#4 TCU vs. Kansas - Postgame Quotes
10/21/2017 12:00:00 AM | Football
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TCU head coach Gary Patterson
On the win:
"I am excited for our guys because we didn't play a close ball game like with have with Kansas. When you play a night game in The Carter you're always going to have a little bit more energy, and I think it helped us. On Tuesday, we were drained. We weren't mentally into the practice."
On the defensive effort:
"One of the things that happened in the last couple of ball games is people played a three-man rush against them, and we had worked on it. But I felt like one of our strengths was going to be our front. We knew we were going to have to change up coverages because they knew a lot about us."
Looking ahead:
"Right now, we're 7-0 and we need to get to 8-0. This one will be tougher. I said before the season that Iowa State was going to be a tough ball game and that's not even knowing what I know now."
"We have five tough ball games left. If you would have told me that we would have had the opportunity to be 8-0 getting through October and going into November, I probably would have told you that you were crazy. We have an opportunity to do that on the road in a very tough environment."
On the offense:
"I was hoping we would get the chance to open up the offense a little bit, and we had some guys make some plays. To beat some of the people we're going to have to beat down the road we're going to have to make plays in the passing game -- and they won't just be 5-10 yards, they'll have to be down the field."
TCU junior safety Ridwan Issahaku
On allowing 21 total yards:
"I mean tomorrow it won't mean anything, but today it feels good. Tomorrow we go on to the next one."
On being fourth in the country:
"I'm glad we came out and played like we did today, but we don't really look too much in to it. We just approach it one game at a time."
On the success they had today:
"Guys were locked in. We came out and we saw everything they did which we saw in practice. We were able to execute."
On defenses coming together as the season progresses:
"I feel like we could still get a lot better. But we are playing some good football and hopefully we can continue."
On beating Kansas by such a large margin:
"It is good because all the hard work pays off. 21 yards, that is what you work for. But tomorrow it won't mean anything. It was a great defensive win and a great team win."
TCU senior quarterback Kenny Hill
On the team's focus today:
"We knew they were going to come out and play hard, they always do. They always come out ready to play us. But we knew we had to get it going early, and if we did we could give it a roll. On offense, we did that a little bit. We started hot, slowed down for a little bit, and then picked it back up. But the defense was locked down all day. They had negative yards all the way into the last drive in the fourth. When you have a defense doing that you just have to go in and put up a couple. We came out, and I thought we played really well."
On 5 touchdown passes:
"It was just what happened this game. We had games in the past where I just had to get the ball to playmakers who would run it in. It's whatever is working. Tonight, the pass was working, and it was nice to have it going, but whatever it takes to win is what we are going to do."
On the touchdown pass to Diarse:
"We saw we might have it in practice. We hit it once in 7-on-7, and I told him if they gave us that look we might be able to hit it. They gave us that look and it was just like it happened in practice. It's good when you see stuff like that carry over from practice into the game. Big time by him though."
On the large margin:
"For us it really didn't matter, we just knew we had to get a win any way. We knew they were going to come out and play us really hard so we just had to be ready for that. I thought everyone was locked in today, ready to go."
On watching the defense:
"You are just speechless, especially tonight. They gave up negative yards going into that last drive in the fourth quarter, I've never seen that before in my life. So to see a defense playing that way, playing confident, that's big time. It gives us energy on offense because we want to go out there and do the same thing for them."
TCU senior linebacker Travin Howard
On the play of the defense:
"We went out there and executed. Everything we did in practice, with Coach (Doug) Meacham over there, we pretty much knew what he was thinking because we played under him every day in the past.
"As a defense, you don't want the offense to get any yards.We have a defensive mindset of suffocation. We want to suffocate our opponents and play to the best of our abilities. You can't win many games without defense. When the offense isn't clicking, we are going to let them know that we have their backs and get them right back on the field and just try to be the spark of things."
TCU senior wide receiver John Diarse
On the win:
"Kansas had nothing to lose coming in. It's these type games that top-5 teams lose, then they go in the tank and you never hear from them for the rest of the year. That's always playing in the back of our heads. Every week, we want to be 1-0. We can't look back and we can't look forward. We just want to be 1-0 on Saturday."
On today's game:
"We still have some room for improvement. There were not a lot of mistakes, but there were some, and they were mistakes that you can't make on the road against a good Iowa State team. You have to give credit to Kansas, those guys played hard offensively and defensively. I think at the end of the day we just made more plays and put ourselves in a better position to score as much as we did."
