Todd Graham Press Conference Quotes
9/22/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 22, 2009
Tulsa, Oklahoma -
Todd Graham PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
Opening statement
Last Saturday was disappointing to us. We moved on and are getting ready to go to work this week and get back on track. Our guys will bounce back. We always do. Naturally, after going back and reviewing the film and looking at things, we did a lot of things to ourselves. You have to give them a lot of credit. They have a good football team. We probably played about as bad as they could play and they played as good as they could play. It was a perfect storm, but you move forward and go on from there. I think you always look back and usually your greatest defeat is followed by your greatest victory. I think that's in James. That was some of my readings since the game. Our guys have great spirits.
We had some guys banged up and have some critical injuries at some key spots. It's been hurtful. Our guys are ready to move on, go forward from here and get better each week.
You looked at the tape, what went wrong? Was it stage fright?
No, I don't think it was stage fright. They have a really, really good defensive football team. We had our opportunities. In the first drive, we went down there and had the perfect play called and ran the wrong route. Why that happened, I don't know. It's a route we've ran for two years.
For me to say anything now, it's just a bunch of excuses. I felt like that they were a better team on Saturday. We had to play big-time defense and we didn't. What was kind of discouraging - and encouraging - is we had 37 different alignment issues on defense. They didn't run the ball down the heart of our defense, but around our defense on the perimeter. We just did simple things like not contain the football. We were outflanked a lot.
Charles Davis' injury was really critical to us. It contributed to a lot of the misalignments. He's like our quarterback back there. Losing him early on was very devastating to our alignments. The other stuff is coaching. We never have lined up outflanked like that. We weren't trying to do that.
The combination of the atmosphere, the crowd noise and their tempo on offense ... our plan was to slow the tempo on our offense. We didn't want to play 80-90 snaps on defense. I think the tempo caused the problem. I think Charles Davis' injury caused a lot of problems with our alignments. We basically were misaligned on every snap on the perimeter. You have to give them credit. They did some things from a formation standpoint that we haven't seen. They ran a different defense. I was shocked at that. They ran an odd front defense and that caught us off-guard. Give their guys a lot of credit. Their secondary played unbelievable and their front was very powerful.
I was very proud of Brandon Thomas. We didn't have Tyler Holmes, our All-American tackle and our best player up front. We didn't have him. We lost him in Tuesday's practice in a non-contact deal. He's going to be back but it's going to be a week-to-week deal with him. Clint Anderson had an injury at New Mexico. Our two best offensive linemen weren't playing. I'm really proud of Brandon Thomas, who came in. He's going to be a great player and really played great. He did extremely well and did a great job. Nick Gates battled and was going against Gerald McCoy in his first start as a collegiate player as a redshirt sophomore and I thought those guys battled. Brandon really played excellent and I was pleased with him.
It hurt us. They really dominated us up front on the defensive line. Their linebackers, Reynolds and that crew, are really, really tremendous players. We had our chances. We moved the football. We could have made it 7-3 and 10-3 in the times we had the ball down there, but you have to give them credit. They made plays and they were the better team. We don't get beat like that a whole lot. You just have to give them a lot of credit. Did we play poorly? Yes we did. There's no question that the crowd noise ... it's a lot louder there than in 2005 with the new deck. I don't think our guys had stage fright. That was a lot better football team than we played in Arkansas.
Coach Hand and I talked after the game and their defensive football team is about the best that we've ever seen. The only other one that could compare to that is the 2002 Miami team. We have never not scored. We probably could have kept G.J. in there. When it got to be 45, our kids never quit and never gave up. He didn't want to come out and he wasn't happy with that. I wasn't going to sit there and get him hurt in a game like that. You have to give them a lot of credit. They have a great football team.
Our defense made a lot of alignment mistakes that we shouldn't have made. Everything is correctable. But the bottom line is they were better than us.
You mentioned Charles' injury. Who will see (at free safety)? Trent Wilkins and Dexter McCoil?
I'm really proud of Trent Wilkins. He's a redshirt freshman and comes into the Oklahoma game and has to play. He played well and played hard and made a lot of tackles. I picked Trent and Brandon Thomas as our players of the game. I thought those guys stepped up and played well.
Dexter McCoil is going to be a big-time player. He's a true freshman playing on the field. Both of those guys will compete to play there. We probably tried to do too much with our guys and when Charles went out, we had more misalignments and busted coverages with guys running free than we've ever had. No excuses. They were better than us on Saturday and we have to go forward.
Is it discouraging? Yes, it's discouraging and disappointing to us because in no way did we feel like it would go like that. At the end of the day, it's a loss and we move forward. If we want to be a championship football team, we have to get better and get our guys healthy that are hurt.
Charles, I don't think he will be back. We have to wait and see and we're still finding out about that. I'll always let you know if he's not going to be back for the year and right now that looks like it will be the case.
Can you remember going this long without playing a home game and will this give you a fresh start?
It was a concern. We still are a way from finishing that run. We're going to play at home this week and then we've got another conference game on the road. We'll come back home and then play our third conference game in a row on the road. We have to really get better this week. We have to get guys healed up, from a depth standpoint.
The biggest two concerns that I have right now are perimeter run and pass on defense, which involves the secondary, and our offensive line. We're trying to develop those two areas and getting the same guys in there is critical.
You mentioned pass defense, and gave up a lot of yards against Tulane. OU had six on Saturday. What do you have to do to improve the secondary against the pass?
In my wildest dreams, I never thought they'd give up that many passing yards on us. I thought that we had a good plan. We did poor things against Tulane in the passing game and we've struggled in the past two years with the passing game.
