September 30, 2003
Coach Dennis Franchione and selected players met with members of the media on Tuesday at Cain Hall. The Aggies open conference play at Texas Tech in a nationally-televised game (FOX Sports Net) on Saturday at 9 p.m. (CDT). Click the links above to hear what they had to say.
Here is a partial transcript of comments made by Coach Fran during the news conference.
On preparing for a rivalry game...
"As a coach you approach every game with the same methods and strategies. The workweek doesn't change. I think you learn a lot the first time you go into a rivalry. I know about rivalries. I have been through Auburn vs. Alabama, and Tennessee and Alabama, and other rivalries. I haven't been through this one exactly. My first year for the Auburn vs. Alabama game I learned a good bit, the second year I learned a good bit too, and I was on both sides of the score."
On the rivalry with Tech...
"That game appears to have been a thorn in our side here for the last several years. Tech has done a great job, Coach (Spike) Dykes did a good job and now Coach (Mike) Leach. It is funny how teams can get other team's numbers sometimes. Aggies expect to win, and that is not a game that we have a lot lately, and they want to win that game."
On past visits to Lubbock...
"I thought it was a good college football setting. It was the opening game of the year. Their fans were into it like any stadium you go into on the road. I don't remember it being much different than a lot of our games."
On Tech's spread offense...
"They are good at what they do. They believe in what they do. They have a quarterback who everyone at the beginning of the year wondered how he was going to be, and he looks like he has been back there for three or four years. That is admirable for Coach Leach for getting a guy that far along that hasn't played that much. A lot of the principles you use to defend this are things you worked on day one of spring practice. You are not going to make radical changes. I don't think you go into this game thinking that you are going to shut these guys out. You hope to get them to miss some turns, to get out of rhythm, and to keep them out of the endzone. They are going to get some yards. You know they are going to get yards, they got a lot of yards against N.C. State, but they didn't get a lot of points. That is what you have to keep in mind."
On the importance of understanding Tech will get its yards...
"I think this week is a week that you have to understand that until they cross the goal line it doesn't matter. They are a good offensive team, and we have to make them work for everything they get and not give them cheap ones. We have to remain patient and have that attitude."
On past differences between the first and second halves...
"We have played some good teams who have come out and done well in the second half. Some of our problems have been turnovers, and we have not been able to recover from the three and outs. Pittsburgh went right down the field and we went three and out, and then Pittsburgh went right back down the field again. We are not complimenting each other offensively and defensively very well. Of course we had the punt fumble in the third quarter. It is hard to win when you do those kinds of things. Defense is the only group that can get themselves off the field and the offense takes themselves off the field. You have a bad combination going right there and you've got to make more of every opportunity offensively. You have to get a stop defensively. That is as plain and simple as it is, I think."
On the Aggies' versatility on offense...
"Our skill kids can make plays and our coaching staff has done a good job of trying to put them in as many positions to make plays as they can. Our line is getting better. They were a relatively inexperienced group going into the season. Now they have four games under their belts and have improved. A little bit of our improvement is tied to the offensive line and the quarterback position. In Reggie's case his youth and improvement. We do have Courtney Lewis emerging as a threat, and our receivers can certainly make plays."
On the offensive line...
"We had 88 knockdowns last week. That was our high for an offensive line group. We had some guys with 20 knockdowns each. As far as pass protection, we didn't have a lot of pressure on our quarterback; 544 yards says a lot about them. We can talk about our skill kids, but if the offensive line isn't doing their job up front we can't get the ball to the skill kids in a timely manner. Those guys have improved. They still have a lot of steps to take. They are getting a feel for each other. They are able to make some adjustments on their own, and they are learning to trust each other. The offensive line needs to be synchronized group to be effective. They do so many things with each other as far as blocks and types of blocks. They are getting better at all those things. How far we can take them in one year is yet to be seen. You have been able to see some pretty significant improvement from game one to game two, game two to game three, and game three to game four. One of the good things we haven't had a lot of rotation in there as far as injuries so it has been a pretty consistent group."
How can the offense help the defense against a powerful Tech offense?
"Keeping their offense off the field, you would like to think would keep them out of rhythm. Time of possession, I am not sure if that is a big indicator in this game. You can't tell (from Tech's time of possession) whether they are ahead 49-14 or behind 49-14. They are the same (scheme-wise) in that regard and I don't believe they care about time of possession a bit. Time of possession can be an important statistic because it keeps your defense off the field and it keeps their offense off the field. But time of possession does not win the game, points still win the game. But it puts you in a position to be able to win the game sometimes. Third quarter against Utah we only ran a couple of plays, and all of a sudden you are kind of out of rhythm of where to go play calling wise, as a player you might be a little bit cold. If we can have some effect like that, it would be good. We have not shown the ability to be a big time of possession offense either. We have to do better at that."
On the turnovers in the Pittsburgh game...
"You fumble one punt and then you drop one punt that is about 100 yards of offense right there. That is very difficult to overcome. I have not won many games when I have had a punt blocked or with the drops. It just makes it hard. It is just a difficult thing for the defense, because they just got themselves off of the field and they have to go back out. You are going to give up a lot of yardage and put yourself backed up, which we did. I think through the years we have handled turnovers pretty well. I believe it is just part of the growing pains of coming together here and some inexperience and some guys doing some things for the first time. There is a fine line of how much we emphasize it and going overboard. I think we have always walked that line pretty well. We certainly had some pretty black and white things happen to us that illustrate the importance of that. Sometimes as a player you can hear the coach but until you live the experience, the hard knock is maybe the best teacher. We just have to keep working on it, and keep dwelling on it, and keep dwelling on ball security in practice."
On TaTa Thompson...
"He did some good things after his first opportunity to play. He looked a tad nervous maybe, and of course that is hard to tell with TaTa. I thought he moved around, I think he made around four tackles. We have high hopes for him, and I think he gave us reason to think he will be a good player in the future."