On Kenny Hill's play tonight:
"It's just his hard work. That's the Kenny we have always known. He just needed to get back into that rhythm, and that's a testament of the hard work we put in this offseason. Throwing at night, coming in before workouts throwing, throwing after workouts, it's just the offensive manifestation that's happening right now. We are proud of Kenny, and we expect that from him."
On the play of the defense:
"When your defense can hold a team to -3 yards at halftime, that's just green lights on offense. Travin (Howard) was all over the field, Ranthony (Texada) was all over the field, the D-line was getting sack after sack and the secondary covered.'"
Kansas head coach David Beaty
On the game:
"I'd like to congratulate Gary (Patterson) and TCU. They are a classy bunch of guys. They have a good football team and they played really well today. I thought Kenny (Hill) played well. They have some good players on that team. There is no doubt about it. They have a chance to be really good the rest of the year."
On sophomore running back Khalil Herbert:
"He's in our soft tissue protocol or hamstring protocol. You have to pass certain tests to be able to be available. Earlier in the week, I didn't think he'd be able to do it. Then he turned a corner big time on Wednesday, which was good. Which means he was able to practice."
On sophomore safety Bryce Torneden:
"I'll probably have to watch the tape a little bit more, but you just like the type of guy he is. He's a resilient fighter. He's right there in Lawrence and went to Free State High School. My daughter went to school there and I got to watch him play about every game. He's the right type of guy. He's a tough dude who keeps playing. We are happy he's on our team."
On gaining 21 yards of offense:
"Obviously, not very good up front. Not very good totally in the run game. A lot of that probably has to do with us giving up some negative yardage plays and some sacks. There are some things that go into that as well. That production was just not very good. We've got to go back and really take a look at what we are doing schematically and what we have going on personnel-wise. We've got to pick out a few things that we can do well and then we have to really practice them and be good at them so that we have something to go to and create some offense for us. That's a challenge that rests on my shoulders. I've got to get that done with my staff."
On regrouping at halftime:
"When I went in the locker room at halftime, I was really encouraged by our guys. They were very responsive, like they always are. They were very intuitive. They paay real close attention to what we're trying to do to make adjustments. That's why I really love this team. They have the ability to block things out and continue working to try to improve and get better. We didn't really play all that great coming out. I do like our guys. We don't have a single person in that room that's a problem."
On the Kansas offensive line:
"We've got some guys down. We are working to try and solve the issues. Mesa Ribordy is a guy that was a stabilizing force for us. That center does so much for you. He does so much for you. He was definitely the catalyst up front. We've got other guys that are capable of doing that. We just need them to continue to develop so they can do that."
Kansas freshman linebacker Jay Dineen
On the team's performance today:
"We played poorly on defense, poorly on offense and gave up a punt return. I know that it wasn't good enough; we didn't play hard enough"
On the team's mindset prior to this game:
"We go into every game feeling like we have a chance to win, I don't know. Give credit to them. They've got guys all over the field that can make plays, but we didn't do enough."
On Kenny Hill's improvement since last season:
"He's one of the best players in our conference. He's a big reason why they're undefeated and No. 4 in the country."
Kansas sophomore running back Khalil Hebert
On the game:
"I'm looking forward to watching the film and seeing what we need to get better at. Credit to their defense today, they played an amazing game today. We have to go back,watch the film and see what we can fix for next week."
Is the team getting better as the season progresses?
"Definitely, we just have do our jobs, but I feel like it's better. It's the little things we're not doing. I feel like once we get that going, we're going be better."
Sophomore offensive lineman Hakeem Adeniji
On the offensive production:
"It was pretty bad, I don't think there is any better way to put it. TCU, a really good football team, came out and knocked us out of our rhythm. We weren't able to get anything going all night."
On the sideline mentality:
"We tried to keep fighting back, we tried different things, but we just couldn't do it."
On the run game:
"If we get the run game going, it really opens up the rest of the game, and we haven't been able to do that these past couple of weeks. We have to get better. That starts with the offensive line, we have to do better, go watch film on it and make some changes."
On how to move forward:
"We just have to wake up the next day. It's behind us now. We can't do anything about it. We just have to push forward. We still have five games left and we intend to go out there and keep playing hard."
