Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Coach Dana Holgorsen Press Conference
October 22, 2018 05:29 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Monday, Oct. 22, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.
Opening Statement
Welcome, everyone. We're looking forward to Thursday night. This sets up to be a pretty good game for us, and we're excited about just getting back out there and playing. Everyone has been asking me, and it's probably the first question people ask or whatever, has the time been good or whatever it is. This was a planned bye week, so we can't sit there and practice them 20 hours per day. We get 20 hours per week. But with that said, we had a couple of good days last week, we had a couple of recruiting days that were pretty necessary. It was the first time we were able to get out and go see guys, which was good for our staff. And then it's a short week, so we got back to work and practiced. It was good to have a couple of days extra, but based on recruiting and based on a short week, we didn't get a whole lot more done than just an ordinary game week.
I like Thursday night games, this will be fun. There have been a lot of them around here, clearly, we understand that. A lot of eyes will be on us to see how we respond to what happened up at Iowa State, so I'm looking forward to seeing us, as well. I think our guys are determined, I think their practices have been sharp; they're a very determined team like I said last week, and it showed out there at practice. I think we'll be ready to put or best foot forward.
Baylor is a good football team. Coach (Matt) Rhule has done a good job – you can see a lot of the resemblances in what he accomplished at Temple. When I saw Coach Rhule over here in Philadelphia coaching Temple, they were tough, they were physical, and they played good defense, and they played hard, and that's what I see Baylor turning into at this point.
Offensively, their quarterback is playing well. We saw (Charlie) Brewer up close and personal last year, he's a good football player, came from a great high school in Texas, was coached the right way, played a lot of ball and is a good football player. We're seeing a lot of these younger-type quarterbacks, which I've seen that in the Big 12 forever and ever. When you lose some good ones, that doesn't mean that there aren't any good ones left. That just means there's nobody that knows who they are yet. He's one of those guys that's a Texas high school guy that has played a lot of ball and is a gritty, smart, tough, hard-nosed football player. They do a lot of different things with him. They'll run him, he'll get out of the pocket and scramble, they'll do some quarterback-run game. He's a really good football player.
They have a bunch of different backs that they'll go to. They are going to keep rotating them in there, much like we do. The two receivers, really three of them, are really impressive to me. But the (Denzel) Mims kid is a difference maker. We saw him last year take one on us, and we've seen him the last couple of years. All the talk about the (Jalen) Hurd kid from Tennessee is legit. He has turned into a legit receiver, you never know how that transition is going to work. It looks like he's leaned up a lot. He's a tall, lean kid that plays hard. He likes to play, he plays with effort, but he's adjusting to receiver life pretty well to me. Those guys are going to be a handful for us. And then their (offensive) line, I'm seeing the same names I've been looking at for the last several years. They have a bunch of experience up front. They run a lot of plays, they'll tempo you a lot, and they'll throw it all over. They'll go four- or five-wide, and then you'll turn around, and they'll be in three-tight-end sets and try to pound you a little bit. So, they are very multiple with what they do offensively, and it all starts with the quarterback and how he runs things, which is pretty good.
Defensively, they play a lot of different guys. They are very multiple with what they do, as well. The stats, I don't think, is an indication of what they are defensively. They're giving up some points, they're giving up some yards, but with that said, I see a bunch of improvement. They play hard, they're very sound, although they play a whole bunch of different stuff. They're a four-down front that at the blink of an eye will be a three-down front. Whether that's just moving a linebacker or defensive end back – they have a couple of undersized (defensive) ends that they move around as linebackers, or just putting their nickel package in dime package in there. They are very multiple with what they do; they'll play a lot of man, they'll play a lot of quarters – quarters turn into man a lot of the time – but then, they'll blitz the heck out of you. They are getting a lot of odd-front stuff and blitz you, and based on what the success that Iowa State had against us in that situation, then we better be ready for that as well. But they do play with a bunch of effort, and they are very sound with what they do. They play a lot of guys, they're very physical up front. They've played upwards to about six corners, a lot of different guys at safety that they've had. They had a couple of injuries back there, but we'll expect all those guys, as well. They have physical linebackers that fill gaps and turn into defensive linemen at time as well.
