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November 6, 2023 • 34 mins
Coach Sark talks the recent win against K-State and the upcoming trip to Ft. Worth to take on the TCU Horned Frogs.
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(00:00):
Okay. I think first of all, just to recap the last ball game
with k State, going back andwatching the tape, I was thoroughly impressed
with the physicality in which we playedthat game. And we knew going up
against that physical of an opponent,their ability to run the football, their
ability to stop the run, wasgoing to be a huge component to the

(00:23):
game. And for us to comeout and rush for I think a little
over two hundred and thirty yards againstthe top rush defense in our league,
and then to turn around and holdthem to thirty three yards rushing, I
think got a huge impact on thegame. And I would say for our
team, we really played good footballthe majority of the game. And the

(00:44):
hard part to look at when youwatch the game and then you see the
momentum swings in the game. Youknow, the three turnovers, the block
punt, the turnover on downs.That's basically five times we gave them the
ball and four of those five werewith a short field and and that that
that created momentum. And then twoof the touchdowns they score. The first

(01:10):
one there we have two missed tacklesby very reliable players that which was uncharacteristic.
Uh. And then on the suddenchange after the turnover, the post
for the touchdown, where where weblow the coverage, which again uncharacteristics kind
of those seven plays when you thinkabout football, kind of all of a
sudden, the mentality is that's howthe game went, when in reality,

(01:33):
the majority of those other plays weplayed really good football. And so the
key for us is to minimize theseself inflicted wounds which can which can ultimately
change the game, you know,because when when you think about they scored
twenty points in four plays, andI think at about two and a half
minutes came off the clock, rightit was, and and how quickly that
game turned and changed that way.So I do think there was a lot

(01:57):
of positives in the game. Ithought our defensive line was absolutely dominant in
the game, and it was reallyacross the board from you know, I
think we're all pretty clear of whatSweat and Murphy are doing inside. But
Ethan Burke having him back, BaronSerell great games, and so that the
defensive front was fantastic. I thinka d fantastic game at wide receiver.

(02:20):
I think he helped us get somemomentum back there in the fourth quarter on
that drive and continues to make plays. I think Xavier in the punt return
game is really showing up again.His ability to flip the field for US
is just another added weapon. Andand the last thing I'd like to say
about the game is what an awesomeenvironment and atmosphere DKR was Saturday. I

(02:42):
mean, it was absolutely rocking,and we needed we needed our fans up
until that very last play. Andyou know, when I when I took
this job, I envisioned, obviouslyUS being a championship caliber team and compete
for championships year in and year out. And I envisioned having one of the
most intimidating places to have to playin the country. Uh. And so

(03:05):
to have these two things happening inyear three, it's pretty special. And
and I'm I'm very grateful for ourfans and the support that they give us.
I'm grateful for our players, uhand what they put in week in
and week out. And it's Uh, it's an awesome time too to be
part of Texas Longhorn football. It'san awesome time to be supporting Texas Longhorn

(03:29):
football. I I know it's beena long time coming, so to be
in this position in November. I'muh, you know this is again you
you you have visions of what howyou want your job to go and a
program to go when you take oversomething. And for us to be in
this situation and have our stadium soldout, rocking in a pivotal game and

(03:50):
Big twelve play, that's what it'sall about. And so I'm hopeful we
continue this and I'm looking forward touh seeing uh a sea of orange up
in Fort Worth Saturday, supporting ourguys and supporting the team. Uh.
I know where we appreciate that asas we continue on this mission, as
we continue on this journey. Soobviously we've got a we've got a tall

(04:12):
task Saturday, going on the road, night game, primetime game against a
good football team that I don't thinkthe record is indicative of of how good
they are. They've had a coupletough losses that you know, could have
gone either way, uh, andthen the record looks different. So uh,
we got to make sure that welook at the totality of the body
of work of TCU. They've gotreally quality players, they've got a veteran

(04:35):
defense, got athletic quarterbacks, they'vegot good schemes, they're really good on
special teams, and so we knowthey'll be ready to play. We know
we'll get their best shot. Weneed to ensure that that they get our
best shot as well. Kacha,could you give us an update on quarterback
Quinn yours? You expect Quinn toplay? Just an update on that.