We're in a league that flat throws the football, so it is a little bit different. It's just an area that we have to improve and get better in. We have the players to do it. Losing Charles hurts and we have to have some young guys grow up in a hurry. I think Dexter McCoil is going to be a great one. He's a true freshman playing. That's an area we have to get better in.
Here's how it works in college football. You get better every week or you go backwards. We've always gotten better every week and we're going to continue to do that. I have great belief in our kids and coaches. We're after a different result and we came up short. Those are the areas that we have to get better at - perimeter run and pass on defense and offensively have to get better up front.
We have to be able to run the inside zone and we will. We'll get better and do that. To be honest with you, running the inside zone against Tulane and New Mexico is a little different than running the inside zone against Oklahoma's defense. Even at that, we're way behind in where we were last year. We had three new guys in there (on the offensive line). We'll get that going. It's critical in what we're doing and critical to our no-huddle philosophy.
We have to protect our quarterback. To me, he's performed extremely well under the circumstances. He's been sacked 14 times. That might lead the country and he's avoided about 14 other ones. We just have to protect that quarterback and that's what will happen with a young line. We believe in our guys and they're good guys. We have good coaches and we'll get it going.
When you have the Oklahoma game circled on the calendar and lose like that, are there any worries in moving forward to this week's game?
No, and I would tell you that every one of our kids and our coaches and in our program had that game circles and continue to work towards accomplishing that. You get naysayers that say we haven't beat a BCS school. We're not playing Iowa State. We're playing Oklahoma. We're playing Oklahoma State. We're playing Notre Dame next year. We're not scheduling a BCS win. I'm not knocking Iowa State. I'm just saying that it's a big challenge.
Our guys didn't perform to what our potential is. We were disappointed with that and I'm sure our fans are. We've come a million miles and we're going to get there eventually. When you have that as your goal, you bust your tail to get it done. Our guys will be fine and will bounce back. We have to get our guys healthy. If you would have asked me to have two guys out, I would have picked anyone but two offensive lineman for that game.
When you lose, is it still an issue where guys are still pumped up or are you more fired up because you lost?
I think it's just how you approach things. I try not to let the guys get too high or too low. I don't like emotional teams. I think the football game, contrary to most people's conversations, lasts four hours. I'm not a guy that waves a towel around and throws trash cans against the wall. I'm very intense and it's important to inspire the players, but the emotions of the thing ... that's life. I consider myself a teacher.
We have a strong foundation here. We've won a lot of football games here. We've had setbacks. We had a worse setback last year after the Arkansas game in the loss to Houston. These kids have great character and a great work ethic. They're winners and they're going to bounce back.
Sam Houston State has a strong passing game and a quarterback you are familiar with. Can you talk about their offense?
Blake Joseph is a really good player and competed with Case Keenum at Houston. They even alternated when Case was a freshman. He has a 6-5 wideout that's impressive on tape and throwing for 339 yards a week right now. It's a very talented team and a lot like Central Arkansas was last year offensively. We just have to go out and play. We're not worried and concerned about that stuff.
I worry about getting better and focusing on our team. I told our coaches on the sideline during that game when things got out of hand, that's when you coach. That's when you find out what you're about and who you are, when you face setbacks and adversity. You have to be an example as a leader, our captains, seniors and coaches.
My little boy was getting ready to go to school this morning and he said, 'Dad, I wish we could have called some different plays.' He has to go to school and listen to it. That's probably harder than me than anything.
In my wildest dreams, did I think that was going to happen? No. Was that our football team? No. We didn't play good and they played real good. We have to get better. There are areas that we're concerned about. But you know what? I've never been here when we didn't have areas of concern. Coach Stoops is sitting there today and he has areas of concern that he's working on. That's part of winning. We have a strong foundation. Our guys will bounce back.
How important is the home atmosphere on Saturday?
I think it's very important. It's been a long road trip, three games in a row. It's real important for our players and our fans to support them. It's our home opener and we've always had a great crowd for our home opener. We have a really good football team. It's real critical in these next few weeks because we start conference play again in a couple of weeks and our goal is to be conference champions. We're going to go on the road to Rice and come back here and play as good a team on our schedule as we're going to play in Boise State. Then we go back on the road to UTEP. That stretch run is going to be very critical with those two conference games. We have to bounce back this week to not let a team slip up on us.
Was G.J. Kinne rattled, and can you speak of the conversations you had with him? I would probably disagree with you. I don't think he was every rattled. He made some mistakes. He got drilled ... we didn't protect our quarterback and I thought he responded. My conversation with him afterward was that this game will be so valuable to you because there's no way to simulate ... it doesn't get better than Oklahoma. That defense is going to rattle a bunch of quarterbacks. He hadn't played football in two years and he was remarkable to do some of the things that he did. He made one throw on a bootleg that was phenomenal.
The speed and the explosiveness in that game and atmosphere ... there's no substitute for experience. He'll be able to draw upon that game. It's going to help him in the future. We did a poor job of protecting him. We were outmatched there. We thought we had a good plan for him to get the ball out quick.
I told him that was going to be a great experience for him. The thing that I've been so impressed about with him is that he hasn't been emotional at all. I can remember in 2005 when Paul (Smith) went there and we didn't do a good job of protecting Paul. He took some shots that day. Paul always talked to me about that game ... he was an unproven player and a sophomore that just won the job from Dave Johnson. He said that game helped him. He played well and did some good things. That's what this game will be for G.J. We're sitting there down 38-0 and he's encouraging his teammates and talking about what we can do. He didn't show any frustration or operate outside the system. He threw the one interception and got hit when he was throwing. We expect him to make that play.
He won't face more pressure than that. It was get more hectic than that. He won't face a louder atmosphere that that. Draw upon that and get better from it. He will and he's going to be a great one. I believe that.