Oklahoma got up on them in the second half. If you look at that game, it was close in the third quarter, and then OU hit three or four really big plays and got more points on them late. So, a lot of those stats are skewed because of what they did in the fourth quarter. But nonetheless, they played them tough for about two-and-a-half quarters, and then they played Texas tough for four quarters, so we understand what we're getting.
Special teams-wise, there are guys we've seen, too. The punter, (Drew) Galitz, is probably the best punter that we've seen all year. He gets it off quick, and he gets it downfield. He's their kickoff guy as well, which he's putting about 80 percent of them in the end zone. Their kicker, Connor Martin, has a long leg – he's hit a 50-yarder – and he's pretty solid as well. From a return aspect, your guess is as good as mine. They've had upwards to about 10 returners, whether they are punt returners, whether they are kick returners, they've played a whole bunch of different people. I think they are searching as far as who is going to be their guy there.
Overall, this team plays hard, and they're physical, and they're getting better. It's a huge challenge for us and one we're looking forward to. We need to finish up practice tonight – we have to go a little later because of class and the short week and all that. We're just getting to Thursday night, and get out there, and I'm looking forward to playing. I think we'll have a great crowd, weather is going to be great, football weather. There's really nothing that we aren't looking forward to.
On resting and rehabbing during the bye week
Yeah, I think. Like I said, you have to recruit, and you want your guys to get away from it a little bit, but we're in a short week, as well. We got back to work and practiced hard on Tuesday and Wednesday, gave them a few days off, went out on the road recruiting, which this is really about the only time that we can do that. I told the guys to get away from it for a few days, and they did, and they came back ready to go yesterday. We had a good practice yesterday, and I expect another good one tonight. Then, we need to go play. Was it good to have a bye week on the heels of a win or on the heels of a loss? I don't know. This one has just been on the schedule for quite some time, so we knew how we were going to approach it. I do think we got a few things figured out in the pass game. Clearly, if you don't play, you're going to be able to heel up a little bit, so some of the guys that didn't play, I would expect to see out there, which is good at this point of the year.
On preparing for a Thursday night game
It's a schedule changer, so that can be either good or bad. There have been enough of them around here to where we understand how to do it and all that. The good is a lot of eyes on you, it's good for recruiting. We didn't really have a lot of Thursday night games in the Big 12 prior to here recently, but the Big East did. I remember after our Thursday night practices when I was at (Texas) Tech all those years, about 10 years ago, it seemed like West Virginia and Rutgers were playing every Thursday night, or West Virginia and South Florida were playing every Thursday night. Now, the Big 12 has taken some of those games, as well. There's just a lot of eyes on you. Thursday night games are tough if you play on Saturday. If you only have five days, that's tough. The NFL gripes about it all the time for their one time they have to do it a year or whatever. It's manageable, but it's not ideal. Later in the year, if you have momentum, or if you need to get back out there and play like we do, you can deal with a Thursday after a bye week because it comes pretty quick.
On if this year's Baylor team reminds him of any of the teams from the Art Briles era
I didn't study-study what he did at Temple, I just remember their good defense, and they played hard and physical and hard-nose – his Penn State background or whatever. It doesn't resemble anything, I think they'd be offended if you said that. It was obviously a complete overhaul. There's plenty of that style of offense out there, but it's not happening at Baylor like that. They're very multiple with what they do, they'll do a lot of drop-back stuff, they'll open it up, they'll do a lot of 10 personnel, throw the ball around a good bit, they'll do some quarterback-run game, put three, four tight ends in the game and try to slow things down. They are pretty multiple with what they do on both sides, nothing like it was, though, for sure. Defensively, there's some just with what Phil Bennett was doing when he was there, but there's no connections whatsoever. He was a four-down, quarters guy, and that's their base, four-down and quarters, although they've become much more multiple with it with three-down fronts and different blitzes. They are even doing that four levels thing where they back up linebackers and put them behind linebackers and stuff, so you're going to keep seeing more and more of that.
