Co-Defensive Coordinator Chad Glasgow
Defensive End Josh Carraway
Co-Defensive Coordinator DeMontie Cross
Linebacker Ty Summers
Safety Derrick Kindred
Safety Denzel Johnson
TCU Horned Frogs
THE MODERATOR: Our first press conference is with the TCU defense.
CHAD GLASGOW: We have a couple of San Antonio guys. Far end, we have defensive end Josh Carraway, then strong safety Denzel Johnson, then Derrick Kindred, known as Peanut, then Ty Summers.
THE MODERATOR: Talk about how the week is going.
CHAD GLASGOW: First of all, we want start by thanking Mr. Derrick Fox and the whole Alamo Bowl committee for giving us a chance to represent the Big 12 and Texas Christian University here in San Antonio.
We’ve had so many people in our program throughout the years from this city. It’s really a special place to us. We’ve had a good week. The people have been phenomenal, our practice facility. We’re staying at the Hyatt Regency, which is on the River Walk. It’s been a good experience for our kids and our families.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Could you talk about the recruitment of Ty Summers? Was he coming in at defense?
CHAD GLASGOW: One of the things that’s been really fortunate about practicing down here and being my recruiting area for a long time, there’s been high school coaches at our practices. David Wetzel, who was Ty’s head coach, he came out to practice yesterday. Billy Hall, who was Derrick Kindred’s coach out at Wagner, he had come by today actually with his grandkids..
But Ty had played quarterback at Regan High School for Coach Wetzel and those guys over there. From a mentality standpoint and toughness, we were recruiting Ty to come in and be a linebacker for us. He’s done a good job of that early in his career, how Coach Wetzel groomed him football knowledge-wise and he stepped in and learned a lot linebacker-wise and he’s given us a lot.
Q. Josh, Vernon Adams doesn’t run quite as much as your quarterback. His ability to escape the pocket, does he remind you at all of Boykin? What are the keys against him?
JOSH CARRAWAY: I guess a little bit, but I don’t think he’s as athletic as Boykin. I think he definitely will try to run. He doesn’t do it as much since he got hurt.
One of the things we’ll have to do is collapse the pocket, make him be a pocket passer instead of look downfield and scramble a lot.
Q. DeMontie, talk about these linebackers coming together. At the start of the year, you didn’t have experience. You moved guys over from safety..
DeMONTIE CROSS: With the guys we had departing from last year, we knew we was going to be a young group. We knew we were going to do it by committee. Didn’t expect to lose the guys we lost early in the season.
In our preparation in the off-season, I think our guys understand the model we have, next man up. The guys came on, got a little bit of playing experience. I think it just kind of snowball effect for us, got confidence, started making a few plays. It’s amazing what happens when you can see yourself being successful, not only in practice, but games.
The guys are just really bonded well together. Here we are trying to wrap up this season. But very proud of these guys so far.
Q. Chad and DeMontie, could you describe what this season has been like with all the different players you had to shuffle in and out of the lineup? It was 22 starters you had over the course of the season. How have they been able to come together and play so well?
CHAD GLASGOW: I think DeMontie really hit the nail on the head when he said we have the ‘next guy up’ philosophy. Something that pervades through our program is it’s about going out and playing well, not just going out and play.
When you got a chance to play, we expect when you step between those white lines, you play TCU defense. We want to make practice harder than the game where they can be successful when they step out on the field. We have had guys that have stepped up and gone and done it.
A lot of the credit for this defense goes to Derrick this year. He broke his collarbone the Sunday before our first game against Minnesota. The trainers took him in and x-rayed it. They came out and said, It’s not good, it’s broken, probably won’t play.
He came out 10 minutes later and said, Coach, I’m playing in this game. He played in 12 football games with a broken collarbone, couldn’t lift his arm.
Just that from a leadership standpoint, toughness, how it went to the younger guys. Coach Patterson pulled him over three or four weeks ago, talking to him about some of the young freshmen, going through the growing pains..
He said, Derrick, why did you do that?
He said, Coach, that’s what we do.
I don’t think a stronger statement can be made for a leader of your football team to do something like that.
DeMONTIE CROSS: To echo that, one of the biggest things we talk about is being 1/11th. We need our guys to do their jobs, not do anything more than that. That goes into the next man up. We think of TCU as a brand. Defensively Coach Patterson has had that established his entire career.
I think the guys understand they have a tradition to carry on. With that in mind, attention to detail is always there in practice. I think it kind of breeds confidence once you actually get on the field and are able to contribute and play.
