Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire talks about his teams victory over Arizona State

The Texas Tech football team moved to 3-1 on the season Saturday afternoon by securing a 30-22 win over Arizona State in Lubbock. After the game, head coach Joey McGuire met with the media to talk about the victory.

"Arizona State is physical," he said.  "They do a good job of canceling gaps, you know.  But a couple weeks ago I talked to Matt Rhule, who y'all know is my mentor, after the Washington State game. And the one thing he said, he goes ‘Man you are one of the best teams in the country at running counter and you went away from it.  You know, you didn't do what you do because you almost gave people too much respect’.

"And today and last week coming into this game you know it always helps having 28 back I thought.  But I thought Cam Dickey had a big run that he bounced off a tackle that looks like it was going to be a tackle for a loss you know. Jacoby Williams had a good run you know in the half but we, what we do we do it well and we've got to stick with it.  Sometimes it's not as pretty as other times but man when you got a guy like that I mean he had 117 yards and I thought he was physical and we knew it was going to be a physical football game and I asked him to get behind his pads today and make sure that whenever they walked off they knew who the best back on the field was. "

The first question McGuire fielded was about whether he felt like his team played complimentary football in this game. He said that there were areas for improvement in that regard.

"You know yeah I think if you take the penalties away," he said, "I mean like you know we came out and they lead the country in time of possession so we took the ball first.  You know whenever I sat down with Kittley he felt really good about his openers for them to play from behind.  So we went up 7-0 and then we caused the turnovers so we got 14 to nothing you know and that was kind of the magic number.  We felt like it was going to be a real fight. 

"You know it's tough man…first of all we're eliminating some of the pre-snap penalties so if there's anything good about the number of penalties we're getting right now, we eliminated some of the pre-snap penalties but you know it's tough. I mean you got 3 or 4 guys laying on Taj and in a big old lineman that that's their nature, they want to protect 2 and 28 and 33 and 20 and they go over there and trying to help Tahj up and getting people off the pile and get our first 15-yarder and that set us back you know.  We had a couple of those you know we had the one I think they went, I wanna say it was 14 to 10 maybe but it might have been 14-3 maybe, we allowed them we had 45 penalties in in holding and pass interference on that one drive you know.  

"Some of that's frustrating you know. I felt like we had two drives that we started the game I think we could have gone up 21-0 we had a punt you know and Dre McCray was wide open and you had some of the same things.  We overthrew #5. That hit his hands but you had some of the same things and so it's just we've got to be better and more disciplined on that.  Some of those I'm never going to get you know really upset about.  The ones I get upset about is you know that if you go over there and you pull somebody off the pile they're gonna throw a flag. We had a hit around the pile that is not good football you know. Those two out of everything those two are the penalties that we have to eliminate and that kept us from really stretching the lead without a doubt."

Speaking of the penalties, McGuire was asked about how his team, and specifically his defense, responded after a ton of early flags.

“Man I'm gonna tell you, number one I mean I can't wait to watch the film," he said, "but Macho Stevenson started his first game at corner today. I thought he did a really good job you know and minus one play, same call as last week where we gave up the big play, umm I thought the defense played really well I mean really well.

"We gave up that one swing pass. We brought pressure from the field. We didn't roll down. They got the big play it's the same thing that happened last week to us.  But besides that one play, I thought that we played really well on defense because we made them drive the field. I don't know what they were on 4th down they were 0-3 on 4th down. Are y'all shocked?  We were we were 0-for, I mean we didn't have a we didn't go for it on 4th down. That  might be a first you might have to check that, Matt because that might be a first that we've ever done that.

"But you know, I mean you think about that like whenever you're going for it on 4th down that those are turnovers and then you had another turnover so really created 4 turnovers on defense which is really good defense. So minus that one play you take that long pass play, I don't know how long it was exactly, but you take that one away and I thought we played great on defense."

Next, McGuire took a question about how well his team handled the ASU pass rush. He said there were some factors that would have helped the offensive line.

"Well you know there's one drive that's extremely frustrating because we dropped 3 balls you know. And so like again there's the things that we have to get better at, takes pressure off of, you know you got to decide if you're going to bring pressure on Behren or you’re going to let really good receivers where you're one-on-one.

"If you go back to the one series we should have scored and we have two plays that are going to be big plays and they hit the receivers right in the hands and they, you know, we don't catch the ball.  And so we've got to do that because that takes pressure off for Behren because now you got to decide you're either gonna play coverage [or] you're going to bring heat. 

"We're going to make you pay if you're bringing that much.  You know, we felt like again, we felt like coming into this game this was going to be the best front seven that we had played up unto this point you know. They've done a great job of stopping the run you know and they've limited big plays and they have hit the quarterback at times and so I think we held up. I think we only gave up one sack but he did get hit way too much.  Yeah, we gave up one sack but in some of that, we got to make these guys pay.  I think two or three times whenever he was getting hit or pushed we dropped the ball.

Texas Tech is going with an unusual rotation at the place-kicking position. So far, it has paid off as Gino Garcia and Reese Burkhardt are both perfect on the season. McGuire talked about that situation and how important his kicking game was in the victory.

