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LOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 17, 2016

Skip Holtz

Texas Tech - 59, Louisiana Tech - 45

COACH HOLTZ: You know, the way we talked to our team about this, was this was kind of a -- it's a one-game season coming in. There's absolutely no residual effect on this game for conference play or anything else.

But what this game did is give us another huge opportunity to play another Power Five team. I give Texas Tech a lot of credit. I thought Patrick executed at as high a level as a quarterback could execute. The way he threw the ball, his vision, his poise, the way he kept plays alive, I thought he was phenomenal tonight.

With that being said, I thought our defense was a joke. I can handle -- I can handle playing zone self-defense and they catch a ball and we're where to try and make a tackle. But when you throw the ball down the middle of the field and there's nobody there within 20 yards and the number of times they caught the ball, that's a joke.

That was as bad a defensive performance as I've ever seen, as I've ever been a part of. I'm embarrassed and I don't think it had anything to do with talent playing bad. I think that's coaching and it starts with me as the head coach. I think we are a poorly-coached defensive football team, and I thought we were exposed tonight incredibly bad with our pass defense.

And I think it took a good quarterback to do it, and a great scheme that Coach Kingsbury runs. But I just -- I look at it internally and I couldn't be more disappointed with the product that we just put on the field defensively.

Now, I was proud of the way they fought, you know what I mean. They competed to the end. They didn't give up. They didn't hang their head. They didn't walk around. They didn't slouch. There wasn't any quit in these guys. I was proud of the way they competed and I thought there an awful lot of bright spots on the offensive side of the ball.

To be able to run the ball the way that we did for the second half, I think we scored every time we had the ball in the second half. We had three series in the first half, as I told the team at half-time, the offense: We had six series in the first half because we couldn't get off the field on defense. And so we only had six series, we scored on three of them. One of them we got stopped in the red zone. I made a bad call on third down, on third and seven, I guessed and I never should have done that.

But the other three, we had a drop. We had two open receivers and we just missed them. As I talked to them, I said, guys, this game, it's about us executing and I was really proud of the way they answered and went back out there and competed in the second half on the offensive side of the ball.

But there's definitely some things that we have to get straight. I look at Middle Tennessee this week, I know they won this week, and I'm sure they are going to watch this film and laugh. We have got a lot of things that we've got to get straight in order to get into conference play next week, but I certainly -- by being frustrated with my defense, I don't want to take anything away from Texas Tech and what they were able to do tonight.

I think Patrick is big time. His vision, watching him on film, the way he keeps plays alive, I think he's a really talented player, and I was looking from outside-in, you know, and you say, how do you let all these really talented quarterbacks transfer out of Texas Tech that are going everyplace else. After watching this film, I get it. I get it why they leave, and I get it why -- you know what I mean, you can't make any promises, because I think they have got a pretty special gem in a quarterback back there, and I was really impressed with him tonight.

Q. What do you think went wrong defensively and how do you correct it going forward?
COACH HOLTZ: Well, I can't tell you all the bust (ph). I don't know at this point. We have to watch the film and look at the mistakes. Like I said, when you throw a slant and a guy runs 80 yards untouched down the middle of the field, those are blown coverages.

When the quarterback scrambles and a deep third corner comes running up and the throws it over his head; how many uncontested passes were there? And I don't think it was all on one guy. Just we're undisciplined. We're undisciplined as a defense. I keep hearing, that's not what we coach, but that's what we're getting. So we're not very good coaches. I mean, we got to do a better job as a staff. We have to. We've got that obligation to our players.

Q. What went into the scheme that you opened up with, it was something he had not seen, at least this year, going with six defensive backs and one linebacker. What went into the game plan?
COACH HOLTZ: The speed and space that they play. They didn't hurt us running the ball. We tried to put more speed on the field. You know, it's like they played one linebacker against us most of the day. They played five in the box against us.

It's very difficult to play a six-man box against these spread teams and stop them. And I thought there was nothing wrong with the scheme, you know what I mean, with what we did or the personnel trying to get more speed on the field, but there's a huge problem, doesn't matter how fast you are or how good you are, if you're not where you're supposed to be, because he's going to exploit you. He's going to find -- Patrick is going to find the open receiver and he will see a break down. He's got incredible peripheral vision.

Q. Will you go back to film room, practice?
COACH HOLTZ: I've got to watch the film before I can tell you. I can just tell you that I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for what I had to stand there and watch tonight. That's our football team. That's our defense. That was embarrassing.