(04:57):
And how's Malik doing after a roughfourth quarter against Kansas State? Yeah?
So Quinn? Uh, like Isaid, he he started to throw a
little bit last week. He threwagain today. To me, it's more
day to day at this point.You know, where a few weeks ago,
a couple of weeks ago was kindof week to week. Today's more
day to day. And I gotit. You know, I have to

(05:20):
continue to see how he feels.You know, ultimately this is a how
does he feel? You know,I can't you know that he the doctors,
what does it feel like? Where'she at? I can give my
assessment on the capability to operate ouroffense, but ultimately, how does he
feel? And so we'll navigate thisweek. I think Malik came back and

(05:42):
had a really good practice today.Like I said, I was, I
was very proud of Malik in theresponse that he had on the drive in
that fourth quarter to get us downto kick that field goal with some some
really big throws to a d areally critical fourth down conversion to to J
T. Sanders, and like Isaid, I think he was throwing a
touchdown to Xavier on the third downthere in the red area. We didn't

(06:03):
get we didn't get the pass interferenceor defensive holding call. We settled for
the field goal, but that wasa really critical drive in that game to
take a three point lead. SoI think his response in game was pretty
good, but I think today waswas was even better, and in his
ability to come out and throw theball and have command, so, you
know, positives on that front.Steve stayed on the league. How difficult

(06:29):
is it to coach a young quarterbackto say it's okay to throw the ball
away, it's okay to you know, maybe take a sack and not try
to make something happen that's not there. Well, I think that's that's always
the challenge for for you know,first first time starters, you know,
first two, three, four gamesstarters at quarterback, because you know,

(06:51):
in practice, you you know,like we talked about last week about you
know, the guys rushed the quarterback, and the quarterbacks aren't allowed to be
hit, and so they pull off. And so sometimes you think, oh,
that's just how the game goes,until you realize a guy's putting his
helmet in your chest as you're tryingto throw the ball. So you realize,
okay, they are actually going tohit me now. And two,

(07:15):
there's not as many consequences in practice. You know, you can have some
of those consequences in scrimmages, butyou don't get to have the consequences in
practice when you throw an interception,when you force a ball, because you're
going through the script of practice andyou've got to get certain plays repped and
done. In game, you throwthat interception, A, you're off the

(07:35):
field, you know, B theyget the ball on your eight yard line
or whatever it is and they scorea touchdown. Like it impacts everybody,
And so sometimes you have to havethe real life experience, You have to
have some of those growing pains tounderstand the value of those types of plays.
And they're the least sexiest plays fora quarterback. It is a tough

(07:58):
thing to do. One of thehardest a quarterback ever has to make is
throwing the ball away because you thinkcompetitively, there's always a throw that I
can make. But quite frankly,the most competitive play a lot of times
you can make is throwing that awaywhen you're competing for your team and the
impact that it has for your teamand earning the right to punt and let

(08:20):
your defense go play defense and thingsof that nature. So it's a it's
a big challenge. It's a bigchallenge to coach, it's a big challenge
for the player to understand the valuein that. And like I said,
I think sometimes you you have tohave real life experience to to understand the
significance of that play and the consequenceof that play when when you make it.
And so hopefully, like I said, I think that that he learns

(08:43):
from that, uh And and wedon't, you know, the sign of
a really good player is that theydon't make the same mistakes twice and that
they learn from those things. AndI think, you know, Malik's a
very conscientious young man, and uh, I think that he'll definitely learn from
that. Kind of along those lines, Quinn was doing a really good job
of utilizing his legs three or fourtimes a game. How much what's the

(09:05):
difficulty in trying to get Malik todo those same things as he tries to
get comfortable in the system and makethe throws that you want him to make.
I think every quarterback's different, youknow, everybody's skill sets different.
You know, Malik's skill set isdifferent than than Quinn's, which is different
than arches. You know, everybody'sdifferent. And what we try to do
is have quarterbacks play to their strengths, and we try to call plays accordingly

(09:28):
to their strengths, especially early on. And so you know, I don't
know if there's been a lot ofquite frankly, a lot of opportunities to
where where Malik could have used hislegs necessarily. You know, I look
at you know, the two interceptions. You know, he's trying to hit
Johntay on a deep ball, heslips coming out of his break and he

