COACH BARNETT?S TUESDAY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
BOULDER ? The University of Colorado held its weekly press conference Tuesday at the Dal Ward Athletic Center, as head coach Gary Barnett addressed the media about last week's defeat at Baylor and this week's home matchup with Kansas (1:30 p.m. MDT). The following contains quotes from the afternoon press session.
ON LAST WEEK'S LOSS TO BAYLOR?'Five turnovers and 26 missed tackles was the difference in the game. In a nutshell that's what the game boiled down to. We had a couple of guys play well, but obviously not enough. Right now the fundamentals of blocking and tackling are not where it needs to be for us to win those kinds of games. It's never one single thing; it's always a myriad of things. You try to approach all of them and if you could identify it and say it was just one thing, somebody would make a lot of money and you could fix it. But it's always a combination and it's all interrelated. Fortunately our players have maintained a good approach and attitude towards it and they are hanging together. We're handling this thing as a team and all we can do is somehow find a way to put it behind us and go. My emphasis with our team when we're on a roll and winning is to not get too high and get back on a level even keel. It's the same approach that you have to take when things aren't going your way " you still have to find a way to stay on an even keel. You can't let the highs affect you when you're rolling and you can't let the lows affect you when you're not. Both of those things are hard to do, but it's especially hard to do when you are on a downward spiral, which is the way we've played. We have to draw upon our experience, teaching ability, strengths and the way we feel about each other to find a way to come back and get a chance to play again. And that's what we have in Kansas.'
ON KANSAS?'We've got a team coming in here that is playing with a great deal of emotion. They are playing with a lot of excitement and a lot of confidence. They've bolstered they're defense with a couple of junior college guys from a year ago that have really helped them. Coach Mangino has maintained a consistent approach. They are playing the same defense as a year ago " a defense that Chris Brown ran for 308 yards on. Right now, the way we're running, that doesn't look like it's possible. They've shortened up, they've improved their players and the guys are used to it. It's a pretty simple scheme " it's a three linebacker system with four deep and they're going to play zone 99 percent of the time. They keep the ball in front of it; it's a bend-don't-break defense and they've been real good. Their offense has been spectacular. The quarterback (Bill Whittemore) is a throwback guy. He's a guy that you would like to have leading any team in the country. I don't ever see him go out of the game; he gets tackled 35-40 times a game and stands up to it. He runs the option, he throws the ball, runs the quarterback counter and everybody feeds off of him. He's sure been a spectacular player for them and a great leader. It's really obvious that they rally around him. They are coming off a big win over Missouri and they've had two weeks.'
'Gabe Toomey, the middle linebacker, is really good. He's really taken them to another level with their defense.'
ON KANSAS' WIN OVER MISSOURI?'They shut down Missouri's passing game completely. They were very efficient running the ball; they ran the ball on Missouri really well. Missouri struggled throwing it and they tried to run the quarterback a lot. Kansas really honed in on him and really contained him. Missouri's defense gave up a lot of yards and points. They played their best game against Missouri and that's a big game. They were sky high for it and they played really well. Kansas made a believer out of me by beating Missouri.'
ON THE EARLY SEASON STRUGGLES?'If you look at the number of seniors that we have, you look at the schedule and you look at the number of inexperienced players we play, you knew that this could sort of exist. I think losing Marques Harris, losing (Quinn) Sypniewski, losing (Joel) Klatt and losing (Bobby) Purify really hurt us. I think we were one of those teams that could've teetered either way, but after the first couple of games we realized that we had a quarterback and we had a guy that was going to get us through those tough games. Bobby was playing pretty well and Marques, arguably our best defensive player, were lost to injuries. When you lose those guys, I think you get off the fence and see it the other way.'
