Postgame Quotes: Tulane 31, Houston 24
11/8/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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HOUSTON HEAD COACH Tony Levine
Opening Statement
"I talk about it every week. Our formula for winning starts with turnovers. Not creating them, by themselves, but winning the turnover margin. We did not do that today. As I saw, we threw four interceptions, and I think we recovered a fumble. We saved an interception, but we turned the ball over four times. Other than the one at the end of the game, the other three were in great field position for Tulane's offense. Going into this game, it was turnovers, field position, and penalties. We had some untimely penalties that we could not overcome in the first half. At the end of the game, the turnovers were too much. Some things, I think we did successfully in the past we did not do today. I though Tulane's offense did a good job on third down moving the chains. Our defense has, up to his point, done a good job getting off the field on third downs so far this season. What we did to win games we did not do today. It was a total team loss, offense, defense, special teams and coaches, putting them in together in no specific order. We're going to use this week to regroup, clean some things up, learn from the video and get ready for the final home game."
On Greg Ward Jr. not getting into rhythm and what kept him from getting into one:
"I think what kept him out of the rhythm was turning the ball over four times. He threw an interception on the first offensive play of the game. You like to have success early and if you have success early it's the definition of getting into a rhythm at the quarterback position and we turn it over on the first play and give them great field position. It put our defense right back on the field. They get seven points and put them up early in the game. In terms of whether we got into a rhythm, I thought at times during the game he did and then there are other times where I thought our running game was less effective than it had been. Some penalties, some sacks we took early on put us on long yards situations that were tough to get out of."
On the 49-yard field goal and the sack that Ward Jr. took and how do you coach him to be more aggressive:
"We talk about it; we work on it in practice. When you're in great field goal range on that end of the field, which today was going into the wind, on third down you cannot take a sack, let alone on one on that many yards to make it a much larger field goal attempt."
On the final play and what broke down:
"They had good coverage, he felt good pressure and it forced him out of the pocket. Obviously, he felt like he had somebody open on it and he tried to make a play and Tulane's DB picked him off."
On missing two field goals:
"I think it was big as much as anything that we didn't get points on those two drives. We had the ball on third down. The first one was a makeable distance and going in with the wind going in that direction I still felt like we had to give Tyler an opportunity. There was 4th and extra-long, so the distance on fourth down was not going to let us go for it offensively. I'm not going to punt the football on the 31-yard line going in, so I wanted to give Kyle a chance to make the first one and it came up short. On the following drive, it's one we expect to make. I think it was impactful coming in the second half and going down, getting that close to scoring and coming away with zero points on those first two drives."
On his offensive line:
"I think at times we played well up front. I think sometimes you can measure that by how well you run the football and how many sacks you give up. I think it's a little bit deceiving at times right now offensively in the sack category because Greg Ward can either leave the pocket or escape some would-be sacks. Again we threw for 300-some yards. But I thought the running game could be better. I'd be answering your question but I would have to watch to get a great feel for how they played as a group and how they played as individuals. But again, I think all in all whether it was the perimeter or what their defense was doing, I thought we needed to run the ball more effectively than we did and I thought their defensive line did a nice job in the line of scrimmage."
On whether Tulane surprised his team:
"Not one bit. No. You'd probably like me to sit here and say our guys overlooked them or somebody in our program overlooked them. We didn't. Not even our student-athletes overlooked them. Because you put the video on, and they're fast, they're physical. They have some guys that on paper, with height, might be a little bit shorter than you typically see in a couple of positions but they make up for that with in how hard they play and their quickness. And again, you look on paper and they hadn't won a game on the road and they've only won a couple of games coming in but again, they did a good job. At the end of the day, regardless of who you play, if it's a team that's won two games and hasn't won on the road or a team that has not lost a game and is undefeated on the road, we believe it starts with turnovers. And regardless of who you play, you turn it over four times and you only get two, it makes it tough on you to win the game, especially when three of the four turnovers happen on your side of the 50-yard line and give their offense great field position.
On whether the teams sees the game as a lost opportunity to be in first place:
"I don't know if they do or not. I told somebody the other day it was a five-way tie for fifth. We weren't even thinking about it. We weren't talking about it. At this point are they going to take a shower, go see their family, go get something to eat and say 'man we just fell out of first place with this loss'? Probably. But we're going to wake up tomorrow and we have to get ready. We got Tulsa coming in here in two weeks and last time we played Tulsa in Houston it was certainly not in our favor. So we have to get ready for that matchup in a couple of weeks.
On the final drive:
"It's a two minute drill. We work on it every week. I thought we executed some things today. Even right before half getting the throw to Greenberry and Deontay going down and immediately calling timeout so we could get that field goal going in. So I though we executed a couple of situations well. It's something we work on, obviously along with the onside kick. But again, you think about football, we're within five yards of giving us a chance to win this game. The last time we lost a game we were probably within six inches of giving ourselves a chance to win. So it is truly a game of inches and it's a game of turnovers and at the and of the day that's what this game and a number of games we've played this season have come down to.
On Deontay Greenberry's good game:
"He did [have a good game]. It's interesting how perception is in the world today. Probably a week ago I got more comments of 'why can't we throw the football anymore?' and then we threw for 342 yards today. A couple of weeks ago, 'why can't we run the ball anymore?' and then we run the ball last week. So again, I think I've said this publicly before, teams have to decide what they have to do. Whether they try to take away our run game or take away certain receivers. Deontay will probably tell you there are a couple of plays he'd like to have back. But again I thought he caught the ball extremely well, made some big catches, moving the chains down the field. It was good to see him have that kind of production again."
HOUSTON SENIOR LINEBACKER Efrem Oliphant
On continuing the turnover streak:
"We did it by running to the ball, playing hard and doing our job. "
On trouble stopping the running game:
"It came down to us doing our job and being in the position to tackle him. A few plays we got out of position. He's (Dontrell Hillard) a good player but it comes back on us. Being in the position to make the play and make it."
On not being able to finish close game:
"To win them is to never put ourselves in that position. We should have put the game away. We had too many turnovers on offense and didn't get enough on defense. We didn't stop them when we needed to. We can't allow ourselves to be put in that position. "
On stepping up for the injured Derrick Mathews:
"I'm just being a leader out there and making sure everyone stays together to roll on. It all comes down to us playing as 11 defensive players out there on the field. Doing our job, with the loss of anybody, we can play good defense."
On bouncing back to play Tulsa after bye week:
"We are going to put this behind us and get our rest during the bye week. All our goals are out ahead of us and we have to prepare for the next week."
