November 23, 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.
Here is a transcript of Coach Fran's comments on Tuesday.
THE QUESTION: (Joking) What trick play are you going to run? Do you usually announce that or...?
COACH FRANCHIONE: It's either going to be a run or a pass.
THE QUESTION: On a serious note, do you run more trick plays than anybody in the country?
COACH FRANCHIONE: I don't know if I do any more than anybody in the country but I've got my share. You've just got to be prepared for every situation you get into. There's been a lot of games we haven't been able to call one but there's been some games we've called them and checked out of them because something changed in the front or whateve.
THE QUESTION: Where does that come from? Some coaches prone to do that. You and Bob Stoops. A lot of don't like to do it. Was there a role model you had or somebody taught you that you believed in?
COACH FRANCHIONE: My feeling personally is that I haven't gotten that from anybody. I just think that you look for game changing opportunities. On the fake punt against Oklahoma, Reggie (McNeal) runs for all but one yard for the first down. That was the time to do it, I thought. Same thing with the on-side kick, which didn't work very good. They don't all work. There's just times and situations where I think those kind of plays give you a chance to sway the game, to put the opponent on his heels, to kind of put you in an attack. You know, I've never had this happen before but when we faked the field goal and scored against Oklahoma the players were high-fiving me, "Great call, Coach, great call." It just really gave them a tremendous boost. It shows belief in your players when you call those kind of things. When they work it makes it a good feeling.
THE QUESTION: Is an underdog more apt to use trick plays?
COACH FRANCHIONE: I think in most cases, a lot of people won't resort to those and I think sometimes you know as an underdoing you may have to reach down in the bag a little deeper than you do if you're favored. I've been both and what you have to guard against sometimes is being conservative when you're the favorite and not taking advantage of some of those opportunities. There's been a game or two where I've kicked myself for that feeling after the game was over that I should have done this or done that and in that situation. But it's probably slightly true what you're saying.
THE QUESTION: When you're the favorite and you do something like a trick play, though, do you run the risk of subconsciously putting it in the heads of your players you know what he doesn't think that we can line up and beat these guys straight up? Have to guard against that?
COACH FRANCHIONE: I think you handle that before the game. I think I told y'all the story about when we were at Alabama going to play Oklahoma I told the team on Friday before we left we were going to do our on-side kick. I didn't want them to think that we were going to resort to gadgets to win the football game. I wanted them to understand that we believed it was there, we wanted take advantage of it, momentum change. I think that's taken care of during the week. We have these plays every week, I mean, every week. So it's not like it's abnormal. It's just when are we going to call this play.
THE QUESTION: You look for the opportunity to make the call...
COACH FRANCHIONE: Not only, 'is it there,' but sometimes, 'is the situation right' too. On the fake punt (against OU) I felt that was the time to do it. The on-side kick, I bounced back and forth on that one and when don't execute it well it's never the right time. You look for an opportunity to change the game or the complexion of the game. Sometimes you need to steal a possession. When you go against a great offensive team if you can steal a possession, you've made a difference for your football team so looking for those kind of opportunities, too.
THE QUESTION: How much time you think defensive coaches have to spend on trick plays?
COACH FRANCHIONE: They have to devote some kind of energy to those areas. I mean, we have to. And so I know that they have to. Sometimes what it can do is take up some practice time, and then set you back on your heels as to whether you want to be a block team or not or return or not. You've got to understand that these guys are not afraid to fake from the 29-yard line and those are all thoughts that have to go into your mind as a coach. I know for our coaches sometimes the thought that this is a fake situation impacts our call. So it takes practice time and it affects your calls, too.
THE QUESTION: What's the best one you ever ran even going back to your San Marcos days or wherever?
COACH FRANCHIONE: We did one at Pittsburgh State - we were getting beat and this was just one of those 'gosh we need to do something here' calls and we went about 65 for a touchdown on it and we ended up winning the football game.
THE QUESTION: Was it a playoff game?
COACH FRANCHIONE: It was a playoff game.
THE QUESTION: What was the play?
COACH FRANCHIONE: It was a double reverse pass. We
worked on it for I don't know how many weeks and hadn't ran it and we ran it that game and it worked well.
THE QUESTION: Are Cedric Benson's numbers from last year something you remind your team of?
