Mack Brown's Post-Game Press Conference After Win over UTEP

Head coach Mack Brown Opening statement: It was a dominating win. It was fun to see our guys play hard, and they played well in all three phases. When you force turnovers like that, games get out of control and you have the big kicking game plays for field position. I’m really excited about our kicking game. I think we have a chance now every time somebody kicks it to us to score, and that’s fun. We haven’t been that way since we’ve been here, really. When (UTEP) got the interception and scored, the kickoff return just kind of broke their back when we came right back. They are a better football team in my estimation than they were this time last year. We were scared coming in because if you looked at what they were doing, they were getting better each week and they played Buffalo much better this year than they did last year, they beat New Mexico State last week. We were concerned about them being able to run the ball, so I was really pleased with the way our defense stepped up and just shut everything down throughout the entire day.

Our young ones played better in the last quarter and a half than they’ve been playing before, so we’re proud of them. I’m proud of Colt (McCoy), he looks like the Colt of old. He came back and started well, even with the interception. He had a grin on his face when came over and he said, “Boy, what a great play he (UTEP DB Malcolm Stevenson) made.” I thought it was the right throw, the right place to go and the guy just made a great break on it. Instead of having bad body language and feeling bad, he said, “We’ll get him deep one of these plays.”

I’m really proud of Vondrell (McGee). He stepped up and looked in the game like what we’ve been seeing in practice. We’re proud of him. The receivers continued to get better. I just felt like overall it was a dominating win. You hate to beat somebody that badly, but the game just kind of got out of hand. I was proud of Garrett (Gilbert) when he came in. We tried to get him some actual scrimmage plays because it’ll help him, and that’s three games we’ve gotten him in where he’s gotten some work. I feel like that he did a really good job when he was in.

On if the running back pool became deeper today: I think so. That’s good. Cody (Johnson) looked good on his one run for a touchdown when he got in there. Fozzy (Whittaker) probably still isn’t 100 percent, but he’s close. He’s got so much quickness. We’ve really got to go back and look at what we can do with the right combination of guys in there. I think we’ve got a good problem in that all of them have a chance.

On preparing to return conference play: We’ll re-evaluate everything next week. We’ll look at the body of work we’ve had for the first four weeks. We’ll look at the good and the bad, we’ll pull everything out and we’ll pull out what is not working that we feel like doesn’t fit us. We’ll throw out what is not working, especially offensively, because you can get too much. We will start working hard for conference play now, and the things that are really important to us. I did think that last week’s tough game with Tech helped us today. We played at a faster tempo today and more urgency from start to finish. That’s what next week will be about, trying to figure out exactly what we need to be when we start for Colorado the following week.

On the high standards QB Colt McCoy has set for himself: We have pretty high standards here, and that’s a good thing. At one point during the season he said he feels like he’s got the whole weight of the world on his shoulders and I said, “Me too.” They were griping at me after the Tech game too, so that’s just part of the deal here. I do think that what you realize is when you set a very high standard like he has, the expectations are just as high. Today he lived up or went beyond those expectations again, and that’s what he’ll be this year. He had a real breakthrough last week in the second half, and I saw him with a different demeanor all week and today. We dropped a touchdown pass today. That might have frustrated him two weeks ago, it didn’t even bother him today. He’s competitive, he wants it to work, but he said, “Pick your head up and let’s go get the next play.”

On the defense: They just played great. I really hate that we’ve had two shutouts with our defense this year and they will not get credit for it because of the botched fake of the punt up at Wyoming and the blocked punt were the only points they got, and today the points weren’t allowed defensively, so from our standpoint we’re calling it a shutout to the kids. They know that’s what they did.

On the offense’s tempo: We just tried to go one-minute tempo instead of no-huddle. We wanted to go play the whole game at such a high pace that it’s like the last drive before the half because we do that so well. That’s what we did today. UTEP doesn’t have a lot of depth and in that heat the other thing we wanted to do was wear them down and that’s what happened because we were on the field so much offensively. We had 83 plays to 51. When you just stay on the field that long it gives you a chance to get everybody going.

On rushing and passing for 300 yards each: That’s who we want to be. That’s what we were in 2005; we ended up 250-250. That’s what you would like to have. We don’t care which half, we don’t care when it happens, because it is harder to run the ball in the first half. We felt like that we did see some things we liked in the running game during the second half and we’ve just got to continue to work on them.

On where the team is after four games: We divide the season up into four groupings. Last week was the end of the first season. This is the first game of the second season, it will go through OU because we usually try to go 3-4 weeks there. We’ll have our preparation week, then Colorado, then we’ll have OU. We’ll restart it again because we have to start going on the road. We feel like that we have a million things still to work on. We’re where we want to be. This was a good way to finish. Now we’ll have to be really careful that people don’t brag on us for this performance so much that our guys get complacent and lackadaisical.

On Jordan Shipley’s value to the team: I don’t think there’s any question that Jordan Shipley is underrated. He’s the same guy every day. He’s got the same attitude every day. When he got the early hit on the punt, most guys would have laid there or come out, but he was fine. We had to fair catch the last four punts and get him out because I was afraid he might not fair catch it. I don’t think that Jordan is appreciated like he should be outside of our staff and our team. They know how valuable he is to us.

On turnovers: Last year, to win 12 games with as few turnovers as we had was nearly impossible. Offensively, I still think we’re okay because we’re holding on to the ball well. It seems like we’ve got good ball security. The last two fumbles we can’t have, but those young guys haven’t practiced as much in those situations as the guys that played in the first three quarters. Turnovers are the difference in college football games.

I think I was most proud that they all came out ready to play. After the Tech game, this could have been a day that they wouldn’t have been as ready to play because it wasn’t a national game. I was excited that this team grew up some and hopefully they’re going to start playing regardless of the opponent every week.

On what a win like this does for the team’s psyche: It’s really good and it’s dangerous. We play better, I really believe, when people are critical of us. We will have to be really hard on this team now, and we’ll have to go back and look at every little thing that’s out there. Usually the media does the coaching for me, and this week I’m going to have to do it. Very honestly, complacency kills in football. We’ve got to go back to work. We’ll find a lot of things that we need to work on in this film.

On playing every eligible player: We’ve got two punters, two kickers, all the snappers, all the holders, so we got to work a lot of guys that don’t normally get to work in a game today in a live situation. I think we got every eligible person today in the game, and that’s something that’s very, very hard to do and we’re proud to do that.

On gaining style points from this win: I think when you’re ahead 47-7 at halftime, that’s style points.