Oklahoma State University Athletics
Oklahoma State Postgame Quotes vs. Oklahoma – Nov. 30, 2019
November 30, 2019 | Cowboy Football
Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy
Game Assessment:
"What this game comes down to is, you can't kick field goals and beat a good football team. We got down inside the 15-yard line several times and kicked field goals. We put ourselves in a jam and could never get over the hump. We didn't do a very good job against the rush. The guard/tackle pull play gave us a lot of issues. We weren't very effective against the rush. We turned one over. I know there were two, but the last one was just a desperation fourth down. We lost the turnover battle. We were pretty sound penalty wise. Tre (Sterling) got up high… the first targeting we've had this year. We've been so good, and I was disappointed that he hit up high. For the most part, we were really disciplined in that game. In the end it's simple, you can't kick field goals and beat a good team like that. It's tough to keep up with an offense like them, and they were effective rushing the football. That's the way it comes out. Offhand, that's kind of what I think happened."
On OU's defensive adjustment to Chuba Hubbard:
"They were putting safeties down in there, and that's why we were trying to throw it. We got some pass interference and holding calls and got some calls over. They made the adjustment to drop the safeties down and what happened was, with us not keeping it within a one score game, it allowed them some more flexibility on defense. There's kind of a big picture to it. They started by playing somewhat normally, then Chuba was hurting them. So they dropped down, and we started throwing. Then we got into a multi-score game and allowed them to be aggressive up front with twists and things like that. We almost became one dimensional."
On OU's defense under Alex Grinch:
"They've played good this year, in my opinion. They've always had good players, but their schemes are good and they're running to the ball and playing with more confidence."
On Kennedy Brooks' performance:
"I think he ran fine, but he was running through big holes. It looked like to me there were times he was running untouched for six to eight yards. We struggled with the guard/tackle pull play. It's a tough play. The get an extra gap by pulling the guard tackle. You've got to roll the dice at times and try to get to them. It's a tough play to stop."
On Dru Brown's performance:
"I thought he played pretty good. He made a poor decision, and he knew it. He got lucky with the call when the player stepped out of bounds. Overall he played pretty good. He ran the ball effectively at times. He made a bad decision there. He missed a throw to Stoner in the second quarter going down the middle of the field. I kind of felt like they grabbed our guy and pulled him down, but either way he missed that throw. They got some pressure on him, and I thought he played pretty good. He went 22-for-32, made one bad decision. He was effective on some draws and stuff, and I thought he played pretty well. I thought his preparation was good. I thought his competitive nature was good, and he made some throws. In the end it's simple. You lose the turnover battle by one… not the end of the world, but you can't kick field goals against an offense that can score like they can. We weren't very good against the rush. If we can score and not kick field goals, we can keep it relatively close to a one score game, and it makes it easier for us to call offensive plays. It doesn't give them much of an opportunity to free wheel on defense. It's pretty simple. You have to give them credit. They had good plans coaching wise. Their players made plays. We gotta rally back now. We'll start back up in about six days with some bowl prep. We'll start working there and get the guys up and running and ready to play in a bowl game."
Oklahoma State quarterback Dru Brown
On things he can carry into the bowl game from the loss
"Anytime you get another game under your belt as a unit, you get to put yourself under a microscope. We see what we need to work, and obviously that's finishing in the red zone. As a collective unit, I think we have to be better at that. You can't beat good teams with just field goals."
On the character of his team
"The character on this team is built on what by what we're around all of the time. We bring guys in that are blue-collared kids. We work, that's what we do. That's not going to change after a hard-fought loss. We've been bouncing back our whole lives, everyone in this locker room. No one has been spoon fed so we're going to keep working, watch the tape and get better from this."
Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard
His immediate takeaways from the game
"Our guys had a lot of fight. We always do. We made too many mistakes. I'm not taking anything away from Oklahoma, they played a great game, balled out and did everything right, which paid off for them. We just need to build off of this. It's obviously a tough loss, but we can't hang onto it for too long."