COACH FRANCHIONE: I don't think we have to remind them. When you prepare to play this game, you know you're going to face a great running back. They know what he's capable of. We're all from the same state here. They know that we have to defend the run or we have no chance to win the football game. We can't let him have that kind of day and win the game. I shouldn't say no chance but we certainly diminish our opportunities.
THE QUESTION: Your team has done very well against teams that have good running attacks. Do you draw a lot of confidence from that?
COACH FRANCHIONE: I think we do. I think our players do and our coaches do. We defended (Vernand) Morency, defended (Darren) Sproles, defended (Adrian) Peterson. This one is complicated a little bit more in the fact that the quarterback is such a good runner, too. The other games we didn't have to worry about Jason White running the football in a one-back set. We didn't have to worry about K-State quarterback. We maybe had to worry a little bit about the Oklahoma State quarterback. In this game when Texas is in a one back set they're almost in a two back set because the quarterback is a very capable runner, and that make its more difficult.
THE QUESTION: Is that the biggest area of improvement?
COACH FRANCHIONE: Run defense? I would say yes.
THE QUESTION: What you just described with Texas is also similar to what opponents say about you-all, too; is that correct?
COACH FRANCHIONE: It is. There are a lot of similarities in our offenses in some regards and there are a lot of differences, too.
THE QUESTION: What's the first piece of building a defense that's good against the run? Defensive tack else or -
COACH FRANCHIONE: It's all your down lineman. Any year that we've been around a great defense or good defense we've had a good down linemen. A good defensive front ties up blocks, keeps your linebackers free. A good defensive front pressures the quarterback and makes your secondary look a little bit better. Last year we weren't able to do either one of those issues well enough to get our line backers free or keep from getting knocked off the ball or put pressure on the quarterback. This year we've been closer to what we need to do.
THE QUESTION: Are you surprised the teams aren't blitzing Vince Young more?
COACH FRANCHIONE: Yes and no. What they're doing with him I think is their offense is very blitz pick up conscious, if I'm saying that in a way that make sense for everybody. They're not exposing themselves to vulnerability from pressure. Because they run some of those zone read and things like that, you got to always think a little bit that you're accountable for dive, quarterback and pitch. And that sometimes slows defenses down to do what they'd like to do.
THE QUESTION: How about the run blitzing?
COACH FRANCHIONE: People are still going to run blitz but they don't put themselves in negative yard plays very often. They just don't do it. They protect him well and it's just hard to get them in those kind of situations.
THE QUESTION: How do you evaluate Courtney Lewis' season as comparable to last year?
COACH FRANCHIONE: There's a lot of circumstances that surround that question that make it difficult to compare. He played in the Utah game but he was banged up. In reality Courtney wasn't full speed. He missed the Wyoming completely and it takes him a little while to get back in his rhythm. We haven't had to be as dependent on Courtney this year as we had to be last year. Last year we struggled on defense enough that if I could just hold on to the ball make some first downs milk the clock to the fourth quarter I can have a chance in the game. Courtney was certainly a key to that. We haven't had to operate a game in those terms this year. And I think Reggie's development, as well as the rest of our offensive line, receivers has let us diversify and not be so dependent on Courtney. That's affected his numbers, and just getting off to a slow start due to the injury and everything affected him a little bit. He's been pretty productive and looked more like Courtney in the last few weeks than any time before that.
THE QUESTION: You made great strides in your program in one year. What would a win vs. Texas also mean vs. say a win over tech or Oklahoma State or anybody?
COACH FRANCHIONE: A win over your arch rival makes any year a lot better. I was telling somebody if we if we don't win the game we're going to be disappointed no matter what. I don't think we're going to get to Monday morning and say we've had a bad season. We've taken a lot of steps. We win and I think we've taken an giant step from last year maybe bigger than I was sure that we could take in one year. I have to temper how I explain that because I don't want anybody to think that we don't want to beat these guys really bad. We do. It'll enhance the season with a victory. Obviously anytime you lose to your rival it diminishes something but not the progress we've made in this season.
THE QUESTION: A lot of people have very special memories of the Cotton Bowl. Is that a carrot dangling for this team going into the Texas game?
COACH FRANCHIONE: I don't know what to say about that. I don't know where we're going to go. There's just too many cards that haven't been turned over yet to think that. I think that's a possibility but I don't think us just winning guarantees that. So I think the best thing that we've told the players is that they're going to a bowl and I've never been to a bad ond. We don't have to worry about that much right now. We just concern ourselves with this game. In so many ways the opportunity to play in a game like this is better than any bowl game. Unless you're in the national championship game these kind of games are the most special games in all of college football whether its' Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, Texas-Texas A&M, Notre Dame-(USC).
