HOUSTON FOOTBALL WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE Prior to the Memphis Game Carl Lewis Auditorium Houston, Texas Monday, Nov. 9, 2015 HOUSTON HEAD COACH TOM HERMAN Opening Statement It was a great team win. Like I said in the postgame press conference, the defense, although the yardage total was a bit gaudy, made a ton of plays when we needed them to. They scored nine points on defense. That s a pretty good day at the office, with three turnovers. They stopped them at the end, not allowing a field goal for them to tie it. Offensively, we have to be opportunistic. We have to do a better job; our short yardage problem crept back up. It s probably a product of (Greg) Ward s stubbornness and our part as coaches. It was anything systematic. Greg (Ward) threw for two touchdowns and rushed for over 100 yards. His two interceptions were kind of fluky plays. They weren t awful decisions on his part. A fluky one bounced off his receiver s foot as he s falling down, and then getting hit as he was throwing it. I m proud of the overall team win. It s always a positive when you can get somewhat battle-tested for four quarters like we did the other night. We haven t had a four-quarter game since the game at Louisville; it was very similar situations there at the end. The defense came through, and we scored enough to win, and we re moving on to Memphis. On the defense versus Cincinnati Defensively it was fine, offensively I think we took the ball over with four minutes and some change, and to be able to run the clock out, get a few first downs and take a knee (was good). But we did get a first down on that series. They used their timeouts, which then made it a little more difficult for them to drive down the field. We had a really huge punt, downing it on the 14-yard line. (We) still have some work to do there offensively, but really happy with how the defense closed the game out. On in-game adjustments I don t know on a play-by-play basis. Maybe in between series, that s kind of my job, to be honest with you, to look at the big picture and see what s going on and provide my expertise, opinion and feedback. We were probably a little bit late in doing that. But when we did, we talked about it, and we decided to actually throw the ball on third and short. Probably going to have to do that more if teams are going to play us the way Cincinnati did with short yardage. That s okay; we learned our lesson and came out with a win anyways and gained a little confidence in doing so, knowing that if we get down there we can feel confident throwing the football a little bit. On preparing for Memphis The offense they play at Memphis is similar to us. You try to glean as much as you can from Tulsa, as they re split way out, and Cincinnati threw it sixty times that game, so their coverages are going to be a
little bit different. I think you have to go back to the Ole Miss game and watch them; they re somewhat similar to us in style offensively. Then you have to gauge, philosophically, who they are and what they want to be. You formulate a game plan around your experience as an offensive staff. It s not like we haven t seen a defensive structure like this before. Defenses that are structured this way, how have they defensed us, and okay how are we going to defense them. On if the team s national ranking matters It doesn t. I appreciate the questions, and it s not to be standoffish, but in our program, where you are after nine games matters not. It really doesn t. We understand that there aren t any trophies, prizes or awards given for what you ve done after nine games. It s the complete season that matters. Our goal has always been to win a conference championship, and we understand Memphis is the next step closer to getting that. On Greg Ward s performance It is slowing down. I think there are some areas of improvement there still. We re talking about a kid who s played college quarterback for 16 games. It takes a while for those game reps to materialize into some better and quicker anticipation. He s getting there but still has some room for improvement. On Greg Ward s sideline leadership He s been great. He s a competitive dude; he gets fired up and wants to score a touchdown every time he takes the field. He gets anxious a little bit. He s a great leader; he never gets negative by any stretch of the imagination. He has certainty bought into our training of when faced with adversity, you go back to your fundamentals and effort. He handles it great; again there are no negatives. (He s) very positive and upbeat, but you can sense the bubbling inside of him that he wants to perform well. On Paxton Lynch He s a creature, man. He s 6-7, 245 and runs really well, and had an extremely strong arm and makes great decisions to get the ball out. There is really no knock on him. He s a fantastic quarterback. He will play on Sunday, certainly. For our defense, it s out of the frying pan and into the fire, back-to-back weeks against Gunner Kiel and Paxton Lynch. I don t know a two-week stretch in the country where you re going to