"Yeah you know it was funny, Chris Level said, ‘I guess we still got a kicking competition’ because man they just keep going out there and hitting them.  Man, it's great. I thought you know two things, I thought that Jack [Burgess] did a phenomenal job punting today.  

"You know it's frustrating. I wish we'd had a camera which you don't and most people don't on the goal line because it's really, you didn't have a good angle for them to say that it didn't go in the end zone. I thought that Dre McCray did a great job of knocking that ball back in but I thought Jack punted really well today. And man our kickers man they just keep coming up and they come up with some big kicks so right there at the end of the game to keep it at you know like 14 and then not even that, special teams overall, I mean we block an extra point you know which now there you know I think it was eight points behind at one point you know because of the blocked extra point so I thought special teams played really well today.”

Texas Tech tight end Jalin Conyers played for Arizona State the past two seasons. McGuire was asked his thoughts on Conyer's play on Saturday and whether or not Tech got any inside information from him.

"You know they have changed up you know.  They got a new quarterback so they're doing things different. I mean we felt like you know he had a good idea about him but if you go back to them last year versus this year, man they had a game where they played out of the swinging gate the whole time.  You know last year, I told Kenny [Dillingham] I said man I mean he's got a really good football team.  And I know he's excited because he's healthy. I mean they had one week where they went into the game, they didn't practice all week because they had six healthy offensive linemen to play in the game. 

"And so we felt that Jalin could give us some stuff but they were going to be different than what they were you know. I thought Jalin did a good job you know.  It's good to get you know you got 260 lbs running downhill in the wildcat. I think he did a really good job there you know but we also had a big play called back you know of a penalty. 

"Again you go back, Tahj had a big run and you know we chopped at the line of scrimmage and we haven't done that ever you know…And so that was frustrating. I was happy for him.  We tried, the one thing I tried to do, I probably overplayed it a little bit too much with Josh Kelly going back to Washington State and so you know I would normally probably put Conyers as captain but I didn't want him to like make it more than what it was you know make it all about football."

In the second half, Tech had two drives of over 10 plays that chewed up the clock. McGuire talked about the way his team was able to control the time of possession.

"Yeah I thought it was, I thought it was big you know.  The one thing that we came in, we were really trying to find a couple of runs that you know we were clean.  Sometimes you don't need clean runs when you have Tahj because he will come out the back door. He'll you know make somebody miss that's in the hole.

"But that was huge, especially whenever he had the lead you know.  And then you stretched it to 14 points and you were able to really milk the clock and eliminate how many times, the defense I think at one point Tim DeRyuter asked you know how many plays we have on defense and it was really deep in the third quarter and we had played 47 snaps on defense. 

"So that's always good you know.  You got two really good linebackers sitting behind you right now.  I thought that was the most physical that those two played especially Jacob Rodriguez.  I thought he really stepped up today and you know we had Adam Hill um wear #4 this week but we also had the Midland meatball Wesley Smith wear #4 this week and play running back.  And there were different times that I don't know if Wesley didn't get behind his pads he was knocking the heck out of some people during practice. But the time of possession was huge because you've got a chance to play better defense that way."

In the game, Tech made three critical stops on fourth down. McGuire talked about the importance of those plays.

"Yeah man," he said, "you talking about guys triggering, having good eyes and triggering like making decisive plays, owning their leverage. Those were huge plays in the game because they won't go on the turnover board tomorrow but you know they are turnovers. I mean we're getting off the field and we're you know in good position. 

"You know usually if you can get those stops, I thought that the defense came up huge on 4th down, but the biggest thing, and when those things happen I mean like Mo [Horn] triggered and then Ben [Roberts] and [Chapman Lewis] I mean they triggered and they finished you know the tackle and I think you know that was one thing we're getting better as a defense at tackling because we're owning leverage. There was very few times today besides that big run and you know that was more you know miscommunication and not rolling down than it was you know leverage but they were becoming a better tackling team but it's all about being decisive making decisions and go and see what you hit and they did."

Finally, McGuire was asked about the play of his tight ends as a group. He talked about what mismatches they are.

"Yeah you know they're, those three guys are so key to this offense," he said, "because they're so physical.  They definitely, when you have Mason Tharp, I'd tell you Tahj you'd probably say man we're better when we have Mason Tharp and the run game.  

"Jalin Conyers is so athletic and can do so many things and then Johncarlos Miller he's kind of a hybrid of both he's really physical in the run game and he's really athletic. And you know a lot of things we we got pressure we, I thought we had a touchdown to Mason but then he had a big catch on that kind of wide delay that ended up getting us the first down that was going to their sideline. I mean those guys man they got great hands they're really physical and they're mismatches I mean you go 6-4, 6-5 and 6-9 they're really mismatches. I looked out there one time and you know we have a nub tight end and you got Mason Tharp who's 6-9 270 and then you got Dalton Merriman who's 6-9 315 right now and he's getting bigger every day you know. And so that's tough to match up with."