	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 24, 2009

Mike Leach

COACH LEACH: Any questions?

Q. Your thoughts on the game, Coach?
COACH LEACH: Well, the biggest thing is we fell in the same pitfall that, you know, a couple of other teams did. And it's disappointing because it's one of those things that you see it, you describe it, you focus on it, and, you know, biggest thing is we didn't coach well enough to beat A&M, and we didn't play well enough to beat A&M.
I thought A&M had better tempo than we did. I thought their pads were better than ours. I thought they had better technique than we did. And you know what happened. We pound on Kansas State, so A&M looks at the film all week. They strut around and laugh. And, you know, ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha, and they listen to their fat little old girlfriend, and, then pretty soon they -- you know, what happens in Manhattan happens.
Then, well, the first thing that we do is we go in our meeting and we talk about, you know, we're not going to -- we're going to respect everyone. We're going to fear no one. We're going to -- we're not going to compare scores and we're not going to listen to our fat little girlfriends.
You know, in the -- like I said, it starts with the coaching staff. But in the back of our minds as coaches, and in the back of on our minds as players, well, ha-ha-ha, he-he-he, we pounded Kansas State. Kansas State pounded A&M. So therefore, we're really going to pound Texas A&M.
You know, I'll bet you I would like to have a dollar for everybody -- for every time somebody said something about, you know, how many points we were going to score or how bad we were going to beat them, you know, how great we are, and how good everything looks. Well, it's all a bunch of crap.
I mean, you know, I told this to the team. If you don't learn from somebody else's mistakes and history, you're destined to repeat them, which is essentially what we did, you know. We repeated several mistakes that other teams before us had made.
They were clearly illustrated for are us to avoid, and yet we repeated them. I mean, you know, in a nutshell, you know, everybody looks at everybody's scores, and then behaves accordingly. I mean, rather than make a routine play, be the best player you can be. Well, somehow there are different degrees of speed. Oh, okay, well, this speed here, this is necessary for Nebraska.
But seeing what happened here at Kansas State, well, we only have to work this hard versus A&M. Well, what a bunch of baloney that is. If we're out there having practices and doing all those things and working to develop our skills, as coaches we've got to reach the players. As players, they've got to have great effort. It was a total team loss. We need to have a great week of practice and go out and have a great game next week.
I mean, this is sad. But this one's over. It's out of our hands and there is nothing we can do. So now we know how the other guy feels.

Q. You guys turned it over either five or six times tonight. Was that just part of the focus you were talking about?
COACH LEACH: Well, we did that, too. We did a good job getting turnovers there the week before. We didn't take care of the football. We didn't take care of the football very well, and they did a good job of getting it, you know. It's like all these things.
All the credit goes to A&M, and all the blame goes to Texas Tech. That's why you play the game and that's the way it should be. You know, if we don't like it, we need to change it. We had had the opportunity to change it, but we didn't do it. So we got what we deserved.
You know, it's disappointing, but we've got to go out and do better next time.

Q. Can you talk about your quarterback situation? How you thought Potts did, and Doege did, and where you go from here?
COACH LEACH: It will be a game-time decision. But it will be a game time decision. I don't think Potts ever got in a rhythm. I don't know if he tried to make too much happen. But, you know, just looked, you know, slow and statue-like, you know. I thought Doege went in and played pretty well. I thought, you know, Doege went out there and didn't really try to make too much happen, but was pretty good with routine plays and created a level of tempo and things like that.
So we've got to mix the quarterbacks and find the best one and put the best one in there. But I thought that Doege, given the situation, did some good things. And I think somewhere between confidence and routine plays and not trying to make too much happen, and you know I think that's where Potts needs to settle down.