(09:50):
floats the ball a little bit,it gets intercepted. The other one's on
a screen. So neither of thosetwo was it an opportunity to run.
And then some of the other areasthat he had. I think more than
anything for Molik in the game wasstepping up in the pocket and not drifting
in the pocket. And drifting backin the pocket and stepping up and remaining
accurate. He's a fantastic passer ofthe ball. He's got great accuracy,

(10:15):
and so when he gets inaccurate attimes, we go right back to his
feet and I think he would tellyou the same thing, making sure his
feet are right. So, likeI said, everybody's a little bit different
in their in their skill set andtheir strengths, and like we just try
to get them to play to theirstrengths and then work on those other things
while we're while we're trying to buildmomentum as a player coach, I was

(10:37):
signed with one of your lineman afterthe game about Jb' stousand yard season last
year, Bjon Rochewn got the deservedattention. How much do you feel the
O line were overlooked in that anddo you think that was a source of
motivation for him this year? Imean they they aren't overlooked for us.

(10:58):
You know that's and I don't meanto offend you guys. I don't pay
much attention to what you guys writeabout. You know. I try to
focus on what we can control andwhat we do. But you know,
they were a young unit last year. And you know, anytime you start
too true freshmen on your offensive line, there's gonna be some growing pains.
But naturally, when you have tworunners run the way that that those two

(11:20):
guys ran, granted, very talentedand then then move on to the NFL,
clearly we had to be doing somethings right around them, right.
We had to have some decent schemesand we had to been blocking people pretty
well to give them those opportunities.And so I do think for our offensive
line coming back this year with thewith the wealth of experience that we had,

(11:41):
those guys have really grown together andand they've taken on some real personality
on the team, and I thinkthey've got a great deal of confidence in
blocking and and then think they haveconfidence in the runners behind them and JB
most notably that that he could takeadvantage of that. And so I do
I do think they take a lotof pride in that we challenged them.

(12:03):
You know, we challenged them,uh this week going into this ball game
against Kansas State, and then theydefinitely responded. You know, we ran
the ball extremely well, we didn'tgive up any sacks. Uh. So
they they had a heck of agame that way, and I think that
that's what they're capable of. Steve, you open the year talking about this
team's versatility and you stayed consistent withthat message all the way through. Just

(12:24):
two part Question one, At whatpoint leading up to the year did you
identify you know, this team is, as you said, really versatile,
and b how does this team versatilitycompare maybe previous teams you've coached in the
past. Yeah, you know,I definitely felt it going into training camp.
You have a you have a feelfor your team. I think coming
out of uh spring practice, Okay, I have an idea. You know,

(12:46):
you don't have your full allotment ofplayers, and you might have some
guys coming off of injury, butstart to get a little bit of a
feel. And then when you getsummer. Now the way summer works where
we get to work with our guyson you know, position specific functional training
and you start to say, okay, I really see what coach Beckton has
done with with posit player A playerB and his speed or his his you

(13:09):
know, his growth and where he'sat. And you start kind of putting
the pieces to the puzzle together andyou add, you know, a couple
of transfers. All of a sudden, Ryan Samborne shows up and you know,
he's like, okay, you seehim punt and you're like, all
right, we have a real punter. Okay we have Now our kickers aren't
both freshmen anymore. They have someexperience. And you start, just like

(13:31):
I said, put the pieces tothe puzzle together. You add a catalog.
You you start to add some pieces, and you're like, we're gonna
be pretty good. Okay, Nowwe got a lot of work to do
in training camp, and I thinkwe're gonna defend the run well. I
think we can run the ball prettygood. We're bringing him back in an
entire offensive line. Jonathan was comingback. You know, Cedric had just

(13:52):
you know, been here through springas a true freshman. Like I said,
Ad showed up, and now ofa sudden, there's Ad Xavier the
true freshman receivers up. So itall started to add up to me.
And so when when I went intofall camp, I was like, I
think this is who we are.Now, Let's see if it can really
come to fruition as we start goingthrough training camp. And it showed.
And so that that part to mehas been something that not only do I

