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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 14, 2015

Eric Morris

Lubbock, Texas

Q. Coach, first road test of the year. Kingsbury said this team doesn't need much motivation after what happened last year. But being the first road test it's going to be a tough environment. What is your message to your offense?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, we just have to keep communicating really well, especially during practice this week. It will be a key emphasis. It will be loud in there and probably the first time we'll go silent count and not do an audible count. Communication will be key. We'll be going fast just like always, but we've got to get lined up, eliminate all the pre-snap penalties. Did a little bit better job last week of that. We can't hurt ourselves in this game. Competition's going to get better from here on out and our kids know that.

It will be a great test for us early in the season. We've made some strides, but we have our hands full with a good Arkansas team.

Q. Coach Kingsbury has hit on the turnover margin a lot. Right now you guys are third nationally in turnover margin. How has that impacted your offense and helped you guys accomplish what you want to do so far this season?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, it makes you not have to be perfect. You know, during the course of the game and you're turning over and you're not getting any, at times it seems like you have to have perfect drives and call perfect plays. That with the combination of No. 5 with him scrambling around and making some plays on his own keeps the drives alive and helps things. We think a couple of guys have done a great job moving the chains. Jakeem's running some great routes to keep our downs, keep us on the field. Keep us moving.

I thought we played extremely fast. We played really good up front last week. When you get the run game established like we had it, it makes those safeties start stepping down so you can take some shots over their head. So, yeah.

Q. Do you sense a confidence with the offense that you haven't seen over the last few years?
COACH MORRIS: I think so. I told the guys the other day the coolest play to me on tape is when we scored on he owe when DeAndre scores a touchdown and there are about ten guys that jump on and they all show up there in the end zone and celebrate with him. I haven't seen that in the last two years here with everybody playing together as one and happy for each other and celebrating with each other when things are going good, and actually picking people up too when people do drop balls or get penalties. Guys are encouraging each other.

So they played a lot together. I think they're carrying themselves well now. Anytime you have success that kind of comes along with it. You always say the most excited team to play the game usually wins the game and you're excited because you're doing good things out there.

Q. How important is it to get everybody involved, four, five accident, six different guys actually getting six points?
COACH MORRIS: Say that again?

Q. How important is it to distribute the wealth to more than one or two guys?
COACH MORRIS: Just like always, we're going to take what they're giving us. But Pat's done a good job. We've been able to hurt them a couple places and they try to make adjustments and it opens other things up for us. That's how we've been operating.

A bunch of guys are getting their hands on the ball right now which is key. It makes it hard for a defense to really zone in on one thing and try to take your best thing away when your best thing might be three or four kids. So we'll continue to try to get the ball into seven or eight guys hands per game.

Q. How do you prepare for a physical defense like Arkansas?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah, practice physical. We'll be on the scout teams all week. We'll go against each other a little bit more inside and stuff to get some of that good on good look with some physical activity up front. It's one thing, I think we're maturing up front right now offensively. Le'Raven, Justin Murphy had a heck of a game this past week. He's running down field and cleaning people up and playing fast and having fun.

So we are better right now than we were a year ago up front offensively. But we'll practice good on good a little more this week.

Q. Who blocked the O for you receiving-wise?
COACH MORRIS: All of them. All of them. Ian Sadler graded out the best again. I think he had three knockdowns. The first screen to Justin Stockton that we scored on early in the game, he pancaked his guy and got Justin rolling there in the first of it.

They're all taking accountability and ownership in it. From an improvement standpoint, Lauderdale was a lot better this week than last week. And Jakeem Grant was a surprise to him as little as he is and getting in there and mixing it up with linebackers, his technique has to be perfect. He has to play with great pad level and leverage, and he's done it. He's done it.

Q. What do you think has turned around for Jakeem? Is it experience or is it decide if it's up to me, it's up to me?
COACH MORRIS: No, I think just him being a senior he's had some hiccups along the way. He's a guy that we moved down on the depth chart to start the fall camp, and I think he didn't like that very well, and he responded exactly how we wanted him to respond. He made his way up the depth chart and didn't talk about it, but competed every day. Came out and practiced better to get that job back.