On lessons learned following the Iowa State game
I don't really want to go back and discuss it, honestly, but just the blocking and tackling aspect of it. When you get right down to it, this game is about blocking people and tackling people. You have to have a proper mindset, and, hopefully, we'll be in a better mindset. That's my job to get them into that mindset, a better mindset this Thursday than it was the previous Saturday. I do know we'll be a little bit more comfortable with our surroundings, which makes a big difference. You see it every week in college football, it happened to the Buckeyes on Saturday night, too. It happens in college football. You have to be ready to go every single week no matter who you play, period. I don't want to take anything away from Iowa State, because they played a great game, and their mindset was better than ours. They did a better job of getting them ready to go than I did. Nonetheless, it comes right down to mindset, blocking and tackling. If you're in the proper mindset, you're going to block better, and you're going to tackle better. And that's what we have to do Thursday.
On how much teams can change during the season
You get to a point to where you are what you are. You settle into what your personnel does well, what your offense does well. Going into a bye week, you aren't changing a whole lot. You can fix a few things, but you aren't going to change a whole lot. You have lots of material – they have seven games under their belt, we have six games under our belt. It just seems to me like we haven't played a whole lot of football yet. It's because of the missed game and our snaps are down. I think we're only averaging about 65 snaps per game or something like that, so our snaps are down, our games are down. It just seems like we have a lot of ball left. We haven't played as much as what we're going to play moving forward, which I think is a good thing because I think we're relatively fresh and healthy and ready to go. This is, obviously, Thursday night, and then we'll have a couple of extra days to get ready for Texas, and then we'll have a hard November as we understand. But I think we're going to be ready for that, as well.
On if he has the passing game figured out or if he needs to get the passing game figured out
I don't have anything figured out, I can assure you that. We have to fix a few things; I just thought our timing was a little off last week, which was weird. I did go back, (assistant coach – offensive coordinator/quarterbacks) Jake (Spavital) and I sat and watched previous games, and our timing wasn't messed up in those. We made a couple of bad decisions on the goal line, but our timing wasn't off. Why was it off at Iowa State? I have some theories on it, but I don't think it'd be a hard fix. We had to go out there, and we've done this three times and today we'll do it again, we'll just go out there and practice hard and work on our timing. It's running routes and throwing balls and getting a couple of guys fresher and ready to go. I think we accomplished that. I don't have anything figured out, but we did work hard on it, and I think we're in a little better spot than where we were that previous Saturday night.
On if the team's snap counts are down because of the opposition
It probably has a little to do with that. The number of possessions we had earlier in the year was done. Even Iowa State, we had the ball three times in the second half. They controlled the clock, which is good coaching. It has something to do with the amount of possessions, it has something to do with just being explosive and not running a lot of plays. We're averaging more yards per play this year than we did last year, that's a positive. We're just not snapping it as much. I think (redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier), at times, gets to where he just wants to be perfect so much. He sits there and he studies the defense and studies the defense and tries to get us in the best play, which that's part of his job, but he needs to not worry about that as much at times and just go play ball. We're holding a count a little bit longer, as well, none of which is worrisome to me at all. None of that matters. We're going to snap the ball a lot here in the next month-and-a-half.
On how to practice things like blocking and tackling
There's not a whole lot you can do about it. To me, it's more of a mindset than it is anything. I'm convinced of that. You're going to get to a point where you really can't – we aren't going to put full pads on and go tackle people. Now, you can go block people, and you need to do a good job of moving your feet and staying on blocks, or defensively, getting off blocks, which we didn't do a very good job of that and were stuck on blocks all day long. That's more of a mindset at this point of the year. You can't go scrimmage – I guess I could've, but that wouldn't have gone over very well. You aren't doing a lot of that this time of year. They limit how much you can tackle anyway, so, to me, we know how to tackle. Our guys have been tackling pretty well all year long, so it's just about the mindset. That's why I said that I've got to do a better job of getting their mindset right.