On the team's fight throughout the season
"Everyone saw that we were 4-3 at one point in the season and everyone gave up on us, but we just kept fighting. Obviously we didn't come up with this one, but we aren't done yet."
Oklahoma State linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez
On how the team moves on after a tough loss
"We just have to keep going. We can't dwell on that game. We made it to a bowl game, that's a reward. It's time to clear our minds and go get after it into another game."
On what encourages him about this team going forward
"None of these guys give up. You can see it on the field, we don't lay down for any team. That fight from us is something I love about this team."
Oklahoma State linebacker Phillip Redwine-Bryant
What he liked from the game
"Our guys showed a lot of fight. The energy that we had at the end was there the entire game. I think this relentless team is going to bring it all to the bowl game. It was a tough loss, but we'll work with it. We have a lot of relentless energy so I'm confident in all of that."
On how hard the team has worked throughout the year
"It's crazy. These guys go day in and day out grinding in practice. We started literally in the winter offseason all the way up until now. We know that we've been working all the way up until this point to get things done and get wins. Just to see all of this and everything come together like it has is just awesome."
Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles
On OU's running game:
"Their quarterback is obviously a great player, and we focused a lot of attention on him. Anytime you play defense against a great offense, when you focus in one area, you do leave yourself open in other areas. We were behind in the running game when it came to stopping the running back. They did a great job of adjusting and running through the running back. We made adjustments in the second half, but I felt like we were behind in that area the whole game."
On trying to stop OU's running game:
"You just try to add more people to the box. They are a very good offense and very good attack across the board. When you add more people to the box, you leave yourself vulnerable in other areas. I felt like when we added more people to the box, we were still behind. We didn't do a great job tackling off blocks, and our tackling wasn't as good tonight as it has been in the past."
Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson
On the offense:
"In the first half, we felt like we were in the driver's seat. We were moving the ball, and we scored on the first drive. There were some really good things. Whether it was coughing up the football, not converting the drive or kicking field goals, we did some good things but just didn't finish well enough. You have to get the ball in the hands of your best guys. Those guys need to make plays. On offense, we kind of did that. We, as a unit, probably need to come together a little better in the end. We just didn't."
On managing Chuba Hubbard:
"He is at the end of the year where he has had the ball a ton. We've managed him in practice really well, but he is bound to have a little mileage on him at this point. Everybody does. He has got a lot of mileage on his legs. We could have definitely finished out better for him and the rest of the group."
Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley
Opening Statement:
"We had a really good team performance tonight. It's always hard to beat teams on their senior night in this kind of atmosphere. I give our players a lot of credit; we did the things we had to do. We really emphasized the turnovers this week. We knew we had to have a game where we're not just hanging on to it offensively and getting them where we could defensively but doing that in sync. We wanted to have a game where we could dominate the turnover battle completely. It was a huge challenge to our guys, and they certainly responded there. I thought we played off of each other very well; very complementary on the night. We were building on each other's momentum and capitalizing after turnovers. When we needed key stops, we got them. When we needed key drives, we scored points. I'm just proud of our guys. This is always a tough game, a rivalry game. It was all that it should be. Hats off to our guys, they played a really complete game."
On keeping Chuba Hubbard in check:
"He had a little bit of room early. We made a few adjustments, settled in a little bit and defended the run a little better as the game went on. I thought the d-line was pretty disruptive. There weren't too many clean running lanes, especially after that first quarter. The few times he did get loose we did a good job of getting him on the ground. His longest was 22 yards. If you would've told us that before the game, we would've taken it."
On Kennedy Brooks' performance:
"He's been very steady. He just continues to be him. He's not missing cuts, and he's very in sync with the offensive line. He's been so close to popping his standard 60-70 yarders. There was, I swear, five times tonight where we were like, 'He's out.' Despite that, he's had a lot of big runs. He's held on to the ball great. He always kind of gets what's there. He never really leaves much on the table."
