Patterson's Press Conference

As always, a (very rough) transcript of Gary Patterson's press conference. This one begins about five minutes into the presser.

"He did a great job of running the offense; it’s apples and oranges—there’s a big difference between the Tech offense and defense, and Baylor offense and defense. Boykin needs to play and get better. They put a lot of pressure on quarterbacks.

"Tech & TCU are similar ranked defenses; comment: Whichever team gets the stops; it’s how you play in the redzone. Don’t give up big plays, and play in the red zone. You gotta make teams kick field goals. It hasn’t changed any.

[Rivalry?] "We’ve been doing this forever. We’ve only played them twice (since I got here). I don’t see the rivalry, but for so many thousands of other people, it is. The kids have played against each other in high school, so they know each other. Somebody said this is an ugly rivalry, but I don’t see that. We fill our stadium with people who wear red and black and have become home team fans. They may wear red and black on Saturday, but wear purple the other eleven games. We gotta play the eleven guys on the field.

"Glasgow here doesn’t help us much. Glasgow played against their offense, not their defense. Anytime you choose to win a game, choose to win the in-state game. Kids want to play close to home. We have to learn who to hate. Iowa State is out of state out of mind; we don’t know how to hate them. We gotta get ready to play them; they didn’t do what we said, and we got beat. I think I counted thirty-something Texas guys on the Kansas roster; Iowa State had a bunch, West Virginia does.

"Texas Tech has a lot of returning starters; Coach Kaufman came in, ha da wealth of experience to work ith, and did a great job. They’re big up front, physical; te QB does a great job throwing the ball around. Their QB is good; he’s been around awhile; he doesn’t make bad decisions; he can scramble, get out of trouble. Last year they los runningbacks, had injuries, kind of like what we have. It’s almost like we’re on probation, we’ve lost so many scholarship players.

[Defense last week?] "You’re going to be challenged in this league throwing the ball. One of the touchdowns last week was knuckleheads lining up wrong, and one was my fault. Everybody’s go ton eof those—got a guy who can go to the house, a guy who can break one on one; got a good runningback. You gotta keep playing. I don’t even talk to them about yardage; I talk about points and stops. I’m proud of ‘em, I think we lead the nation in takeaways. The running games at SMU and Baylor had caused up orblems last year, but not this year.

[Tech didn’t want to play you last year]—"No, that’s not what it was. They’re upset now because they’re saying they were chicken, but nobody at TCU—not Gary Patterson, not any of my players—has said that. The Arkansas game has gotten pushed back ten times, and nobody makes a big deal about that. If I had my choice I wouldn’t play LSU, because of our Big 12 schedule right now. Not because I don’t wanna play LSU, not because of injuries, but because we’re gonna do what we’re scheduled to do. Tuberville was doing what he has to do to get to six wins. It’s a chore; you gotta get it so you can get those extra practices in December to grow your football team for the next year. We make business decisions; there’s nobody who won’t wanna go play somebody. Look at how Coach Snyder built Kansas State—he didn’t play three or four nobodies.

[Did the Baylor week help Trevone and the team?] "I couldn’t really control how he only practiced once at QB for Iowa State. The team has a whole really prepared well for Baylor because they’d been embarrassed by them the year before, but they didn’t really know anything about Iowa State. We’ll see how he progresses for this one; they’ve proven they have a good defense. Sometimes you have to pull it down and run with it, sometimes you have to throw, but be very careful. This season is a journey, with as many young people as we have.

"The team was sluggish after the Iowa State game; they were not good in the walkthrough that morning. I’ve gotta get my group ready to go; they didn’t play well the last time we had a 2:30 game here. We’re gonna walkt through

"Stansly Maponga: he’s going to have to tolerate the pain; how he tolerates it, it will determine if he plays. He’s going to have to have surgery after the season; he had it his freshman year on the other foot.

Matt Tucker: "If he’s not careful B.J. Catalon will take his job. With Maponga, we wanted to redshirt Carraway, but he may have to play. Around game 6 you start making those decisions, so if by any means Stansly can’t go, we have to go get another defensive end. We’re going to get him ready.

[James MacFarland]: "Yes, he’s played in every ballgame. Most of the young guys are up and down. You want to ask me how he does—it’s like your seven year old in soccer games; some days he’s into it, and some days he’s not. It’ll be an unbelievable atmosphere in the stadium, knowing how many Tech fans are in the area, maybe the best since Utah in 2008. That’ll help us; I like playing great competition, and Tech is great competition. I need the emotion of that crowd I had a Baylor. The 10, 12 thousand hwo were there—they were loud, and my kids felt it, and it helped. In 2006 the last time we played them, there were more Tech fans than TCU fans. (Bull***t!)

"It’s not like if we lose to Colorado State—they’re out of state, out of sight, out of mind. This year, if you get beat now, you get a chance to listen to it the whole year. This is great for me—win or lose, you gotta deal with it the whole year. That’s what makes college football what it is. That’s why we wanted into the Big12. If you sit where I sit, watching people argue over a hamburger about who’s got the best wide receiver; two years ago, it didn’t matter. If Tech was 10-2 and we were 10-2, nobody cared, because we didn’t play each other. Right now people come to the game, and it’s a social hour. We need our people to understand that the next evolution is that we want our stadium to be a place where people don’t want to come and play. I thought it was loud at the beginning of the game against Iowa State. It’s the chicken or the egg—which one do you wanna be? The coach and the team, we’re the egg—we’re right in the middle of the frying pan. So, here we go."