Texas Longhorns LB Liona Lefau on his breakout performance against ULM

Hear from Texas Longhorns linebacker Liona Lefau after his breakout game against UL Monroe last Saturday.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the text line, and I'm glad. I'm always glad
we have the feedback that we have, and some of
them the text line reminded me, said, didn't Jerry fire
weighed halfway through the season, And the text is exactly correct.
It was twenty ten. It's the only time he's done it.

(00:21):
The Cowboys were one and seven at the time, and
that's when he elevated Jason Garrett to the position, and
the Cowboys ended up going six and ten. So they
were one and seven. They ended up winning five of
their last eight ball games and ended up being six

(00:46):
and ten as a result of that. I had Jason
Garrett for what ten? I think that's right looking. Yeah, So,
and it took him a long time to decide that
he wasn't going to stick with Jason Garrett anymore after that. So,

(01:09):
and that was after a lot of Cowboy fans got,
you know, pretty fed up with Jason Garrett. Were you
one of those, by the way?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, I mean it was the same old eight and
eight debacle every single year, missing the plasta violently. They
got some playoff appearances, but just could not get over
the hump. Whether it was Tony Romo or Dak Prescott
and now it's the same old's song and nants last
last couple of decades, the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well, here's what he did, what Jason Garrett did when
he was the coach. Like I said, we took over.
He took over. Halfway through the twenty ten season, they
finished five and three under his direction to six and
ten overall. Then they went eight and eight, eight, nate,
eight and eight, twelve and four, four and twelve, thirteen

(02:00):
and three, nine and seven, ten and six, eight and eight.
So that's that's how it went back then for Jason Garrett. Okay,
so thanks to the Texter for saying, yeah, didn't Jerry
fire waight have he did? Halfway through that twenty ten season. Then,

(02:23):
of course Wade Phillips ended up being won an assistant
coach on that Denver Broncos team to win Super Bowl? Right?

Speaker 3 (02:28):
I think that wasn't he also on the Rams staff yep?

Speaker 1 (02:32):
When they won.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
He was in the Rams staff when they beat Dallas
in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I don't think he was on the Rams staff when
they won the Super Bowl? That was that was what's
his name? Who ended up Brandon Staley with the Chargers yep. Yep,
but he was on the Rams staff to beat the
Cowboys in the playoffs. You are correct about that. There
was more from Jerry Jones here about this. He said,

(02:56):
I guess I got baptized when I came to Dallas
and bought the Cowboys and we won one football game.
We had made changes, changed out the only coach for
twenty nine years, and we got huge criticism in the
kind that would make your seeing now child's play kind of.

(03:16):
But it wasn't just the firing of Landry, and there
was a lot of hatefield vitriol about that being there
and working there at the time. It was other stuff too.
It was pulling all the blue parking coupons away from
longtime season ticket holders and redistributing based on finances, and
there were other things like that. They came around. He

(03:38):
because it never ceased us to surprise me, both from
the state of Texas in the case of the Cowboys,
or all over this country in the case of the Cowboys.
And it's either there because they want to see us
get our you know what kicked, or it's there because
they're following us. The thing that inspires me the most
is the emotion about it. But it's certainly I'm aware
of it, aware of criticism, any more aware than that

(04:01):
score at the end of the game. Let's put it
like that. And he said, I'm aware that you can
have a lot of criticism. I was born of that
here with the Cowboys. You can have a lot of criticism,
and you can end up trolling those trophies high, trolling
those trophies high. And that's what this is about. He
hasn't had one of those to troll up since. Then

(04:25):
Let's hear a little bit of the Lengle l of
Foul before we get to the break, and inconceivable Leango Lafoul,
of course a linebacker for Texas, really coming on quite
a bit. And first of all, one of the things
was asked about is two sacks that he had in
the game against ULM And the.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Two sides that I got, I didn't really rush. It
was more of the cover side, and I was allowed
to come out of covers and make the play. So
I think thanks to the secondary, I guess, and they're
doing their job and executing at a high level and
allows us our defense to you know, play fast.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Okay, uh? And then how about what he did on
his tackle for a loss that registered the safety.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Oh man, I mean they just they coach, he get
caught it a great play, you know, he drove up
a nice little blitz and basically the whole open and
I was able to fill it and it was in
a basket of celebrating. So that's that's basically all it was.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, two points there. So how confident is this long
worn defense after four games? In the books?

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Our defense we've been too. I guess we've been doing
pretty good, good job, you know, trusting each other and
being able to play fast and physical, but we know
that we could do better each and every week. So
just we're gonna, you know, we're gonna come back on
Monday and do whatever we can to get better. And
there's lots of fits. We were able to make a

(05:50):
lot of plays today, but you know, there's always plays
out there that we leave and we can always come
back and fish.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
There's also the fact about how he has progressed, and
he was asked about the difference in his play from
last year now to this year.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
I'll just say my confidence is up a lot. I
mean thanks to my teammates. Of course, we push each
other each and every day. Me, I'm gonna compete with
and he'll bend a mo Tayan and the rest of
the crew each and every day. So every day, so
it's competition between us who can you know, who can
have the right energy and performance and every day and

(06:26):
it just helps me to build my confidence each and
every day, especially when I can trust my teammates around me,
It allows me to you know, play friendly and just
have a good time on therea eason.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
All right, we'll hear some more from Leonga Lafoul coming
up next hour about his heritage and background and things
of that nature as well. Up next him Conceivable here
on this Tuesday afternoon on sports Radio AM thirteen under
the zone of the iHeart Radio app