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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 12, 2011

Tommy Tuberville

COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, after an early spring practice last week of an open date which we used, our players are glad it's over with. We had a scrimmage and three very physical practices. We had a lot to work on, and after the first game, I think we all recognized that.
This year's going to be a Baskin-Robbins type of year in terms of depth charts. It will change each week and there will be different varieties, so we're just looking for the right combination.
There are so many young guys that are playing. We're trying to get as much game experience with as many players as we can before we get in conference play.
But it was a good week. We got a lot of things done on both sides of the ball. Made a few changes, had some guys step up in the kicking game which was good. We put a lot of pressure on our players in terms of challenging each other for positions, and it's worked out pretty good for us. Now it's time to get back to work.
11 straight weeks now without an open date, and we'll now get into a routine. I think it will be very good for our older players and younger players to get into game routine every week, knowing what to expect, what time practice is, how much weightlifting we do.
We'll cut back on conditioning now going into each week, knowing that we have to keep them healthy, keep guys rested up. But we've still got to get better. We've got a tremendous amount of room for improvement.
We know where we want to go. We're just trying to teach these young guys and some of the older guys how to get there. So a lot of coaching going on, lot of changes, not major changes, but tweaking things here and there in terms of techniques and fundamentals.
We've got guys like Delvon Simmons that's only been with us for six or seven weeks and he's learning how to play this game. Then you take a guy like a senior like Langley who has been around for a while, playing a few different techniques in this defense that we're playing, and he's just now really understanding through spring practice and through two-a-days what we're really asking him to do.
So lot of good things happened last week. Now we've started yesterday for preparation for New Mexico. I know they've gotten off to a start that they'd like to have back, but they played very well in the first game against Colorado State. They're much improved from last year.
They've got a very active quarterback that had 276 yards total yards himself in passing and running the first game. Then last week they go to Little Rock and play one of the Top 10 teams in the country in Arkansas, and didn't play as well, but they didn't make the mistakes that they made the week before that probably cost the game in turnovers and sacks. So they made some improvement.
I'm sure they're looking forward to getting us to Albuquerque seeing how we played the first game. And last year it was a very close game until, I guess, to the first part of the fourth quarter it was very close, and we were able to make some plays and get the win.
So it will be a good challenge for us going into this game. We've got to play better. We've got to get better each week. Things are going to get tougher as we go. Again, this would be, I think, a game where we'll find out a lot about our football team, even more than we found out last week.
Hopefully, we'll play better because we practiced better. We practiced harder. We've got a lot of guys that are starting to understand what we're asking them to do, and hopefully it will come to fruition this week in Albuquerque. Questions?

Q. First road test for the team?
COACH TUBERVILLE: You know, it's a road game for us. I think the biggest thing is just learning how to handle travel for some of our guys and being away and playing in front of a different crowd on a different field. This is a grass field that we'll play on.
It will be a day game, which is different. You have to approach it with your returners and your receivers looking into the sun, catching the ball. There are a lot of different things about this game than there were in the first game.
But we can't really worry about where we're playing or who we're playing. We're not to that point yet. We've just got to go worry about playing better ourselves, preparing and playing the first half. We didn't play the first half on offense or defense in the first game. Hopefully we'll come out of the gate and play a little bit better and a little bit harder in this game coming up.

Q. How important is that experience for your young guys, traveling, and staying in hotels?
COACH TUBERVILLE: You know, it's good knowing that it's not a conference game. If you're going to play a game on the road for your first game, you'd rather it be a non-conference game because obviously playing conference games on the road the first time, you don't have the opportunity to work out the kinks.
But there will probably be a guy or two on this flight that's never been on an airplane before. So all of those things kind of factor in the kinks.
We'll face new obstacles each week that we have a game and we won't make a big deal out of being on the road for the first time, but we will gain a little experience from it.

