Head Football Coach Mike Leach Quotes
October 02, 2000 | Football
Oct. 2, 2000
LUBBOCK, Texas - On the team's play against Texas A&M
"As much as I really hate to say it, we really had a lot of positive things in that game. We played really hard. I've been with a lot of teams and a lot of places. You might win and not play particularly hard. You might lose and then start looking for the locker room before the game is over. Nobody out there looked for the locker room. I was really proud of them for that. We made some bonehead plays I wish we hadn't made. It's right there to win in the fourth quarter, and it's just a whisker away."
"This game was closer than the score for anybody that watched it. It's just a whisker away. As we get older, more experienced and a few more games under our belt, I think we win this type of game. Right now we just made too many mistakes, and that's what caught up with us ultimately in the end."
"We played hard. Several positions had their best game against A&M. I thought Kliff [Kingsbury] played really well, but we came up short. I can't ask a lot more out of them, but we made a whole lot of dumb, undisciplined things, just stupid, that ultimately hurt us. You have to get to the point you don't do any dumb things, or any lack of execution things. You have to combine effort with intelligence and execution, so we're halfway there."
On freshman playing at Texas A&M
"I thought they did a pretty good as far as pulling together. The one thing is, that's a hostile place to go but I didn't feel like we had anyone who was intimidated. As far as effort and tempo, it didn't take us a quarter to warm up. We were firing bullets right away. Now they weren't always hitting what we were aiming at, but we were swinging away pretty well from the beginning."
On special teams this week at practice
"We can't get punts blocked and some of the other penalties that went along with that. We'll address all that. We'll do it the same way. It's just a matter of emphasis and addressing the problems we have. Several problems were exposed in the game."
On offensive line play after the changes
"I thought Toby Cecil did really well. Not all of it was just a matter of, `Hey, we're just going to stir the pot here.' Injuries stirred the pot for us. Some of it was pretty clear-cut process of elimination."
On overlooking Baylor
"It always crosses your mind no matter who you're playing or when you're playing or just as the season goes on, which is why we really emphasize, `Play one game a week, Win one game a week.' This year in particular illustrates that. I don't know if this is a new trend, the way college football is headed, or if every year is going to be like this from here on out, or if this is just a funny year. But anybody on any given day, they always say that. There is some great school in this country that for years have been telling players, `Well, anybody on any given day.' Son of a gun, a bunch of them have had any given day lately. I really believe that, and emphasize that each week. The biggest thing is to keep their focus zeroed it. I think that a challenge no matter who you play and how it goes or what happens. You're constantly afraid of it, but constantly addressing it, I hope."
On looking forward to Nebraska
I don't think they will. Any reinforcement they can get, and certainly from outside, would help, I think."
On improving the running game
"We need to block better and run better and go to the hole better. It's just all the same things. This guy has to move this guy further. This guy has to run right to the hole, and make all that stuff happen as fast as you can."
On looking at Shaud Williams more as the feature back
"We're going to take a look at him. It doesn't really change much we've been doing in practice. It's just kind of how we spread out the reps. I thought he did some good things in the game and we'll see how he does, split up the reps and game time and things based on who's hot and who's going along pretty good."
"As we go through our game plan, we'll try to put a guy in on something we think he does pretty well, specifically. Like if we're running a corner route, oh, this guy's great at that, or we're running the dive where we fold, this guy's really good at that. But outside of that, we roll them in. We're at the point we need to, because Ricky [Williams has] gotten banged up at some points during the year, and for depth purposes alone, we need to develop some people."
On getting over the tough loss at Texas A&M
"You better do it pretty fast. It's funny. You remember them the rest of your life, but you better get over it pretty quick so you're ready for the next one. The worst thing you can do is pout about it very long because there is business at hand right away. You better get over it and you better make sure your players get over it, too."
On Baylor playing South Florida two weeks ago
"They played a team that threw it a bunch, so some of the problems they have to address against us they needed to address against South Florida. I imagine it will probably help them a little bit. If they played, say, three straight option teams, they'd be pretty good at the option. They'd have to make a one-week adjustment to throwing the ball. It probably helped them a little bit, probably smart scheduling."
On the crossing routes used against Texas A&M
"Really it's just a way to attack the middle and tangle as many people up as possible. What you're looking for is if the middle is open, how do you attack it? Mix up who comes across, keep them off-balance and keep them confused. Throw good balls and make good catches and hopefully it works out."
On contending with the noise on the road
"I think we did pretty good on that. I think for the most part, noise is overrated. It probably contributed to some of the delays and the false starts. Outside of that, I don't think it's a gigantic factor. You hear about all of these noisy stadiums, Florida's like this and LSU's like that and A&M's like this. All of those players out there are a little tougher to contend with than the noise, and A&M's players were pretty tough this last week."
On Baylor
"I think they coach hard, they play pretty hard. They spread it out a little bit on offense. Defensively, they'll come at you. They'll test you. We need to make good decisions and react to it."