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EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 2, 2017

Aaron Best

Lubbock, Texas

Texas Tech - 56, Eastern Washington - 10

Q. Coach, this was a tough one. It's a good Texas Tech football team over there, and I know when you go back and look on film there's going to be things that you can see that the Eagles can improve on, but there's got to be some things you can take out of this football game that will help eastern in 2017.
AARON BEST: Yeah, there's a few guys that truly had some really solid games, one being on offense Sam MacPherson. I thought he ran extremely hard. Terence Grady came up with a few huge catches, and collectively we just didn't maintain the consistency when the doors were open, and we didn't capitalize at times in the first half, and then it kind of bled into the second half. But on defense, there was guys playing hard. I haven't seen the defensive stats as of yet, but guys were flying around, guys like Mitch Fettig played most if not all of the game, and so obviously a hot day, doesn't allow him a ton of breathers out there with a pass-happy team. A credit to Texas Tech. They came out, their quarterback was very efficient, 26 of 30, and in the first half I think he was 16 of 17, so they got the ball out of his hands quick, and we at the end of the day just didn't make enough plays.

Q. First quarter was 7-3, you guys had a couple of stops on defense, two sacks. It really looked like this was going to be a ballgame going down to the end and then it kind of got away in the second quarter, but I think you can look at the heat, the travel, a good football team on the other side, but I also think sometimes you're going to have games like that. Is this a game that you just kind of put in the rear view mirror or is this something you can take from moving forward to get better at?
AARON BEST: Well, you know, we always instill in our kids, with he don't live in the past, we learn from the past, and the past was very recent, and that past was 15 minutes ago. We'll look at this film and do what we can with it. Again, like you mentioned a couple times, this is not a bad Texas Tech football team, this is a good solid football team, and I'm curious to follow them along the way in their Big 12 adventure this season because a lot of people had mentioned the 40 plus new players. They flew around. They played extremely well and efficient on offense. They mixed the run and pass real well. Again, there were times where we almost let them off the hook a few times with penalties on 3rd down, on defense. The first play of our career together, 2017, being the Nic Sblendorio catch and fumble, so those are things we will clean up and we're eager to clean up, but yeah, this one is absolutely going to sting. They all sting. We're not used to this, number one, so it's hard for some of these guys to handle this. To be a great winner you've got to learn and be humbled when you lose. That is important for these guys, and that's a lesson learned. They learned it growing up, but it's a different animal when you're in college.

Q. This is your first game as head coach. What are you taking out of that personally as head coach in terms of things maybe you can do, what you can look at, kind of the overall picture now that you've got a whopping game under your belt?
AARON BEST: Well, you know, comparing the two, if there's any comparison from '08 to '17 from man 1 to man 70 or however many participated in the game, there was no letdown. This wasn't an effort deal. This was not an effort deal. It will never be an effort deal at Eastern Washington University no matter who's coaching there because these kids have a DNA in them that they just play and they play hard. So there was no letdown. There was a lot of effort on both sides of the ball. Special teams I thought played really solid, so that's also a bonus in this game, so we'll take a look at that film because never as bad, never as good. Let's just not let the score and the end result indicate how this got away from us, because like you said, those first four possessions on both sides, it was a little bit back and forth, and it was probably the first-of-the-year game blues on both sides, but this was more than a game for a quarter, and we wanted it to be more than a game for four quarters, and unfortunately that didn't happen, and we'll learn from this tomorrow.

Q. From the flying pan to the fire, next week you have North Dakota State, the Bison. Is this something that you guys can take and springboard forward knowing that you have them coming into town knowing how good a football team this is?
AARON BEST: Well, at the end of the day, we know what we have. We're still going to find out who we are. But it is a different team that we're going to face. This isn't a pass-first team that we're going to face next week. We are at home, so hopefully the guys have a little vigor and a little spring in their step because we are playing at home, but I don't want to talk too much in advance with those guys because I want this dust to settle here. I want them to kind of learn from this one along with myself and the coaching staff because we all had a hand in this together. We all win together, we all unfortunately lose together, and that's just the way it's always going to be. That's the hardest part of sports is being on the not-enough-points side of things. We will get back, not to the drawing board, we'll get back because there was opportunities had. There was many opportunities had, and we will capitalize on them in the future.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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