MORGANTOWN, W.Va.  – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.

 

Moving forward to Texas, the Longhorns here. You know I’ve already answered a bunch of questions about these guys and what not, but the thing that strikes me with this group is incredibly competitive, just a very physical team that’s incredibly competitive. You look at their five and four win-loss record, you can go across the country and find a bunch of really good five and four teams. It’s just the facts, so you look at them, incredibly competitive, they’re looking at a seven-point loss, a two touchdown loss to Oklahoma State, which is no different than us at Oklahoma State, three point loss against Kansas State, pretty similar to us, a five point loss against Oklahoma, we haven’t played them. It’s competitive. It’s incredibly competitive, so if the ball bounces a little bit different you’re sitting here looking at an 8-1 football team, and that’s how we have to approach it. They’re a good outfit, they do a lot of great things. (Texas Head Coach) Charlie (Strong), we know he took over the defense what, week three or whatever, but don’t kid yourself, Charlie has been involved in defense since the day he got there. It’s his background. He’s widely known as one of the better defensive coaches in the country, always has been, always will be, so his footprint has been on it since the day he got there. Not doing a whole lot of different stuff, so it’s the same people doing the same stuff, and they are continuously getting better and better. Play a lot of guys, play upwards of 28-30 guys on their defense, so they have a lot of competition at each and every one of the spots, a lot of youth, they’re constantly rotating guys in there, they do a lot of different stuff to be able to be able to disguise what they’re doing. I think they are very well coached, and their kids are playing very hard and are continuously getting better and better and better. So it will be as big a challenge as we’ve seen all year with their athleticism, their size, their physicality, their different looks that they give us, it’s going to be nice to be able to have a guy like (redshirt senior offensive lineman) Tyler (Orlosky) and (senior quarterback) Skyler (Howard) who have a lot of experience to the point to where they can (identify) ID things and hopefully get us into the right play, but it’s going to be challenging for us offensively.

 

Defensively, going against these guys we know that they have changed up offenses from a year ago, but their scheme may be different, but what they’re doing is not a whole lot different. They’re going to try to run the football. They’re doing it with more up-tempo, shoot I think they had a 100 plays against Baylor, the last couple of weeks they’ve had close to 100 plays. They average 80 plays per game. They’re very balanced, they’re going to run it 70 percent of the time. When they do throw it, they’re trying to get chunks of yardage. Everything goes with their back, as we all know. The nation’s leading rusher, (Texas’ junior running back) (D’Onta) Foreman, give it to him 25, 35 times a game, I’ve been on record saying the days of doing this with the back is over, which I was wrong. We run the ball as much as they do we just don’t give it to one guy 35 times. I don’t know how one guy can handle that, but obviously he can. He’s the premiere back in the country right now and leading the nation in rushing. We dealt with him last year, he had almost 150 yards against us last year, so he’s incredibly big, and what shocks you is, when he gets out in the open, he’s gone. I haven’t seen people track him down. Great player that we’re obviously going to have our hands full with. They do a great job up front, they’re physical up front, got a couple of really, really, really top-notch offensive linesmen. The (Texas’ sophomore offensive lineman) (Connor) Williams kid, the left tackle, is a premier tackle in the country, but they have a lot of experience, so they’ll bring eight or nine offensive linemen in at one time, so with fullbacks and tight ends, with that many guys, it’s going to be challenging. To make matters worse, they have receivers that can flat out go. There are four or five of them that can all stretch the field who can make plays that can get you yards after the catch, they’re continuously getting better. Their quarterback is continuously getting better (Texas’ freshman quarterback) (Shane) Buechele, the freshman kid is managing what they’re asking him to do, continuously improving. We all know about the 18-wheeler package they have with (Texas senior quarterback Tyrone) Swoopes to come in 250-pound, 6-5, they put him at tailback before. We kind of know what they’re going to do and it’s going to be a challenge to stop it. They’re getting a lot of yards, they’re snapping the ball a lot and they’re getting a bunch of points, got our work cut out for us on defense as well.

