Neal Brown - This is the third time I've been in this press area and this is by far the best feeling I've had so thought we had a chance here four years ago when Matt (Rhule) was the coach and a really good team and then got worn out in 2021. I want to start, I thought Baylor competed really, really hard tonight and that's a credit to Dave (Aranda). We have rough years and we had it last year, but our kids really competed and we won our finale last year at Oklahoma State and won two of our last three. That really set the stage for us to make a turn. Went really young and that's what they've done too and they have a lot of really young players and I thought they competed really hard. I thought defensively they had a lot of answers for us in the second half and offensively kept us off balance. Kind of a bitter sweet for me because my guy who was a student coach for us at Kentucky and then worked for us for two years he returned two kicks against us today. Tyler Hancock, who's their special teams analyst. I'll be happy for him at some point, not right now but at some point. I think that when you look at this game we didn't play very well. We just did not play very well. Offensively we did some good things in the first half, defensively really didn't play much in the first half. The two kickoffs were huge. We just got beat in one-on-one blocks and that should never happen. Can't explain it, we'll watch film on that but that's just not good enough that's not who we've been on special teams and that's not what we're going to be moving forward either. In the second half we got behind the chains, had some penalties and on that last drive we were able to save our timeouts and use them and Garrett's really good at the two-minute drill. We two scored touchdowns with less than a minute in the half with zero timeouts. He's really good, his ability to run, gets the ball downfield vertically. I thought our protection and nobody is going to talk about this, but we five man protected on the last play that we got Jaheim (White) up the sideline. That's a play we've been running going back to the first week of spring practice but we haven't ran it in a game yet. We run it every two-minute drill in practice so they hung in there versus a really good blitz and picked them up and Garrett made a really good play. Really proud of our guys, gets us to eight, gets us to six in the conference which I think is significant.
I really felt coming in they played well for three quarters last week and they had some drops but really got open a lot. Sometimes for whatever reason when a backup has to come in people rally around him and I felt they did that offensively. They played with really good energy, they had some good defensive answers versus us in the second half. We didn't play as well and really for the first time all year penalties really hurt us and got us behind the chains. It's hard to operate when it's second and 20 something, I thought one of the holding penalties was absolutely not a hold. The one that took the really long run away that was a really good block by Wyatt (Milum) so I'll disagree with that one. But it's hard to officiate they're going to miss some, too. I promise you I didn't have all the right calls. I never felt really comfortable. I didn't feel comfortable at halftime but we found a way.
I was just telling our staff we do these two minute drills, if somebody else does them more maybe so, but we do them a bunch. That's something that I learned from Mark (Stoops) when I was at Kentucky. A lot of situational football. We do it. Garrett has been around and here's the thing. In practice there's a lot of mistakes in those two minute drills but there's also learning points. We kind of just let him play and he's like my oldest daughter some lessons are hard you have to learn them by doing them. He's learned some hard lessons in some two minute drills in practice but those have helped him become kind of the two minute guy he is now. So, that's an odd situation you've got it on the one-yard line with 15 seconds to go. It was first and goal so it felt like we would have time to spike it off the run so that's what we would have done.
Let me tell you something I can't say enough about Zach Frazier. So, appreciative of him and his family. One play sums up who he is for his entire career. I hope our fan base really understands that a young man from Fairmont, I think he's the best center in college football. This is how smart and how tough he is. He had an injury that's significant, not something that's going to be long term but he probably won't play in the bowl game but he limps off because he knows it's a ten second run off if he stays down. So, a lower leg injury, he limps off one one leg to avoid a ten second run off. I think that speaks to his intelligence, how tough he is and he's a great player. I plan on doing this for a long time and I don't know if I'll ever coach a center that's better. I've had some good players but I've never coached one better. Really fortunate, kind of bitter sweet really. We win the game at the end but he gets hurt so, my level of excitement is subdued because of that.
It's been the way the games have gone since we've joined the conference. They've had a hard time winning at our place, we've had a hard time winning here. It's a little bit different from a travel perspective. The other thing too is the last two times we've came here they've won the Big 12 Championship and won 11 games. They were pretty salty both times. I can't speak before then but the last two times they were just better than us. We gave them all they could handle in 19, thought we out played them but got a field goal blocked there but in 21 they were better than us.
We were better prepared. Human nature is you think about that don't get me wrong. I was more worried about the kickoff than anything. We were better prepared because they were using their timeouts which helped them but it also helps us. We blitzed this time, you learn from your mistakes. People always ask about regrets, I don't know if you have regrets but if you're in the same situation you learn from those. And we learned from it, we could have coached that better and we obviously should have knocked the ball down but we pressured and I think that was the difference in that play.
Here is what I believe we've got really good push all year. We got in the right a-gaps and Sean Martin and Mike Lockhart have been impactful. Sean Martin is really long he's 6-foot-5 and he's got a really long wingspan and so we blocked three field goals this year but we've really came close to a lot so what happens is they watch film and the kicker has to change his trajectory to get the ball up especially when it's on the left hash so that probably helped. The first one was a long kick, the second one I don't want to speak for him but I think our pressure does effect. It gets to the point where you're due a break, shit how many years I've been here, we needed one. We were due one, right?
