Colt McCoy – Quarterback for the Texas Longhorns

Here are some Colt McCoy excerpts from the Monday press conference:

On how he’s feeling in the pocket: Honestly, after I watched the film, I felt like the offensive line played great. As much blitzing as Nebraska was doing I thought they handled it really well. Nebraska just had an extra guy every time coming in and we just had to adjust. Once we could get Jamaal through the line, there was no one there.

On his thoughts of the fourth quarter: I think we just got a feel of what they were doing. I know it took a long time, but they were bringing someone every play. A couple of times I audibled there at the end and kind of got him through the line.

On Oklahoma State learning from Nebraska: I wouldn’t be surprised if they take a lot of lessons from the Nebraska game. We just have to be prepared. I know Oklahoma State is a lot more aggressive as far as what they have done this season. They have blitzed a lot more than Nebraska had coming into our game.

On Oklahoma State’s pass defense: I’ve watched them on film a little bit and I know that they’re really aggressive, they fly to the football, but I think they are a little vulnerable in some areas. We just have to be prepared.

On what he feels like the pluses are going into the Oklahoma State game: I feel like a big plus for us is the confidence of the offensive line and Jamaal (Charles) and Vondrell (McGee) being able to run the ball. I think that really helped them a lot and got them pumped up and that’s a big positive for us. I think we can build off of that.

On running the zone read: I’m sure we will continue to run that more. I think it worked effectively for us. I know last week we worked on it in practice and Coach Davis wanted to run it eight or 10 times a game to help out our play action pass and our offensive line because they’re really good at blocking the zone read, and Jamaal (Charles) is really good at seeing it.

On Stillwater: It’s a really tough place to play. It’s a lot like playing at Texas Tech except the fans are right behind our bench. Everywhere you go the fans are going to be loud, especially there because they added on.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may have noticed that the last couple of photos on this blog have featured Colt McCoy running instead of passing.

In the last three games he has rushed for 149 yards on 25 carries - almost 6 yards per tote.

The rush, whether planned or out of necessity (keeping him from getting clobbered), has been just the thing to lessen the pounding. Sure he still gets tackled after taking off on one of those runs, but frankly those hits look less severe than the ones he takes from the blitz - especially right after he's thrown the ball and is the most vulnerable.

You may also have noticed that he didn't have a TD pass for the first time since last year's Aggie game. That makes only the third game out of 22 he's played where he hasn't thrown for paydirt. The other, of course, was last season's Kansas State game when the injury on the QB sneak knocked him out of the game early.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

I was afraid the 'Horns would get the 'Huskers just as they figured out how to circle the wagons against all the adversity.

The 'Huskers brought a merciless blitz to Texas with them, and the Longhorns had no answer for it until the 4th quarter when Jamaal Charles made them pay. He finished with 291 yards, getting 215 of them in the final period to let Mack Brown get his 100th win, 28-25.

Colt McCoy was beat up most of the day - and with 13:05 left in the game he was hit and didn't get up for a while, missing one play.

Ironically, that's when the momentum switched to Burnt Orange. McCoy ran for 24 yards on his first play back in, and then Jamaal Charles scored on a quick-hitter.

That 'Husker blitz really bit Texas with 10 minutes left as Colt was clobbered again as he threw - resulting in a pick. No 'Husker points, but it stymied a promising drive and eventually led to UT with the ball on their own 2-yard line.

But with 7:33 left, Texas found the answer to the blitz, letting Jamaal Charles go around the end for 86 yards to paydirt. He just kept running after that, getting a total of 3 TDs in that final period.

The 'Horns' hope for another 10-game winning season is still alive. Whew!

Posted by Abilene Admin at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seven straight hours of football Saturday!

Someone's going to have to feed me intravaneously.

Colorado and Texas Tech kick off at 11 a.m. in Lubbock, followed immediately by Nebraska at Texas at 2:30 p.m. Both on ABC!

The TRUE die-hard Big 12 football fan could turn that into more than 10 hours of straight football by switching over to ESPN2 at 6 p.m. for the Kansas at Texas A&M game.

See the logos below for my predictions of the victors in those games.

ALSO: There is a Jim Vertuno story that will show up soon in "Colt in the News" about McCoy being the leading UT rusher for the last two games. (READ >>)

Posted by Abilene Admin at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are Monday's excerpts of Colt McCoy's comments on mackbrown-texasfootball.com

On what he is thinking on playing Nebraska: We haven't really got into all of our game plan stuff. I watched a couple of games. I watched a little bit of the A&M game and it seems like they were consistent in running the football. I think for us, we just haven't been consistent in running the football.