Q. You talked about you had a good week and got a lot done. Is there a specific unit or side of the ball that made a lot of improvement that you noticed?
COACH TUBERVILLE: I just think both sides. We challenged our offensive line. They didn't play very well the first half last week against Texas State. I think a lot of it had to do with just the continuity of our offensive line. It wasn't what it was last year. They've got to learn to play well together.
The thing about an offensive line that's different from a receiver or running back, the offensive line is always involved in the play whether it's run or pass. You know, some players on offense are not really involved in a running play or a passing play. Might not notice what they do, but as coaches, the offensive line can't have a breakdown on any play. Because if they make a mistake, the play's usually not going to work.
So we've just got to be more consistent, more physical with the offensive line. Again, this will be their second game that they played together, a different center. I thought Terry McDaniel did a good job in the first game, and he's gotten much better over the week. He'll get better each day in practice.
We put a lot of pressure on our centers in this offense, so it will be good to see his second game and see how much he improves along with the other offensive linemen.
In the defense, we didn't have that many missed tackles. But we did have improper angles to the ball, especially in the running game. They ran the option on us. We had a couple of breakdowns in assignment football which you're going to have.
But the thing that we didn't give up was a big play. We didn't give up, I think, the longest play from scrimmage for them was 17 or 20 yards. Which last year we gave up a ton of 40, 50, 60-yard plays whether it was a pass or a run. We want to try to keep those to a minimum this year. We'll eventually give up one or two, but we want to be better than that than we were last year.
Again, we weren't very good last year. We've got the potential to play a lot of players, and by doing that, we'll hopefully keep them healthy. Not a lot of luck with Leon Mackey. He's coming along. He will not make the trip this week. He's being scanned today to check on the health of the lung that -- didn't all the way collapse. It's not one of those where you think it was -- I think it was 10 or 15% where he lost oxygen in that lung. But it takes a while to recoup. So we'll find out today where he's progressed in the last ten days.

Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, it's pretty unusual. I coached linebackers for 16, 17 years, and it's not that big a deal. You know, if they can handle the pressure -- if they can handle the situation in terms of communicating, because linebackers have to communicate with the secondary and communicate with the defensive linemen.
I've had a lot of guys that have gone out, true freshmen that have actually played better when they're freshman than when they're sophomores or juniors. They ad lib a lot and they just play freer and they play faster. So hopefully that's what happens to these two kids.
But the thing about it is they don't have to play the whole game. We have guys that will go in and take their place and play. It's not that they're the only players on the field.
So that's what's exciting about this defense this year is every day we practice two and a half defenses. We've got two deep and we've got four or five other guys that actually could be first or second teamers. And we weren't even close to that last year.
So as the year goes, as I said earlier, there will be a variety of different depth charts and guys starting and moving in different positions and just trying to keep as many guys on the field fresh that can run and use their speed as much as they can.

Q. What does Marquez bring to this offense?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Marquez, Bradley plays fast. The thing about players, sometimes you get fast guys on your team, but they don't play football fast, and he plays football fast. He plays from the snap to the end his routes are full speed. There's not a lot of indifference between.
When he starts, he goes fast, and he's going to catch the ball on the run.
Quarterbacks sometimes have to adjust to that because some guys kind of throttle down a little bit. He doesn't throttle out of a cut. He comes out of a cut and I think that's one thing that Major League Baseball was looking at, how he accelerated and continued to accelerate his athletic ability.
So that's what he gives you. He gives you a guy that's full speed. So if you ever get the ball to him in a situation, you know, he's a different gear once the ball's in his arms.

Q. (Inaudible) yesterday your coaches said the New Mexico game, the first game of the season the past couple of weeks, is still a preseason. Can you talk about your approach to this first road trip and New Mexico first?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, having an open date was kind of like a preseason game last week where we go out, and hey, where are we at? What point are we at? We found out pretty quickly being behind at halftime that we're not where we're even close to where we want to be.
If you come back out like we did in the second half and play much better, it makes you feel better about yourself. We got behind. We had to catch up. We had to go ahead. We had to make plays. Cost turnovers. Offense had to put points on the board. So things worked out as you would want.
But now we've got to start putting more of it together. One half of football is not going to win a lot of games for us in these last 11.
We've got to be more consistent on both sides of the ball. Kicking game has to come through. But, again, we're really excited about the potential of where we can get to. Now, are we going to get there in spring practice this year or are we going to get there in the middle of the season, are we going to get there this week? That's yet to be seen.
That's what's going to be fun watching this team. If we just have a little luck on our side and guys stay healthy and keep all the rotation we have, we've got a chance to really be a better team each week as we go through the season, and have a chance to win a lot of games.

