Oct. 30, 2005
The 4-4 Baylor football team, which dropped a 28-0 decision to No. 16 Texas Tech last Saturday in Waco, now turns its attention to No. 2-ranked Texas, which brings an 8-0 record into Saturday's 11:30 a.m. (Central) contest at Floyd Casey Stadium. The game will be televised by Fox Sports Net, marking Baylor's fourth straight television appearance and sixth of the season. Here are Baylor coach Guy Morriss' thoughts on his team's 28-0 loss to Texas Tech and this week's game against the Longhorns:
On the Baylor offense:
"We got off to a bad start, back-to-back false starts. To give you a rundown, we had a check to a little quick out and we overthrow it, come back with a slant which we've been running since day one and we don't communicate up front. One guy's thinking one thing and one guy's thinking another, then we got a holding call. Just everything you can think of we took a turn at it. Sometimes, we didn't stay in the pocket when we should have and sometimes we didn't just throw it down and put the ball in the back with 15 yards between him and the defender. Just make the first down and keep the drive going, there was just no consistency. Those (pre-snap penalties) were just a lack of focus. I think we had four of those. You have to focus on the quarterback's voice. We just kind of got off to a bad start and couldn't get anyone to step up and make a play. We just kind of hung our head a little bit. That was the way the whole afternoon went."
On the play of the offensive line:
"So-so, that was not their best effort. We got flushed a few times, well, more than a couple. We got a little soft on the edges. We didn't come off the ball sometimes and they did some slants and stuff off the front but everybody has seen it just everybody's not doing it. We aren't the greatest running team in the world, but people can't just sit there static and not move on us. If we have an Achilles heel in the running game, its people that move, we have problems with that and people are doing it to us."
On Will Blaylock's play:
"He did fine. You can tell that the time off hurt him. He didn't play bad but he didn't play to the level he had before he got hurt. We will get him back on that this week."
"All those little things just start adding up and it's like wasted plays, it starts to take its toll on you. Things start dragging and we kind of hang our head a little bit. Then, we start focusing on what's going wrong instead of just going and doing things right."
On missed field goal at the end of the first half:
"We always want to come out of it with something. It looked like when he (Ryan Havens) lined it up he just misaimed a lot. It looked like he was aiming about 10 yards inside the left post. I don't if he was trying to compensate for the wind or what... I think after that everyone was just kind of down. It wasn't our normal self. It was jut kind of lackluster."
"We were rocking along pretty good and then we get a personal foul but we made it up with the big play to Trent (Shelton). He made a nice play and nice catch. Then there was the review on Ziggy's (Dominique Zeigler) and I think that kind of took some steam out of us too. I think the kids felt like we should have made the touchdown."
Do you regret going for that touchdown?
"Well, it would have prevented us from getting shut-out but I had faith in our offense that we weren't going to get shut-out. I thought it might jump-start us a little bit and get them excited, something to get them going. They were excited to go for it but we've got to block. The way I look at it, trying to resurrect this program, we have to walk the edge and take some risks. We can't play it toes to the bed all the time. That just isn't my style anyway and maybe I was wrong. You want to do everything you can to convince them that we have faith in them and if you go up 7-6, there's a lot of stuff that goes into that. I was just thinking of all the positive stuff that that would do for us and I thought, let's go for 7, we might as well. We were into the fourth quarter before they ever scored their first touchdown but we didn't do much at all in that quarter. We were 3 and out, 3 and out, 3 and out."
On the play of Terrance Parks:
"We thought maybe Terrance (Parks) could give us the spark we were looking for but that didn't seem to help us out either. Of course, Terrance was under pressure, not much time at all. He was on the move the whole time; he never did get a chance to set his feet."
On the final score:
"The score matters to the kids. They, up to that point, had put together a pretty good ball game. Could we have gotten anything going, you never know what could have happen. It gets the defense gassed up too and I feel bad for the kids. I don't think 28-0 is indicative of the way the defense played at all."
