September 21, 2004
Audio from Tuesday's football media luncheon is available through the links to the right. Files can be downloaded and are in MP3 format.
A transcript of Coach Dennis Franchione's press conference on Tuesday at the Bright Football Complex is posted below.
Do you think that quarterback Reggie McNeal has "come of age" over the past two games?
"The last two games have been excellent games by Reggie for the most part. You can always find a play or two that he could have been better. The issues that stick out the most with him are his game management with the offense, his leadership, his maturity, his decision-making. He hit Boone (Stutz) on a ball across the middle the other night. We had a deep post called and (Clemson) played a different coverage than we had anticipated. I had a second thought about calling time out when I saw that. But Reggie handled it beautifully. He didn't force the ball down the field. He was patient, had good protection and found Boone. Those are things that I don't believe he would have done last year as well as he's doing this year. That's just one example. It's just experience, time under center, games, maturity - he's very responsible out there. He'd doing a good job of leading his team and coaching his guys in the right way when he needs to."
In McNeal's first season as a starter, he was already working with his third offensive coordinator. Did that effect his development?
"It is a factor. Reggie, fortunately, is very intelligent and learns very well. But anytime you have to learn new terminology, new language and new ways of doing things, it's a factor. Really, going into the season last year, Reggie had not played that much college football, but he was kinda of hung with a lot of responsibility. Not just by us as coaches, but from the fans and their expectations. And Reggie's expectations of himself. I said many times last year that it was maybe too much too soon. But he wanted it and we still thought he was our best option. His team is growing around him and that's helping him blossom as a quarterback."
The offensive line played every snap against Clemson, which means two things - they did a good job and they're in good shape. Can you talk about how that is progressing?
"It's starting to come together the way we want it to. If you look back to fall camp, you'll remember that we were shuffling and looking for the right combination. We may have been guilty, looking back, of not getting settled in a combination as soon as we needed to for them to play as well as we needed them to in that first game (against Utah). It made a giant step in game two and a giant step in game three. They've really played pretty well. When you have 500 yards on Clemson, including 300 rushing yards, that's a pretty good day. I felt like our offensive and defensive lines controlled the line of scrimmage against Clemson and we haven't had many days like that. Historically, our good football teams would have lines that would control the line of scrimmage. We didn't have that a great deal last year and we did Saturday night."
Talk about Boone Stutz and his development ...
"It's been quite a story. From originally walking on at TCU, to walking on at Alabama to coming to Texas A&M and finally earning a scholarship. We did have hopes for him as a deep snapper. Boone is the type of guy that goes to practice every day and even when he was just deep-snapping, he wanted to go play a position and do something. So he started playing tight end on the scout team and one day Coach (Mark) Tommerdahl said, 'this guy is going to help us someday." So I started paying a little closer attention to him when Mark tells me that about a tight end. Boone is a great story - from where he started in high school to where he is today. Every young athlete could draw inspiration from the Boone Stutz story."
After two big wins like you've had, do you have to do something to keep the team grounded or do you just ride it?
"The confidence boost, the morale, the liveliness that it puts in your step, we don't want them to lose that - the esteem that they've gained. But as we try to do after every game, win or lose, after we walk out of that meeting room on Sunday, we try to put that game behind us. I challenged the players this week that they need to win the open week. I have enough respect for Bill Snyder and his program to know that they are going to work their tails off and get better this week. And we've got to get better too. Our guys know that. They know that our (Big 12) opening game is against the defending Big 12 Champions and the challenge in front of us is probably bigger than the one we just faced. We try to never dwell on the losses and we can't sit around savor the wins. As a coach, when you haven't won a lot of games and you get a few wins like this the tendency of players is to want to bask in this a little too long. We try to not let that happen."
Is Erik Mayes developing into one of the better cornerback in the conference?
"Three games into a redshirt freshman's career may be too early to say that, but I believe that for a year now, we've know that Erik Mayes was going to be a good DB. He verified that in spring practice. I'll never forget during spring practice, Terrence Murphy had him beat on a post for a sure touchdown during a scrimmage. Erik put his head down and ran and looked back up at the exact right time and batted the ball down. Pass broken up with what looked like a sure touchdown to a good receiver. He's a mentally tough young man. Nothing bothers him. He doesn't mind being out there on the island by himself. He looks at it as a challenge. I'm excited about him being a redshirt freshman and having three and three-quarter years to go with him."
Does he ever fair-catch punts?
"There's been an occasion or two in practice that he (fair catches it). He's got ice water in his veins. There's not much that bothers Erik. There's no reason not to believe in Erik. He got a pass interference on the second play of the game against Clemson, but it was a very smart pass penalty. He was falling down and he knew that if he didn't do something it would be six points. So he tackled the guy. He got the penalty, but he didn't give up the points. Not every redshirt freshman has that kind of awareness about him. He impresses me every day with some of the instincts he has to play this game."
Talk about how far the defense has come since last year?
"They've come a long way. Last year we couldn't overcome a second-and-four if we gave up six yards on first down very easily. To overcome those penalties and keep people from getting into the endzone... we played very well from the 50 to our 20. I tell our guys that real men play defense in the red zone. We've got some stops down there. We've got some stops on fourth down and we overcame the penalties the other night, which we couldn't have done last year probably and didn't do very often if we did. We have come a long way in that regard. Hopefully we'll continue at that pace."