I believe if Michael Pratt had gotten that first down instead of coming up a foot short, Tulane would have scored to go ahead of Oklahoma, and if that touchdown had occurred with less than 20 seconds left, Tulane would have won. If it had occurred any earlier, Oklahoma would have had time to hit a big pass play and send that kicker with the mammoth leg on to the field to either tie it or win it.
Willie Fritz, Michael Pratt, Nick Anderson and Tyrick James spoke on Zoom after the game.
FRITZ
"I was very proud of the guys. I thought they fought extremely hard throughout the game. We just made some critical errors in the first half that really hurt us--offense and defense and a couple of times poor ball security and missed assignments and we lost leverage. We had plays played that should have been 2 or 3 yards instead of 15 or 16 yards, and one of them was on a third-down situation. But there was some good stuff. We saw a lot of the kids kept fighting and scratching and clawing. I have two new coordinators and we're all breaking in each other--me with them and them with the other coaches. I'm really proud of the effort. Obviously we didn't come down here to play close. I thought we could have won the game. If we would have played better in the first half, we would have had a much better opportunity to do it. We'll be able to watch the tape and build on it."
On Michael Pratt's resiliency:
"He's a real tough, competitive young man. He's always been that way since he got here. He was that way in high school. That's one of the reasons why we recruited him. I remember he came in on an unofficial visit in the summer, and we were having a camp. Most guys won't compete in those camps. He said he wanted to do it. I told him he didn't have to. He came out there and ran 40s and did the vertical jump. It must have been 105 degrees the day he was there. It really showed me a lot about him and his mental toughness, so I'm very proud about him. He'd love to have a few plays back. But like that last play, what a gutty effort going and trying to get the first down for us. He's just a tough, hardnose, competitive, fullback kind of player."
On focus after hurricane issues:
"They were ready to play a game. Wednesday I had to cut back a little bit. I had to stop practice because they were kind of getting after each other and I was worried someone would get hurt, so we went just helmets on Thursday, but they were ready to play a game. We just didn't execute as well as we needed to. There are going to be a lot of (corrections). One time we didn't run the correct route. If we had run the correct route, I don't think the guy would have been anywhere (close) and it would have been an easy touchdown. We had some drops. We had some missed pickups on a few blitzes and some things we've worked on. Defensively same thing. There were some times we had opportunities to make some tackles and do some stuff. We weren't playing against an eighth grade team out there. That's a good ball club. They've got some great athletes. I just feel like it's going to be a tremendous learning experience for us. Obviously we'd rather learn with a W, but we'll need to learn from this."
On Pratt taking big hits:
"It is a very fine balance. We talk to those guys about touchdown, first down, get down. If you can get the touchdown, get it. If you can get the first down, get it. If you can't, get down and live to fight another day. It's in him to compete and get after it. That's a hard habit to break, which I'm fine with. I'd rather have it that way than the other way."
On conversation with Pratt after helmet came off and he checked on him:
"Yeah, he was all right. I just wanted him to sit there and collect himself. I wanted to talk to him a little bit and look him eyeball to eyeball and make sure he's all right. He answered.a few questions that I had. He was good. One of the great things about Tulane is we have Doc (Greg) Stewart and Dr. (Wendell) Heard over there on the sideline and they make all the decisions when it comes to those kinds of things. I'm definitely not a doctor and they're definitely not football coaches, so I let them do their job and they let me do my job. They felt he was fine and we let him back in there."
On if he felt like Tulane was a foot away from winning game:
"It would have been great to have the opportunity. We had a couple of timeouts in our back pocket. I think there was a minute and 50-something left, so we had plenty of time to get down the field. Everybody is going to come back and look at that play, but there were about 15 or 20 of them. Some of them occurred in the first quarter and a bunch of them occurred in the second quarter. If we do some things there, we have a chance and we're taking knees there at the end."
On comparison to 2017 team that lost 56-14 at Oklahoma:
"Our program has come a long way without question. We always talk about recruiting bonafide Division I student-athletes with character and I have a heck of a lot more than we had when I first got here. We had some really great top-end players, but we didn't have a whole bunch of guys to compete against teams like this. We have a whole lot more, so yeah, we're definitely a better looking team than we were when we came up four year ago, but more importantly we've got good players. To beat a team of this magnitude, you've got to be hitting on all cylinders, and we weren't. Our guys know we can play a lot better than we played today, and we're going to."
On pass interference that negated interception in fourth quarter:
"I'm not going to sit here and second guess the referees or anything else. It's a tough call to make over there in this day and age with quarterbacks throwing 50 balls, both with our quarterback doing it and their quarterback doing it. That was the call and we got to play it."
On not having Merek Glover:
"It (his groin injury) affected us a little bit. Graham Dable did a super job of playing his first college game here at Oklahoma and did a very nice job. Merek told me right before the game he felt like he was 100 percent. We've been very careful with during camp, so I think he'll be full go next week."
On on the tumult of last week:
"We're really blessed that our president, Michael Fitts, and our athletic director, Troy Dannen, had the foresight to have a plan for us to evacuate. We went to Birmingham. We're staying at a beautiful hotel. We're eating great meals. We're just worried about the people back home. Everybody on our team has someone who suffered during a hurricane. The toughest part was when we got there early Sunday morning and the cell service went out in New Orleans. A bunch of guys couldn't get ahold of their folks and their girlfriends, their uncles, their aunts, their grandparents, so that was difficult. That was two to three days. Our guys have handled it extremely well. I've got good, young men. I have very few problems with our guys."
