|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 12, 2011Mike GideonQ. What did you learn from last year's game with UCLA? MIKE GIDEON: I learned that we can't roll our helmet out there and come away with a win. We can't -- we've got to keep our focus. That was really the main thing. Most everybody on defense played a great game except for one or two plays. You know, whenever one guy gets out of his gap, whenever we play the wrong technique outside in the secondary, then good teams and good athletes are going to find that and they're going to exploit it. They have professionals up there in the press box looking at everybody's every movement, and if they see something they want to go after, then you can bet that you're going to get tested. That's the main thing is keeping our focus for 100 percent of the plays and not 99 percent. Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: Sure, we all remember last year and what they were able to do to us. To put it lightly, that was embarrassing, especially in the second half, what they were able to do to us. You know, it's one thing if a team can throw against you if they have a quarterback and a set of receivers that are just lights out. But to run the ball on you, especially between the tackles, that's a test of manhood, that's a test of how much work and how many hours you put in the weight room, physicality. That's everything football. So for a team to be able to run up the middle on you, that's pretty much saying that either you're not tough enough to stop the run or they're just too stupid to keep calling plays and you're stopping them, which wasn't the case last year. Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: Well, I think that was the first time all of us got our eyes opened. You know, whenever a team beats you like that and you look on film and you see the mistakes that are so easily correctable, but at the same time they need to be corrected, and we realized that other teams have athletes on scholarship, too, and they're going to make you pay for mistakes. Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: Well, the positive thing that comes out of it is that we all remember that feeling from last year. You know, I don't know how else I can say it other than that was embarrassing, shouldn't have happened. There was things we could have prevented, and they just imposed their will on us. They were more physical than us, they out-toughed us and they beat us on every aspect on both sides of the ball. That's something that we remember. We've been over that film a couple of times, and they really haven't changed much on offense, and I don't think they're going to change much from their game plan from last year. They're going to run that stuff until we prove we can stop it. Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: No, it's different. You know, it's one thing if you play really well on defense, and there's really nothing else you can do, especially if you're stopping the run. That's always the main goal of the defense. But when a team runs the ball on you like that, that's a challenge. If you're a competitor at all, then you're going to rise to that challenge, and that's not going to settle easy with you. It's something we've all thought about and something that is one of those motivations in the weight room and this off-season, how many teams are going to be able to run the ball on us. Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: Yeah, I'm sure I will, as far as the same locker room. I don't know how many locker rooms they have there. But probably the same locker room, going out, same tunnel, same field, there's going to be some memories there. But at the same time I'm old enough now I'm not going to get caught up in the fanfare and everything. It's a business trip, and we're not going to be able to say, oh, we're going to California, it was a long flight, it was whatever. You know, we don't have any excuses. We know all about this team. We know what they're going to try to do to it us, so it's going to be a battle of wills. Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: Yeah, I've talked to him a little bit. What do you want to know? Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: Well, Case has done a great job of preparing as the starter, even though he hasn't been. I think that's what you look at for any backup. All that stuff is temporary, and backups need to believe that in order to prepare the right way. He's prepared with the expectation of if something happened, injury or whatever, and him being thrown in the fire and being prepared to lead our team to a victory. So he's done a great job of that. Garrett is going to assume a new role now, and that may be temporary. He needs to look at it like that. That's all I've told Garrett is he needs to keep working as if he's the starter, just like everybody else on this team needs to. Q. (Indiscernible.) MIKE GIDEON: Yeah, I remember my freshman year flying to UTEP. That was the first time I had ever flown to a football game I was playing in. It's a different feeling. It's hard to not get that vacation feeling to it, get that spring break feeling. But at the same time those young guys, they've done a great job of not letting all this get bigger than it is. We're really going to impress upon them that this is a business trip. We're going out there to win a football game and for no other reason. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|