On if he has 35 carries in him: [laughing] Well I was tired after the game on Saturday. That was what was there. They were giving that to us a little bit and I just tried to do what was best for the team and keep the chains moving.

On if he is still looking to pass first: Sometimes the pocket breaks. I saw a few holes and I made a few yards and helped us out offensively a little bit. I was still looking to pass. Like I said, to be consistent on offense I feel like we were doing fine throwing the ball. We can throw the ball. We've just got to be able to establish the running game and that will help us out in all phases of the game.

On if he sees differences in Nebraska's defense from last year: I see a little bit, but I see a lot the same. They lost a few personnel guys, they lost their two really good defensive ends, but they've got a defensive end on one side that is like 6-8. They are still really big, strong and aggressive.

On Nebraska's numbers being skewed because they have played some great offenses: That's true. They played Missouri. I watched that game and Missouri was able to do what they do best. They were throwing the ball and moving the ball. They were at home and got some things rolling early on and it really took Nebraska out of their game.

On the defense forcing turnovers: On offense we have got to stop turning the ball over. We didn't turn it over at Iowa State and then we come in (to Baylor) and turn it over three times. We were fortunate for the defense to get a few turnovers during the Baylor game. It helped us out a lot.

On his tackle: I don't know. That was just a bad play. We didn't execute like we should have, we should of scored the play before and that play would have never happened. They came out and fought against us. They played really well on defense.

On being more consistent: We just have to do what we do. We know that we are better than that. We know that we can run the ball effectively. We just have to go out and execute. Somebody makes a mistake or somebody is not at the right place at the right time.

On Chris Ogbonnaya: I think Chris is kind of like a guy like Quan [Cosby]. He is really consistent. When he comes in, he is going to make the blocks. He does really well on pass protection especially on passing downs where they know we are going to throw and they might put some pressure on us. He is really good at stepping in there and making a block. He is good at carrying the ball.

On getting everybody's best shot: I really don't like that term either, but it is the truth. People are going to come in here and play their best. They are going to leave it all on the line because they don't get to play us every year or whatever. It's like going on the road. Guys are always going to be fired up and ready to play us.

On not having a home game for a while: It has been a while. I was thinking about that the other day. It has been at least three weeks. We are going to be motivated and ready this week because we are ready to get back into our stadium and play a good game.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

In honor of being able to use the word "Cornhusker" again, I am rerunning the photo of Bill Callahan from last year's blog the day before the game.

Little did I know at the time that the photo would be fitting for a mugshot of him just following the game. If you recall, Ryan Bailey hit a 22-yard field goal with 23 seconds remaining to give the Longhorns a 22-20 victory in Lincoln.

The 'Huskers and the 'Horns matchup won't be as hyped as last year - mainly because the University of Nebraska athletic department is in a state of semi-upheaval ... but also because UT isn't nearly as highly ranked.

Normally, that would mean the team in red and white would be distracted. However, the Aggies last week enjoyed the benefit of that. Look for Nebraska to be more focused and ready for redemption against the team in burnt orange and white.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

FINALly: Everything seemed to calm down in the second half. 31-10. That's more like it.

Colt finished 25-of-34 for 292 yards, one TD and two picks. He also had 48 yards on the ground on 10 carries.

The Horns had to fight for this win from a group of Bears who played like they were tired of losing.

I guess after all the emotion of last week, there was a chance for a game like this for the Horns, but a W is a W ... and a very important W at this time of the year.

At Halftime: I'm not one of the lucky (?) ones who has Versus (?) on his Dish Network, so I don't know what the heck is going on in the game except for the spotty GameCast on ESPN.

While I wait for the Texas Tech/Missouri game to start on a real channel this afternoon, I wonder why Texas is having so much trouble in the first half against those Baylor Bears, only leading 10-7.

I wonder why true freshman Earl Thomas (a cornerback?) has thrown 11 passes for Texas, and why FIVE different people have put one in the air for the Longhorns.

By intermission, Colt McCoy was having an OK day - 14-of-20 for 147 yards for one TD (a 23-yard strike to Nate Jones pictured in the AP photo) and a pick. He's also rushed for 40 yards on five carries.

