On Eric Winters’ game-saving tackle on the 2-point conversion try:
“I’m not sure what was said earlier, but for sure we made a point in both positive and negative ways, of how you practice is how you play. It’s old coach-speak, but it’s real. And Eric has had tremendous training, you saw it in how he played. That’s how he practices every day. That particular play is just a picture-perfect example of what we say, ‘wrap, squeeze, drive-for-five.’ He wrapped up, squeezed, and was running rapid fire. He was against a big-bodied guy, the tight end. If he did not do all of that the way you’re supposed to, that ball has to go six more inches, and it’s a whole different story. Just tremendous effort by him, it was great technique in how he did it with some violence and great effort. Those are things we talk about all the time, especially defensively.”
On the defense’s response in the second half:
“A lot of first-game stuff, our message to them was attention to detail. It was alignments and leverages, which make a big difference because it all fits. What they start to learn is the rush and the coverage fit into one another, or are supposed to. If you’re rushing a certain way, the coverage should dictate how that’s going and what the timing is of the quarterback. (D.J.) Lagway, from Baylor, did a really good job of getting rid of the ball. He was in rhythm. He wasn’t hanging onto that thing. We had to adjust our leverage and alignments in order to defend the type of routes we were getting. To our players’ credit, they made those changes in-game. They made adjustments and certainly cleaned some stuff up and finished better.”