I told him he had to be a hundred percent, no question in my mind if he was going to be a starter the first game, and it wasn't. He practiced that way for 19 straight practices.

Q. Talk about the 16 scoring drives that resulted in touchdowns. I think 11 of them resulted in under a minute-and-a-half. I know at least under two minutes. I asked Coach Kingsbury, do you guys ever want to slow it down to get the defense a break? And he said, no. They've got to know that they want to get out on the field or better be ready to get on the field as quickly as possible. Do you echo that sentiment?
COACH MORRIS: Yeah. It's not by design that we're scoring that fast. We just play our game and it's happened that way. We're going to continue to play fast and practice fast. Obviously, we'll get against a little better competition this week. I think there was a stretch there where we had nine plays and three touchdowns, three straight three-play drives that ended in touchdowns this past week, which is abnormal. It's not going to be like that on a day-to-day basis.

But the kids are getting to where they need to be. We've done a little bit of personnel changing where we can jump in and out of formations going fast. Some guys can play different positions. But we're going to continue to play as fast as we can. There are a couple times where the ref wouldn't let us play as fast as we wanted last week, which we weren't happy about. So we're going to continue to push the envelope and try to score as much as possible.

Q. The freshmen receivers progress in week one to week two? Talk about the snaps from last week?
COACH MORRIS: Good. I thought Keke played really good in his limited time. Played fast and it kind of slowed down for him a little bit. Good to get Tony Brown a catch there at the end. You can see what he does in the open field. Giles played more than both of them. Didn't get him a ball. He was open on the corner route. Threw to him a little bit there.

But he had two touchdown blocks which sprung a touchdown, he's having fun. He probably has the best look of them pregame. He wants the football during the game. He just kind of has that mentality during the course of the competition that he wants the ball in his hands which is good to see.

We have guys in front that are extremely good. It's kind of perfect where they can serve the role of back-up and get some time here and there. But you really don't want -- you want 6, 11, 12, and 2 or 14 in the game at all times.

Q. Any concerns about those overthrows? I mean, better than an under throws.
COACH MORRIS: No, not at all. We're stretching the field as good as we ever have. You're going to have that as many times as we throw it. Pat did some great jobs. Drops went down. We had two big ones that were fixable, but it was better than the week before, and you see it all over football.

Dez Bryant just got paid millions of dollars and dropped some last night, so it's not like they're trying to do it. But they're working their way through it. We're playing through it. Reginald did some good things this past game, so we'll keep playing him into that role. The guys behind him are going to be just fine. But no concern about that. Pat's doing a good job, but he's going to miss a couple here and there.

Q. Many people have the SEC as their top conference and the rest of the Power Five kind of fall in line behind them and they're just the superior group. Do you feel like the talent gap is that far apart between them and the other Power Five conferences?
COACH MORRIS: We haven't played enough of them to really answer that. It's hard to argue with they've won a lot the last six or seven. There's only been one year they didn't win it all. So it's hard to argue with that.

There are some great teams in this conference. They're one of them. They played really well at the end of last year. They played shutout LSU and got after them pretty good and had some big wins last year. So it's hard to argue that.

Our kids know it's going to be a challenge. We know they're built a little bit bigger than us and we'll have to play extremely physical. But our guys are ready. Right after that game Jakeem Grant came up and said, Coach, this next week is what we've been waiting for. So they know it's a challenge. Their secondary is really good. Their defensive line is really good.

So we're excited to go into a hostile environment and face that. We need that as a football team to measure where we're at. We've made some strides these first two games and this is a big challenge for us, and I think our kids are looking forward to it.

Q. Do you have a big chip on your shoulders based on the talent level you know that's in the Big 12?
COACH MORRIS: The biggest chip on our shoulder is obviously we want to respond and have a better year than last year, and that's why we've been up here working all off-season long, and to prove that and for these kids to go out on a good note. These seniors that have worked really hard for us. We work for them every single day. Coach has made that a point, so we're up here early. Doesn't matter who we're going to play.

We're going to put in the same number of hours and give them the best opportunity to win the football game. Excited about it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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