Q. What do you expect to see from New Mexico State?
COACH TUBERVILLE: They're going to run their offense. We played them last year, and I think their quarterback last year starting against us now was their back-up. He played against us last week some. The quarterback they started later on in the season is a very athletic player, a guy that can make plays with his legs, a lot of option read out of the one back. He throws the ball fairly well. He's getting better. You can tell he's getting a lot more confidence.
So it's going to be a different thing that we'll see than we saw against Texas State.
Now the upside of that is we prepared for this. We thought this is what Texas State was going to run, so we've had a few good weeks to work on this type of offense, and we run a little bit of it ourselves. We go against it ourselves.
But the big thing is building confidence for your team. No matter what the other team does, you react defensively to what you're doing. The same thing on offense. Whatever they do on defense, we've got something that will work if we just go out and execute it.
Whether we're playing New Mexico this week or Nevada, or Kansas, or Texas A&M, we just want to go out and play our style of football and play better fundamentals. If we keep doing that, we'll have a chance to win some games.

Q. When you check on a team that struggles like the (Inaudible) has, is there a danger for you guys when you play a team that's pretty desperate?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, they've struggled. The thing is all you have to do is show your players that there are times that they really show flashes, especially in the last two games. Especially when they were 2 to 1 offensive yards. They just gave up sacks and turnovers.
I don't care who you are. If you turn the ball over, you're not going to win a lot of games. They corrected that last week. They look much better against a much better football team in Arkansas. No sacks, turnovers, moved the ball, made some plays.
But, again, anybody can beat anybody in college football. They will win some games this Jerry. They're going to be a much improved team as the year goes on, but we're in the same boat as they are. They've got a lot of young guys; we've got a lot of young guys. They've got junior college players that are having to start for the first time. We've got junior college players that are starting for the first time.
It will be a tough game for us. It will be a game that we've got to go out and play much better. If we play like we played the first game, we won't win this game, and our players know that. We've got to play much better than we played in the first game.

Q. How is Jace Amaro?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Jace Amaro's doing good. He's a young guy that's learning the speed of the game. Sometimes he doesn't understand that, hey, when you play you've got to play fast. Sometimes his clock gets slower having to think about a new play, new route, new coverage, and he doesn't play as fast.
That is the difference between experienced players in college and inexperienced. Experienced guys can think, react quicker and play fast. And we've got a lot of guys right now that are thinking that have a lot of speed and quickness, but that speed and quickness doesn't turn into speed and quickness as fast because they're having to adjust their thoughts. Am I doing the right thing?
So we've cut back on some things on defense and offense. Hopefully it will help us going into this game that we'll play faster.
We didn't play near as quick or fast as we can play, but that's good. We won the game, and we didn't play as good as we could play. Hopefully we'll adjust to that and play better.

Q. Was there something about their kicking game that you worked on this past week? You mentioned there was something that you were working on that you saw improvement on?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, we've adjusted some guys on our kickoff coverage team. We gave up too many yards last week. We've adjusted some things on our field goal team. We almost got a point or two blocked. You know, just little things of steps. Maybe the wrong guy in there that it wasn't quite as important to maybe because he was a starter on something else, and he didn't pay attention to it.
A lot of times your best players on your special teams are guys that want to go out there. They want to get out there and play. That is the situation we're in this year. We've got more guys that are back-ups that can go play because they're not 100% starters or they don't get as much playing time. So they really enjoy going out there.
I think we probably had a few too many starters on some of the teams we had against Texas State because we wanted to integrate more experienced with inexperienced guys.
Now it's time to put the best guy out there and let them play. If you're fired up about special teams or playing other than I've got to play 60 plays at linebacker, I think the guy that just gets those four or five plays on special teams, it's going to be a lot more important to.

Q. Last year (Inaudible) was there something you might change this year?
COACH TUBERVILLE: No, I think we're in pretty good shape. Of course, we do have our new uniforms for the warrior game coming up, and I've seen them. They're pretty good. Not quite as -- we won't get quite as much talk as Maryland did on theirs, but they're pretty unique uniforms.

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