UT probably needs to concentrate on winning the game before doing a bunch of experimenting with what I can only guess from this distance is offensive "wrinkles" for future games.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those of you who missed Colt's comments on mackbrown-texasfootball.com, here is a shortened version of them:

On his running touchdown: We had a screen play set up on that play. If Vondrell [McGee] doesn't get held up and they don't read it, he is probably going to score, too. He would have got there faster than I would of, I think. The play didn't work out and I got to the line of scrimmage and nobody was there.

On the offensive lineman: Those guys are getting better every week. I feel like they played great. This offense really clicks, it really works well when we can get some protection.

On the moving in and out of the pocket: It is just how you feel in the pocket. I feel comfortable standing in the pocket and delivering in the pocket. The receivers did a great job of breaking off of their routes and knowing, they just kind of play it by their instincts when I get out of the pocket, they break their routes off and we do a good job of that and we did a good job of that on Saturday.

On the game "slowing down" for him: I think it has a little bit. Like I said I'm feeling more and more confident in the offensive line. They are really giving me a lot of time and more protection than we had in the beginning, and they are starting to gel.

On bringing the back-ups in early: It was great for them. It was great for the offensive line to get a rest. We have had some guys get beat up and they are sore. For the second team offense to go in there and to get a couple of first downs and kind of give us a rest, it was good.

On what he said after the OU game: That was a while back so I don't remember everything. Your teammates get really emotional; your coaches get really emotional, after two losses. That is something that we are not accustomed to around here, nobody is. You definitely don't like to lose two in a row and sometimes things just happen like that. I just feel like it was important for somebody to say, 'Hey, don't get down. We have a long season ahead of us.' I think that is kind of what started the whole new season. 'We went 4-2 in the first six games and we have six more left. Let's make something happen. Don't give up, be committed, stay dedicated to this team.' I think that really helped us as a team come together and start a new season. If we are looking at it like that, we are 1-0. We've got to continue to keep playing.

On being a leader as an underclassman: Being a leader is a tough responsibility, and not everybody can do it. It is a tough word, I don't even like to talk about it. Before you be a leader, before you can step up and talk you have to earn the respect from your teammates and your coaches. Not just in the locker room, but how you perform and how you play. Being able to do that and step up and for guys to listen to you, I think shows the character of this team of everybody that is involved. When somebody steps up, people ought to listen. I feel like we did. We started a new season and we are moving on. I think it was important.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

JUST IN: Jim Vertuno's story about Colt's post-OU speech >>.

I knew my Red Raiders would come through against those Aggies!

The Big 12 South Division representative may not be known until the final second of the final game of the regular season. Sure, OU seems to have the edge, but Tech or Texas could come through.

Speaking of coming through, Colt McCoy is on a two-game blazing streak that is only rivaled by his back-to-back performance last season against Tech and Oklahoma State.

In the past two games - and remember, except for two plays that OU game could've easily been a "W" - Colt is 42-of-56 (75%!) for 622 yards and 6 TDs. And it's not unrealistic to think he could continue that hot hand against Baylor and Nebraska - if he has the kind of protection he enjoyed Saturday.

If the Longhorns go undefeated in their final three games of the season (at OSU, Tech and at A&M), it'll be one of their finest moments. When they meet OSU and the Aggies, those teams will be coming off a two-week rest, and the Raiders will have played Baylor the week before.

It won't be just Colt who'll need a hot hand for the Longhorns during that time.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

Holy Moly! How about a 44-yard touchdown run for Colt McCoy? Yeah, he went there at 2:50 in the third quarter.

Up until that point the third quarter wasn't much following its fast start (see below). The Horns' second possession ended in their first third-and-out, before Deion Beasley got another pick, putting the Horns back in business and setting up McCoy's wild run.

Colt is now 23-of-30 for 298 yards and 4 TDs. Score is 49-3. That looks like it's all for the day for Colt. Chiles is taking over, while McCoy is all smiles on the sideline.

Good opportunity to change channels and watch my Red Raiders beat up on the Aggies for a bit before catching some live Saturday afternoon soccer action with that cute little Reagan girl.

First drive of 3rd Q: More of the same ... Colt goes 5-of-6 for about 60 yards, has a great run for 10 yards and an unbelievable sure-sack-avoiding-scramble with a balancing act to keep off the ground that results in a 20-yard TD strike to Nate Jones for the 35-3 score.

The numbers so far - 20-of-25 for 274 yards and 4 TDs for Colt.

Update on the Update: Brandon Foster just intercepted and took it to the house for a 42-3 Longhorn lead just 4:39 into the second half.

Halftime: It's 28-3 and no contest. On the 5th and final possession of the first half for UT, Colt connected with his ol' bud Shipley again in the endzone for an 8-yard TD.