face two quarterbacks with that much talent. On expanding the program We talk almost daily about the vision and the direction of the program as a whole. Certainly facilities are a part of that. In terms of being able to not just require some of the finest in the country but also for our student-athletes. Those players taking to the battlefield every day, you want to give them the nicest stuff you can give them and make their lives as worry-free as possible. For the most part, we re making progress. At times I understand that this is a bit of a bureaucracy, when you re dealing with higher education, and there are steps that need to be taken in terms of where you want to go. It can t happen overnight. I do think we re headed in the right direction. I think the sky is the limit for where we see ourselves. Certainly we will never comment about another conference when we ve got four teams in this conference that are ranked in the top-25 - that s a damn good conference. We have some really good football teams, one that is not ranked (in Cincinnati). We played them Saturday night and beat them. In the last 25 years, men s basketball and football have a combined three conference championships. We understand that we ve got to take care of winning our conference before we think about anything else. On improving the facilities at Houston We talked about an indoor facility, and that is on the horizon someday. It has certainly not been approved by the board, so I can t really speak in great detail to it, but it rains in Houston, Texas quite a bit.
To give our guys the best atmosphere to prepare on a week-to-week basis is something that we eventually need, but I certainly can t comment too much beyond that. On preparing for Memphis defense They present some issues just based on structure, they re a 3-4 defense that is very similar to us. They are going to bring people from all parts of the field and different positions. You are going to have to prepare for all of that. Then they load your plate in terms of multiplicity of what they do. The thing about them is, usually, teams that are that multiple aren t very sound because they try to do too much, but they are very sound in what they do. You can tell that they have a good grasp on that defense. It is not the same defensive coordinator, they lost the defensive coordinator from last year, but they promoted from within so these kids have been in this system now for a while. On preparing the defense for Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch, who stands 6-7 How long do you have? We put our scout team guy on stilts. (laughs) Ad then tell him to run around. You can t. You can do the best you can with your scout team quarterback. The Bear Fennimore s of the world have to puff their chests out a little bit this week and say I m Paxton Lynch and I m going to go out there and give the defense the best look possible. We don t have anybody that is 6-7, 245 pounds that can run and throw like he can, I can tell you that. We are going to do our best to give them a decent representation, but knowing that you are not going to be able to replicate it. On the turnover culture of the defense We have a turnover circuit during training camp where we start every practice with a five-minute strip, fumble recovery drill. We have different stations where you go through and learn how to strip the ball, learn how to recover a fumble, learn how to intercept the ball and what angles to take once you do. Beyond that, it is fanatical effort on defense. Guys running to the football, putting multiple hats on the football, pressuring the quarterback when he is throwing it so that he is not very comfortable throwing it, and understanding and being prepared on a weekly basis in coverage for what you are about to see and being able to anticipate those throws. On CB Jeremy Winchester filling in for injured CB William Jackson Jeremy is a guy that I didn t know his name, I didn t know who he was and I really didn t care, because he didn t play real well in the spring; didn t play real hard. He had a good summer training with Coach (Yancy) McKnight and his staff. He also had a good training camp, and was battling Howard Wilson to be that third corner (back) in there, but Howard edged him out. He had a good training camp, and then throughout the first few weeks, and then Howard went down and Jeremy has responded. He has done a great job on our punt return team of holding guys up too. He is a really smart kid, extremely smart, and he understands that his role now has increased and what it is going to take to get himself ready when his number is called, because we are going to depend on him. On containing the excitement the team feels I don t want to calm the excitement; the excitement is good. The thing that you caution against is listening to the outside noise and the praise, but the excitement is great. We sat here yesterday and had a team meeting, and I told them that it is a big game. It is a big game, because you made it a big game, and because of what you have done the last 11 months to get us