#8 TCU vs #23 West Virginia - Postgame Quotes
10/7/2017 12:00:00 AM | Football
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TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson
"Find a way to win, that's what you've got to do."
On WVU offensive statistics:
"Just find ways to win. When you get in the conference you just find ways to win. First half, defense we kept them, made them kick a field goal, stopped them on third downs, stopped them twice, missed a field goal. Second half we were in a man under coverage and our guys didn't pass it off and we turned to vertical loops. I called a corner blitz, I put the safety one-on-one, he ran a slant and go and he fell down. That's how you let people back in to ball games. I have to take the blame for that. It can't be Nick Orr, it's not his fault, that's mine."
On passes back to Kenny Hill:
"That's what seniors are supposed to do. If I tell you that it's unbelievable then I would say that I am surprised he did it. So for me, we had the plays set up, we had them called. We saw that they are like us on defense. We had to throw back in to the quarterback because they are very overaggressive. But again, Kenny made a play because we had a guy who just about made a tackle on Kenny's throwback pass, because he ran by about four guys."
On being the only undefeated team in the Big 12:
"I would bet that every game is going to be like this. If you are going to win a championship there is a general rule, every year I have been here for 17 years as a head coach, you win about three or four of them that are going to be ugly. I remember beating Colorado State the year we went to the Fiesta Bowl, we couldn't get a snap and I think we won, 13-10. I mean we couldn't get a snap, they had a touchdown called back, he dropped it on a long pass to a tight end. You have to win the ugly ones sometimes. I always worry about offense to be honest with you. You get out of rhythm. If we were listening to all of you about how great they were, they probably aren't listening anymore. We've learned a lesson, and we still won. Now we go on to Manhattan, Kansas, and see what we've got to do there. Just like it was here, it'll be us against the world again. Here we go."
TCU safety Nick Orr
Confidence level of this team right now
"I feel like we are just taking it one game at a time. Not trying to get too high, not trying to get too low. We're just trying to stay focused and win one more game than we did the previous week."
On national publicity and Oklahoma's loss
"We can't worry about them. We just have to stay focused. We've just have to take it one game at a time. We have K-State next week. We have to stay focused for them and just stay focused."
On allowing 500 yards of offense
"Well they have a good offense and they are going to make plays. But, what we want to do as a defense is get the stops that count. I feel like if we can do that and get the ball back to our offense and give them a chance to score, we'll be in good shape."
On defenses performance outside of two big plays
"We played good in the first half and everything. But in the second half, we still came out and played good, it's just those couple of plays we gave up. But, I feel like overall that was a good offense we played. I feel like we did good."
TCU quarterback Kenny Hill
On his three touchdowns
"I had told Cumbie that we had been practicing that play all week, and I told Cumbie that if y'all throw me this, I'm going to score and I won't let anyone tackle me. And sure enough, I got one and I was so excited. When he called the play, I got really excited. It all just worked out, I got a touchdown receiving, throwing, and running. Overall it was just a great team effort."
On offensive mindset when the score is 24-24
"We have to pick up our defense. They have been picking us up the whole game. Adam punted and got them inside the 5-yard line 3 or 4 times. That is big time. Our defense stepped up. West Virginia drove the field but our defense wouldn't let them score. It was, `Pick them up, they've been helping us out all game.'"
On excitement after win
"We were too excited. This was a big time win. It was a hard fought game, and to pull it out was huge. We are 2-0 in the conference, now we have to just keep it rolling."
On John Diarse's tough catch
"It was huge. His Instagram is @let9out and we let him out today. He made big time plays. First starting out with that fade and jumping over the defender. Then the out at the end. He's a big time player and he stepped up today."
TCU running back Kyle Hicks
On the win
"It was a great conference win and a great team win. We came in and did our job. We stayed within ourselves and just kept running our game plan. We are happy to be 5-0, but we are just trying to take it one game at a time. We are going to enjoy this victory, and tomorrow we will get ready for Kansas State."
On his return after being injured
"It felt great to be back out there with my brothers. Words can't really explain it I was just glad to be back out there."
Offense in the second half vs. the first half
"The first half we were trying to go out there and do too much. The second half was more attention to detail, making routine plays and moving the ball."
On Kenny Hill `the receiver'
"He was great. Kenny balled out today. I was happy for him. Kenny is very mobile, he is definitely a weapon running and catching the ball."
TCU corner back Ranthony Texada
On big twelve competition
"[Will Grier] is a great quarterback, he's hard to stop. We just did what we had to do to get the win. Every week in the Big 12, teams are going to come at us. Everybody has great players, and every week we have to come ready and have a good week of practice so we can be ready. I know Coach [Patterson] will have us ready. Offenses are going to throw the ball. We are going to run a lot of plays and you don't want to give up touchdowns. We had some red zone stops. That is a win for us when we can hold them to a field goal.
