OPENING STATEMENT: “Go back and look at the tape, our guys competed. We gave ourselves a chance to win in the game, which we hadn’t been doing in a while. We did it with a lot of young guys out there, especially on defense. As you look at all three phases, we had opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of. At times, penalties hurt us; we had 6-penalties. We were on the plus-27, make the completion to Cam [Hairston] and we get a holding call. Instead of having it at the 6-yard line, we move back and we don’t get anything out of that drive. Then we’re on the plus-side, 2nd and 1, we run the play, they blow it for a false start, well they actually didn’t blow it, but we would’ve had the ball 1st and 10 on the plus-17, but then we move back and throw an interception and they take it back to the 30 and you lose that field position. Those are the things that hurt you offensively.”

“Defensively, we had a penalty where we just didn’t keep our leverage when a guy went into the flat and that allowed them to get a 1st down. We had a DPI, a guy in great position, he just needs to find the ball, look and lean. He didn’t do that, that was a 2nd down play that gave them a 1st down. At the end, Kevon Jones, just trying to be aggressive, hit with the offsides. If he had just stayed there, we had them stopped and they would’ve had to kick a field goal.”

“We had four opportunities to connect on deep balls and we missed all four of them, when all four could have been touchdowns for us. We had 1st and goal at the four, can’t get it in. Defensively, we did a good job with them, but the last two drives, they score. We didn’t get any turnovers, but the bottom line is we need to keep working on fundamentals and technique because some of those things hurt us, but we did put ourselves in a position to win. Because we didn’t execute well enough, that was the thing.”

BETTER PRESSURE ON THE QB THAN IN RECENT WEEKS, WAS THAT BEING MORE AGGRESSIVE IN THE GAME PLAN?: “I think there were guys winning one-on-one battles. I think we did come with a little more pressure this week, but guys still need to win those battles. We had an opportunity early in the game, Kevon Jones made a nice rush, comes from the blind side, has an opportunity to strip it and he needs to take advantage of that. We did get a little more pressure yesterday and some of it was good individual rushes and some was because of added pressure.”

HOW DID THE YOUNG SECONDARY LOOK ON FILM (CB’S LUCIEN & BELL, S’S KING & ROBINSON). THEY DID ONLY FACE 18 PASS ATTEMPTS YESTERDAY: “They really didn’t get tested in the passing game all that much. We ended up having 7 big plays for 200-yards; 3-runs for 106-yards and 4-passes for 94-yards. They only had 6 big plays for 172-yards, still gave up too many, but they had 3-runs for 44-yards and 3-passes for 128-yards. We gave up a 45-yarder and the 1 long TD that a lot of that was technique. We didn’t miss as many tackles this week as we had been, so that was an improvement. We still have to get better with the fundamentals. The 45-yarder, Myles [Bell] came out of coverage. We saw that play, the QB fakes out of the wildcat, fakes like he’s going to run it, guys come up, Myles should have never came off that. He came off it and that gave up the big play. And then Rob King, when we came with pressure, go and drive the outside shoulder, don’t look for the ball until you can feel you can touch the guy. He’s going back, gets his eyes right to the quarterback and the guy does a double move on him. I thought there were some good things that they did, but there were still some things they need to get better at. We need to eliminate some of those errors that they made.”

WAS YESTERDAY THE WAY YOU WANT A GAME TO PLAY OUT IN ORDER TO GIVE YOURSELVES THE BEST CHANCE TO WIN? YOU WON TIME OF POSSESSION 36-24 & FACED JUST 53-HOUSTON PLAYS: “I think that’s who we are. You play to who you are. We don’t have a lot of dynamic playmakers. We want to take our shots, which we did, but just didn’t execute. We aren’t going to sit there and just chuck it down the field, we want to be balanced. We need to be able to run the ball, throw it and do those things. If we can possess the ball, that’s a good thing. As you do that, you need to be able to score some points. We didn’t take advantage of all those opportunities that we had to score points, so that’s something that we want to change. I was pleased with how we attacked. I think it was more than evident that the game plan was pretty good. We had our opportunities, but we have to execute at a higher level and take advantage of those situations. Our margin of error isn’t really big. There are things we can do to be better, but that style of football that we played, I thought our offensive staff did a great job of scheming things to be able to get those shots that were open. The kids did a good job and now we just need to execute it. Defensively, we just need to keep playing hard and do better there at the end, stay stout like we were for most of the game.”

ARE ANY OF THE DEFENSIVE INJURIES, SERIOUS, LONG-TERM ISSUES?: “I don’t know. [Ryan] Gilmartin, his was a high ankle sprain, but he’s working to come back. Diamond [Harrell] I don’t think we’ll have this week, his is a hamstring that he got. Some of those other guys we’ll just have to see how they respond. Tahj [Herring-Wilson] got hurt in the Tulane game. The only one I know if you have a high ankle sprain or a pulled hamstring, that’s going to take some time.”

WHAT IS YOUR VIEW ON THE PUNISHMENT FOR PLAYERS’ OF MISSING A HALF GAME, WHEN THE TARGETING CALL IS A SUBJECTIVE RULE CALLED IN THE GAME?: “When you look and they call Travis’, you’re telling me that kid has to miss half a game for that? That wasn’t intentional, that wasn’t violent, that wasn’t something where he was trying to injure somebody. There’s one play 1st and 10 on minus-28 with 4:16 to go in the 2nd quarter where Cam Ross is over by the sideline and number 3 on Houston comes and you talk about targeting, they don’t even review it in the booth and then they don’t even throw a flag, that was 20-times worse than Travis’ would have been. If there is something that is blatant, yeah, but to get thrown out and have to miss a half for something like that? I know they say, well how do you determine the severity of it, but if anything, Travis may have bent just a little bit, but he didn’t lean in, it was more facemask on facemask. The rule is what it is and I don’t know, it’s a tough time for targeting for those guys, you can’t hit them high, you can’t hit them low, they have such a small area where they can tackle a guy, it makes it tough for a guy 6’5″, 325-lbs to have to bend his body and get down to where he’s supposed to, to make a play. Like I said, there was one on Cam Ross that was 20-times worse than that and they don’t throw a flag and don’t even review it in the booth. I don’t know, it is what it is.”