Just got back from media roundtable. Here is what Coach Wilson had to say about the North Texas Game and Rice. (apologies for not doing this the last two weeks. My other gig got hectic on Mondays, which explains the pasting of transcripts).
Frank Wilson
Frank Wilson
- The mood yesterday was as good as could be. Everyone searching for answers with the responsibility and onus starting with me and the assistant coaches to give them the answers they're seeking. They want to do good and they want to play well. It's an extremely good group of young men who work hard. We had a very productive practice on Sunday.
- Thought we did some good things. We had possession for 10 minutes in the second quarter after only running eight plays in the first quarter. It's hard to do much on only eight plays.
- Thought defense on first and second down (first two plays) of last drive were solid. They throw a ball up on a cross country route and there's a little contact there that you'd like to be called but wasn't. So you have to fight through it and play through it. Then they come back and score where we have a guy trailing him, a mike underneath him, a corner and safety to vice tackle it and he gets around both of them.
- We'll get them better. Evidently we haven't put them in those situations enough that allowed them to make that play. We continue to speak the truth to them and to nurture them to grow into the best players that they can be.
- I think there was contact (on the long pass) but it wasn't called. We had a guy there that was in position to pick it. It wasn't unexpected it wasn't a surprise. We lost containment on it so it gave the quarterback a little extra time to throw it.
- (After Routsas punts to pin them at their own two) I was thinking just get a stop. There's a lot of time left but it's difficult with no timeouts left, then you pop off a 49 or 50 yard (pass) and that makes a world of a difference. It put them in position.
- No second guessing on the defensive aggressiveness. He's a pretty accurate quarterback and you have to apply pressure to him. You can sit back if you want and he will pick you apart. It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the secondary to cover that long. So we applied pressure and we still have a corner that's going with him and a backer that bluffs and drops underneath it. It goes a whisker by his hand.
- Would have still put our guys in the position that they were in (on NT final drive) to make the play and be hopeful we make that play that we didn't make.
- I don't know if missed (OPI) call got in the players heads. We just didn't execute. You try to put them in position to make the plays. I don't want to have excuses. We just have to make the play.
- We all share in the hurt (from these last two weeks). A lot goes into those 60 minutes. A lot of hours of preparation go into it. What do you do. You go on to the next one. We don't sit and wallow around in sorrow or self pity. We get ready for the next game which is Rice. We look forward to being back in the Alamodome.
- No regrets on final (offensive drive) play calls. I like what we do. I wouldn't change what we did I would just change the execution. I would execute it better.
- Rice returns their entire offensive line. They have a left tackle thats a really good player. They have a little rotation at quarterback at times but I think they've settled on their guy. You look at them and they do a multiple of motions and shifts to set up their sweep or perimeter run. They have two good receivers, one they like to go down field with and the other they like to find underneath and on sweeps. Offensively they'll do some things, their not a risky team but a lot of things that make you think and to try and make your defense not as aggressive.
- Defensively No. 44 (DE Brian Womack) is a really good player. He made some significant stops against us last season. Their front four is really good. Their linebacker (Ellerbee) is top in the conference in tackles. Safeties are good against the run and the corners have good length.
- They have a very good special teams and are a very disciplined football team. They're a run oriented team but they will take shots down field if the opportunity presents itself.
- Rice has played some good teams, Stanford, Pitt, Houston and Army. They played them well. You look at their conference play they were competitive with FIU and they beat UTEP by a large margin. Within conference they've played well.
- We have to control the things that we can. We have six (games) on our schedule starting with this one. We control it. We need to try to get this one, check that box, get one in the win column in Conference USA west.
- Marcus Davenport played dominant. Thought he applied pressure. He played well. He's good at his craft. He's really embraced the coaching of Bo Davis and taken his game to another level.
- We were fortunate that Stefan Beard was there to recover the fumble on the helmet to helmet hit (of Sturm) at the goal line.
- The way targeting is defined I thought that hit (on Dalton) was very descriptive of that. They reviewed it, I asked them to review it and they did. They told me it was not targeting.