 

Special teams they are as solid as it gets. They probably have one of the best punters in the country, averaging 48 yards a punt. They do a great job of flipping the field with field position, that’s going to be a challenge. The placekicker has been, ever since the Oklahoma State game, he’s been a pretty solid, transfer from LSU, but have done a great job of getting them points as well. Incredibly deep when it comes to DB’s, wide receivers, linebackers, which means they have an abundance of available bodies on special teams. That makes special teams great. It’s not always about the actual returner, it’s not about the actual kicker, sometimes it’s about the other nine guys that they’re able to put out there, so their coverage units are fast, they haven’t put their team in position to be vulnerable to any kind of returns at all, and then like I said with athleticism, talent and the ability at the receiver spot then they’re going to have some return guys who are going to scare you. Overall, a very, very deep-talented football team. They have been playing physical football, they are constantly getting better, and they’re going to have as much energy as they have had all year this Saturday. They’re playing for bowl eligibility, they’re playing for a lot of stuff that we can’t control, and we’re not going to worry about, so we’re going to worry about us but this is a quality opponent that we’re playing, obviously a quality program when it comes to Big 12 Championships and national championships at a place where they recruit as good as anybody in the country, so it will be a fun challenge. I know our guys are looking forward to it.

 

It will be a game time decision, I’ll see how he practices. Where they hand it to one guy 35 times a game, we hand it to three guys 35-45 times a game, so whichever guy feels good and is back there is who we’re going to hand it too.

 

Do I need to remind everyone of what happened three years ago? I don’t think I do. Going back to what I said about two minutes ago, sometimes it’s about those other nine guys on the units. We’re very confident in (sophomore wide receiver) Gary’s (Jennings) ability to catch the ball and all of that, but we’re going after punts. I’d rather go after punts, then set returns up, so when you go after them there’s no blockers, so he probably needs to do a little better job of understanding that and catching, and getting forward and getting on the ground as opposed to try to make six people miss, that’s not going to happen. I’m very comfortable with Gary Jennings and his ability to be able to do what we need him to do on that unit.

 

It depends on how many times they give it to him. They gave it to him 18 times last year, and he had 150, he’s a good player. The BYU back was pretty dang good, a couple of the guys we face next week are going to be pretty good, the TCU guy was pretty good, I don’t mean to be leaving anybody out, but there are a lot of good backs, but yeah, he’s the premier back in the country right now. They hand it to him a bunch, our job is to get him off the field.

 

Let’s try to have the second quarter we had last Saturday. The second quarter we had last Saturday was pretty good. I mean you can’t go back two years ago that’s a different team, different situation, different mindset, different opponent, so we won’t address anything that happened two years ago, we won’t address anything that happened four years ago. This is a different team that we have and our job is to get ready to practice, get ready to prepare, get ready to go play.

 

Nothing much, he’s had his hand on it since the day he got there. I mean there has been coach changes throughout the course of this season before, as absurd as I think it is. What are you going to do? Are you just going to change everything in a week, change everything in two weeks? You can’t do that. It takes years to be able to get guys to understand what specific schemes are and to be able to get good at it. He’s simplified it a little bit, but they do a lot of different things, and so it’s a challenge on our part offensively to be able to identify exactly what they’re doing and what we need to do to be able to attack it, so it’s not a whole lot different.

 

It’s not a whole lot different.

                                                      

On if he has seen a running back who is playing as good as Texas’ junior running back D’Onta Foreman

I think you need to give their (offensive) o-line some credit too. They’re doing a good job with their schemes, they’re doing a good job of blocking upfront, their physical outfit that you have to account for their quarterbacks as well. He’s doing some things that I didn’t think I’d see. LSU has got a pretty good one too, and they just haven’t been able to continuously try to, he doesn’t have the production that (Texas junior running back) (D’Onta) Foreman has, you know there are injuries involved, there are wear and tear, there are schemes situations and all of that, they have a good thing going when it comes to giving him the ball a lot and him being productive.

 

Yeah (Texas) Tech does it a lot too, but I don’t know how you coach that to be honest with you, but they’re figuring out a way to coach it and getting those guys lined up like I said it gives me a little bit more comfort to have a fifth-year All-American center to be able to ID fronts, two other fifth year players on the o-line, two fourth-year players on the o-line, one freshman I guess, but (identifying) id-ing what they’re doing. Then a quarterback understanding numbers is important as well, getting us into a right play, they’ll overload you at times, you have to flip runs, you have to hold the edges with your quarterback, you have to understand when it’s probably a little bit more important to throw the ball. They’re pretty committed to stopping the run, but it gives me a little bit of comfort to know that we have experienced guys who can identify specific things and get us in the appropriate play. It’s tough to call it, because you don’t know what he’s going to call, you don’t know what front or any of that stuff, so it makes it a little challenging for me, one that will be fun though.