We’ve just juggled it, found the right pieces to work together. It’s presented us this opportunity to play against in this bowl game against a great team in Oregon. We got to go out there and do it one more time.
Q. Coach Cross, can you put into context Ty’s 23 tackles in the Baylor game?
DeMONTIE CROSS: If he remembers, I called him probably about midnight, almost 1:00 when I was sitting in bed with my wife. I didn’t even realize it till I got home actually.
The way I coach, I didn’t even know he made two tackles. I always believe in the next series, the next play. I remember getting home and giving Ty a call and I said, Great job. I didn’t even know he made the fourth down stop.
I thought what a great deal for a guy who started off not playing a lot, starting, back and forth. What a great job to finish the regular season that way.
Hadn’t had a guy that made that many tackles in a game before. Once I watched the tape, it was fun to watch. He was in and out, showing his athleticism, showing his toughness, what a great future he has to look forward to at TCU. I didn’t even know he had that many plays until I was at home and I started seeing the tweets going out and so forth.
Q. Didn’t know he made the fourth down stop?
DeMONTIE CROSS: I didn’t. When you’re getting bum rushed on the sidelines, I was getting ready for the next call because I wasn’t sure if they had it or not. We’re so trained, go to the next play, the next call, with the way offenses are nowadays.
When it surfaced that it was him, I wanted him to know how proud I was when I found out.
Q. Ty, what was your recollection during the game and what was your perspective looking back on the game?
TY SUMMERS: It was a fun experience just being able to go through that with my team. 23 tackles is one thing, but you got to look at the whole team. We did our 1/11th to give us that opportunity.
It was a fun experience. Baylor’s a good team. It was a good game. We fought hard. We got the win.
Now we’re moving on, getting ready for Oregon. That’s what we’re focused on right now.
Q. Derrick and Denzel, when you look at Oregon’s receivers, they are fast. The TCU receivers are also pretty speedy. How does going against them every day at practice prepared you to face Oregon? How similar do you think those two sets of receivers are?
DERRICK KINDRED: Our receivers are a lot similar to their receivers. Oregon has a lot of fast guys. We realize that. We just went through a week of practice, read our keys, do what we can for game time.
DENZEL JOHNSON: Yeah, I feel like they’re pretty similar, too. They’re pretty fast. We got fast guys on our team, too. Just doing our techniques against them in practice, it will just roll over to the game.
Q. Derrick and Josh, you two were guys who started all 12 games. Only three guys on the team that did that. As you watched this collection of guys come and go with injuries, what was going through your mind? Was it bad luck with injuries or what was your mentality in trying to play through all that?
DERRICK KINDRED: I feel like it wasn’t bad luck. Everybody gets injured. You have to fight through things like that. Me being the leader of the defense, like the coaches said, next man up. You have to have full faith in them.
JOSH CARRAWAY: I mean, from the first day, I ride the young guys really hard. When their name gets called, they know what I expect of them. This is nothing new to me. It’s just next man up. They know when they got to get in, they just can’t play good, they have to play well and do their job because everyone else is expected to do their job.
It is what it is, but we’re here now.
Q. Josh, talk about the last two games of Oklahoma and Baylor. How do you rank those performances?
JOSH CARRAWAY: I don’t really have much to say. Oklahoma, we kind of lost. We did lose.
Just my teammates really playing well. Coach P and the coaches, they just put me in position to make plays.
Q. Ty, can you tell me about that fourth down stop against Baylor, how you got through the line.
TY SUMMERS: Well, all I can remember thinking about that play was the practice before where we faced the same thing. Coach P, we ran right through it. I was too far on the right side. He got on to me and told me what to do. When that formation came up, it just kind of clicked.
Q. Derrick, could you take me through that broken collarbone you got. I take it it was in practice. What were you thinking when it happened? Were you giving any thought about not being able to play for a couple weeks?
DERRICK KINDRED: You know, when it happened, I kind of felt like something was wrong with it because I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t move it and things like that.
When we went and got the x-rays, they told me I fractured my clavicle. It kind of hurt me a little bit. A couple days before the first game, I’m supposed to be the leader of the defense, you don’t know if I’m going to play or not.
Like coach said, they expected me to be out for the season. It kind of hurt me once they told me that. They gave me the option to play or sit it out. Just me being all in for my team, I just felt like I could at least try to play through it one game, see how it feels.