Unofficially, Colt is 15-of-18 for 213 yards, three TDs and ... (drum roll) ... NO picks!

UT's 4th possesion (2nd Q): Colt was back behind center and went 3-for-3 for 38 yards. He's now 10-of-11 for 176 yards and two TDs.

Just as important, Jamaal Charles finally made himself known, carrying it for a couple of good runs, culminating in his 8-yard run to paydirt for the 21-3 lead. Still, he almost fumbled going in for the touchdown.

Midway in the 2nd Q: Chiles took over as QB for the Horns' third possession, as did a bunch of backups. Nothing's wrong with Colt.

I think Mack's just being nice to his old friend Chizik. UT got one first down and then had to punt after penalties caught up with them. Earlier, Iowa State got a 25-yard field goal for the 14-3 current score.

End of 1st Q: 14-0 for the guys in burnt orange. UT didn't run the ball until the 8th play of the game. By that time, Colt was 6-of-7 for 132 yards and a TD.

Colt's 8th pass near the end of the quarter was 6 yards to Quan Cosby for another TD. BTW: Colt's still wearing that protective sleeve on his throwing arm from a ding he received in the Kansas State game.

Early in the game: Thought I would blog while down at the office multi-tasking GoFridayNight.com stuff, 2008 budgetary stuff and, of course, college football stuff on television.

Here's the story so far: One play on offense for the Longhorns and one pass from Colt McCoy to longtime pal Jordan Shipley for a 58-yard TD.

More later ... back to the math (ick).

Posted by Abilene Admin at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

I guess the talk of Colt McCoy's "Sophomore Slump" has validity since he has 10 picks already this season and only had 7 for the entire year in 2006.

Comparing some of his other numbers, year-over-year, tell a different story.

After six games this year, Colt is 137-of-212 for 1,578 yards. After six games last year, Colt was 80-of-115 for 954 yards. Of course his completion percentage was better at this time last year (69.5) than this year (64.6), but he's on track for close to 3,500 yards passing if he keeps up the pace.

Major Applewhite holds the current UT record for most yards passing in a season at 3,357, set in 1999. Also, with 422 yards passing against Iowa State this Saturday, Colt could tie Applewhite for the record of fastest to 2,000 yards in a season (7 games). He's already tied Applewhite for the record of fastest QB to 1,000 yards in a season (4 games).

So, it's not like he's chopped liver this year, folks!

One last caution: In a season where a huge upset (make that "shocker") happens every week in college football, the Longhorns better not be taking 1-5 Iowa State for granted.

The Kansas State defeat was an upset, but it wasn't a "shocker." A "shocker" would be for UT to be beaten by the lowly Cyclones.

That would be an ill wind indeed blowing across the campus in Austin.

Three weeks in a row without the tower orange? I don't think so.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I knew something was definitely wrong with Limas Sweed. That wrist was worse off than most people thought, I guess.

Being gone for the rest of the season is going to hurt his chances in the draft, but the main thing is for him to get healthy again. The other receivers, like Colt McCoy's longtime bud, Jordan Shipley, will just have to take it up a notch.

Here are excerpts from Colt's comments during the Monday press conference (before it was announced Sweed was going to have surgery):

On the Oklahoma game: I felt like we played pretty well against Oklahoma. We’ve put it behind us. I feel like if we can play that way as a team – special teams, offense, defense – play together like that, then we can pull together as a team and figure out a way to win.

On the status of the team: I’m really proud of our coaches, of my teammates, of everybody sticking together. There’s more energy, more focus, more preparation going on now than there’s been. I think that’s really motivation for us. We want to be as good as we can be and we feel like we still can be.

On playing against former UT co-defensive coordinator and current Iowa State head coach Gene Chizik: He has been around me for two years, been around our offense and Coach Davis and everybody, so he knows what we do, but we know what he does, too.

On Iowa State: I’ve seen them a couple times, I watched (the film) with Coach Davis a little bit. They fly to the football. They blitz. It’s like watching spring practice from two years ago, it’s a lot of the same stuff. I feel like in their secondary, they do a little bit more than when Coach Chizik was here. They do more shell coverage, deep safeties and stuff.

On if he expects Coach Chizik to blitz more than usual: No, I don’t expect Coach Chizik to blitz more. He’s a guy who sticks to what he does. He’s a great coach. We miss him. I like him a lot. He’ll have his defense ready to play.

