same exact style of offense, but, to me, from a fundamental standpoint, we didn't play as well as I wanted us to play in the game. We've got to go back and tackle better. I don't think you should over-react to it. You have to realize that this happens in college football."
Talk about Dustin Long's progress over the last few weeks...
"I think he's made steady progress. If you go back to the opening game and look at clips from then to now, I think he's made dramatic improvement. I have to say I'm not totally surprised. I felt all along that he had good talent. There's no doubt that Mark's (Farris) arm problem was a legitimate deal. It wasn't some hoax we came up with. But in light of that, I think it speeded up something that may have happened anyway. The fact that Mark had a sore arm and wasn't able to throw the ball as well as he normally does put me in a position of saying I've got to do something with this position. After seeing Dustin perform in the games, I said I think he deserves to continue to start. Even to the point of when Mark got back healthy, I still felt for the best long-range interests of our program that Dustin gave us the better choice and Reggie (McNeal) gave us the better choice. I had to keep working both of them and take a few hits along the way; be second-guessed along the way. I'm going to do what I think is best for this football team. I think I got a little bit of vindication in that on Saturday. Dustin looked pretty good and it's encouraging for the future to say we have a young guy and we have another young, talented guy that's also going to be a talented quarterback for us."
What did Dustin Long show you on that last drive in regulation?
"Just the poise to sit in there. I'm not surprised all. All the way through his career this kid has been a competitor, baseball player, football player, played in the state high school playoffs, is a coach's son. He's been throughout his career a great competitor. He's been there. He's a pretty cool guy. In coaching, you're always looking for a guy with enthusiasm but sometimes a guy can be too hyper. Like last Saturday, you don't need a guy out there getting too animated. You need a guy who's thinking. You need a guy with some poise and I think that's one of his long suits."
Did your team take Baylor lightly last year?
"Baylor played well against us. Particularly their defense played really well. I see them as being pretty talented on defense. They have speed and they've got a lot of athletic ability. They played pretty well against us. We played pretty good defense on them too. It was a low-scoring game and it was a close game. It was a game that they had a chance to win."
What has there been such improvement on the offensive line over the last two weeks?
"I've said many times that balance on offense helps your offensive line. If you get to the point that people have to defend the pass, you get the numbers right to where the offensive line can be successful. It doesn't guarantee that you will be successful, but you get the numbers down to where you have a chance. I think the success of the offensive line the past two weeks is because we've also been successful throwing the football. We've had more balance and we've been less predictable on what we're doing on certain downs."