Here’s everything TCU’s Gary Patterson said following loss at Oklahoma
TCU coach Gary Patterson had plenty of thoughts after a 28-24 loss to Oklahoma on Saturday. Here’s a transcript of what he said —
Opening statement: “Our group has to learn, and I told them before the ball game, they didn’t know they could play with Oklahoma. And after a quarter, then they figured out that they could. That’s what TCU is — it’s a group that can play with anybody. We’ve always been able to do that. We’re a young football team and we’re going to keep getting better. But the bottom line to it is: you can’t spot a team like that 21 points and win a ball game. Simple as that.”
On changes after getting into 21-0 hole: “Defensively, we tackled. They kept asking me on the TV copyist, ‘Well, what adjustments did you make?’ Uh, we tackled. How about that? Hey, how about we tackle? Because we ran by him [OU quarterback Jalen Hurts] even in the second half he ran by us. Just tackle.”
On third-and-1 call: “On the TV version it was [short]. I’ll be honest with you. I think it was a poor decision on their part because I didn’t think he got past the 41-yard line. But I’ve been in two big ball games, against Baylor and these guys, with really questionable situations at the end.”
On refs sticking with call on field: “I don’t know. I think you stick with the right one. I mean, the call my guy [TCU QB Max Duggan] had at the 3-yard line two weeks ago [against Baylor], and you couldn’t tell that he was out or not. You have to have indisputable proof, right? I mean, that wasn’t the difference in the ball game, so I mean its not something to ...”
On defensive effort: “Who said I wasn’t pleased? We just played a team 28-24. I mean, our offense got 200 yards, and we almost beat them 28-24. They’re in their house, senior night, playing for to play in the playoffs, everything going for them. I’m not displeased. We just didn’t tackle very well early. And, to be honest with you, we didn’t tackle very well late.”
On the number of freshmen playing D: “We’ll see next year. Right now, we need to win one more ball game. We got a West Virginia team, and we’ve got a late night tonight, then, we’ve got to play on a Friday. We need to regroup. We need to get ready to go. I mean, it’s that simple. We need to get to six wins to get to bowl eligibility, and that’s what we’re trying to get accomplished. We knew that coming into this ballgame. That probably the hardest one of the two was probably winning this one. But West Virginia — they’ve played everybody tough. They beat Kansas State on the road. They played tough against Oklahoma State. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
On freshman safety Nook Bradford, who stripped Hurts late in the game: “Good and bad. He made some good plays and he made some bad plays. He’s one of those guys I’m talking about that didn’t tackle in the middle of the field.”
On senior safety Vernon Scott, who had a 98-yard pick six: “I don’t know if I can talk about his career, but I’m screaming at him, ‘They’re gonna run the, we call it the retrace route, where they’re gonna come out and push in.’ So if I’m telling him what route they’re gonna run, hopefully he would’ve done what he did.”
On Oklahoma: “You’ve gotta give Oklahoma credit. They’re a good football team, but I was very proud of our team. Offensively, what I told them in the locker room is, when you play a team like this that turns up the knob up on defense, if you wanna be a great offense, you gotta turn the knob up. Simple as that. I think our quarterback does that and he’s just a freshman. They need to start following him.”
On playing in front of OU’s home crowd: “The bottom line is — TCU, 22 years ago, this would be a moral victory. We didn’t come here to play well. We came here to win. That’s where we are as a program. We may be 5-6 right now, but that makes no difference to me. The bottom line is we came here to win. We’ve lost now, out of the six losses, five of them have a touchdown or less, so we just gotta keep playing.”
On Jalen Hurts: “He was the one that made us miss most of the time. He showed up. Everything that I saw on video he was. We recruited him out of high school. [OU running back Kennedy] Brooks is from Mansfield. I mean, we’ve seen these guys. All of those guys who are out there, most of them have been in my office.
On Hurts’ first year in Big 12: “I was surprised by the coverage we were playing that they didn’t try to throw the ball in the air a little bit more, later on in the second half. We kind of stole an idea from Baylor, being a three-man front. We tweaked it to our liking and it helped us at the middle of the second quarter and on through the ballgame.”
On limiting CeeDee Lamb: “They just didn’t target him. I don’t know why. They kind of go into the ballgame where I think we gave them some stuff they weren’t ready for, that we hadn’t shown, so they just stayed with the ground game as a general rule.”
On TCU punter Jordy Sandy: “He was pretty good. I thought both punters actually punted the ball really well, theirs and ours.”
On if TCU confused Hurts with the three-man front: “I don’t know. I just wanted to get a different leverage. I watched Baylor give him a lot of trouble with the defense. We put it in during two-a-days for this ballgame because the last couple of years, they’ve gone out to me in the four-man front. So I wanted to get into something that would give us a better chance of having more speed on the field and different leverages. And it helped us.”
On 200 yards of offense: “You’ve got to score one more point. You’re playing Oklahoma. It’s not like you’re playing where you’re going to say, ‘I’ve got to score 50 points so I’m going to be happy.’ I would’ve taken one more than whatever they scored. That’s what you wanted to come in here, they’re the ninth-best team in the nation right now. I’m glad you guys all think I should’ve scored 50, but we’re not ready for that with a freshman quarterback.”
On more drops by receivers: “We’ve got to play. Again, that’s what I said at the beginning of this conversation. When you play at somebody else’s house against a good football team, when they turn up the dial, the intensity, you have to. We’ve been in games like that. Against Utah in 2009, 2010. The Rose Bowl. This program is not unused to being able to step up in big ballgames.
“Now this freshmen group? They’re not quite ready for it. But they all need to get to where they need to understand what they need to do. When they do that, then they become.
“Our whole thing was, Jeff [Gladney] was out the first half, so we won the toss and I chose to get the ball to give them one less possession in the first half and that didn’t work real well. They got one less possession, but they stayed on our side of the 50 for it seemed like two days. Like I told them, there was no reason for them to hang their heads. For three quarters, they fought their tails off and you can’t spot an Oklahoma 21 points. It’s simple. Can’t spot somebody 21 points, but to play somebody like this and win, you have to get takeaways, we were able to get takeaways. And we needed a couple more plays on offense. Simple. A couple of those deep balls that we were open, we’ve got to complete them because [Jalen] Reagor was open. You’ve got to complete them. You make one of those, this game changes.”
On Hurts vulnerable to fumble: “Well, he’d done that a couple times in ballgames. Now we didn’t go into the ballgame saying, ‘Well, you can strip it on him.’ But I think Trevon Moehrig had a big hit on him or the running back that caused a fumble, and then Nook [Bradford] made a great play. I don’t even know how he did that the last one. Holy smokes.”
On fellow safety Ar’Darius Washington on mission to strip the ball: “That’s the whole defense’s job is to take the ball away from them. I hope.”