On the offensive line: I feel like they played tremendous on Saturday. It’s so hard sometimes because defenses do different stuff to us every week. They throw different blitzes, and for a young offensive line, it’s a struggle. I can’t be more proud of them for what they did on Saturday, they played really well and they competed and played hard the whole game.

On Jamaal Charles’ fumble: We believe in him, we’re confident in him. You can’t point your finger at anybody. This is a team game, this is a team effort and overall our effort was there. We did the things we needed to do to win the game. It was unfortunate for us that we had a few turnovers. As far as Jamaal, he’s the man, he’s fine. He knows he made a mistake, nobody has to go tell him. He’s hard on himself anyways.

On Limas Sweed: He’s a great player. He’s had some struggles with some injuries, and he’s been trying to play, trying to fight and be out there with this team. His effort has been tremendous, we all respect him for that and understand at the same time that he has a legit injury. If he can play, he can play, if he can’t, he can’t. I feel like he’s done everything he can for this team so far this year.

On Jermichael Finley: I felt like early on that he was getting a lot of man-to-man coverages with the linebacker. I feel pretty comfortable with that match-up because he can run pretty good routes and he’s got great hands.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

The first three quarters of this Red River Rivalry were some of the most entertaining ever. How about that quarterback show on both sides I talked about earlier?

Unfortunately, the fourth quarter ... not so much. The bad guys won, 28-21.

Now that the pressure is off, however, Colt McCoy and the Longhorns can concentrate on winning the rest of their games (with the possible exception of Texas Tech) and finishing with that nice 10-3 record I was also talking about earlier.

And speaking of earlier talk, this is the second time Auston English has taken a victory away from Colt (see previous entry). The OU defensive end had two sacks on his old high school opponent, and one cheap, post-whistle "slobber-knocker" he got away with.

Well, at least another tipped pass that turned into a pick for Colt (4 of his last 5 INTs have come off of tipped passes) didn't result in OU points ... but that's a big, ol' moot point now, isn't it?

What this day at the Cotton Bowl showed was that there is a great potential for two more rivalry games with equal or greater fireworks from the two quarterbacks.

These two - one a sophomore and one a freshman - will meet again.

That's good news for fans of great football - just maybe next time there will be four full quarters of it.

Posted by Abilene Admin at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

Everyone wants to talk about OU redshirt freshman Sam Bradford. More about him later. I have a better story.

On the last weekend in November 2004, two 12-0 Texas high school teams lined up against each other in the Class 2A playoffs. One was Jim Ned, and the other was Canadian.

The offensive star for the Jim Ned Indians was Colt McCoy. The defensive star for the Canadian Wildcats was Auston English. One is now the starting quarterback for the Texas Longhorns, and one is now the sack leader for the Oklahoma Sooners.

English (No. 33) is the sophomore defensive end for the Sooners who has 4 sacks. The 6-3, 253-pounder has a vertical leap of 32.5 inches - third best on the team. In high school he led the Wildcats with 11 sacks during his senior year.

"Yeah, I remember him (English)," said Colt's dad Brad who was the Jim Ned coach at the time. "He was a great player, and we played him a couple of times. He was the backbone of Canadian's team, not just as linebacker and defensive end, but running back as well."

I can't find the stats for that game, so I don't know if English had a sack on McCoy or not. He'll be looking for one or two this Saturday, that's for sure, and Colt will be looking for him.

BTW, Colt's Indians almost pulled out a come-from-behind victory on that day back in 2004, but the Wildcats won 32-27.

Dad's Take: "Colt is lot better today than Saturday, of course," said
Brad. "It was a mild concussion. Colt's not concerned about his head, but we are." Colt had a concussion in high school and one last year.

Colt's normal brain activity after the injury on Saturday was just the same as his "baseline scan" taken earlier in the summer, according to Brad. That means no more than a mild concusision at the worst - and there was no memory loss or unconsciousness, just some nausea.

"Colt is more concerned about his sore knee, arm and other different places where he got beat up," said Brad.

Brad will be in the stands again on the 45-yard line right next to the rest of the UT and OU parents.

Stoops' Take: In his press conference, OU head coach Bob Stoops was asked about Colt's 4 interceptions: “You want to get pressure on the quarterback and Kansas State was able to do that. Colt McCoy is a great quarterback. He’s probably one of the best.�

The Dallas Morning News was able to get Stoops to expound upon that when they asked him what was wrong with Colt. The OU coach repeated what a number of UT fans have been saying this week: "There's nothing wrong with him, he just needs some protection in the backfield."