Q. Your offense puts up -- losing by 21 --
COACH HOLTZ: Yeah, the offense had their opportunities, too. The only problem is to be competitive in this game, those three stops in the first half, we would have had to score every time we had the ball, which we did in the second half. But we only scored 50 percent of the time in the first half and that was the difference in the football game. If we don't miss the two corner routes, if we don't drop the middle screen -- some of those, like they batted a ball on a fourth down, oh, my gosh, Trent ran a route that could be on SportsCenter's Top-10 in what he did to get open, and we went to go throw it and got batted down on the fourth down. Those are some stops you're going to have. I can deal with those.

But the ones, the execution ones, we've got to execute at a higher level. You know, everybody in that locker room lost. The offense didn't win. The defense didn't lose. Everybody lost tonight. There's some games we've got to be prepared to win, as Arizona State did last week; we've got to be prepared to win 68-55. There's other games that we're going to go into and our defense better get ready to win 17-10, you know what I mean, or 17-13.

This was a game against their offense, we knew we were going to have to score a lot of points. We knew we were going to have to execute at a high level early and we didn't do what we needed to do as an offense. Although I was proud of the way that they competed. A lot of good things you can build on, but still, we had our opportunities. Nobody can point a finger at anybody.

Q. What did you think of Ryan's performance?
COACH HOLTZ: I thought early, Ryan was a little, I won't say shaky. He missed two open guys. He protected the ball. He threw the ball however many times he threw it in this game. He threw the ball, he's 20 of 32 or 311 yards and no interceptions. I'd say that's a pretty -- that constitutes a pretty good day.

I told him, all I want you to do is run the offense and don't put that ball in danger. There's no way that we can compete in this game if we turned it over, and we did not have a turnover in this game -- well, the fourth down, when the ball got batted. But I thought he did a great job of playing in the system, of protecting the football. I thought he did a nice job. Two throws would I have liked to seen him hit early, the two corner routes, but I can handle a physical mistake. I thought mentally he was into it.

Q. How much do you feel in the first half --
COACH HOLTZ: Oh, the running game kept us in it, no doubt about it. The first half, the running game kept us in it without a doubt. And I thought the offensive line and Jared craft really did a nice job in the running game. I think obviously the first half, and I said it in the second half, we came out and needed a drive in the second half to start the game -- to start the second half.

I told the football team, I mean, we're down -- I mean, we're down right now. Let's go down and score, and let's make it 24, and all of a sudden you're in a heck of a football game. You know what I mean, all of a sudden it's a ballgame. You're back to a one- or two-score game and that was all we were trying to do is answer every one of their scores. And if we could got -- could have found a way to get a stop, we felt like we could have got back in it, but that was the frustrating part is we couldn't get a stop to catch up, you know what I mean, we were always just behind.

Q. When you're on the sideline, it seemed like --
COACH HOLTZ: Eight out of ten.

Q. You were in third-and-long -- in the pocket and just he escape, and fourth quarter, you have a third-and-long in their territory and score a touchdown --
COACH HOLTZ: We break -- we don't contain the quarterback. He scrambled to his left. At least make him step up and throw the ball out of a well. But if you're a defensive football team and you can't contain a quarterback like that that can run and do what he can do, you're going to get your brains beat in and we did, and we didn't contain the quarterback.

He made a great play, you're right, but how many times was it second and forever. You take a penalty on first down and all of a sudden it's first and 20, and then they throw a 20-yard ball over the middle and there's nobody there; or he would scramble to the left and there's nobody there to contain him and he'd get outside the pocket and keep his eyes down the field and throw it. He made plays all night. He was a rock star tonight. He was a rock star. But I would have liked to have made it a little bit harder on him.

Q. Is there anything, Jordan -- what happened, on the ankle?
COACH HOLTZ: They said that he hit the guy in the stomach and Jordan said that the guy was holding him and punching him, and he swung his arm back and he got ejected. I haven't seen the film. I did not see the play during the play; telling you what the response was to me.

Q. Miss the first half of the season --
COACH HOLTZ: I believe he does. I believe he does.

Q. Considering what you saw, and last week --
COACH HOLTZ: I mean, they ran a lot of coverages. They ran a lot of fronts. They do as much as any defense I've ever seen. They ran, I don't know how many coverages tonight, but I mean, you couldn't attack what they were doing. I mean, they are three down, they are four down, they are two-deep, they are three-deep, they are quarter, they are quarter-quarter-halves; they are every coverage. They play two-man. Every coverage you can play in college football, we saw tonight. They ran them all. You can't attack them on anything because you don't ever know what they are going to be in.

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