Conference Call: Cats hope to learn from errors
Here's a full transcript of Kansas State Wildcats football head coach Chris Klieman from today's Big 12 Teleconference.
On being bowl eligible…
“It excites us because of what bowl eligibility does, not only for you program in recruiting, but the development of having some extra practices throughout the month of December, especially with all the young guys we have in the program. Obviously, once we get to that phase we’ll be excited to give those guys a lot of reps to try and keep moving the program forward.
What’s the next step for this team?
“I think I knew, and the staff knew we would have some up and downs. You have to weather the storm and keep moving forward. We still have to get better at certain things. These kids are playing their tails off, and this is a good league. If you don’t play your best every Saturday, you are going to get beat. That’s what we have to keep relaying to the guys. This is the next week. I know that one hurt, but we are one to Monday, we visit with the guys today and have our first practice. We have a lot of resolve, a lot of seniors, so I know we’ll bounce back and have a good week of prep.”
What are you excited to still play for down the stretch?
“For seniors it is their final three games that they have left. You want to make sure those guys go out on a great note, as well as us building this program. We want to make sure… we’re still making some mental errors that we wouldn’t like to make we’re hoping we aren’t making in year two, year three, year four. Just because they are new to the system, we have to continue to do what we do. We aren’t going to re-invent the wheel by having a new offensive scheme or defensive scheme. We have to keep working on getting better each day. That’s all we talked about when the season started. We were hoping we’d win a bunch of games, didn’t know if that was going to happen, we knew we’d have some growing pains. But each day getting better and leaving a legacy for the seniors to say in their last year, our first year as a staff we were able to get things rolling.”
On throwing 39 times Saturday…
“We don’t want to throw it that much, but we were down in the fourth quarter and had to throw it a lot more at that time. I don’t mind throwing it if it’s some RPO looks and we end up getting the look to throw the football. We jsut weren’t having the success we needed to have on early downs with running the football. Part of that was a good job by West Virginia of pressuring us on some first-down plays and forcing us into some more throws. But then we have to be efficient when we are throwing the ball if we have to throw it that much.”
On losing close games the last two weeks…
“Just not making maybe a critical play here or there. It’s not as much a mental thing there as much as just not making a play. A block, a run after the catch, doing a good job in coverage… Against Texas we didn’t get home with pressure and they made a good play against man coverage. Little things that you don’t want to have happen whether it’s year one or year 10. We’ve got to learn how to finish and close out games. Part of that, you have to go through some of the negative, some of the frustration, to learn how to win those tight games. We can’t dwell on it. We have to talk about it Monday and then we have to keep moving forward.”
On Skylar’s interception late…
“He just has to move on. I thought Skylar played a really good football game and was under duress and ran the football well and scrambled away from some things. He probably just underthrew that one just a shade. Part of that is being under some pressure. But, the one guy I’m not worried about is Skylar Thompson. He comes to battle every day at practice, at game day. He’s a great leader. We’ve got the right guy under center; that’s for sure.”
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