(14:16):
want to tell you guys that Iwanted to make sure our team knew that
that that they felt confident that theycould play any style of football that was
needed on any given Saturday, andthat we could win we could win games,
and that we could win games avariety of ways. And uh,
and it's still that confidence of themthat they should feel confident that we can
play pretty much any way we wantto play that's needed anywhere in whatever conditions

(14:39):
that that are needed. And so, uh, I've been proud of the
guys that they've responded to that.And uh, you know, I think
we're gonna need that. We're gonnaneed that here over the next month of
the season. That we're gonna needall of our team to play well.
Uh, to to continue on theon the kind of quest that we're on.
I missed the second part of yourquestion. I paulgized, Yeah,

(15:01):
you know, that's always difficult onthat stuff. I do think that we
have depth that is comparable, andthat's something to me that has shown up
incredibly for us this season. IMean, I know we're making a lot
about Malik. We just went andbeat a top twenty five team that's the
number one defense in our conference andhad almost five hundred yards offense and scored

(15:22):
thirty three points with our backup quarterback, with our backup right tackle in the
game when our starting left tackle wentout and we had to move our starting
left guard left tackle. So justlook at that from that perspective and think
about some of the stuff we've hadto go through defensively. You know,
we didn't have two safeties last gamewith Catalan and Crawford out. You know,
Ethan Burk's coming back off an injury. You know John a was down

(15:45):
there for a minute. Ryan Wattswas out for a minute. But we
have enough depth on our team toput guys in position and they can play
you know, good football for usto overcome, so that versatility. To
compare to other teams, I don'tknow. But one thing I can't compare
it to is that we have depthsimilar to some of those other teams to
where when guys go out, thenext guy in is more than capable of

(16:07):
performing at a high level. Whatyou mentioned the run defense, which has
been special this year. When you'rebuilding what you hope is an elite run
defense, is it the body type, is it, mindset? Is it
scheme. What are the non negotiablesto putting together an elite run defense.
I think you nail them all,you know. I think that part of
that starts with recruiting, right.I haven't waivered off that since I got

(16:33):
here. You know, I talkedabout big humans from day one, and
the fact that you know, Ithink you win football games up front and
when when you're really good on theoffense and defensive lines, you have a
chance in every game that you gointo because you have the ability to run
the ball, uh and you havethe ability to stop the run and then
ultimately affect the quarterback on the otherside. So that that's the first part.

(16:56):
We've tried to recruit it well.But we've also tried to develop really
well at at those two positions.And I know a lot is made of
you know, whether it's been youknow, Kelvin Banks of the world or
the DJ Campbell's of the world.I don't think sometimes we give enough credit
to the Christian Jones of the world, or the Jake Majors of the world,
or the Tremandre Sweats of the worldfor their development in our program,

(17:18):
because they're different players today than theywere a year ago or most notably two
years ago, that they've really developedin the program, not only from a
strength and conditioning standpoint. I thinktheir maturity is showing through and and I
think their coachability, and I thinkwe hire two great defensive, you know,
front coaches, whether it's p Kand Bo Davis or Kyle Flood on

(17:41):
the offensive side of the ball.We invested in those coaching hires, and
I think they're paying paying dividends forus. And then ultimately their scheme involved.
So I think there's to your point, there's a lot of levels to
that. But I say all thetime, like you know, plays work
a lot better when when the betterthe players run them. And so if
you want to stop the run oryou want to run the ball, it's

(18:03):
always good to have really good playersto do that. And so I think
that recruitings at the forefront of that. But then there's player development in their
scheme that that follows that coach withQuinn now kind of getting back at least
some reps, how do you strikethe balance of of giving him enough reps
and working him back, And thenhere you have Maliki's still trying to build
him up and rep him up welland in arch too right, and so

(18:26):
there there is it's it's a balancingact, you know, and we try
to be really mindful of a It'sone to look at how many reps B
what are what plays are they reppingright and so that they're getting quality opportunities
to develop their own skill set andsee who are they repping those plays with

(18:47):
right, And so there there isa there's a balancing act to all of
that. Myself, Coach millwe tryto try to do our best to to
manage that and then monitor it inpractice. You know, if I feel
like I needs another rep of something, we put them back in to get
a rep of something. So butthat's you know, it's never easy,
I guess. But but we're,like I said, we're fortunate that we

