Video courtesy of WSU Athletics.

 

MIKE LEACH

Question: How has Luke Falk performed when facing a blitz?

Mike Leach: Pretty good. We've seen a certain amount of blitzes. Teams either tend to blitz us more or blitz us less, or go back and forth depending on how successful we are moving the ball. He's fine.

Q: Is it tougher when the blitzes come from many directions, like ASU prefers?
ML: I don't think necessarily. They mix it around and they have different schemes and bring different people at different times but they're aggressive. They do a good job as far as bringing people.

Q: How did they offensive line grade out?
ML: They're OK, they're OK. I can't say it was their best game but they were OK>

Q: What irks you the most from Saturday?
ML: I think it's pretty obvious. I'm not able to comment on it, but it's pretty clear what irks me the most, yeah, and I think it does probably a lot of people.

Q: Rather than kick short in the future might you kick off out of bounds against a good return man?
ML: Well, I didn't think our approach to that was as effective as we would have liked. I think at times we didn't kick the ball as well as we wanted when we pooched it up there and we didn't cover as well as we wanted. In the end, I think we should have kicked it deep.

Q: Was Stanford doing anything differently on defense in the red zone?
ML: Not really. They're a good, solid team and they're good on defense. We just need to put it in play more.

Q: Did you talk about trying to set up the ball on a certain hash on the final drive?
ML: No. He kicks about the same from both of them, plus he had earlier in the day.

Q: Does center Riley Sorenson's role become bigger against blitzing teams?
ML: Uh, not really. He calls the front and we respond to it.

Q: He's not asked to anticipate where he sees pressure?
ML: No, we wouldn't trust him with that.

Q: Are you paying attention to claims that Arizona State steals schedules?
ML: They probably ought to do an investigation on them. I mean, you've got two straight schools with concerns over it, back-to-back and they have a reputation for it that extends beyond that. The conference probably ought to investigate them and see what they're doing, make sure nothing is illegal.

Q: Will you use shower curtains on the sidelines to shield your signals?
ML: We'll have to wait and see. You never know, we might.

Q: What kind of growth have you seen from Parker Henry?
ML: I thought he's done a tremendous job and should have had another play that last game. But his play's elevated and it's inspiring to everybody out there.

Q: Is the defense getting better each game?
ML: I thought they played very inspired last game. I thought at times they played as good as they had all year last game. WE wanted it to be more complete but I thought they took a step.

Q: What did you see from the offense that first half?
ML: We never really got into a rhythm. We were either getting pressure or he'd misfire, we weren't getting routes. Our first four series were lousy. We squandered the first quarter, I thought.

Q: Was Luke too excited early in the game?
ML: Well he got hit on some of them. So I think it was a combination of him and the protection.

Q: Anything stand out on Gerard Wicks' good runs?
ML: I thought he ran hard and thought we did a good job blocking up some of them. Some of them I wished we would have finished our blocks and he would have ran further. I thought he ran hard and did a good job hitting the hole instead of just trying to bounce things?

Q: Which running back is the best at pass blocking?
ML: Overall, probably Morrow. Like, if it were a single block, the best single one would be Wicks, but he's not as consistent as Morrow. Wicks can be more physical if he does a good job but he's not as consistent as Morrow is.

Q: What stands out about ASU?
ML: A good, aggressive team. They're aggressive and kind of defense-driven and just an aggressive team that's got speed at some of the skill positions and that type of thing.

Q: What makes D.J. Foster so difficult to defend?
ML: I don't even know who he is. I don't have their whole roster memorized. You seem to like him. What's he play? (A little wide receiver and running back.) He's good.

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Contrary to popular belief, it is Monday. We haven't sit and watched all the film. I haven't watched 100 percent of the defensive film. Some of these secrets that you're well aware of will be unfolded to us that are preoccupied by one game at a time and you'll be the first we notify.

Q: Just because it did get asked afterward and is getting asked, could you reiterate your philosophy on continuing to pass when some offenses might not?

ML: Anybody would have run their offense and tried to score in that situation. And unless you want me to provide you some of the same education I did that last guy, you know, why don't we go ahead and leave the strategy to me, and we'll leave the writing the articles to you?

Q: What do you have to do on defense to stop quarterback runs from leading to big plays?
ML: Well, it's tough. It's tough with a guy because you've got a guy like McCaffery, who's very dimensional and does a lot of things, so you have to give up somewhere. I thought defensively we didn't give McCaffery any slack but we did get exposed a little by their quarterback. So you have to balance it a little because they are going to give you the quarterback read.

Q: Is there anything extra you say to the guys to keep their confidence up?
ML: Well, I think we need to recognize the fact that we played extremely hard the whole game. We did a lot of good things. For reasons that can't be described, we were deprived some opportunities we should have been allowed. But also we left plenty on the table there that we could have capitalized on and could have been better at. And that's where our focus has to be.

Q: Have you found that you've been deprived of more opportunities than in the Big 12?
ML: We can't go too much into that. I think that would make, yeah, you've got to figure out if you're going to spend the money if you're going to get into that and right now I'm not going to, deserved or otherwise.

Q: Does it amaze you college football only has one guy to look at replays?
ML: Well, I think they constantly need to look at the process.

Q: Thoughts on the game environment?
ML: Thought it was a great game environment, thought our fans did a tremendous job and of course we need all those fans out there for the next one. The next one's going to be a heck of an exciting game, and we're looking forward to it.

Q: Do you think the players have been able to get over it and look ahead?
ML: I think they're excited to play. They know and recognize that we're a good team and have a lot to offer. But they know there's a lot to improve on, so we just need to steadily improve and become a better team.

Q: Is there a silver lining to almost beating such a good team?
ML: Well, the potential that we have, we should have found a way to win it. We should have found a way to win it. Yeah, there were a lot of positives and we did a lot of good things, but we should have found a way to win it.

Q: How many close games does a team have to have before it starts winning them?
ML: Well, we won what is it, three close games this year? I don't know, you just try to win all of them.

Q: Do you have a favorite fishing or hunting story?
ML: I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter when it came to hunting when I was a kid. My dad was a forester and so we'd go play a high school football game, and you'd go to the dance afterward. And you'd get home around two. Well, around 5 a.m. it'd be snowing and about zero degrees, maybe not that cold yet, could be, though. And then he'd say, "get up, we're going to go shoot ducks," and then he'd say "get up, we're going to go shoot ducks." And I'd say, "how cold is it?" And there'd be snowflakes the size of your fist coming down.

And then he'd say, "I've got your gun in the car, but you might want to dress warm. We'll get breakfast on the way. I know a great spot with eggs…" And he'd list all the stuff: eggs, sausage. Well, then we'd pull into a gas station and he'd say, "You know? It's getting a little late. Why don't we just get gas and we'll grab something here and go to that breakfast place next time." Well, that meant breakfast was a coke and a Snickers bar. And then we would go, he'd say, "we'll just be out here a couple hours." So a couple hours would lead to, "well we got some ducks and this was pretty good, so let's go pheasant hunting now. Let's go chase some pheasants. We'll just walk this field once." Well, it was six hours later and you're exhausted. You've had a coke and a Snickers bar and then all kinds of ducks and pheasants. And he'd say, "wasn't that a great day?" And some of them were better than others.

Q: Do you hunt much now?
ML: Nah, well, if invited. If somebody invites me. The football guys all talk about hunting more than they really do, because football season is hunting season and it's fun and macho to talk about. But honestly, we're doing our day job instead of doing all this hunting. We're fishing, because you can fish anytime. 

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