I think nine wins is significant. I'm preaching the choir at this table left to right knows a lot more about the history than I do. We won 10 games in 16, and haven't gotten to nine since then. We go from 14th pre-season, I tried to tell everybody, we're going to finish fourth. I think that's significant and have an opportunity to get to 9 wins. We'll approach the bowl game like this other than the bowl game two years ago we've done pretty good in them. First of all we want to win, second of all we want to make sure this is an enjoyable experience for our guys because it's a bonus. And we want to prepare for the next year so we can do all those things. The goal is to get to nine.
Let's talk about Hudson Clement. Two or three plays on that drive, a kid from Martinsburg. He made some big plays and Preston (Fox) had to leave but made a big catch. I'm surprised he hasn't caught more. I'm trying to talk about the kids we have from West Virginia on offense. I haven't been reading what you're writing so I don't want to speak too loud but we've been pretty good on offense, especially in our league, we've been really good on offense. You look at the number of West Virginia guys that we have that are heavy contributors. I'll lean to the guys on my left and right, but I bet you'd be hard pressed to find this many West Virginia guys making the significant contributions that they are now.
I really felt coming in they played well for three quarters last week and they had some drops but really got open a lot. Sometimes for whatever reason when a backup has to come in people rally around him and I felt they did that offensively. They played with really good energy, they had some good defensive answers versus us in the second half. We didn't play as well and really for the first time all year penalties really hurt us and got us behind the chains. It's hard to operate when it's second and 20 something, I thought one of the holding penalties was absolutely not a hold. The one that took the really long run away that was a really good block by Wyatt (Milum) so I'll disagree with that one. But it's hard to officiate they're going to miss some, too. I promise you I didn't have all the right calls. I never felt really comfortable. I didn't feel comfortable at halftime but we found a way.
I was just telling our staff we do these two minute drills, if somebody else does them more maybe so, but we do them a bunch. That's something that I learned from Mark (Stoops) when I was at Kentucky. A lot of situational football. We do it. Garrett has been around and here's the thing. In practice there's a lot of mistakes in those two minute drills but there's also learning points. We kind of just let him play and he's like my oldest daughter some lessons are hard you have to learn them by doing them. He's learned some hard lessons in some two minute drills in practice but those have helped him become kind of the two minute guy he is now. So, that's an odd situation you've got it on the one-yard line with 15 seconds to go. It was first and goal so it felt like we would have time to spike it off the run so that's what we would have done.
Let me tell you something I can't say enough about Zach Frazier. So, appreciative of him and his family. One play sums up who he is for his entire career. I hope our fan base really understands that a young man from Fairmont, I think he's the best center in college football. This is how smart and how tough he is. He had an injury that's significant, not something that's going to be long term but he probably won't play in the bowl game but he limps off because he knows it's a ten second run off if he stays down. So, a lower leg injury, he limps off one one leg to avoid a ten second run off. I think that speaks to his intelligence, how tough he is and he's a great player. I plan on doing this for a long time and I don't know if I'll ever coach a center that's better. I've had some good players but I've never coached one better. Really fortunate, kind of bitter sweet really. We win the game at the end but he gets hurt so, my level of excitement is subdued because of that.
It's been the way the games have gone since we've joined the conference. They've had a hard time winning at our place, we've had a hard time winning here. It's a little bit different from a travel perspective. The other thing too is the last two times we've came here they've won the Big 12 Championship and won 11 games. They were pretty salty both times. I can't speak before then but the last two times they were just better than us. We gave them all they could handle in 19, thought we out played them but got a field goal blocked there but in 21 they were better than us.
We were better prepared. Human nature is you think about that don't get me wrong. I was more worried about the kickoff than anything. We were better prepared because they were using their timeouts which helped them but it also helps us. We blitzed this time, you learn from your mistakes. People always ask about regrets, I don't know if you have regrets but if you're in the same situation you learn from those. And we learned from it, we could have coached that better and we obviously should have knocked the ball down but we pressured and I think that was the difference in that play.
Here is what I believe we've got really good push all year. We got in the right a-gaps and Sean Martin and Mike Lockhart have been impactful. Sean Martin is really long he's 6-foot-5 and he's got a really long wingspan and so we blocked three field goals this year but we've really came close to a lot so what happens is they watch film and the kicker has to change his trajectory to get the ball up especially when it's on the left hash so that probably helped. The first one was a long kick, the second one I don't want to speak for him but I think our pressure does effect. It gets to the point where you're due a break, shit how many years I've been here, we needed one. We were due one, right?
I think nine wins is significant. I'm preaching the choir at this table left to right knows a lot more about the history than I do. We won 10 games in 16, and haven't gotten to nine since then. We go from 14th pre-season, I tried to tell everybody, we're going to finish fourth. I think that's significant and have an opportunity to get to 9 wins. We'll approach the bowl game like this other than the bowl game two years ago we've done pretty good in them. First of all we want to win, second of all we want to make sure this is an enjoyable experience for our guys because it's a bonus. And we want to prepare for the next year so we can do all those things. The goal is to get to nine.
Let's talk about Hudson Clement. Two or three plays on that drive, a kid from Martinsburg. He made some big plays and Preston (Fox) had to leave but made a big catch. I'm surprised he hasn't caught more. I'm trying to talk about the kids we have from West Virginia on offense. I haven't been reading what you're writing so I don't want to speak too loud but we've been pretty good on offense, especially in our league, we've been really good on offense. You look at the number of West Virginia guys that we have that are heavy contributors. I'll lean to the guys on my left and right, but I bet you'd be hard pressed to find this many West Virginia guys making the significant contributions that they are now.