'I don't think this is a one win solution. We're going to have to fight, fight, fight because there is no part of the game that we're dominant in right now. If there was a part of the game that we were really dominant, a one-win solution might exist. Our defense is hanging on, our offense is just hanging on and our special teams have been pretty good, but we gave up 14 points at Florida State. We have been below average in all three of those. If there were one simple solution, we certainly would figure out some way to fix it. It's a combination of things. 15 out of 24 starters are freshmen our sophomores ? it's not an excuse; it's the way it is. We lost four really key performers, but hopefully we'll get one of them back this week. We have not held on to the football and we haven't tackled well. The one thing that we've maintained is that we've had great compliance within our team and we've had a really good attitude. We have a group that works hard and practices hard. They're not having as much fun as they would like to have because you have more fun when you win, but they're a team that has a lot of respect for each other and it's still a fun team to coach. There isn't anything else I would rather do than be with these guys and the coaches and it's hard on all of us.'
'Right now given who we are and the way we're playing, every game is going to be a struggle. There is not going to necessarily be a turning point. You hope that you can get back on track and win the rest of the way out, but you know that you're going to have to get a lot better to do that. Rather than focusing on the importance of Saturday, what we would do is focus on today " what we have to do today to get better. If we don't' get better day-by-day, we're not going to all of the sudden make a huge change on Saturday, so you have to focus on right now. Right now this is the game and this is our season, but win or lose the next game is going to be the game and be our season.'
ON THE DEFENSIVE LINE?'When you take a first-round draft choice out and you take Marques Harris out, that's a depletion of sorts. We don't have anyone that's playing like Tyler Brayton did (last year) and we don't have anyone that's playing like Harris did. Gabe Nyenhuis is playing better than he did last year and we're playing with either (Brandon) Dabdoub or (DeAndre) Fluellen at the other spot. Really, Dabdoub is playing pretty well, but across the board we're just not as productive as we were, but we don't have the same players in there either. There is nowhere else to go, we have what we have and we are who we are. You just take your guys and try to make them better. The NFL mentality effects the way the general public looks at us. We've got these guys for five years. We can't trade them, we can't put them on waivers ? not that we wanted to anyway ? but you can't make changes. We've got to take who we are and make us better is what the bottom line is.'
ON TEAM LEADERSHIP?'I think our guys are doing the best job that they can. We put a lot emphasis on it, probably more than most teams. I would say that based on my conversations with other coaches. It's easy to be a leader who leads by example and there is no risk involved. Somewhere along the line you need vocal leaders and you need a couple of those leader by example guys to step up and be vocal leaders. That's not easy to do and that's the hard one to find. The other is easy to find, but that only takes you so far and Tyler Brayton was one of those guys that was a vocal leader. In some ways we only needed one " he was so effective and efficient at it, that's all we needed. That's not to say that we aren't getting good leadership because I think we're getting pretty decent leadership, and like I said if it were just that we could fix it. But it's not just that.'
ON DEREK McCOY'S SEASON?'Derek is a big play guy. I can't remember anybody other than Chris Brown last year having as many big plays through five games like he's had. His big plays have resulted in touchdowns as well. So he's become a big playmaker. Part of it is the confidence of our quarterbacks, part of it is the scheme and part of it is Derek. It's a combination of all those things. Derek's a self-made man. Derek was in our first recruiting class and we didn't even sign him until the end of May. He was going to go play basketball at Metro State. We didn't know where we were going to play him when he got here, so we decided that we would try him on offense for a while. We redshirted him and he worked, worked and worked and made himself into a good pass catcher. You tell Derek what to eat he eats it. You tell him when to study and what to study and he studies it. If you tell him how to lift or what to lift he does it. He's a coach's dream from that standpoint. Most people will do it for a week and drop off, but Derek has done everything by the book since he's been here and he's made himself a sensational player.'
ON JOEL KLATT?'Joel is much improved. If he continues the way he is, he should be able to play Saturday. It doesn't mean he won't have a setback, but I'd be surprised if he doesn't play. He's not 100 percent, but we are projecting him to be close to it by Saturday.'