On if he's made most of the decisions on who to redshirt
Yeah. We talked about (senior offensive lineman) (Isaiah) Hardy, but he's a starter, so that just isn't going to happen. But (freshman wide receiver) Sam James has played in a couple games, but he hasn't played enough to where it warrants playing more. It's not fair to him. So, there's a couple of them – (redshirt junior offensive lineman) Mike Brown will probably get some snaps here moving forward and (freshman wide receiver) Bryce Wheaton is really starting to come on a little bit, so he may, based on health. Guys need to stay healthy, and if they don't, then somebody has to get those snaps. (Freshman safety) Kwantel Raines is another guy that has been repping a lot but hasn't taken a snap, and you could see him out there a little bit. But we're getting to where there are five games left, and guys that haven't played, it probably isn't going to make a whole lot of sense to play him in five or six games as opposed to just playing him in four. We constantly look at that and talk about it every week. I give guys green lights for coaches to go ahead and use them, or I don't give them green lights. If there are injury issues on Saturday, then I'll make that decision in-game.
On being able to put teams away and extend leads
Most every Big 12 game that we play in is going to be a four-quarter game. I wasn't very happy with how we played the four quarters against (Texas) Tech, obviously, the first half, second half thing. Kansas, I think we could have probably put them away a little bit better. Kansas State, you could argue we probably could've had a better fourth quarter or whatever it is. That's just coaching and knit-picking on things when you win. I'm anxious to see how we will respond; I think I know how we will respond. We're going to go out there, and we're going to play our (butt) off. Hopefully, we do that for four quarters, and we continue to develop into a better football team. That's what the message is.
Opening Statement
Welcome, everyone. We're looking forward to Thursday night. This sets up to be a pretty good game for us, and we're excited about just getting back out there and playing. Everyone has been asking me, and it's probably the first question people ask or whatever, has the time been good or whatever it is. This was a planned bye week, so we can't sit there and practice them 20 hours per day. We get 20 hours per week. But with that said, we had a couple of good days last week, we had a couple of recruiting days that were pretty necessary. It was the first time we were able to get out and go see guys, which was good for our staff. And then it's a short week, so we got back to work and practiced. It was good to have a couple of days extra, but based on recruiting and based on a short week, we didn't get a whole lot more done than just an ordinary game week.
I like Thursday night games, this will be fun. There have been a lot of them around here, clearly, we understand that. A lot of eyes will be on us to see how we respond to what happened up at Iowa State, so I'm looking forward to seeing us, as well. I think our guys are determined, I think their practices have been sharp; they're a very determined team like I said last week, and it showed out there at practice. I think we'll be ready to put or best foot forward.
Baylor is a good football team. Coach (Matt) Rhule has done a good job – you can see a lot of the resemblances in what he accomplished at Temple. When I saw Coach Rhule over here in Philadelphia coaching Temple, they were tough, they were physical, and they played good defense, and they played hard, and that's what I see Baylor turning into at this point.
Offensively, their quarterback is playing well. We saw (Charlie) Brewer up close and personal last year, he's a good football player, came from a great high school in Texas, was coached the right way, played a lot of ball and is a good football player. We're seeing a lot of these younger-type quarterbacks, which I've seen that in the Big 12 forever and ever. When you lose some good ones, that doesn't mean that there aren't any good ones left. That just means there's nobody that knows who they are yet. He's one of those guys that's a Texas high school guy that has played a lot of ball and is a gritty, smart, tough, hard-nosed football player. They do a lot of different things with him. They'll run him, he'll get out of the pocket and scramble, they'll do some quarterback-run game. He's a really good football player.