THE QUESTION: How would you say Texas compares personnel wise to Utah?
COACH FRANCHIONE: Wow. Texas is not going to be worse in talent than any team. They're going to be as good or better than any team. I would say Texas' defense is better than Utah's. Their styles are so different offensively I'm not sure we would look forward to having to defend Utah again right now. Probably would just to redeem ourselves but that was a tough offense to defend at that point in time. Texas is, too, in a different way. I don't know if I'm making any sense with that one.
THE QUESTION: Can Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M all be powerhouses in the same division?
COACH FRANCHIONE: The obstacle is you have to play each other so the opportunity to advance farther is limited. Obviously, it's an unusual year in our conference. Maybe five teams in the south that would win the north this year. All the north coaches will be mad at me for saying that but I don't think I'm stating anything that you know doesn't look possible out there. We beat each other up and scar each other's records and if we play each other year in and year out, you can have a pretty good football team but still you got to survive this division. That's the challenge of it. Now, can three of us sustain good programs? I think so. I believe that. That's one reason I came here -- there's great talent here close by and there's great high school coaching here. You know, you just got to get your share of the players. And I think it can be done.
THE QUESTION: Talk about the specialness of this game for Reggie McNeal, who will be starting for the first time against the Longhorns.
COACH FRANCHIONE: You could light Reggie's hands on fire and I'm not sure he would do much more than flinch a little bit. He's preparing like I've seen him prepare every week. I think when you will notice the difference in Reggie will come Wednesdays practice, Thursday and then Friday. I think the last 48 hours of his mental preparation has been his biggest improvement. We've talked about his maturity but to me his last 24 and 36 to 48 hours have been so much better than last year in preparing for a game and that's when I watch Reggie as much as anything for any kind of change. He's been steady as a rock on that all year.
THE QUESTION: Also the latest arms race of facilities have been indoor facilities. Has the weather affected practice at all?
COACH FRANCHIONE: (Joking) Highway 6 was closed we didn't get to practice on it the other day. We've been on the Astroturf and today poses a problem a little bit if the thunderstorms continue. Rain has not stopped us. If it rains Friday, we play so we have to practice in the rain. It certainly has an impact on practice some days, but we have had enough preparation time that we should be prepared for anything.
THE QUESTION: Can you use this as a good example of why you need a indoor facility?
COACH FRANCHIONE: Hallelujah.
THE QUESTION: How is the psychological standpoint of playing a rival and having an extra week?
COACH FRANCHIONE: Not necessarily a tough thing, but it's something as a coach you make a game plan to manage. We didn't talk very much about Texas last week at all. Sunday we started to start our focus on them and that would be our normal Tuesday practice. So we started that then. I would prefer Saturday to Friday and play the game rather than drag it out, personally, but we needed an open week. I just probably needed the open week about the middle of those four games that went down to one play.
THE QUESTION: Is it fair to say the growth of the program, the expectations you met and somewhat succeeded are directly in relation to Reggie's growth at quarterback?
COACH FRANCHIONE: There is certainly a line to that but we could have been just as good on offense as we are, but if we hadn't gotten better on defense, it wouldn't have mattered all that much. I don't know if we could have scored that many points. The defensive improvement has been a key and just playing as a team has helped. Certainly Reggie is a catalyst for our offense. With all the receivers we have and Courtney (Lewis) and Keith (Joseph), he spreads it out. He takes what's there and he gives you a lot of confidence to call things knowing that most of the time he's going to manage very well. But there are other components to that other than just Reggie.
THE QUESTION: At what point did you see the change in Reggie when did you said this is the guy that we can build offense around and trust him with your offense?
COACH FRANCHIONE: I saw a change in Reggie when he came back in January. But when he went through two a days and through those first couple of three games, Reggie's always been good about trying to take care of the ball. But after that Wyoming game and then that Clemson game I think it was easy for us as coaches to say we're just putting this baby on No. 1's shoulders. We trust him, and his good judgement and let him make those decisions. He hasn't made very many bad ones. There's been a point in time in a lot of these close games when we said 'Okay, No. 1 here it is. We've got to go.'