Q. You guys scored on your first possession, it was pretty easy in the past play with three or four plays it was 7-0 I think it was what people thought it is was going to be. Did you in hindsight say this is going to be easy tonight?
COACH LEACH: Well, defensively, we certainly did. I thought, yes, I would say that. Defensively we definitely did. I don't think they scored, but they hammered us pretty good. And then offensively, you know, we were it was maybe the worst drive I've seen in ten years offensively, our next drive after that score.
Here's the thing -- and, of course don't get me wrong, this isn't a rip on the media. But I freely rip on the media, as you guys well know, if I feel like it. But certainly the important thing about media is it generates all kinds of attention, support, makes it exciting for a broader faction of people than just players and coaches. So I think it's a critical role and a very important role and fun and exciting role for everybody.
But I'll tell you if you're a football team, and a guy 18 to 20 years old trying to reach your maximum potential, and you don't have the discipline to keep your nose out of the newspaper and have one eye looking -- and as coaches, too -- how good you are, and this and that, it's just, it makes your efforts toxic, and it's unfortunate we didn't have the discipline to do that, that's the part that's most disappointing.
The physical aspects and what I thought to be admired on the part of A&M but we go out there and we're aware of it. But somehow in the back of our minds we thought we were too good for it, and it didn't quite apply to us. And we thought that we could read our press clippings and still go out and play good.
But you know what, nobody can. Nobody can. If you have a ridiculously weak on opponent, which as I've said before, A&M is full of NFL players as they always are, and if you have a ridiculously weak opponent, you might play bad and overpower them, but you can't do that against a tradition and a program like Texas A&M. They have good players and good coaches and that's not going to happen.
You can't squander very many opportunities, you know, being too proud of yourself and looking at past performances and the rest.

Q. Do you feel like the lack of a relative lack of a pass-rush against Johnson was really one of the keys to those guys winding up getting 52 points?
COACH LEACH: Well, I thought he played really well. I thought Johnson played really well. We didn't get a pass-rush, because we had lousy pads -- pad level, and we had bad technique. And then as we got -- as we got hit in the mouth by them, then we had a group of people out there trying to make too much happen, and essentially we just played street ball rather than. You know, football is the ultimate team game. So a bunch of 11 individuals running 11 different directions isn't going to be really effective?
So the problem is little things. It's pad level, and it's pad level and it's technique and playing together. I mean, that's as simple as that. And holding that together from one week to the next is a struggle, and that's why football is the way it is. That's why it's the ultimate team sport. If it was easy, anybody could do it.
Not that I'm in a very good mood right now. But I sometimes tell these guys that I said, listen, if it was easy anybody could do it. If it was easy, I'd be coaching the Swedish bikini team and I'd have them coming out here to do all this.
But the thing is it's not easy. It's fairly difficult. So as a result we have to coach guys that are big, strong, fast, incredibly dedicated as far as weights and one practice staff to the next and the rest. And we've got a good group that's really got good potential, and we've got a group that I'm proud of.
As disappointing as today's game was, I'm proud of our coaching staff, proud of our players. And we have some work to do. And we obviously fell in some potholes that other people ahead of us fell into. And it's disappointing that we weren't able to you know, rise above the examples. But we weren't today. So we need to figure out as coaches and players how we can do better next time.

Q. Did you see anything in practice this week that concerned you going into the game tonight?
COACH LEACH: I thought we practiced pretty well. I really did feel like we practiced pretty well. You know, I thought relatively early on, you know, I felt like fairly early on you could tell that it hadn't meant a lot to A&M, and they played like it, and they deserve a bunch of credit for what they did, you know. Regardless of what we did, A&M won this game because of what they did and the effort that they gave.

Q. How did you think the offensive line played tonight?
COACH LEACH: Spotty, you know. We had some catastrophic penalties. We had some great protection. We had great protection. We had catastrophic penalties, and then we had some breakdowns at key times.
You know, I thought what's the word, oh, inconsistent. You know, it's just inconsistent. We have a great play and then not a real good play. You know, I mean, you can go through any position you want and the same description applies to all of them. You want safeties? How about linebackers? You know? Running backs? D-line? Quarterbacks? Hell, yeah, on quarterbacks.
And, you know, I mean it just goes all the way around. I mean, you know, it hasn't -- you know, we didn't have any gladiators on out there that played, you know, way above themselves and just, you know didn't pull their weight. No, it was a poor coaching job, and it was a poor job playing at every position.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297