 

It’s a good point, and I think the working relationship that we have within this building is very positive. You know, especially at the top when it comes to what we’re doing offensively, what we’re doing defensively, what we’re doing on special teams, the kids understand what we’re doing. You probably shouldn’t get too comfortable with it and think you have it figured out because that’s always going to be, there’s always going to be change, there’s always going to be turnover. You try to reduce that turnover as much as you possibly can, looking back on last year we had more turnover then I was comfortable with and it didn’t have to happen but moving forward you have to be able to deal with that, you have to be able to hire coaches. It’s one of the most important things that I do.

 

Yeah, but what are you going to do about it? Everybody gets banged up. You have to play through it, it’s why we recruited depth at those positions as well, so guys go down, other guys have to step in. We’ll see how (redshirt senior cornerback) (Antonio) Crawford is doing this week but you have guys like (redshirt senior cornerback) Nana (Kyeremeh) who’s sitting there if you need to. We could put (redshirt junior tight end/fullback) (Elijah) Eli (Wellman) back there at back if we had too, so there’s nothing you can do about it. Everybody deals with the same stuff. There’s scholarship limitations and you don’t want to put young kids out there who aren’t ready to play, everybody deals with that, so that’s not an excuse. You just have to deal with it and move forward.

 

He’s improved every part of his game. I’m very proud of Daikiel (Shorts Jr.). He’s an older guy who can handle me saying this, too, but he’s just the most consistent receiver, the most consistent leader, the hardest working guy that we have on offense, so very proud of him. He’s the guy who they all look to in that room, he’s the older guy, he’s the mature guy, he’s the one with the most experience, he practices his tail off, he’s physical as physical gets, he’s always in the right spot, he’s sure handed and he’s staying on his feet this year too which gives him more yards, so I can’t be happier with him right now. He’s doing a good job.

 

Just an old guy who knows how to play the game. He understands what we’re asking him to do, he’s big, he’s hard to move, he’s physical, he can get off blocks, we’re happy with where he is as well, another senior. Those guys who become seniors, it means a little bit more to them, so you get into this eight game stretch as you mentioned where we’re half way through it, the old guys know how to push through it, they understand how to take care of their bodies, how to maintain things, how to practice the right way and prepare the right way, which the younger guys take note of and when it’s their turn then they lead, so those three senior (defensive) d-linemen. I think (redshirt senior defensive lineman) Noble (Nwachukwu) is another prime example of that, been here for five years and understands the long season, understands what you have to do from taking care of yourself to be able to get out there and to be able to play. It’s how the NFL plays 16 games, they have old mature guys who understand how to do things the right way. Talking about a couple of senior guys who understand that.

 

Yeah, it’s not easy, it’s those guys and to be able to hold up like (redshirt junior tight end/fullback) (Elijah) Eli (Wellman)  is holding up is impressive as well. You know with the way high schools are running offenses nowadays it makes it a little harder to find those kind of body types, because people like reading their name in the paper so much they want to be a guy getting more stats and stuff as opposed to guys like Eli who just do their job. He was a big part of the game plan last week, we needed him to play a lot of snaps, played him more than I thought we would, but even with that said he took 70 snaps on offense, he’s typically playing about 20 snaps on special teams as well, just very unselfish and very physical, blocking is not just 100 percent want to, wanting to, is a large part of it but understanding technique is a pretty big part of it as well, and he’s mastered it, there’s a technique to it that you have to understand through repetition and all of that. That’s important as well.

 

It’s as good as it gets. You’re talking about two premier programs with national championships, great recruiting bases and great coaches, great support, great fan bases, all the rest of it. I mean it’s as good as it gets, is it not? Then when you’re at places like that, you’re going to have premier players as well. I can name two or three others that should be on that list right now, too, that are at these two places, but you’re right, we’re focused on Texas but I never want to sell the Big 12 short that’s for sure. It’s a great league, it’s a fun league. Each week you better line up and be ready to play your best. Each venue that we go to is like here, you get to come play a Big 12 football game, coaching a Big 12 football team, watch a Big 12 football game out here on Mountaineer Field, it’s special, it’s great. That exists at some of these other schools as well. It’s a great conference to be able to be a part of. I think it fits West Virginia very well. I think West Virginia brings something to the table that makes the conference better as well.