(19:10):
have, you know, three reallygood players at that position that need to
all continue to develop and get healthyand do those things to so when they
get in they can play with withthe utmost confidence. And Steve on that
will Howard fumble a fairly sizable playin that game. How disappointed were you
that it wasn't automatically reviewed and youhad to use the time out and the

(19:33):
lack of disparity on the holding calls. I gets your opponents, well,
I was, you know, probablyvisibly frustrated at that moment. In the
end, I got the time outback that they did ultimately review the play
and that you know, looking atit from their vanish point, I could
see maybe where they couldn't see theball. It was kind of hidden in

(19:57):
there, and Jalen Ford did aheck a job of recovering that fumble.
It sure seemed like a relatively obviousplay to review when you're talking about a
potential change of possession. But againthat that's why from my perspective as a
coach, they give us the abilityto challenge and to use timeouts to to

(20:18):
ensure that. And so you justtry to use the the tools that are
given to you to navigate your waythrough those things. You know, as
far as what's called and what's not, you know, a couple of things.
I know this, in my opinion, we have the two most dominant
defensive interior alignment in the country andif not the country, in our conference.

(20:38):
And I'm not sure if they've gottena holding penalty called on either of
them yet this year. So I'mnot sure how that adds up. But
I just got to keep getting thoseguys to play hard and be committed to
trying and affect the game, therun game, the pass game that way,
and the same when we throw thefootball. I mean, I love
when I line up and I seeone in five out there together. I

(20:59):
know they're album for our opponents,and so I recognize people are going to
do things to try to minimize theireffectiveness to the game, and we're going
to take advantage of those opportunities whenthey're there. If things get called,
they get called. If they don't, we just don't have a lot of
time to complain about it. We'vegot to go on to the next play,
and the moment we start getting caughtup in that, then it's going

(21:22):
to start to affect their play andour play to call the things necessary.
So you know, it just theway it goes. And I've said this
all along, like we need tofocus on what we need to do and
not get caught up and what's gettingcalled and what's not. I don't necessarily
complain, but what I do whatI do do every week is I send
in plays that that I think thereshould have been a call or could this

(21:45):
have been called or why wasn't thiscalled? And they give us information back
and then we try to coach offof that, and I do think there's
a lot of tools in that tokind of teach our players how to effectively
not get held or not get youknow, pass interference or potential path so
that they can play to the bestof their ability and how to avoid those

(22:07):
things and so. But but Ido send things in because I want to
learn too. I don't want tobe the guy on the sidelines that's just
complaining to complain when clearly it isor isn't a foul. But sometimes things
come back and they do agree withme, and then I just I'm just
hopeful if that same situation gets presentedin the future that that that call goes
our way. Right. So youtalk a lot about every coach communication and

(22:33):
kind of those little things, andthen the game comes down to one play.
There's a great shot from behind RyanWatts where he gives a little nod
clearly there's some communication and then hecovers up senate probably the first option.
Just the whole idea of everything kindof on one play for the game.
Yeah, coming through there was sothere was really two plays. First of
all, I think that was asack, but I don't know turn that

(22:56):
one in. I think he wasdown on that play, but well,
you never know. I thought ofmy him in a sack. So there
was another play earlier. I wantto go back to the fumble on the
sack fumble where I talk a lotand hear about tying together tight coverage with
pass rush. And on that firstsack fumble, you know, Howard goes

(23:18):
to make a pretty quick throw tokind of a short hook area and John
a does a really good job ofgetting underneath that throw and it forces Howard
to pull the ball down and resethis feet, and then Ethan Burt comes
in and strip fumble. So itwas tying those two together on that play
on the last play of the game. It was, first of all,
really good disguised by Ryan Watts,because if his alignment, his stance,

(23:42):
his body language, his demeanor lookslike he's playing man coverage on the receiver.
But then there was that subtle communicationwith Jaron Thompson about if he goes
inside, he's yours. I'm gonnatake the first man out, and the
same thing kind of happens. Howardraised is up to throw to the tight
end, and there's Ryan Watts nowsitting there taking the tight end away.