I went through that game, and I felt great. I was hurting after. I was hurting bad. But, you know, I got a couple days of rest before practices and things like that. It was feeling better.
Each and every week it was hurting more and more, then I just had to fight through it. The season we was having, a lot of people going down, I felt like I couldn’t be that one to just give up. I just had to keep fighting through it.
Q. Chad and Ty, I’m not sure if you have faced a runningback like Freeman this year. I’d like your thoughts on him as a back and the challenges he may pose to your defense.
CHAD GLASGOW: Freeman is a good runningback and you can see it on film. He’s physical, fast, runs very hard. He sets up his blocks well and their offensive line does a tremendous job of blocking. They’re big and physical. You have to do a great job of tackling and you have to play with great leverage.
TY SUMMERS: I think from the film study we’ve done, I see him being a very athletic, very capable back. I’m looking forward to this opportunity to play him. We’ve faced backs that are tough and strong, Minnesota, Ryan from Oklahoma. Even the backs from Baylor, they run hard and fast.
I think it’s something we’ve learned from from the different backs we faced. I think we’re going to be ready for them.
Q. DeMontie, you’re going to get a chance to go back home to Missouri and join the new staff over there. Is this bittersweet to finish your career Saturday night? What are your thoughts about being a D coordinator with Missouri where you went to college?
DeMONTIE CROSS: First and foremost, it’s a great opportunity. But my focus of why I’m here is because I want to finish this thing out with not only the staff, but the players. I told them that’s the reason that I’m coming back.
I really hadn’t had a chance to soak it all up. But the fact of going back to Missouri… I’m here to win the game. That’s where my focus has been. It’s a tremendous opportunity to go back and join a guy I played with, so-called go home.
In the game of football, coaching, it’s all about opportunity. I’ve been very fortunate and blessed to be given that opportunity. But we’re here to win a game. That’s where my focus is at. I made sure that my players understand that. I’ve tried to be there all in each practice every day, so…
Q. Derrick, talking about coming to San Antonio, playing your 50th game, have you thought about what it’s going to be like on game day?
DERRICK KINDRED: It’s going to be real crazy. I’m going to have a lot of family and friends there watching the game. It’s just exciting. You play all your years in Fort Worth. Your last game in your hometown, it’s very exciting for me.
Q. With Coach Cross leaving, Coach Patterson has already said you’ll be the lone defensive coordinator next year. What does that mean for you and TCU?
CHAD GLASGOW: First of all, like DeMontie touched on, first I want to thank him for everything he’s done the last few weeks, to give us this opportunity to be here, how he’s coached these kids. He’s done a tremendous job.. He’ll always be part of the Horned Frog family. We appreciate everything he’s done. He’s special to us. We’re going to miss him when he’s gone, that kind of deal.
I’m real excited about the opportunities moving forward. Gary is involved defensively like everybody knows. It’s just neat to work with a bunch of guys who are selfless and want to find a way to go win football games. That’s what we’ve always tried to do with our kids, that’s what we’ll continue to do.
Again, we want to coach them hard and prepare them in practice where practice is harder than the game so when you get to game time, it kind of slows down and you can go play fast.
Q. Josh, in a game that nationally all the focus seems to be on each team’s offense, the point total is at the highest of any of the bowl games, do you take that to heart as kind of playing with a purpose when Saturday comes?
JOSH CARRAWAY: Yeah, I mean, we really take it to heart and really try to go out there and set it up. Even with the amount of injuries we have, TCU is TCU defense because it’s next man up.
We have a lot of great players on the defense that are young. Each practice they’re learning. We just go out there and try to give it our best. Ultimately it won’t be no hundred points like everyone thinks.
Q. Coach Cross, Ty didn’t make that many starts for you. What kept him out of the starting lineup?
DeMONTIE CROSS: I think just his opportunities. I think we had personal conversations one-on-one. We try to evaluate each guy each practice. There’s some games or practices that he didn’t practice as well or games where he didn’t play as well, then you had other guys playing well.
I think things happen for a reason. The season’s long. I always remind my guys of that. You have to stay ready. That’s the one thing that I’m most proud of, is he stayed ready. I told him, When your opportunity comes again, you have to cash in on it. He has done that.
But we try to make sure our guys understand you have to compete for your job every day. As long as the guys understand that, then no one ever gets comfortable. It’s hard to get comfortable at TCU. It’s a very unique place the way we practice and coach our guys. So the guys have to bring it every single day.
It’s an honor and a privilege to be a starter on TCU defense.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.