to this point. But, because it is a big game doesn t mean we are going to change. We can have a little extra pep in our step, and we can be excited for Saturday. Hopefully that will provide a little extra energy throughout this week s practice, but we are not going to change a thing we do. Tuesday is still going to be Tuesday. We are going to be in full pads running inside drills I don t know if I can even say this bloodying our noses, so to speak. We are going to go out there on Tuesday and prepare like any other normal Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday the same. We don t run from the excitement and the buzz of this being a big game, but it is not going to change the way that we prepare. HOUSTON JUNIOR QUARTERBACK GREG WARD JR. On playing in one of the biggest games in program history I feel the same way every week. We still prepare the same, and we prepare hard in practice, so it s just another week. Memphis is a great opponent, and we re ready. On having more pep in his step because it is Memphis It s easy to think this way. It is the culture around here, and we are built this way. We ve been like this since Coach Herman has been around. We just have to keep preparing, and it started yesterday. Today is not a day off for us, so we will still be in the film room. On if he views the game as a matchup between himself and Memphis QB Paxton Lynch No sir, not at all. This is Houston versus Memphis, and that is my mindset going into the game. On what he sees from Memphis defensively on film They re going to have some playmakers, and they are very physical, so we have to be tough up front, and we have to make plays on the outside. On winning Saturday to achieve other goals Like I said, the preparation started yesterday, a day after the (Cincinnati) game. The whole offense has to be on point. Last week, we didn t do well on third down, so we have to correct that. On having multiple scoring drives that last less than two minutes It has been very successful. We just have to finish drives. We have to go out there and get two first downs. We can t have three and outs and put our defense in that position. We just have to keep finishing. On the offense being more capable this year Yes sir, but we haven t been doing a good job of it lately, and we just have to fix that in practice this week. On what it is like around the locker room being undefeated and ranked We are just excited to have another game. It s Memphis this week, so we just have to go out there and be ready. On what he wants fans, alumni, and students to know about this team We have a great culture and staff, and they have taught us a lot about culture around here and how we should take things into consideration, like the fans. We just want to let them know that we really appreciate them for being there at every game. We just have to keep winning. On imagining being 6-7 and playing quarterback No, I couldn t imagine what it would be like being 6-7 in the pocket. I'm just thankful for what God has blessed me with, and I'm just going with that. HOUSTON JUNIOR LINEBACKER STEVEN TAYLOR On the guys embracing this season We re just taking it a week at a time. We re not changing anything we do. We re just preparing every week to try and become 1-0. That s what we re striving for; to be 1-0. On preparing for the Memphis game
We know we have a very good team (Memphis) coming in town, and we re just ready to accept the challenge this weekend. We have to put in a lot of work this week at practice to prepare to play these guys. Hopefully our training pays off come Saturday. On what he sees on film from the Memphis team I see a lot of explosive guys. They have a nice offensive line, they can block and run the ball. They re a very balanced team, and they like to control the game. I m excited to take on the challenge. On training for the Memphis game We want to be the most physical team every weekend, and we prepare that way. Our preparation is one of the most important things in our organization. Every Tuesday we come out and practice really hard. We wear full pads and tackle. We don t hold back so that when it comes to games it makes it easier. On how intense Coach Herman makes practices (At first) We thought man this guy is crazy. We embrace it now though. We love it, and we re used to our schedules. We call it eating, which stands for embrace all training." On the scout team The scout team guys bring it every Tuesday, and that s what we want. Without those guys we wouldn t be in the situation we re in right now. I really appreciate those guys, because once we practice hard throughout the week, I promise those games will be that much easier." On the fourth quarter against Cincinnati We definitely developed a stronger bond after that game, and we learned how to persevere and to overcome adversity. We never let our heads down. The defense was really excited to end the game. Before the last drop, we were really excited. Everybody was on their feet, happy that we get to finish the game off, and that we get to show the world that we re a dominant defense."