On Jalen Hurts' performance:
"He played well. He ran the ball well, saw the field well. I thought he played, honestly, a lot like last week, but his ball security was a little better. He threw the ball better tonight. There were a few passes last week that he just barely missed. He was mentally sharp last week and even this week. I thought he played really well."
On Playoff potential:
"We're just going to try to beat Baylor next week."
Oklahoma offensive lineman Adrian Ealy
On running the ball effectively:
"We felt that coming into this game, this game was going to be dealt in the trenches. Just like everyone in this country does, they want their team to put on their back and that's how we felt today."
On Kennedy Brooks:
"It's Kennedy. He always does the same thing each game. He runs hard, with the talent he has it's hard to go down. For an o-line like us, he makes our job easy."
On Brooks getting more carries:
"I could tell, I can see from my own perspective. I can see he's starting to open up more like he did last year. He's using all the opportunities he can get."
Oklahoma receiver Brayden Willis
On becoming a security blanket for Jalen Hurts:
"I just think we have so many weapons that it can go to anybody, and anybody could make a play. I don't think I've done anything special. We have a great team, and we complement each other."
On Kennedy Brooks
"Workhorse. Steady. It's great to have a guy like that on our team honestly. He gets the job done night in and night out."
On Brooks getting into a groove:
"I think you can say all running backs are like that. But like I said, Kennedy is steady. He's going to run like that all game long. His first carries are going to look like his last carries."
Oklahoma defensive back Brendan Radley-Hiles
On Kennedy Brooks:
"He's just so steady and consistent. You know what you are going to get out of KB. He's not a flashy player, he makes the right cuts. He's big in the pass pro and well rounded. That's just the testament for the work he puts in and the person he is. I'm happy for him."
On Kennedy Brooks' confidence:
"I think a big thing for running backs is getting in a groove. Obviously, our offense has changed since Jalen has gotten here. So it's not as arithmetic offense for those guys at least. You can see it with more carries he's getting into his groove."
Game Assessment:
"What this game comes down to is, you can't kick field goals and beat a good football team. We got down inside the 15-yard line several times and kicked field goals. We put ourselves in a jam and could never get over the hump. We didn't do a very good job against the rush. The guard/tackle pull play gave us a lot of issues. We weren't very effective against the rush. We turned one over. I know there were two, but the last one was just a desperation fourth down. We lost the turnover battle. We were pretty sound penalty wise. Tre (Sterling) got up high… the first targeting we've had this year. We've been so good, and I was disappointed that he hit up high. For the most part, we were really disciplined in that game. In the end it's simple, you can't kick field goals and beat a good team like that. It's tough to keep up with an offense like them, and they were effective rushing the football. That's the way it comes out. Offhand, that's kind of what I think happened."
On OU's defensive adjustment to Chuba Hubbard:
"They were putting safeties down in there, and that's why we were trying to throw it. We got some pass interference and holding calls and got some calls over. They made the adjustment to drop the safeties down and what happened was, with us not keeping it within a one score game, it allowed them some more flexibility on defense. There's kind of a big picture to it. They started by playing somewhat normally, then Chuba was hurting them. So they dropped down, and we started throwing. Then we got into a multi-score game and allowed them to be aggressive up front with twists and things like that. We almost became one dimensional."
On OU's defense under Alex Grinch:
"They've played good this year, in my opinion. They've always had good players, but their schemes are good and they're running to the ball and playing with more confidence."
On Kennedy Brooks' performance:
"I think he ran fine, but he was running through big holes. It looked like to me there were times he was running untouched for six to eight yards. We struggled with the guard/tackle pull play. It's a tough play. The get an extra gap by pulling the guard tackle. You've got to roll the dice at times and try to get to them. It's a tough play to stop."
