Oct. 2, 2001
Three of Baylor's head coaches spoke to the media at Tuesday's press luncheon. Below are excerpts from their comments.
Head Soccer Coach Nick Cowell:
On last week's losses to No. 3 Nebraska and Iowa State:
"Friday night we played very well for 84 minutes, but had two mental lapses in the last six minutes... Losing 2-0 to Nebraska is not a bad result. Losing 4-0 gives it a different spin."
"Losing 2-1 to Iowa State... There were a lot of factors. We've had tons of injuries, we had our fourth player go down to an ACL tear [Sarah Dearing]. Our goalkeeper [Emily Koch] is playing in real pain and probably shouldn't even be playing."
"Also, playing Nebraska on Friday and Iowa State on Sunday while Iowa State had Friday off hurt us... Our energy level was down after playing the No.3 team in the nation. That's not to take anything away from Iowa State, they hung around and won in overtime."
On this weekend's games against Texas and Texas A&M:
"They have totally different styles, Texas is very offensive-minded, while A&M is more of a passing team... We have to be as good as we can possibly be."
On the team's injury situation:
"Mel [Pannell] is probably done for the season with a dislocated shoulder. Emily [Koch] could come in to my office at any time and say she's shutting it down for the year, but she wants to keep playing."
On the team's depth at goalkeeper:
"Right now, [the back-up role] is between Stephanie Dempsey and Amber Watkins. Both are training everyday for that spot. Stephanie has it right now, but Amber is right there."
Head Volleyball Coach Brian Hosfeld:
On last week's loss to No. 1 Nebraska:
"We're coming off another loss to the No. 1 team in the country in Nebraska. We played probably our best set all year against Nebraska in the first game... We had an opportunity to see ourselves moving at a good speed again, playing the way we can play."
On the upcoming schedule:
"I'm looking forward to getting away from playing all ranked teams and playing teams all in the category of wanting to be ranked."
Head Football Coach Kevin Steele:
On last week's loss to Iowa State:
"That play was unacceptable for this team and for this staff, and it was unacceptable to the team, too. They took that quite seriously. They can and will play better."
"The long haul is you get 11 opportunities. These guys are focused on the right things and have taken it the right way. I'm positive that these guys will respond."
On the upcoming schedule:
"We're going into the meat of the Big 12, this is when it gets fun, and I mean that... Texas A&M is a team that to me early on was underrated... This is going to be a heckuva challenge. [College Station] is a tough place to play, they have a lot of fans, a lot of loud fans. Our players are looking forward to it, to show this is a good football team."
On this week's game against Texas A&M:
"The rivalry between Baylor and Texas A&M... has been going on for a long time. It's a pretty heated rivalry. Someone may say that it isn't as heated now, but let that side lose the game and we'll see how heated the rivalry is."
"Texas A&M has done what you should do in any season: play the opponents on your schedule and improve weekly... The goal is to get better weekly, and they've done that."
On Texas A&M QB Mark Farriss:
"He's very mature and has a lot of athleticism... He's a very good athlete, and he understands football very well... You can see him directing the offense. The team has a lot of confidence in him."
On the impact of the crowd at Kyle Field:
"It's not as big a deal as people say it is... The NFL plays in some of the loudest stadiums there are, and they audible a ton more than most [college] teams... We go out to the practice field here and the speakers give you a headache, they're louder than any stadium I've ever been in... It's really not that big a deal, it's highly overrated."
On Baylor's quarterbacks:
"Right now, Greg [Cicero] is our starter. We are very fortunate to have two good players, Josh [Zachry] is a very good player, and he deserves to play. We have enough plays in our offense for everyone."
"What people don't notice is that when Josh went in [during the second quarter Saturday], the whole second offense went in... We're going to play a lot of guys this year... Like anyone else, we want to have our best guys out there, but building depth is part of building a program. We want guys to get experience so that they'll be ready when they have to come in."
On the team's season so far:
"We need to keep getting better at execution. We're getting good effort, we need to make sure when we have the opportunities that we don't leave them on the table. We also need to create more opportunities. One way to do that is to have more big plays... Iowa State had their 3-, 4-, 5- yard plays, and we had our 3-, 4-, 5- yard plays. But they also had plays for big chunks of yardage, and we didn't."