They have a bunch of different backs that they'll go to. They are going to keep rotating them in there, much like we do. The two receivers, really three of them, are really impressive to me. But the (Denzel) Mims kid is a difference maker. We saw him last year take one on us, and we've seen him the last couple of years. All the talk about the (Jalen) Hurd kid from Tennessee is legit. He has turned into a legit receiver, you never know how that transition is going to work. It looks like he's leaned up a lot. He's a tall, lean kid that plays hard. He likes to play, he plays with effort, but he's adjusting to receiver life pretty well to me. Those guys are going to be a handful for us. And then their (offensive) line, I'm seeing the same names I've been looking at for the last several years. They have a bunch of experience up front. They run a lot of plays, they'll tempo you a lot, and they'll throw it all over. They'll go four- or five-wide, and then you'll turn around, and they'll be in three-tight-end sets and try to pound you a little bit. So, they are very multiple with what they do offensively, and it all starts with the quarterback and how he runs things, which is pretty good.
Defensively, they play a lot of different guys. They are very multiple with what they do, as well. The stats, I don't think, is an indication of what they are defensively. They're giving up some points, they're giving up some yards, but with that said, I see a bunch of improvement. They play hard, they're very sound, although they play a whole bunch of different stuff. They're a four-down front that at the blink of an eye will be a three-down front. Whether that's just moving a linebacker or defensive end back – they have a couple of undersized (defensive) ends that they move around as linebackers, or just putting their nickel package in dime package in there. They are very multiple with what they do; they'll play a lot of man, they'll play a lot of quarters – quarters turn into man a lot of the time – but then, they'll blitz the heck out of you. They are getting a lot of odd-front stuff and blitz you, and based on what the success that Iowa State had against us in that situation, then we better be ready for that as well. But they do play with a bunch of effort, and they are very sound with what they do. They play a lot of guys, they're very physical up front. They've played upwards to about six corners, a lot of different guys at safety that they've had. They had a couple of injuries back there, but we'll expect all those guys, as well. They have physical linebackers that fill gaps and turn into defensive linemen at time as well.
Oklahoma got up on them in the second half. If you look at that game, it was close in the third quarter, and then OU hit three or four really big plays and got more points on them late. So, a lot of those stats are skewed because of what they did in the fourth quarter. But nonetheless, they played them tough for about two-and-a-half quarters, and then they played Texas tough for four quarters, so we understand what we're getting.
Special teams-wise, there are guys we've seen, too. The punter, (Drew) Galitz, is probably the best punter that we've seen all year. He gets it off quick, and he gets it downfield. He's their kickoff guy as well, which he's putting about 80 percent of them in the end zone. Their kicker, Connor Martin, has a long leg – he's hit a 50-yarder – and he's pretty solid as well. From a return aspect, your guess is as good as mine. They've had upwards to about 10 returners, whether they are punt returners, whether they are kick returners, they've played a whole bunch of different people. I think they are searching as far as who is going to be their guy there.
Overall, this team plays hard, and they're physical, and they're getting better. It's a huge challenge for us and one we're looking forward to. We need to finish up practice tonight – we have to go a little later because of class and the short week and all that. We're just getting to Thursday night, and get out there, and I'm looking forward to playing. I think we'll have a great crowd, weather is going to be great, football weather. There's really nothing that we aren't looking forward to.
On resting and rehabbing during the bye week
Yeah, I think. Like I said, you have to recruit, and you want your guys to get away from it a little bit, but we're in a short week, as well. We got back to work and practiced hard on Tuesday and Wednesday, gave them a few days off, went out on the road recruiting, which this is really about the only time that we can do that. I told the guys to get away from it for a few days, and they did, and they came back ready to go yesterday. We had a good practice yesterday, and I expect another good one tonight. Then, we need to go play. Was it good to have a bye week on the heels of a win or on the heels of a loss? I don't know. This one has just been on the schedule for quite some time, so we knew how we were going to approach it. I do think we got a few things figured out in the pass game. Clearly, if you don't play, you're going to be able to heel up a little bit, so some of the guys that didn't play, I would expect to see out there, which is good at this point of the year.