"Adam Nunez had some big punts and pinning them back there lowers the percentage of the offense being able to get scores, and that really helps us a lot. Coach [Patterson] gets us ready every week. We play through situations getting big stops, and I feel like we did a good job of that today. We made a big stop on the third and fourth down."
On rankings
"We didn't have as good of a season as we wanted last year. We are just taking it game by game this year. We are not worried about the rankings. At the end of the day, you just have to keep winning games, and that is what we are going to keep trying to do."
West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen
On the game:
"It's a disappointing loss. It feels a lot like Game 1. We fought hard and had a chance to tie it at the end and didn't. That's not a shot at the offense by any means. We had opportunities to stop them and we didn't. We had opportunities to go score and we didn't. It was a close game. TCU is a good football team. They didn't make any mistakes. They played well in the kicking game. It wasn't a result of us playing bad in the kicking game, they just made plays in the kicking game, which really effected the field position in the first half. Two turnovers and field position is probably the difference in the game. That's a good team and that's what good teams do. That's what we did to them last year and that's what they did to us this year. I'm proud of the way the guys kept fighting. I think we are a group that likes to play, that fights hard and competes. It's not good enough to beat good teams on the road in the Big 12. We have to continue to improve and I think we will."
On the WVU defense:
"I wasn't worried about our defense. We played better defense today, but not good enough to win. It wasn't good enough to beat this team today. I'm not blaming the defense. There are three sides. There's blame to go around. I'm number one. I didn't do a good job special teams' wise. We lost the special teams battle. We lost field position. There's plenty of blame to go around. Offense, defense, special teams, coaching, playing, we are all in this together and it wasn't good enough to beat a top 10 team on the road today."
On how the reversed call affected WVU:
"It didn't affect our team at all. We gathered our defense together on the sideline and said `if they reverse this we need to go out there and stop them' and we didn't. I thought the kid made a good play, but it is what it is."
On his message to the team at halftime:
"It was a close game. Everything that happened in the first half, throw it away. If we outplay them in the second half, we're probably going to win the game and we didn't."
On TCU trying to slow down the WVU run game:
"They give up about 90 yards a game on the ground. They are pretty good on defense and pretty good against the run. (Justin) Crawford ran for 100 yards again. They don't give up 100-yard rushers very often."
On passing the ball down the field:
"They are good against the run and good against stopping routine plays. When you have opportunities to make plays down field on them, you have to take advantage of it. We made a few in the second half, which got us back in the game."
On quarterback Will Grier:
"He competed hard. He's a competitor. You are going to get about the same thing out of him every game. He does a great job of feeling pressure. That pick wasn't on him. Another 350-plus game. Will played good. I think he's capable of playing a little better. I think we are going to continue to improve."
On the difference in the offense during the first and second half:
"Field position was big on that. Although, I thought we did a great job offensively of getting out of those holes. That kid made four punts. It reminded me of LSU back some years ago where we stop them, but they punt it inside our five-yard line four or five times. Good for him. The kid made good plays. You can't sit there and point the finger at anybody other than the fact that their specialists made good plays. They were perfect in the field goal game and they were pretty dang good when it came to punt. If we don't like that then we need to make field goals and we need to punt better. The field position is tough, but you have to overcome it. There wasn't anything broke with what we were doing. We came out in the second half and did the same stuff and we had better field position. That's the way football works."
West Virginia offensive tackle Colton McKivitz
On the first half:
"It was frustrating because we were moving the ball and we were racking up yards on them, but field position killed us. We were trying to make do with what we had. Our biggest thing is finishing drives because it could have been a completely different game at halftime if we had finished some of those drives."
On TCU's defensive line:
"They are a good d-line. They are active and well-coached. No. 15 and No. 91 were pretty good on my side."
West Virginia wide receiver David Sills
On the second half offense:
"We had a lot better field position in the second half, so we didn't have to start backed up. I think that really helped."
"I felt like we were clicking on offense the whole game and just played and stayed true to us."
West Virginia quarterback Will Grier
On TCU's defense:
"It wasn't what I expected. Everything changed. They ran about six different defenses on the first series and they did a bunch of different stuff the entire game. It just wasn't like them at all."
"We adjusted, but they didn't do anything we expected them to do. They did a really good job of hiding what coverage they were in. They're a good defense and they did a good job."
"They didn't have any blitzing tendencies on film. They threw a lot of new stuff at us and used some coverages that they don't usually do."
On field position:
"It was rough, hats off to their punter. It was quite amazing because he pinned us a few times in the first half. We had to put together really long drives and we had had some trouble finishing."
