UC LB Jonathan Thompson Utah Postgame

10 years you've been here. How do you keep guys to get their heads back up and kind of put this one behind you? Just staying positive, taking the positives from the negatives that we did in this game and learning from the negatives we did in the game. So just building, man. Amen. Encouraging the guys who stepped up big late in this game that don't play as much, who make plays. I feel like it's real big for us because it gave us confidence throughout our depth in the team and we just gotta be better, man. How disappointing is it to, you guys had the big win, they had a win, they come in number six, ESPN, all that stuff. And then how tough is it to go to the half 42-6? It's very disappointing because we look forward to opportunities like this to put our team on the map and to get ourselves ranked against team opponents like this. Going into the half. With a score like that, I feel like you can't really worry about the score too much. You just got to go play by play. And then with them doing that, you'll get stops, you'll get turnovers, things like that to change the game. But you just got to stay positive throughout the process or else it'll get worse. Throughout the week, did you feel that the entire team was as locked in as they were heading into Texas Tech? Yeah, for sure. I want to say we probably was more locked in and had a better practice within the days than we did in Texas Tech. And I just think today we made some minor mistakes that we usually don't make as a defense. And I feel that we just got to fit the ball better. We got to tackle better. We got to play our jobs better because we had some misfits. Just things we usually don't do as a defense, and we've got to learn from that, watch film, and just deal. Was it just more sound tackling in the second half? Was that the biggest difference in why you guys had so much more success against stopping their offense? Yeah, and I want to say it was us closing scenes, because in the first half, I feel like it wasn't even missed tackles on some of their big runs and touchdowns. It was just wide open holes where the running back had just hit it, and before the first person makes contact, he's already 30 yards down the field. So I think it's just us doing our job better, fitting the scheme better. I wouldn't say we wasn't ready to start the game off, but we were definitely more ready coming out half of going against the things they do as offense. How hard is it? I think I saw at one point, Dampier fake the handoff. Faked a toss on like an option, then dropped back to pass, and then took off and run. Like, as a linebacker, how difficult is it when they're giving you that many things to process in five seconds? It's crazy because it's a lot of eye candy. But with the defensive plays we've learned today, It's really just doing your job on that certain side of the ball, whether I'm to the boundary or whether I'm to the field. Just fitting whoever comes out for our option, whoever comes out for a split for a route. I wanna say it's just doing your job within the scheme, because the plays we had going against this team, it was supposed to be perfect fit for fit-wise. No matter if they ran zone to the field and ran triple option to the boundary in the same play, we still have fitters to be there for the front side and the back side. So I just think it comes back to us doing our job with this team.