‘We’re not good’: What Tom Herman said about the defense in loss to TCU
FORT WORTH (KXAN) — Texas lost its third game of the season on the road at TCU 37-27 Saturday.
The Horned Frogs used 24 second half points, aided by Sam Ehlinger interceptions, to pull away from the Longhorns. The TCU offense opted to test a bad Texas secondary by going deep.
The strategy worked for three explosive plays in the second half. All three of those drives resulted in TCU touchdowns.
In 2018, Texas used turnovers to beat TCU 31-16. This year, TCU used Ehlinger interceptions to get the win. Ehlinger threw a career-high four interceptions resulting in 13 TCU points.
Ehlinger began this season with three interceptions on his first 361 pass attempts. In his last 42 attempts against TCU, Ehlinger had four interceptions.
Texas head coach Tom Herman met with the media following the 37-27 loss to TCU.
Opening statement:
“Not the outcome that we expected or prepared for. Great college football environment…winning on the road is really hard and I felt good about where we were in the first half. In the second half, their quarterback had a great game and made a lot of plays. The game went a bit differently than we thought on that side of the ball. I thought we played the run game pretty well. When he gets outside the pocket, he’s a tough guy to get down. Made some unbelievable throws. He played a great game…and the defense, it’s the best defense in the conference for a reason. That’s a really, really good defense. We did not play to the level that we expected.”
Injury Report
Cade Brewer- ankle
Ryan Bujcevski- broken clavicle (surgery tomorrow)
Thoughts on defense:
“We’re not good. We need to be better. I think the off week will help. We have to do a better job as coaches…we’ve got to put them in position to make plays. The expectation from our medical staff is to have B.J. (Foster) DeMarvion (Overshown) and Caden (Sterns) ready to go…the depth will certainly help in the back end. Malcolm Roach told the team…we’ve got to come together and we’ve got to fight. The only way…when you’re in a hole like this…you got to fight. These things don’t happen by magic defenses or magic offenses. If you need any example of a team coming together after two straight losses, look to last season.”
On TCU quarterback Max Duggan performance:
“Hats off to him and the coaching staff. When he did throw the football he found some pretty tight seams…obviously the receivers made some big time plays.”
On Ehlinger’s four interceptions:
“The first interception. The receiver and him were not on the same page. The last one…on fourth down, the ball has to come out of your hand. It doesn’t matter to him…he’s going to go out and play his game. He was off a little bit, certainly. His the epitome of what Malcolm talked about…you have to fight, scratch and claw. Got us to within three…we couldn’t get off the field.”
On if Herman will evaluate assistant coaches:
“As much as we always do when we lose. If they’re not playing at the level we need them to play. One, they don’t understand it. Two, we’ve chosen the wrong guy to be out there. That hasn’t changed around here.”
Has Herman’s faith in defensive coordinator Todd Orlando wavered:
“No.”
(Follow up) Does Herman feel good about the defenses scheme and performance:
“No, I don’t feel good about it but the two questions are not related.”
On failures to score touchdowns in the red zone:
“That was big. I don’t know which one was the missed field goal. We’d been so good at scoring touchdowns in the red zone…credit to their defense. They didn’t do anything cosmic. We have to really analyze where we could’ve gotten better to punch the ball in the end zone.”
On bye week and facing Kansas State in two weeks:
“I do know they’re playing pretty good right now. I don’t expect anything other than what Malcolm said. I know the older guys…it’s ingrained in them that the only thing to do in a time like this is come together and fight and again…there’s nobody in the program…we’ve all got more. We can all give more. The human potential is never tapped out. Our charge is making sure the young guys follow suit. There’s a lot of young guys playing that are going to be down in the dumps by the performance. That’s our job to teach them how to respond to adverse situations like this. We have a lot of football ahead of us. We have an opportunity to heal emotionally, physically and mentally…just the mindset. We have to figure out who we are. There’s not a coach on the staff that’s going to allow wallowing.”
On two losses in three games:
“It’s not. I don’t know what last year has to do with anything. Any time you lose…we’ve got to figure out what we did wrong in preparation. Like Malcolm said, we’ve got to work and try to reach our human potential. I know after letting this one sting a little bit will be ready to work.”