On Dru Brown's performance:
"I thought he played pretty good. He made a poor decision, and he knew it. He got lucky with the call when the player stepped out of bounds. Overall he played pretty good. He ran the ball effectively at times. He made a bad decision there. He missed a throw to Stoner in the second quarter going down the middle of the field. I kind of felt like they grabbed our guy and pulled him down, but either way he missed that throw. They got some pressure on him, and I thought he played pretty good. He went 22-for-32, made one bad decision. He was effective on some draws and stuff, and I thought he played pretty well. I thought his preparation was good. I thought his competitive nature was good, and he made some throws. In the end it's simple. You lose the turnover battle by one… not the end of the world, but you can't kick field goals against an offense that can score like they can. We weren't very good against the rush. If we can score and not kick field goals, we can keep it relatively close to a one score game, and it makes it easier for us to call offensive plays. It doesn't give them much of an opportunity to free wheel on defense. It's pretty simple. You have to give them credit. They had good plans coaching wise. Their players made plays. We gotta rally back now. We'll start back up in about six days with some bowl prep. We'll start working there and get the guys up and running and ready to play in a bowl game."
Oklahoma State quarterback Dru Brown
On things he can carry into the bowl game from the loss
"Anytime you get another game under your belt as a unit, you get to put yourself under a microscope. We see what we need to work, and obviously that's finishing in the red zone. As a collective unit, I think we have to be better at that. You can't beat good teams with just field goals."
On the character of his team
"The character on this team is built on what by what we're around all of the time. We bring guys in that are blue-collared kids. We work, that's what we do. That's not going to change after a hard-fought loss. We've been bouncing back our whole lives, everyone in this locker room. No one has been spoon fed so we're going to keep working, watch the tape and get better from this."
Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard
His immediate takeaways from the game
"Our guys had a lot of fight. We always do. We made too many mistakes. I'm not taking anything away from Oklahoma, they played a great game, balled out and did everything right, which paid off for them. We just need to build off of this. It's obviously a tough loss, but we can't hang onto it for too long."
On the team's fight throughout the season
"Everyone saw that we were 4-3 at one point in the season and everyone gave up on us, but we just kept fighting. Obviously we didn't come up with this one, but we aren't done yet."
Oklahoma State linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez
On how the team moves on after a tough loss
"We just have to keep going. We can't dwell on that game. We made it to a bowl game, that's a reward. It's time to clear our minds and go get after it into another game."
On what encourages him about this team going forward
"None of these guys give up. You can see it on the field, we don't lay down for any team. That fight from us is something I love about this team."
Oklahoma State linebacker Phillip Redwine-Bryant
What he liked from the game
"Our guys showed a lot of fight. The energy that we had at the end was there the entire game. I think this relentless team is going to bring it all to the bowl game. It was a tough loss, but we'll work with it. We have a lot of relentless energy so I'm confident in all of that."
On how hard the team has worked throughout the year
"It's crazy. These guys go day in and day out grinding in practice. We started literally in the winter offseason all the way up until now. We know that we've been working all the way up until this point to get things done and get wins. Just to see all of this and everything come together like it has is just awesome."
Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles
On OU's running game:
"Their quarterback is obviously a great player, and we focused a lot of attention on him. Anytime you play defense against a great offense, when you focus in one area, you do leave yourself open in other areas. We were behind in the running game when it came to stopping the running back. They did a great job of adjusting and running through the running back. We made adjustments in the second half, but I felt like we were behind in that area the whole game."
On trying to stop OU's running game:
"You just try to add more people to the box. They are a very good offense and very good attack across the board. When you add more people to the box, you leave yourself vulnerable in other areas. I felt like when we added more people to the box, we were still behind. We didn't do a great job tackling off blocks, and our tackling wasn't as good tonight as it has been in the past."
Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson
On the offense:
"In the first half, we felt like we were in the driver's seat. We were moving the ball, and we scored on the first drive. There were some really good things. Whether it was coughing up the football, not converting the drive or kicking field goals, we did some good things but just didn't finish well enough. You have to get the ball in the hands of your best guys. Those guys need to make plays. On offense, we kind of did that. We, as a unit, probably need to come together a little better in the end. We just didn't."
On managing Chuba Hubbard:
"He is at the end of the year where he has had the ball a ton. We've managed him in practice really well, but he is bound to have a little mileage on him at this point. Everybody does. He has got a lot of mileage on his legs. We could have definitely finished out better for him and the rest of the group."
Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley
Opening Statement:
"We had a really good team performance tonight. It's always hard to beat teams on their senior night in this kind of atmosphere. I give our players a lot of credit; we did the things we had to do. We really emphasized the turnovers this week. We knew we had to have a game where we're not just hanging on to it offensively and getting them where we could defensively but doing that in sync. We wanted to have a game where we could dominate the turnover battle completely. It was a huge challenge to our guys, and they certainly responded there. I thought we played off of each other very well; very complementary on the night. We were building on each other's momentum and capitalizing after turnovers. When we needed key stops, we got them. When we needed key drives, we scored points. I'm just proud of our guys. This is always a tough game, a rivalry game. It was all that it should be. Hats off to our guys, they played a really complete game."
On keeping Chuba Hubbard in check:
"He had a little bit of room early. We made a few adjustments, settled in a little bit and defended the run a little better as the game went on. I thought the d-line was pretty disruptive. There weren't too many clean running lanes, especially after that first quarter. The few times he did get loose we did a good job of getting him on the ground. His longest was 22 yards. If you would've told us that before the game, we would've taken it."
On Kennedy Brooks' performance:
"He's been very steady. He just continues to be him. He's not missing cuts, and he's very in sync with the offensive line. He's been so close to popping his standard 60-70 yarders. There was, I swear, five times tonight where we were like, 'He's out.' Despite that, he's had a lot of big runs. He's held on to the ball great. He always kind of gets what's there. He never really leaves much on the table."
On Jalen Hurts' performance:
"He played well. He ran the ball well, saw the field well. I thought he played, honestly, a lot like last week, but his ball security was a little better. He threw the ball better tonight. There were a few passes last week that he just barely missed. He was mentally sharp last week and even this week. I thought he played really well."
On Playoff potential:
"We're just going to try to beat Baylor next week."
Oklahoma offensive lineman Adrian Ealy
On running the ball effectively:
"We felt that coming into this game, this game was going to be dealt in the trenches. Just like everyone in this country does, they want their team to put on their back and that's how we felt today."
On Kennedy Brooks:
"It's Kennedy. He always does the same thing each game. He runs hard, with the talent he has it's hard to go down. For an o-line like us, he makes our job easy."
On Brooks getting more carries:
"I could tell, I can see from my own perspective. I can see he's starting to open up more like he did last year. He's using all the opportunities he can get."
Oklahoma receiver Brayden Willis
On becoming a security blanket for Jalen Hurts:
"I just think we have so many weapons that it can go to anybody, and anybody could make a play. I don't think I've done anything special. We have a great team, and we complement each other."
On Kennedy Brooks
"Workhorse. Steady. It's great to have a guy like that on our team honestly. He gets the job done night in and night out."
On Brooks getting into a groove:
"I think you can say all running backs are like that. But like I said, Kennedy is steady. He's going to run like that all game long. His first carries are going to look like his last carries."
Oklahoma defensive back Brendan Radley-Hiles
On Kennedy Brooks:
"He's just so steady and consistent. You know what you are going to get out of KB. He's not a flashy player, he makes the right cuts. He's big in the pass pro and well rounded. That's just the testament for the work he puts in and the person he is. I'm happy for him."
On Kennedy Brooks' confidence:
"I think a big thing for running backs is getting in a groove. Obviously, our offense has changed since Jalen has gotten here. So it's not as arithmetic offense for those guys at least. You can see it with more carries he's getting into his groove."
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