On preparing for a Thursday night game
It's a schedule changer, so that can be either good or bad. There have been enough of them around here to where we understand how to do it and all that. The good is a lot of eyes on you, it's good for recruiting. We didn't really have a lot of Thursday night games in the Big 12 prior to here recently, but the Big East did. I remember after our Thursday night practices when I was at (Texas) Tech all those years, about 10 years ago, it seemed like West Virginia and Rutgers were playing every Thursday night, or West Virginia and South Florida were playing every Thursday night. Now, the Big 12 has taken some of those games, as well. There's just a lot of eyes on you. Thursday night games are tough if you play on Saturday. If you only have five days, that's tough. The NFL gripes about it all the time for their one time they have to do it a year or whatever. It's manageable, but it's not ideal. Later in the year, if you have momentum, or if you need to get back out there and play like we do, you can deal with a Thursday after a bye week because it comes pretty quick.
On if this year's Baylor team reminds him of any of the teams from the Art Briles era
I didn't study-study what he did at Temple, I just remember their good defense, and they played hard and physical and hard-nose – his Penn State background or whatever. It doesn't resemble anything, I think they'd be offended if you said that. It was obviously a complete overhaul. There's plenty of that style of offense out there, but it's not happening at Baylor like that. They're very multiple with what they do, they'll do a lot of drop-back stuff, they'll open it up, they'll do a lot of 10 personnel, throw the ball around a good bit, they'll do some quarterback-run game, put three, four tight ends in the game and try to slow things down. They are pretty multiple with what they do on both sides, nothing like it was, though, for sure. Defensively, there's some just with what Phil Bennett was doing when he was there, but there's no connections whatsoever. He was a four-down, quarters guy, and that's their base, four-down and quarters, although they've become much more multiple with it with three-down fronts and different blitzes. They are even doing that four levels thing where they back up linebackers and put them behind linebackers and stuff, so you're going to keep seeing more and more of that.
On lessons learned following the Iowa State game
I don't really want to go back and discuss it, honestly, but just the blocking and tackling aspect of it. When you get right down to it, this game is about blocking people and tackling people. You have to have a proper mindset, and, hopefully, we'll be in a better mindset. That's my job to get them into that mindset, a better mindset this Thursday than it was the previous Saturday. I do know we'll be a little bit more comfortable with our surroundings, which makes a big difference. You see it every week in college football, it happened to the Buckeyes on Saturday night, too. It happens in college football. You have to be ready to go every single week no matter who you play, period. I don't want to take anything away from Iowa State, because they played a great game, and their mindset was better than ours. They did a better job of getting them ready to go than I did. Nonetheless, it comes right down to mindset, blocking and tackling. If you're in the proper mindset, you're going to block better, and you're going to tackle better. And that's what we have to do Thursday.
On how much teams can change during the season
You get to a point to where you are what you are. You settle into what your personnel does well, what your offense does well. Going into a bye week, you aren't changing a whole lot. You can fix a few things, but you aren't going to change a whole lot. You have lots of material – they have seven games under their belt, we have six games under our belt. It just seems to me like we haven't played a whole lot of football yet. It's because of the missed game and our snaps are down. I think we're only averaging about 65 snaps per game or something like that, so our snaps are down, our games are down. It just seems like we have a lot of ball left. We haven't played as much as what we're going to play moving forward, which I think is a good thing because I think we're relatively fresh and healthy and ready to go. This is, obviously, Thursday night, and then we'll have a couple of extra days to get ready for Texas, and then we'll have a hard November as we understand. But I think we're going to be ready for that, as well.
