What Joey McGuire said after Texas Tech lost to Oregon

LUBBOCK, Texas — No. 13 Oregon defeated Texas Tech 38-30 Saturday night at Jones AT&T Stadium.

Joey McGuire recapped the Red Raiders’ second loss on the season.

Below is a transcript of McGuire’s postgame press conference.

JOEY McGUIRE

“Really proud of the players, I thought they fought their tails off. We didn’t bounce back with a win, of course, but bounced back from a really tough defeat last week. I was proud of how hard they played. I know they’re extremely frustrated with the loss because it was right there to go win the football game. We’ll look at the film tomorrow and go through our plan to win, but a lot of it is what we talked about and was a challenge for me and the coaches and the players. We’ve gone through two games and we’re 0-2 and I asked them ‘Is it us or them?’ and it’s us right now. We’re beating ourselves with untimely penalties and turnovers. So we’ve got to do a better job of that, and then we’re not creating enough pressure on the quarterback and we’re not creating enough turnovers. So those are the things that have got to be addressed in a hurry. Because it really doesn’t matter who we play next week or the next week, if we keep these self-inflicted wounds then we’re going to have a hard time getting better. We’re really going to concentrate on that and get better.”

On lack of pass rush:

“Last week I thought we generated pressure; we were terrible in our pass rush lanes. It showed up again tonight. We bring pressure, five to six, and he gets out for a huge gain in a really critical situation. It’s a mixture of completing your pass rush, staying in your pass rush lanes. We had opportunity to create pressure, they emptied the backfield, Ben (Roberts) was the extra guy so he had to go with the back. The Mike didn’t replace him, so we lose a rusher. It goes back to a lot of that, because I think there’s times that we are, we’re just not getting home. I think we had one sack tonight and I think the answer is not bringing more people because every time we brought more people we don’t stay in our pass rush lanes and it allowed quarterbacks that can run, escape. I think it’s more being disciplined, finishing your pass rush moves.”

On going for it on fourth and 2 at own 33:

“We hit the number. Defensive did a great job of holding them to a field goal. We came back and kicked the field goal to take the lead. Man they went on a long drive and ended up kicking a field goal to take the lead back. Just a crazy play right there at the end. I’m going to have to see it on film. He’s probably going to get sacked and the ball comes out and goes right into the guys’ arms that was also rushing. Crazy play at the end for them to go up 38-30 instead of 31-30 where we could have gone down to try to kick a field goal.”

On going for 2 after second touchdown:

“Analytics. I think we don’t have to, I think it’s a philosophy thing. You’re going to hear old school guys go don’t chase the points and all of this stuff. Then you’re going to hear analytics people, which we are, there’s going to be a point in that game that says go for 2. It said go for 2. We didn’t get it but that was what it was. We knew we were going for 2 all the way down on that drive.”

On four turnovers:

”Can’t win. I mean, it’s amazing we were in that game. When you start thinking about that, it says a lot about our players and our team, how resilient they are and how hard they played. Because you probably look at any other game and you have four turnovers, and you don’t have the lead 30-28 that late in the game. You shouldn’t, there’s no way you should.”

On Tyler Shough running:

“It was designed. We had a lot of quarterback run. It was one of the deals last week in the overtime, we started running him a little bit more. We felt like that was what, he rushed for 145 yards and was sacked four times. It was something that we knew that they would give us. We wanted to take advantage of his ability to run. Some of it was scramble but it was a lot of designed quarterback run plays, especially early in the first half to kind of get us going.”

On Tyler Shough’s physicality:

“He’s a big guy. He’s 230 pounds and I think one thing with him, it’s just by nature he’s a physical football player. I think he actually probably plays better when he gets hit a little bit. We don’t want him to get hit in the sack department and we got to protect him better there. But as far as running him, I hate it for him on the turnovers because he played his tail off tonight. I was proud of the way he played. Not only that, I thought he threw the ball great and we had some very untimely drops. Part of this offense and the thing that we have done very well is catch the football. It puts you behind the chains whenever you’re int he offense you’re going to throw the ball the number of times we’re going to throw it and we had some drops that were right in the hands and would’ve made the difference in the game if we make those catches.”

On moving past 0-2 start to focus on Big 12:

“We’ll talk about that. We talked about it a little bit during the week. I’ve never gone into a season and said ‘Man, my goal is to go undefeated.’ It’s hard to win. Our goal is to compete and win a conference championship, and as bad as we wanted to beat Oregon tonight, that’s still in front of us. The only way that can happen is for us to improve and be more disciplined — take care of the football and eliminate as much bad football as possible. I thought if you compare last week’s bad football to this week’s bad football, I thought that we eliminated a lot. I thought that we played more like ourselves. It was a really good football team that we played tonight, and I really felt like really we should’ve won the game. Again, it goes back to all of us. Whenever I ask them the question ‘Us or them?’ I made sure that they understood that the ‘us’ definitely starts with me, and looking at how I can be better and prepare these guys better. And I’m going to challenge our coaches and everybody in this building to do that.”

On offensive aggressiveness:

“I thought we had a really good game plan. Some of those shots allowed us to run the ball with Tahj (Brooks) later in the game. I thought he did a really good job. I think whenever we can do that and you put more pressure on the defense it’s going to open up a lot of things. We got some really good receivers and getting guys back and getting them back into game shape. it was good to see Nehemiah out there tonight. I thought Xavier (White) did a really good job. On that side of the ball anyway we continue to get healthier and healthier and it’s going to help us be more effective.”

On Mason Tharp:

“The way he went through camp and the way he’s been playing. Golly man in that one that got taken back, how frustrating is it that there weren’t two flags throw on that play. I mean holy moly. I don’t mean if a blind man can make that call or not, but jeez that was a tough play for me right there. It’s fun to see him and the way he’s coming, he’s really growing into who we think we are. You saw it, he was targeted five time he had four catches and he a couple of really big catches for us.”

On if 17-play drive impacted offensive play calling on fourth and 2:

“It was pretty impressive for anybody to have a 17-play drive. Hats off to them; that doesn’t happen a lot at any level of football. We had got to the number. It would have been good to keep the defense off the field but I also think those guys did a good job coming out and holding to a field goal after that.”

On the incomplete pass that was nearly intercepted in the end zone:

“I could see where they overturned it. He caught it and his foot was down and when he came down and hit it looked to me that the ball moved so they called it incomplete or it wasn’t an interception.”