UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 14, 2020

Zach Smith

Press Conference

Tulsa Golden Hurricane 28, SMU Mustangs, 24

Q. Zach, take us to the final drive and just kind of what was going through your head or what was the approach as you knew what you needed to do, or at least to take the lead?

ZACH SMITH: Yeah, so nothing special, really. You know, can't press. You can't press in like situations like that. I knew what we had to go do, and I knew we were capable of it. You know, just got to let the big guys up front work and play-makers out on the edge, receivers, make plays like they did all game. We just kind of started going back to just day one stuff, day one install stuff, plays, and just executing them. That's all that happened. We executed well.

Q. Got a lot down in the red zone, did that set up that final play, do you think, rolling out and hitting Palmer?

ZACH SMITH: Yeah, I think so, because he's a pretty big dude. As many guys as they can have down there to hit him, they are going to want to have in there. So just faking that and then slipping him out of the backfield is a pretty good play, and he made a great play after the catch.

Q. I know it just happened, some of the history with this, you remain undefeated, coming back from 21-0, the celebration of it all, I know it just happened but how do you process that?

ZACH SMITH: It's unreal, really. It's hard to process everything right now. You know, feels great to win, especially a game like that, coming back from behind. I know I had some unfortunate stuff happen there at the first of the game. Kind of put us behind the 8-ball but we battled back and we're an extremely resilient team. I can't stress that enough, how resilient we are, and I can't be more proud of this group of guys.

Q. When you say proud, the defensive performance, not only in the first half, like you said, you had some moments and put them in tough spots, but then they did their job especially in the second half and the offense finally started catching up. What are your thoughts on the defense in a game like this to help you guys out on offense and to clamp down in the second half, too?

ZACH SMITH: I think they are 1 or 2 in the country, I think. That's a great group of dudes over there on that side of the ball. They get stuff done and they work hard no matter what happens, they are hitting people and flying around and put on a show in the second half for sure. Like you said, I kind of put them behind the 8-ball, put them in some tough spots to start the game but they got the job done. I don't think they allowed any points in the second half. That's crazy, especially with an offense like that, that's a great offense. They came to play. You know, they just balled, so I couldn't be more proud of them.

Q. The two turnovers in the first quarter, how much do you chop that up to lack of focus or lack of detail?

ZACH SMITH: I think the first one was really just kind of an unfortunate deal. I threw and it tipped Corey's hands and went right to that guy. So that one was just kind of unfortunate. I might have could have thrown it a little bit lower. But stuff happened. It happened there.

The second one, I'm not exactly sure what happened. I have to see on film. But I wouldn't say it's lack of focus or anything like that. It's just kind of an extremely unfortunate thing that happened, but we cleared it, calmed down and finally started to go to work and got the job done.

Q. Early in the second half, you were scrambling. It looks like you almost got your head taken off. Then seemed like -- and you were actually penalized on the play and the team came back and even though you didn't score on that possession, you took off after that. If you can talk about that.

ZACH SMITH: So I scrambled and just did not even see that guy, at all. I cleared around, I don't know, it was one of the linemen and he just came out of nowhere and smoked me. I would have slid if I had the chance.

Luckily I think we recovered the ball or I was down and recovered the ball or something. We had a penalty. But then Josh made a great -- or Sleep ran a great route. I hit him and I think I hit Josh on the third, ran a great route. We had good pass protection and once we started getting first downs we started getting in a rhythm and started going to work and executed really well.

Q. You showed a lot of resilience because you did get stop on that drive and got stopped on fourth down, but still you guys kept going and kept after it. You finally cut the lead to ten.

ZACH SMITH: Well, we knew that we've been in this position before. Throughout the season, we've been in the position, and we've come back and we've won the game. We knew we could do it. There wasn't any panic. There wasn't any stress. We just had to come out and just start chipping away, chipping away, defense going to work and us starting to execute and going into rhythm and going down and scoring and that's what we did.

Feels really good to get a win like that and especially after being down that much. It's a great team win.

Q. Just tell me about what Zaven means to you, picking up a big play and sealing the deal for you guys?

ZACH SMITH: He's a workhorse. He's a go-getter. Everyone knows he's going to make plays. He flies around. He's everywhere. He's awesome. Obviously me and him are roommates. Have a ton of love for that guy, and just couldn't be more proud of the way he's been playing and getting along with this year. Really proud and yeah, we don't have much stress whenever that defense is out there; we know they are going to get stops and get the job done.

Q. Is it sweeter with the postponements and stuff?

ZACH SMITH: Dang right. These postponements are crazy. It sucks, going and watching film, getting ready for a game and it gets postponed and we have to wait another week to play. Feels like it takes forever to get to the next week. But it feels good to just get the job done. We have to wait that long and we're thinking about it, you know, stuff like that, like anyone would. To come out here and to just get the win, just play the way we did, couldn't be sweeter, like you said.

Q. Do you feel like it's taken time to get into a rhythm, especially on offense; the fact that you aren't had a normal year where you are playing week-after-week?

ZACH SMITH: I think it might affect it a little bit. I'm not really sure. I don't think we've had very many back-to-back games, maybe last week or two weeks ago. But stuff is there. Just got to settle down and just come out and execute. You know, got to stop putting our defense in bad spots in the beginning of the game and I need to play the first half, like I come out and I like how we played the second half, come out and execute and just play like we play and get into rhythm and stuff like that. We need to start the game like that every time.

Q. The toughest league Tulsa has ever been in, and you guys are undefeated, coming up on late November. Is the fact that it's this late in the year and you're right there for the conference championship. Your thoughts on that going forward?

ZACH SMITH: Yeah, we put ourselves in a really good position, and you know, we're just taking it week-to-week. One game at a time and that's what we've been doing, and we're going to continue to do that. But it feels really good to be in this position. I feel like we are kind of in the driver's seat. We kind of control our own destiny. Try to keep taking care of business and keep getting after it week-to-week.