On if he has the passing game figured out or if he needs to get the passing game figured out
I don't have anything figured out, I can assure you that. We have to fix a few things; I just thought our timing was a little off last week, which was weird. I did go back, (assistant coach – offensive coordinator/quarterbacks) Jake (Spavital) and I sat and watched previous games, and our timing wasn't messed up in those. We made a couple of bad decisions on the goal line, but our timing wasn't off. Why was it off at Iowa State? I have some theories on it, but I don't think it'd be a hard fix. We had to go out there, and we've done this three times and today we'll do it again, we'll just go out there and practice hard and work on our timing. It's running routes and throwing balls and getting a couple of guys fresher and ready to go. I think we accomplished that. I don't have anything figured out, but we did work hard on it, and I think we're in a little better spot than where we were that previous Saturday night.
On if the team's snap counts are down because of the opposition
It probably has a little to do with that. The number of possessions we had earlier in the year was done. Even Iowa State, we had the ball three times in the second half. They controlled the clock, which is good coaching. It has something to do with the amount of possessions, it has something to do with just being explosive and not running a lot of plays. We're averaging more yards per play this year than we did last year, that's a positive. We're just not snapping it as much. I think (redshirt senior quarterback) Will (Grier), at times, gets to where he just wants to be perfect so much. He sits there and he studies the defense and studies the defense and tries to get us in the best play, which that's part of his job, but he needs to not worry about that as much at times and just go play ball. We're holding a count a little bit longer, as well, none of which is worrisome to me at all. None of that matters. We're going to snap the ball a lot here in the next month-and-a-half.
On how to practice things like blocking and tackling
There's not a whole lot you can do about it. To me, it's more of a mindset than it is anything. I'm convinced of that. You're going to get to a point where you really can't – we aren't going to put full pads on and go tackle people. Now, you can go block people, and you need to do a good job of moving your feet and staying on blocks, or defensively, getting off blocks, which we didn't do a very good job of that and were stuck on blocks all day long. That's more of a mindset at this point of the year. You can't go scrimmage – I guess I could've, but that wouldn't have gone over very well. You aren't doing a lot of that this time of year. They limit how much you can tackle anyway, so, to me, we know how to tackle. Our guys have been tackling pretty well all year long, so it's just about the mindset. That's why I said that I've got to do a better job of getting their mindset right.
On if he's made most of the decisions on who to redshirt
Yeah. We talked about (senior offensive lineman) (Isaiah) Hardy, but he's a starter, so that just isn't going to happen. But (freshman wide receiver) Sam James has played in a couple games, but he hasn't played enough to where it warrants playing more. It's not fair to him. So, there's a couple of them – (redshirt junior offensive lineman) Mike Brown will probably get some snaps here moving forward and (freshman wide receiver) Bryce Wheaton is really starting to come on a little bit, so he may, based on health. Guys need to stay healthy, and if they don't, then somebody has to get those snaps. (Freshman safety) Kwantel Raines is another guy that has been repping a lot but hasn't taken a snap, and you could see him out there a little bit. But we're getting to where there are five games left, and guys that haven't played, it probably isn't going to make a whole lot of sense to play him in five or six games as opposed to just playing him in four. We constantly look at that and talk about it every week. I give guys green lights for coaches to go ahead and use them, or I don't give them green lights. If there are injury issues on Saturday, then I'll make that decision in-game.
On being able to put teams away and extend leads
Most every Big 12 game that we play in is going to be a four-quarter game. I wasn't very happy with how we played the four quarters against (Texas) Tech, obviously, the first half, second half thing. Kansas, I think we could have probably put them away a little bit better. Kansas State, you could argue we probably could've had a better fourth quarter or whatever it is. That's just coaching and knit-picking on things when you win. I'm anxious to see how we will respond; I think I know how we will respond. We're going to go out there, and we're going to play our (butt) off. Hopefully, we do that for four quarters, and we continue to develop into a better football team. That's what the message is.
Players Mentioned
Gold-Blue Spring Festival Fan Recap
Sunday, April 19
John Neider | April 18
Saturday, April 18
Coach Zac Alley | April 18
Saturday, April 18
Coach Rich Rodriguez | April 18
Saturday, April 18