Sam Bradford: On paper, the new OU signal-caller is off to a better start than either Colt (last year's or this year's).

Bradford is 83-of-115 (72.2%) for 15 TDs and only 4 picks for 1,179 yards. Colt's numbers last year after 5 games were much better than this year after five games. Needless to say, they are both going to put on a show.

The thing I like about the 6-4, 214-pound Bradford is that he is from Oklahoma City - as in he's not a kid from Texas who should've stayed in the Lone Star State to play for either UT or Texas Tech (but not A&M). ;-P~

Posted by Abilene Admin at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Danny Reagan / Abilene, Texas

I created this blog almost a year ago, right after the 28-10 University of Texas victory over those guys north of the Red River.

So, unfortunately, I don't have an old UT/OU blog to look back on and prove to you that everyone - and I mean everyone - was saying in 2006 that the Sooners would pound the Horns and their freshman quarterback.

Big underdogs, uh-huh! Maybe even bigger than this year after KSU opened up another can of "Upset Whoopin'" on the Burnt Orange and Oklahoma barely was upset.

I don't know who's going to win, I just know it's going to be a great game. Hopefully, Colt McCoy will rebound from the worst game of his college career.

Now that UT has finally left the ranks of the "Undefeated Who Chase the National Championship," I can say this without fear of being gored - I think the Longhorns will have another 10-3 year, and I think that will be a great season.

I'm sure Colt is thinking they'll go 12-1, and that's what he should be thinking. Below are some of his excerpts from the Monday press conference:

On how he's feeling after Kansas State: I'm good. I'm feeling fine, it's a little frustrating. That's not how you want to open up conference, but we're okay, we're moving on. We're going back to work, that's all you can do.

On being taken out of the Kansas State game: I don't want to get into that too much. They took me out for some medical reasons, I got to come back in and play. They had to take me out again. I'll be fine, I've been with the doctors and trainers, we'll be okay.

On dealing with being taken out of games because of injury: I think that's tough. You'll know when the pain's too bad and you can't go anymore, that's when you have to go inside and let the trainers look at you. You just have to put it behind you, that's part of the game. That's something that's going to happen, you don't want it to, but it seems like sometimes it's just going to happen.

On the most frustrating thing about the Kansas State game: Batted balls are the most frustrating thing for a quarterback I think, at least for me. We knew what they were doing, we had a feel for them and every time we had a drive going it just seemed to stall with batted balls and bad luck. When things happen like that, you just have to take it and move on. That's all I have to say about that, because as much as you want to take those back, as much as you think the batted balls may just get tipped to the ground, I don't know what happened. We felt like we knew what they were doing, and we were driving the ball every time and things just weren't going our way. We weren't getting the breaks that we needed to, but we put it behind us. We're 0-1 in conference. We're going to come back together as a team, go back to work and see where that takes us.

On batted balls: We haven't had batted balls (before now). We had one batted ball that got tipped and picked against TCU, and that's it. I can't explain it, I don't understand. We just have to move on. That's part of the game. If you want to say it's bad luck, it happened. We just have to get back to work.

On Oklahoma: Oklahoma's good. I watched them last night, their defense is really sound. They're always in the right spot. They do a lot of blitzing, a lot of stuff that we're going to have to handle. They're probably going to blitz us just as much as anybody else. We have to be sound, we have to know what we're doing.

On using last year's success to prepare for this year's game: I watched the film last night of last year, and they do a lot of the same stuff. I think the most important thing is handling the emotion of a big game, a big rivalry like that. I can remember how tough it was just to go in there and play. I'm going to have to figure out how to handle that, how to get back on track. Like I said, our goal for this week is to go back to work, to come back together as a team, to play as a team and see where it takes us.

On the experience redshirting gave him, in terms of playing against Oklahoma: That was pretty cool, being able to see Vince and being able to get a feel that whole year, being able to travel on the road, being able to see how things worked, helped me a lot in developing me. When I got the chance to start my redshirt freshman year, I think those experiences paid off.

On his experiences entering the Cotton Bowl: That's a whole experience in itself, being able to drive through the fans. It's split down one side of the road and the other side of the road. It's a crazy experience, it's fun and it kind of gets you motivated.

On Quan Cosby: Quan's been great. He's so consistent, he's one of the most consistent players we have right now. I have a good feel for him, I know where he's going to be. If I get some time, I know he's going to open up somewhere. That's a good feeling as a quarterback, to know that you can count on somebody like that. I feel like he's been consistent. I don't like to single anybody out, but he has been playing really well.

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