(24:06):
He's got to double clutch the ball. Murphy has a great rush, Here
comes Sourrell. He's on the ground, and the game's over. So it's
tying, you know, playing teamdefense is tying it all together. Providing
a really good pass rush again meansplaying really good in coverage, and so
those two things working on the sameaccord. Uh That's that's how the pass

(24:26):
rush comes to life. That's howtight coverage comes to life, those two
things working together. Steve, canyou give us an injury update on on
Banks and Catalan And whereas arch Manningmade the most progress? You know you

(24:47):
see him in practice every day.Well, I'd say this. I think
the thing that was probably the mostencouraging thing for me today everybody practiced.
That was awesome. We we've goneabout a month now or so where certain
guys have been out, certain guyshave been limited. The beauty of today's
practice everybody was out there. Catalamawas back out there, Crawford was out

(25:10):
there, Kelvin was out there,Christian Jones was out there. Uh So
that was real positive. Naturally,As the week goes on, we're gonna
have to monitor all these guys andand figure out, you know, who
can really contribute to the game andthen how much and what is that gonna
look like. But for a Monday, for them all to be out there

(25:30):
today was really really encouraging for me, you know, for me with Arch,
you know, I'm learning more andmore and more about his skill set.
And Uh, one thing that I'vebeen, you know, really impressed
with him is you know, hisconviction and ability to throw the ball down
the field with with a great dealof accuracy, which sometimes it's hard to

(25:56):
tell in high school, especially whenthey're not the style of offense that that
we are. They have some someaspects of it. But what I've learned
over the last couple of weeks,especially last week, is he can make
a lot of throws down the fieldand do it in a way that that
that guys are very comfortable making thoseplays down the field, So that that's

(26:18):
a real positive. And then Ithink the second part about his game that
that I'm really encouraged about is heis very athletic, and Arch is extremely
athletic. He's a strong, powerfulguy. Uh, he's got good speed
about him, so his his gamegives a little different versatility and twist to
his style of play. Right,I think you talked about your dominant defensive

(26:42):
line. Have you had for anothercomparison question, have you had defensive tackles
as good as tov Andre and Byron? And then kind of as a quarterback,
how tough is it to play whenyou have interior pressure like that?
Yeah, you know, I hada good one when I was at SC
that was I should say I hada couple at Washington too. The guy
that's probably most like Byron when Iwas at Washington was a young man by

(27:03):
the name of Danny Shelton who's areally good player, big physical, kind
of nose tackle body type. Andthen when I was at USC, we
had Leonard Williams and and Leonard waswas probably not as big as Sweat,
but had the ability to get onan edge and play really well against the
run. And you know, anytimedefensive tackles have multiple tackles in a game,

(27:27):
that's saying something, you know,because a lot of times they're taking
on double teams, a lot oftimes they're eating up blockers for linebackers.
But when defensive tackles come out ofgames with four or five, six,
seven tackles. Those are impactful plays. And Leonard used to do that.
I mean he used to get alot of tackles. And so the amount
of tackles that Sweat makes in agame is really really impressive. His ability

(27:51):
to finish on the ball carrier wherewhere a lot of times you just don't
see that number from defensive tackles.So that that part has been been definitely
impressive to your pressure for oh,for a quarterback, that's difficult because naturally
as coaches, what do we youheard me talk about it with Malik here
earlier. What are we trying totell quarterbacks to do? Step up in
the pocket? Right when you goforward, your eyes are up, your

(28:12):
vision's up right, which we're tryingto create a safe space for you in
that pocket. Well, when youcan push the pocket internally and then collapse
it right kind of from from thesides. When when nobody likes to throw
from a phone booth, right,nobody everybody likes to have space and and
things of that nature. So whenwhen you can collapse a pocket internally,

(28:36):
that's no quarterback likes that you can'tstep into your throw, you feel like
you need to kind of step backor drift in your pocket, and now
edge rushers are affecting you. Soto me, it's probably the most effective
pass rush is internally when you canreally build that cage and keep a quarterback
corral, but but squeeze it andmake it uncomfortable for him. Hey,

(29:00):
Steve, another road opponent that's woundedand can make their season against you.
What does TCU bring to the tableand what have you said to your guys
about keeping your eye on the prizeand what's going to be in a hostile
environment. Yeah, I mean,I think I think there's some levels to
this, you know, I'm one. I think we should get accustomed to.

