Seth Doege
On the TCU win:
Yeah, the way we just fought the whole game. We played great, and we had adversity
and we fought back. I think that's
huge. I think that showed us as a
team that we can struggle a little bit, and we're good enough to beat anybody
in this conference. I think we need
to start focusing on who are we, and how good we can be and not really looking
too much like how good is Kansas State's defense or offense? Well, they're really good, but so are
we. We just need to have a good week
of practice and have some confidence going into Saturday.
On Torres & Zouzalik:
Like I said last week, don't sleep on those guys because
those guys are very productive. I
trust them. They may not be the
most talented guys on our football team, but they'll keep improving and get
more reps. They're confidence will
improve and they'll keep making plays for us.
On the pass to Torres
that was reversed:
Yeah, it's kind of funny. We ran that play a bunch of times, and
it wasn't the best thrown football obviously because he had to make a
one-handed catch. But he made a
great catch on it. Torres comes
back to the huddle, and he was like man, Doege. It's crap,
man, I caught it. I was like, yeah, I know you did. Don't worry about it. He was like, no, I caught it. So Coach Brown calls us over and we get
the next play, and Torres is still over there still trying to get this call
overturned. He finally does it. That's all he talks about after the game
the game-winning touchdown or the sweep or the corner scrambling touchdown,
that's all he wanted to talk about is how the refs almost screwed him out of a
one-handed catch.
On this year’s senior
leadership:
I remember when I was a freshman, and it was '08, and when
they started winning and kind of getting some national exposure and everything
was going good, you kind of started like, oh, these guys really, they've been
there. They know what they're
talking about. So I think these
younger guys are kind of looking forward to learning from what we've been through
and all of our experience and what we've been through right now and kind of
watching it. I know when I was a freshman, I was watching it thinking when I'm
a senior, I want this and this to happen, or I want this and this different. And I think the young guys are paying
attention to that.
On why this team
plays well on the road:
I think our focus has just been really, really good during
away games. Like you said, it's a
different environment. It's hard to
play in. Everybody's against
you. It seems like everybody's
against you. I think that's just
another way to explain why we have so much fight. We have a lot of fight on this football
team. When we're backed up
and against the corner, we're not going to sit there and just take it. We're going to fire way up.
D.J. Johnson:
On whether he was
impressed with the way the defense responded at the end of the game:
I wasn't very impressed to be honest with you. I felt like we could have done
better. There were some things that
we made mistakes that we shouldn't have made mistakes. There were some things that shouldn't
have happened. We gave up a big
play on 3rd and 20 that shouldn't have occurred at all. So, for us, we're not
impressed with that. We have high
expectations for each other and hold every player accountable. You know, one thing we do when we break
out, we break out on count on me after every practice. So for us, it's really important that we
do our job, and we're assignment sound and technique flawless. So I'm not
really impressed. I feel like it
shouldn't have gone into overtime.
We should have come out with that victory in regulation. But I can say the fact that we did
fight, I'm glad that we were able to do that and come out with a victory and
get a stop on that last drive, and that last overtime and force them into a
field goal. We trusted
our offense would get the job done, and they did.
On why he didn’t
score after the interception in the first half:
I was running too fast, man. Yeah, it wouldn't have mattered
anyway. But when I cut back, as
soon as I called the pick, all I thought in my mind was like touchdown. I was looking at the end zone, and I
tried to cut back and cut back too fast, didn't let my blockers pick up. It was my fault. Yeah, I was excited about that.
On what he sees from
the K-State Defense:
Aggression. You
have to be aggressive and physical with that guy when he runs the ball. He's not one that's an elusive runner or
a speed runner; he's just consistent.
If you hit him, you have to make sure he falls back. That's one thing that a lot of people
have a difficulty with is when they're making a tackle, him falling back. He doesn't fall back too often. He usually falls forward. So that's another at least two yards
there when he falls forward. It's really being aggressive and making sure he's
uncomfortable with everything that he's doing, making sure he makes more than
one read and making him do more than just running the ball.
Coach Tuberville:
On the thinking about
how to manage the last 2 minutes of regulation versus TCU:
Yeah, that's probably the hardest point of the game to coach.What do you want to do? You want to be aggressive or not
aggressive. They did a good
job. We have to use all of our timeouts. I was not pleased with having to use all
of our timeouts on offense. Just
going for two, we had too many people on the field. Just the organization of our sideline
wasn't near as good as it's been. Then we get to that point, and they have all
three of theirs left. They get the
ball and make those plays, and then you've got to decide if you get the on-side
kick, are you going to try to make a first down? You make a first down, the ballgame's
over, or are you going to put the ball on the side of your defense? And we decided to give our defense a
chance. They made one good drive before that. We didn't think they could do it again,
but they did. That's what makes
college football exciting.because there were some big
plays made by TCU in the last four minutes. We had to make some big plays to keep
them out of the end zone not to lose the game before overtime. So we always go back and look at those
scenarios of what decision we made, why we made it, would we change it? Look at
what they did on defense and offense.
Probably you'd like to say, hey, man, we should have gone out there and
tried to make that first down by throwing one or two. But what if you throw it to them and
they run it back? So there are a
lot of ifs, ands, and buts. But now
that's over with and we won it, we made the right decision. But if we hadn't, it would have been the
wrong one.
On what problems
Klein presents to his defense:
Just tackling the guy.
He's like Jace Amaro
running the football. He's big,
strong, physical.
He'll run it. The
interesting thing about him now is everybody talked about he wasn't a good
passer. Actually, he was a good
passer last year. He's much better
this year. You can tell he's gotten
much more comfortable throwing the ball, play action. You put them all up there and he can get
ready and put it on the money. He's
probably the front runner for the Heisman right now I would say. How he's played, he's been consistent. He's not going to be flashy just because
of his size, but he runs the ball, and you look up and say, man,
that was a good play. But
it's 2nd and 4. He's got six
yards. I mean, it's just a totally
different type of ballgame that you normally see. So very good player, very polished guy
that's really worked on his game on both sides, throwing, and running, and
obviously a very good leader.
Summary:
Everyone was pretty upbeat, but they know the task is at
hand this team wants to win a Big 12 championship, but know they have to beat
Kansas St in order to do so. Both sides of the ball know they didn’t play their
best game against TCU and are fortunate to come out with a victory. I’d look
for this team, especially the defense, to step up against Kansas St.