Rich Rodriguez Texas Tech postgame

Coach, just reactions, I know you felt you had that one in your grasp, just couldn't quite finish it. Yeah, you've got to play better, coach better to win. I mean, the defense was gross. First half, I mean, it's just, you know, gross. And they played better in the second half, but we didn't play the deep ball and probably need to work on it more in practice, in my opinion, but that's pretty obvious. But you can't stop. them, you know Castellanos played a heck of a game, but we sure helped. It was ridiculous. Our defense was just ridiculous. And then offensively, we had moved the ball pretty well, but when we needed to at the end, we just didn't coach it well and didn't play it well. That third and short one yard at that point, get a first down and probably control the whole thing. Just they stopped it, what did they do in that instance? Midway through the fourth quarter. Yeah. Yeah, they stopped it. I thought about going for it. Probably should have. In hindsight, I probably went for it in fourth down. Would have had that third down call back. Probably would have went for it on fourth down, but, you know, our defense was playing a little better in the second half. We wanted to have them drive the long field to get a touchdown, and, you know, they did. And so I'd like to have that call back. Defense did play considerably better throughout much of the second half. Did you see anything that they did well? Can't play much worse. I mean, like, they were going against Aaron in the first half. I mean, it was just ridiculous. I mean, it's just ridiculous. Now, I don't know. I mean, I got to see our plan, what the calls were. There were some calls that I think that were new, and we screwed up, and one guy messes up. It's a touchdown, and it's kind of living dangerously when that's the case, but, you know. Martin gets a little more playing time today. Your running back. Who? Martin. Yeah, he's been playing. No, I mean, he has been. Felt like he had more of a bigger part of things tonight. How did you think he played? I mean, we got those two rolling. They're pretty regular. We were running the ball okay. Mike was running the ball pretty good, you know. I mean, offense, the same thing all year. You know, it felt like good. Every possession was pretty important because we weren't stopping them. But we were keeping pace, staying in the game. Had a good third quarter, but didn't follow up with it. So, not real happy right now, obviously. Rich, we talked about this before. The pressure on offense when you're having to keep pace in the shootout, how difficult is that? Yeah, I mean, it's ridiculous. I've never in all my years of coaching, I can't ever remember it being this way where, like, every possession was so critical in every game because... You can't stop them. I mean, it's just ridiculous. You know, it really is. It's ridiculous. How much does that impact your play calling? You talked about going on fourth down. Well, I mean, you got, you know, people say, well, why don't you slow the tempo down and give them some rest, and then all of a sudden you're not doing your thing and you can't keep up with them because you're not running the way you're supposed to run it, so that ain't the answer. You know, the answer is just play better defense. Play better defense, you got to play better defense. It's ridiculous, you know, and the offense has got to, you know, make better plays at the end of the game, but we got to play better defense, simple as that. Strategy right there at the end when they got the safety. I mean, you're pinned really deep. Just trying to get something to get out. What are you trying to do? What are you talking about? The safety that you, that Mike Hawkins took. Yeah, we got to do, yeah, we just got to get rid of the ball. I mean, we had a quick game on, and Mike's just, he's a competitive guy trying to make a play, But we just got to. They're pretty good up front, but in the quick game, we've got to get rid of it. I'll have to look at the film and see what happens. Other than continuing to look at your personnel, the things that you've talked about this year, is this your defense for this year? Can it get any better in the last three games? Yes, it's got to. Some of it's like a guy's in a position to make a play. Today, there was a lot of times where it looked like we had a guy there in a position to make a play. And a deep ball, and we didn't make a play, not one time did we get a pick. And then missed a few tackles in the open field, that was obvious there too. But to answer your question, I mean, we've been trying to figure it out, had an open date to try to get better with it. And they got a pretty good squad, you gotta give them credit. But it was just, I mean, you're not gonna win in games when you play that. Terrible defensively in the first half and to their credit our guys battled back a little bit, but I don't like their energy I didn't like their, their the demeanor on the sidelines in the first half or anything like that I thought the second half they you know Hit harder, played harder, you know, at least gave us a chance. And so they did respond in the second half, but it was too late by them. Teron Francis emerged today, his best performance. Have you seen him coming along in practice? Yeah, he's slowly learning. I'm starting. He's been working really hard in practice, and he's making the most of his opportunity. And Matt Sigg on the punt return. He hadn't had many opportunities to return one. Yeah, we hadn't had many times we made somebody punt. But that was a big play by him. I thought it was one of the biggest plays of the game right there. But, like I said, there's going to be a lot of angry watching film on the way home and tomorrow and then after tomorrow. I'm really pissed right now for a lot of reasons. But, you know, like I tell guys, after 24 hours I'll be over it. 24 hours is all we can do, but for 24 hours I'm going to be angry because we had an opportunity to win this game and we didn't make it happen. Okay, thank you very much.