"I kept thinking maybe we could get something going, but that is just my optimism. Then, we came up after the 14-0a nd we go 3 and out, the defense goes out and stops them and they punt, then we go 3 and out again and that next series is when they get the touchdown. I don't know. I have got to breathe some life back into them today though and this week."
"I think you have to just tell it like it is. The defense played well enough to win. The offense just needs to regroup. I told them last night, they have to go find some passion for this game. They just looked miserable out there on the field. I'll see how they are today and see what they say. I may pull some of them in and talk to them individually. There may be more going on than I know about. I don't think there is, but you never know. It was just one of those days where everything just kind of snowballed on us."
Do you still see Shawn Bell as your starting quarterback?
"We'll see, I haven't thought about too much. I went home last night and moved some rocks. I just kind of needed to spend some time by myself. We've just got to saddle up again and climb back on."
On defensive play:
"I don't know what they could have done different to make it much better. They really turned in a great effort. They are inspired. That's the problem again, we talked about this last week, half of them play like gang busters and the other half of them just don't."
How do you keep the offense and defense from being divided?
"That's something that we as coaches have to stay on top of. I just encourage them, you've just got to go play your game, that's all you can control and the other side, I just tell them we've got to get it fixed."
On team's mind-set after three straight losses:
"I'm going to meet with them here in a little bit and see what frame of mind they are in. I think they will bounce back. I think they realize that they've still got a shot at going to a bowl and that's what they all want to do. We just have to execute better."
On playing Texas:
"We'll certainly have our work cut out for us. Right now we need to regroup and I want to see some energy next Saturday. I want Texas to beat us, if they are going to beat us, playing our best ball, which they may or may not do. I want us to stop all this nonsense we're doing and try to play and see what happens. It's the way we're losing that bothers me. We are beating ourselves most of the time, turning the ball over and then the penalties."
Sunday Notes: Kickoff for the Baylor-Texas game is set for 11:30 a.m. and the game will be televised by Fox Sports Net, marking the Bears' fourth straight TV appearance and sixth of the season ... Junior WR Trent Shelton stands No. 7 on Baylor's all-time reception list with 93 grabs ... Junior WR Dominique Zeigler ranks No. 6 in career receptions with 99 and has caught 3 or more passes in each of his last 7 games ... For the second consecutive season, Baylor has three players with 30 or more receptions on the season in Zeigler (35), senior WR Shaun Rochon (31) and Shelton (30) ... Junior QB Shawn Bell has 150 completions on the season, good for a fifth-place tie on the school's single-season list and just 25 shy of the record set by Don Trull in 1963 ... Junior CB C.J. Wilson has recorded 4 interceptions on the season, most by a Bear since Derrick Cash had 5 in 2001 ... As a team, Baylor has completed 163 passes on the season, which equals the eighth-best single-season mark in school history ... Baylor has played before back-to-back home crowds of 40,000 fans (40,857 vs. Nebraska and 43,525 vs. Texas Tech) for the first time since 1995 ... Baylor has averaged 40,319 fans for its first three home games, an increase of 9,733 fans per game over last year's mark of 30,586 ... Senior FS Maurice Lane's 346 career tackles rank No. 4 all-time at Baylor, 5 behind No. 3 Kris Micheaux, while Lane's 238 career solo stops are No. 2 only to LB Mike Singletary's school record 351 ... Lane ranks No. 8 in the Big 12 with 8.1 tackles per game ... Baylor has lost seven straight to Texas since a 23-21 victory over the Longhorns, Nov. 1, 1997 ... Bears will face a ranked Texas team for the seventh straight season, as Longhorns will bring a No. 2 national ranking to Waco, the highest UT has been ranked when playing Baylor since the 1983 season when it also carried a No. 2 ranking into its match-up with BU at Austin and posted a 24-21 victory ... Baylor reported only bumps and bruises from Saturday's game against Texas Tech ... The Baylor defense has 11 interceptions on the season, most since the 2001 Bears also had 11 picks.