(29:25):
That's just how it's gonna be whenwe go on the road and you
know, be shocked when they justwaiting for him to announce they have a
sellout Saturday night, you know,and that that's it'll be our tenth straight
sellout or whatever it's been that thatwe've played in this year, and that's
okay, Like we're comfortable in thatarena. I'm sure that they'll be all
fired up and you know, there'llbe a blackout and whatever else. I

(29:47):
mean, it's just I just kindof seems like a little bit of a
common theme. And that's okay too, right, that that's what we talked
about before the season started, thatwe you know, that's we're gonna get
everybody's best shot that way. Ido think it's critical that we have great
poise and composure in these environments whenwe go on the road, and it's
something that we've exuded, you know, kind of throughout the year. I

(30:08):
thought our poison composure at Alabama wastremendous. You know, thought the poise
and composure at Baylor was really good, especially early in that game at Houston
when the game was started getting uncomfortable, that we were able to regroup ourselves.
And so that that's always critical onthe road, is that a you

(30:29):
play really well together, we getwe don't get to bring as many people,
we only get to bring seventy players, so that we're tight together,
we've got great poise, great composure, and that we understand we're built for
for the arena, you know,we're built for the environment. And naturally
too, I think for our players. We didn't play very good against them
last year, you know, andyou turn that tape on they had a

(30:49):
really good football team like they dothis year. But man, we just
we didn't put our best foot forwarda year ago and we made some really
uncharacteristic errors that I think a lotof the guys in our team would like
to kind of you know, man, I want to I want to go
show him what I'm actually capable ofand the way that I can really play.
And so that's something that I knowthe guys are looking forward to as

(31:11):
well. Right Hey, coach XavierWorthy has received no shortage of targets over
the past two games, but nowthere has been the receptions what's kind of
been happening from what you've seen onfilm. But on the flip side,
you also talk about Ada n IMitchell and then what he's been meant to
the pass the game. Well,he hasn't gotten a pass interference called against
him either over the last two games, so that that's been that's been tough,

(31:33):
you know, and and you know, there's been some opportunities where he's
been open and we haven't quite madethe throw. But I think to Xavier's
credit, you know, he's he'srunning fast, he's playing hard, he's
impacted the game on special teams,dramatically on punt returns. The last two
weeks, He's played really good footballfor US this year, and I think
there is a lot of benefit knowinghe has a guy on the other side

(31:56):
that can impact the game as welland in Ad. So we're fortunate to
have two quality receivers that way thatcan change the game and can impact the
game at any given moment. Anduh, you know, I'm the Exavier
is not going to have his shortageof targets this week either, you know.
I mean, he's too talented ofa player. And Ad is going
to have his targets. And wegot to continue to find ways to incorporate

(32:19):
JT into the game as well asJonathan and CJ and and and still finding
ways to get you know, uh, you know Blue a carrier two in
there and and so so on andso forth. Like we we we've got
a lot of good players, butthose two guys when they're one on one,
we've got to try to find waysto create one on one matchups for
them and and see if they canthey can make some places for US.

(32:43):
Coach. Just to follow up onAd and I Mitchell, I know he
had a career high in reception yardsand he came into this year wanting to
be more than a deep threat.In what ways have you seen him grow
as a wide receiver while being hereat Texas? Yeah, I think something
that you know, again, I'dlike to credit, you know, Chris
Jackson for this. You know,he's done a great job of working with
him on a daily basis. Right, there's a level to details at the

(33:07):
receiver position that are vitally important torapport with the quarterback, understanding why you're
at certain spots at certain times.And I think the two things I've seen
the most out of a d herenow, especially over the last month or
so, has been a the detailsof his route running and being where he's

(33:27):
supposed to be. And it's notjust about the deep balls. It's catching
crossing routes and slant routes and stoproutes and creating explosive plays. But two,
he's been he's become a really goodblocker, uh, And he's a
guy that has bought into the mentalityaround here of you know, we blocked
on the perimeter and a couple ofthe bigger runs that we've had over the
last few weeks have been because ofblocks that he's made on safeties or corners

(33:52):
that have that have sprung long runs. And so I do think that that
all stems from a level of maturity. I think he's really assured in his
time here in his approach to practiceand his approach to preparation, And like
I said, I credit coach Jacksona lot with that. You know,
he's done a great job working withhim.
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