On halftime speech:
"We told them Kansas State was down I think 38-14 and they came back and beat them, something like, at halftime. I said keep going. I said I don't know if we can play worse than we did in the first half. We were cooking with grease their for the first couple of series, and then we started shooting ourselves in the foot. We just have to play better, and they all understood that."
Willie Fritz, Michael Pratt, Nick Anderson and Tyrick James spoke on Zoom after the game.
FRITZ
"I was very proud of the guys. I thought they fought extremely hard throughout the game. We just made some critical errors in the first half that really hurt us--offense and defense and a couple of times poor ball security and missed assignments and we lost leverage. We had plays played that should have been 2 or 3 yards instead of 15 or 16 yards, and one of them was on a third-down situation. But there was some good stuff. We saw a lot of the kids kept fighting and scratching and clawing. I have two new coordinators and we're all breaking in each other--me with them and them with the other coaches. I'm really proud of the effort. Obviously we didn't come down here to play close. I thought we could have won the game. If we would have played better in the first half, we would have had a much better opportunity to do it. We'll be able to watch the tape and build on it."
On Michael Pratt's resiliency:
"He's a real tough, competitive young man. He's always been that way since he got here. He was that way in high school. That's one of the reasons why we recruited him. I remember he came in on an unofficial visit in the summer, and we were having a camp. Most guys won't compete in those camps. He said he wanted to do it. I told him he didn't have to. He came out there and ran 40s and did the vertical jump. It must have been 105 degrees the day he was there. It really showed me a lot about him and his mental toughness, so I'm very proud about him. He'd love to have a few plays back. But like that last play, what a gutty effort going and trying to get the first down for us. He's just a tough, hardnose, competitive, fullback kind of player."
On focus after hurricane issues:
"They were ready to play a game. Wednesday I had to cut back a little bit. I had to stop practice because they were kind of getting after each other and I was worried someone would get hurt, so we went just helmets on Thursday, but they were ready to play a game. We just didn't execute as well as we needed to. There are going to be a lot of (corrections). One time we didn't run the correct route. If we had run the correct route, I don't think the guy would have been anywhere (close) and it would have been an easy touchdown. We had some drops. We had some missed pickups on a few blitzes and some things we've worked on. Defensively same thing. There were some times we had opportunities to make some tackles and do some stuff. We weren't playing against an eighth grade team out there. That's a good ball club. They've got some great athletes. I just feel like it's going to be a tremendous learning experience for us. Obviously we'd rather learn with a W, but we'll need to learn from this."
On Pratt taking big hits:
"It is a very fine balance. We talk to those guys about touchdown, first down, get down. If you can get the touchdown, get it. If you can get the first down, get it. If you can't, get down and live to fight another day. It's in him to compete and get after it. That's a hard habit to break, which I'm fine with. I'd rather have it that way than the other way."
On conversation with Pratt after helmet came off and he checked on him:
"Yeah, he was all right. I just wanted him to sit there and collect himself. I wanted to talk to him a little bit and look him eyeball to eyeball and make sure he's all right. He answered.a few questions that I had. He was good. One of the great things about Tulane is we have Doc (Greg) Stewart and Dr. (Wendell) Heard over there on the sideline and they make all the decisions when it comes to those kinds of things. I'm definitely not a doctor and they're definitely not football coaches, so I let them do their job and they let me do my job. They felt he was fine and we let him back in there."
On if he felt like Tulane was a foot away from winning game:
"It would have been great to have the opportunity. We had a couple of timeouts in our back pocket. I think there was a minute and 50-something left, so we had plenty of time to get down the field. Everybody is going to come back and look at that play, but there were about 15 or 20 of them. Some of them occurred in the first quarter and a bunch of them occurred in the second quarter. If we do some things there, we have a chance and we're taking knees there at the end."
On comparison to 2017 team that lost 56-14 at Oklahoma:
"Our program has come a long way without question. We always talk about recruiting bonafide Division I student-athletes with character and I have a heck of a lot more than we had when I first got here. We had some really great top-end players, but we didn't have a whole bunch of guys to compete against teams like this. We have a whole lot more, so yeah, we're definitely a better looking team than we were when we came up four year ago, but more importantly we've got good players. To beat a team of this magnitude, you've got to be hitting on all cylinders, and we weren't. Our guys know we can play a lot better than we played today, and we're going to."
On pass interference that negated interception in fourth quarter:
"I'm not going to sit here and second guess the referees or anything else. It's a tough call to make over there in this day and age with quarterbacks throwing 50 balls, both with our quarterback doing it and their quarterback doing it. That was the call and we got to play it."
On not having Merek Glover:
"It (his groin injury) affected us a little bit. Graham Dable did a super job of playing his first college game here at Oklahoma and did a very nice job. Merek told me right before the game he felt like he was 100 percent. We've been very careful with during camp, so I think he'll be full go next week."
On on the tumult of last week:
"We're really blessed that our president, Michael Fitts, and our athletic director, Troy Dannen, had the foresight to have a plan for us to evacuate. We went to Birmingham. We're staying at a beautiful hotel. We're eating great meals. We're just worried about the people back home. Everybody on our team has someone who suffered during a hurricane. The toughest part was when we got there early Sunday morning and the cell service went out in New Orleans. A bunch of guys couldn't get ahold of their folks and their girlfriends, their uncles, their aunts, their grandparents, so that was difficult. That was two to three days. Our guys have handled it extremely well. I've got good, young men. I have very few problems with our guys."
On halftime speech:
"We told them Kansas State was down I think 38-14 and they came back and beat them, something like, at halftime. I said keep going. I said I don't know if we can play worse than we did in the first half. We were cooking with grease their for the first couple of series, and then we started shooting ourselves in the foot. We just have to play better, and they all understood that."